Till Friday, OpenAI’s not too long ago launched ChatGPT macOS app had a probably worrying safety challenge: it wasn’t exhausting to seek out your chats saved in your pc and browse them in plain textual content. That meant that if a foul actor or malicious app had entry to your machine, they may simply learn your conversations with ChatGPT and the information contained inside them.
As demonstrated by Pedro José Pereira Vieito on Threads, the benefit of entry meant it was doable to have one other app entry these information and present you the textual content of your conversations proper after they occurred. Pereira Vieito shared the app he made with me, and I used it to make a video exhibiting how the app can learn my ChatGPT conversations with the clicking of a button. I used to be additionally capable of finding the information on my pc and see the textual content of conversations simply by altering the file identify.
After The Verge contacted OpenAI in regards to the challenge, the corporate launched an replace that it says encrypts the chats. “We’re conscious of this challenge and have shipped a brand new model of the applying which encrypts these conversations,” OpenAI spokesperson Taya Christianson says in an announcement to The Verge. “We’re dedicated to offering a useful consumer expertise whereas sustaining our excessive safety requirements as our expertise evolves.”
After downloading the replace, Pereira Vieito’s app now not works for me, and I can’t see my conversations in plain textual content.
I requested Pereira Vieito how he found the unique challenge. “I used to be interested in why [OpenAI] opted out of utilizing the app sandbox protections and ended up checking the place they saved the app information,” he mentioned. OpenAI solely affords the ChatGPT macOS app via its personal web site, which means the app doesn’t need to observe Apple’s sandboxing necessities that apply to software program distributed through the Mac App Retailer.
Until you’ve opted out, OpenAI might evaluation ChatGPT conversations for security and to coach its fashions. However that privilege isn’t one you’d count on to increase to unknown third events that get entry and know the place to look.
