#LIGHTSHOT SETTINGS ANDROID#
#LIGHTSHOT SETTINGS SOFTWARE#
#LIGHTSHOT SETTINGS WINDOWS#

“Every image can always be accessed and viewed by anyone who types in that exact URL. Upon a closer look the terms of service of Lightshot app, it clearly states that the images uploaded are not private. These speculations have risen concerned about the data safety and on several occasion, Sillbrains, the owners of Lighthouse app, have been asked to answer. She also added that such platforms are built on models that monetise the very feature of insecurity – either by mining data or creating seemingly convenient user functions. The shared images had some chat logs, emails and social media posts that contained visible and identifiable user information.įurther analysis showed 8 % images contained sensitive information including nudes from video calls, screen shots of Facebook photos including that of children’s profiles and a few more containing names, login ids, bank and phone details, IP and shipping address etc.īhagya Wimalasiri, a research assistant at the Security of Advanced Systems Group in the University of Sheffield quoted “Making sensitive user data openly available in this manner creates an unfair imbalance where digital platforms profit at the cost of user privacy,”. These are not so significant in terms of security.īut 20 % data available had information that can easily lead to identity theft or financial frauds. Further analysis revealed that 63 % of this data were screen shots of video games, coding instructions, advertisement for apartment listings etc. An automatic web scrapping script found 529 live images from the 11000 generated URLs. Most of these URLs came back with a message that the data is no longer available or has been deleted, few showed errors where as few turned up with detailed information about the user including name, address, contact details and bank details, along with some private and intimate screen shots of video calls. WIRED looked at 11000 randomly generated URLs to test if they revealed any sensitive personal data.

#LIGHTSHOT SETTINGS ANDROID#

Android download data suggest that it has been downloaded more than 500,000 times from Google’s Play Store. Reporting the popularity of the application it is estimated one million downloads of the app on Chrome extension and 40,000 use it through Firefox. This has been done many times since its release.Ģ014 saw the earliest stable release of the application and since then Lightshot has branched across many browser systems and operating systems. This means that anyone can enter prnt.sc / and a random string of 6 numbers or letters, and you may come across screenshots uploaded by another user. There is a very simple format to generate the URLs prnt.sc / (Lightshot’s server) followed by a 6-digit alphanumeric code. The method used to generate these URL is the main reason for the safety concerns. The URL option is primarily meant to allow sharing of screenshots among family, friends or colleagues through different channels. intelligence chief to review if TikTok is a public safety threat Why is it considered a threat? People have an option, after taking the screen shot, to either save it on desktop or upload it to the company’s server with a publicly accessible URL or share it on social media. With the help of this app millions are taking and sharing the images from their computer and smart phones.

#LIGHTSHOT SETTINGS SOFTWARE#

The Lightshot screen grabbing app is owned by software development firm, Skillbrains. Along with sharing it has some interesting options that allow you to search a similar image on internet simply by uploading your image in the search tab of Lightshot application. This saves you the time of editing and cropping the image later. Lightshot application allows the users to grab a screenshot from their computers, but the special feature is that you can take the screenshot of a particular area on screen.

To understand the safety concerns we first have to understand what lightshot does and how? What is lightshot? The company’s website suggests that there are around two million screenshots shared with the help of this app. This has raised several questions about data security associated with Lightshot.

#LIGHTSHOT SETTINGS WINDOWS#

But have you wondered if a similar feature is available in Windows or Mac? In such cases you have apps like Lightshot that allow you to capture a screen shot, store or share it with others through your computer.Īlthough this idea seems simple enough to be able to share information through screenshots, people unknowingly expose a lot of their personal data on the internet. If you are surfing the internet and like something you see, and want to refer it later all you need to do it take a screenshot from your smart phone and it will automatically store the image in your gallery. With rapid digitalization in almost all the fields, data security and internet privacy are topics that have attracted raging concerns.

Lightshot settings