There is a strange link that connects us with our devices. If one day happened and we forgot the phone at home, then we feel that we are disconnected from the world because the iPhone includes phone numbers, personal photos, videos, e-mail and messages, and it is recorded with the most famous sites that we visit, their passwords, the schedule of appointments, and an alarm for reminders of various occasions and contains Dozens of applications that facilitate our lives and other important things that we use their devices with. Therefore, any defect that occurs in your device that causes you to reformat it and wipe all its data is a big problem, but this last problem has become solved even without a backup copy of your data. Often after you download any application that uses cloud technology, the application recognizes your device immediately and returns your data to you, but how does the application recognize Your device even though you wiped everything in it? This is done through a unique number for your device that companies store in their servers called UDID? What is this UDID and why did Apple decide to delete any application trying to access this number, which can be seen in iTunes when you press once on the serial number of the device?

What is UDID?

The abbreviation UDID expresses the word Unique Device Identifier and can be defined as a unique identification number for devices, as every iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch device has a unique UDID number that is never repeated and through this number, programs and applications can know your use of the device because this number It does not repeat and distinguish your device, such as the exact serial number, and there are some services that need to distinguish your device from other devices For example We explained the website from which you can get Free codes for the most popular applications By downloading free programs sponsored by it, and this site required that you open the application for at least thirty seconds to get points, how does this site know that you opened the application for 30 seconds? The answer is by some distinctive definitions in your device that are not repeated, it recognizes your use and knows which applications you use and whether you open this application or not and there are dozens of applications that can access your UDID without prior permission, record it and take advantage of it and Apple allows them to do so, but this has become In the past, Apple decided to delete any application that accesses UDID, so what prompted Apple to do so? It's Path.

This app is no longer available on the App Store. :-(
Open in store Search for it on Google

It was surprising when discovering that the Path application raises the list of names on the iPhone and stores it in the company's servers without prior permission from the user. Yes, no misuse of this data was detected, and although this is not really dangerous because there are a large number of applications that access the list of numbers on your phone, but this matter prompted specialists to study what other personal data applications can access without approval. The user, and here the danger of the UDID was discovered, but what is the actual danger of the UDID? What do companies do with this number?

You are the commodity

There is a rule in the area of ​​privacy that says:If you don't pay for the item, it will be you“Companies seek to access your UDID number, then collect these numbers and sell them to advertising companies, which in turn analyze your use and find out what applications you prefer and what your use of your device is, and from these analyzes expect what ads suit your needs and the most chance that you click on them. This method is applied by the world-famous social networking site "Facebook" to obtain profits, as it collects personal information about you and your use of it, what games you prefer and the ads that you click on, then it shows you applications and ads that attract you and gets in return millions of dollars by exploiting your personal information.

What is the risk of UDID?

And because the UDID is just a number for companies, you cannot know your name or anything. For them, you are just a number, and this for sure preserves your privacy to some extent, so someone might say “It does not matter, let them know what applications I use, as this is not a serious secret that I fear“But the matter is beyond this, for example, a certain application was using your UDID and linked it to your account in Twitter or any other site and stored your alerts. If you delete the application and then download it again, it will not ask you what your account is because it will automatically know of the UDID number and it will be set for you. Settings as they were. Cool, isn't it? No, it is not great, dear reader, so imagine that you bought a new iPhone and deleted all the applications and made a “format” for the device. Then the buyer came and downloaded an application that you used before, for example, do you know what will happen? Yes, as I imagined, the application will read the device's UDID number (which never changes even after formatting) and matches this number with its records and may show you some of your personal data. Here I will repeat the previous question, is this matter wonderful? Do you imagine that you sell your phone and someone else downloads WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, and others, and opens your personal accounts for them. Will you be happy then? Of course not ... But do not be terrified, this matter has become a thing of the past and the US Congress has forced Apple to increase privacy and Apple has informed the programmers that they must use another unique number, which is CFUUID, and that any application that will reach the UDID will be stopped.

What is CFUUID and is it better or not?

Without going into much technical details, the CFUUID number is considered less dangerous. If you format your device, it does not keep the previous data as it is mainly related to the operating system and not the phone itself, but it makes a problem that it will move with the operating system, for example I made a backup copy of the I Your iPhone and you bought a new iPad and you restore the system from this backup copy on the iPad, the CFUUID number will be transferred to the new device, and this means that the two devices will have the same number and for the applications they are only one device, which is a problem for programmers and also advertising companies, and this means that the number CFUUID is not a good alternative to UDID and will not perform the same important functions because it can be duplicated unlike UDID which is independent for each device.

Programmers continue to work to find a solution to this matter, as well as advertising companies, but you do not think that all your data is completely safe now, but it is just attempts to protect your privacy in the world of technology, which made the preservation of personal data very difficult.

Once again: privacy and the Internet never meet, so I always know that you should be careful in using applications and devices no matter how safe they seem to you, do not post pictures or videos or anything that you feel harms your privacy.

Source | cultfmac

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