BY ROB SALERNO - Oh noes! Grindr's been hacked!

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that a hacker in Australia has found a way to log in to anyone's Grindr account and thus retrieve any personal information and communicate as any user.

This is, apparently, an elementary security lapse that Grindr has announced plans to address with a mandatory update -- likely requiring a password to log in -- in the coming days. 

A blog post from Grindr creator Joel Simkhai explains that chat histories, credit card information and addresses were not compromised because Grindr doesn't actually store that information; it stays on your phone. The Herald reports that the hack involved the creation of a website that "listed users' Grindr pseudonyms, passwords, their personal favourites (bookmarked friends) and allowed them to be impersonated, and thus have messages sent and received without their knowledge. At one point, the website also allowed users' profile pictures to be replaced." While several people got themselves banned from the app by the hacker after he changed their profile pictures to an explicit pic that violated the company's terms of service (which some say are fairly prudish), it doesn't appear that anyone's personal pictures were stolen via the hack.

 

 

Unless, of course, the hacker used someone's profile to solicit explicit pics from other people.

It's just another lesson that reinforces that there is no such thing as privacy on the internet, so be careful what you're sharing.

We'll let you know when the Grindr security update is released. Or you can follow the company on its Twitter account for more updates.

As we near the end of the year, it's a good time to look back at what caught our readers' attention over the last 12(ish) months. So here are — according to Google Analytics — the 20 most read stories on xtra.ca in 2010 (we made it a top 20 list so we could squeeze in another John Baird story — hope he appreciates the effort).

 

 

20. Criminalization of herpes signals a turn for the worse

18. Gay couple burned from PEI home

17. Pride Toronto plans to censor the term Israeli apartheid

16. So much for John Baird’s reputation as a gutsy brawler

15. Pride Toronto in hiding after spirited denunciation from queer leaders

14. Zellers pulls ‘egg these transvestites’ shirt from stores

13. Lesbians kicked out of Waterloo café for kissing

12. Grindr tightens restrictions: no underwear, no cock size

11. He has a chauffeur! Rick Mercer’s epic John Baird smackdown

10. Exploring Amman’s gay spaces

9. Facebook reevaluates decision to censor trans man’s post-op chest pics

8. Another bloodbath as Toronto’s Proud FM fires four hosts

7. How the second world war changed gay life

6. Pride Toronto reverses ban on 'Israeli apartheid'

5. Trans guy banned from Facebook after uploading post-op chest pic

4. Fred Phelps’s son gets job promoting atheism, battling homophobia

3. Two lesbian youth found dead in Orangeville

2. Sex TV axed after decade-long shuffle between broadcasters

1. Open secret: John Baird outed

^{Source: Google Analytics, Jan 1-Nov 30, 2010}

This is getting ridiculous.

Grindr, the iPhone app that lets homos find nearby homos, has recently tightened its user guidelines.

Already forced to censor its users because of Apple's strict content guidelines, Grindr has added new rules to its terms of service:

• For your Grindr profile photo: "No underwear can be visible." Also: "Pants and shorts must be worn normally, buttoned and not pulled or hanging down."  

• For your Grindr profile text: "No text referring to genital size or sexual acts."

Whether you're a size queen or not, these new rules are concerning. Would Grindr ban a user from self-identifying as a "top," because that implies a sexual act? At this rate, it won't be long before we'll have to pose in suits and ties for our Grindr profile pics. I'm clearly exaggerating... but why should horny gay guys have to play coy when we're looking for sex? 

Sure, Grindr users can send dirty pictures through private messages, but these new rules point to a bigger issue: Apple needs to remove its restrictions on sexy content. Forcing all iPhone app developers to sanitize content to meet a family-friendly, PG-13 standard is simply not fair to the rest of us.

Apple's restrictions on iPhone apps have led many gay hookup websites to simply ditch app development altogether. Squirt.org and DudesNude.com have developed mobile-friendly websites, rather than apps. Recon.com has created an iPhone app, but it requires mobile users to agree to "not post any adult photos or text." A quick look at Recon Mobile shows that many guys are posting sexy pics and text anyway. My guess is that Recon Mobile will, unfortunately, need to start censoring its users. Otherwise, the app could face removal from the Apple App Store, given Apple's recent purge of sexy apps.

Apple could easily resolve all of this by creating an "explicit," adult-only section in its App Store. There have been rumours but nothing has been confirmed. What's the delay?

As for Grindr, users who break the terms of service may have their photo and/or profile text removed or cropped by Grindr staff. "We have censors who work 24/7 to review each profile," Grindr founder and CEO Joel Simkhai told Xtra in 2009.

Read Grindr's full guidelines here.  

Read more:

• Hunk du Jour among "overtly sexual" apps banned by Apple
• Will prudish app guidelines sink the iPhone?
  

 

UPDATE: Gay cruising app Grindr is once again available for download in the iTunes App Store. Grindr creator Joel Simkhai confirmed that the app is alive and well. "Error on my part," he told Queerty. "Should be back up by EOD [end of day] today." 

Following the news that Grindr was missing from the iTunes App Store this morning, Twitter lit up with panicked tweets suggesting that Apple deleted the app. Apple controls the approval of all iPhone apps, and they're notoriously strict when it comes to sexy apps.

It's good to know that today's Grindr incident was just a glitch, but there's still the troubling fact that Apple requires all apps to comply with prudish guidelines. As we've seen in the past month, Apple continues to reject and delete apps that are too sexy.

***

EARLIER: As of 1pm EST, Grindr is unavailable for download in the Apple iTunes Store. A search for "Grindr" does not return any results for the app (curiously, the Recon Mobile app is still there...) 

 

For those who previously downloaded Grindr, the app appears to still work. 

No word from Grindr via their Twitter or Facebook Page. Xtra is getting in touch with creator Joel Simkhai for comment.

Simkhai told Xtra in 2009 that Grindr has "censors who work 24/7 to review each profile," so that the app complies with Apple's ridiculously strict content guidelines. See a full list of what you can't show on your Grindr profile -- a list that includes: no pubes, no hands down your pants and no middle fingers extended toward the camera.

In February, Apple began to crack down harder on sexy apps. Hunk du Jour, an app featuring pictures of sexy guys, was among the gay apps banned in February. 

Grindr is set to mark its one-year anniversary on Thursday. Creators claim the app has more than 500,000 users. 

Read more:

• Hunk du Jour among "overtly sexual" apps banned by Apple
• Report: Apple purges sexy apps; Grindr safe, for now
• Will prudish app guidelines sink the iPhone?

 

 

Apple has decided "to remove any overtly sexual content from the App Store," according to an email received by TechCrunch.

The developer of the Wobble iBoobs app says he received the following email from Apple:

"The App Store continues to evolve, and as such, we are constantly refining our guidelines. Your application, Wobble iBoobs (Premium Uncensored), contains content that we had originally believed to be suitable for distribution. However, we have recently received numerous complaints from our customers about this type of content, and have changed our guidelines appropriately."

Watch the Wobble app in action:

TechCrunch reports that a few other sexy apps, including Exotic Positions and Sexy Women, are no longer available in the Apple App Store. "It may be a case of Apple picking and choosing which apps are too sexual, or they may still be figuring out which apps to pull (or the changes may not have propagated to all of Apple’s servers)," says TechCrunch.

Grindr — a popular gay cruising iPhone app — seems to be unaffected. The app is still available for download in the App Store as of Friday afternoon.

Apple has come under fire for its strict and prudish app guidelines. iPhone users can only download apps through the official Apple App Store. To get an app in the store, it must pass through Apple's vague and abritrary approval process.

Competitors have recognized the strong demand for sexy apps and have rushed to fill the void. Android-based phone users can download adult apps via Mikandi's App Store. Mikandi says frustrated iPhone users have this message for Apple: "It might be THEIR platform, but it's MY phone. I should be able to put whatever the hell I want on it." 

Grindr founder Joel Simkhai told Xtra in 2009 that Grindr has "censors who work 24/7 to review each profile," so that the app complies with Apple's guidelines. See a full list of what you can and can't do on Grindr. 

Some gay hookup sites have avoided developing iPhone Apps altogether. Squirt.org chose to build a browser-based mobile version of its website to avoid Apple's App Store approval process. "Anybody at Apple with any smarts would look at our online presence and know automatically what it is," says Squirt's Will Scott. 

Read more:

• Will prudish app guidelines sink the iPhone?
• YouTube deletes Xtra's gay news videos
• Facebook censors trans man's photo - again