{"id":6713,"date":"2025-03-21T07:00:46","date_gmt":"2025-03-21T07:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acudc.com\/?p=6713"},"modified":"2025-03-21T07:01:01","modified_gmt":"2025-03-21T07:01:01","slug":"chatgpt-macos-users-surprised-by-unencrypted-chat-storage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acudc.com\/zh\/chatgpt-macos-users-surprised-by-unencrypted-chat-storage\/","title":{"rendered":"ChatGPT macOS Users Surprised by Unencrypted Chat Storage"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"6713\" class=\"elementor elementor-6713\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<section data-particle_enable=\"false\" data-particle-mobile-disabled=\"false\" class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-624d676d elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"624d676d\" data-element_type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-5b01699e\" data-id=\"5b01699e\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-309872b elementor-widget elementor-widget-image\" data-id=\"309872b\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"image.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t<style>\/*! elementor - v3.7.2 - 21-08-2022 *\/\n.elementor-widget-image{text-align:center}.elementor-widget-image a{display:inline-block}.elementor-widget-image a img[src$=\".svg\"]{width:48px}.elementor-widget-image img{vertical-align:middle;display:inline-block}<\/style>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"815\" height=\"594\" src=\"https:\/\/acudc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/News0319.03.png\" class=\"attachment-large size-large\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/acudc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/News0319.03.png 815w, https:\/\/acudc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/News0319.03-300x219.png 300w, https:\/\/acudc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/News0319.03-768x560.png 768w, https:\/\/acudc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/News0319.03-16x12.png 16w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 815px) 100vw, 815px\" \/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-7d5cd177 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"7d5cd177\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t<style>\/*! elementor - v3.7.2 - 21-08-2022 *\/\n.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#818a91;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#818a91;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block}<\/style>\t\t\t\t<h2><!-- wp:list --><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item --><\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The issue has subsequently been fixed though it raises the question of how such an omission occurred in the first place.<\/p>\n<p>ChatGPT users on macOS found that their chat logs were saved in plain-text files, which raised serious privacy concerns despite Apple\u2019s strict privacy policies.<\/p>\n<p>Following the macOS launch of ChatGPT, customers have discovered that their conversation logs are kept on their computers as unencrypted plain-text files.<\/p>\n<p>Pedro Jos\u00e9 Pereira Vieito initially highlighted this vulnerability in a post on Meta\u2019s Threads. This unencrypted storage posed a serious security threat, potentially allowing anyone with access to the computer to read users\u2019 chat histories.<\/p>\n<p>As per him, despite macOS\u2019s built-in defenses since Mojave 10.14, which require explicit user consent for apps to access private data, OpenAI opted out of macOS sandboxing. This decision bypassed protections meant to secure user data from unauthorized access by third-party apps.<\/p>\n<p>In May, ChatGPT was made available to subscribers on macOS. On June 25, non-subscriber accounts were opened to general access. However, the program kept all chat logs on users\u2019 hard disks as unencrypted plain-text files until Friday, July 5.<\/p>\n<p>This implied that every discussion a user on the computer made with ChatGPT was accessible to anybody with physical access to the device or through remote threats like malware or phishing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSandboxing,\u201d a privacy-preserving feature of Apple\u2019s macOS, limits application access to data and software at the kernel level. Installed apps through Apple\u2019s app store are \u201csandboxed\u201d by default, guaranteeing that no data is ever exposed without encryption.<\/p>\n<p>Although it\u2019s unknown at this point whether any users were impacted by the apparent error, social media and pundit opinion expressed amazement in general.<\/p>\n<p>For instance, user GeneralLex posted in the Verge article\u2019s comments section that they found the following unencrypted text files in their computer\u2019s memory. He said, \u201cI used Activity Monitor to dump the ChatGPT executable from memory and found that horror of horrors, the chat log is in plain text, unencrypted in memory!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This incident underscores the critical need for robust privacy protections in AI applications and third-party integrations on macOS. While steps are being taken to address the issue, questions remain about data security practices and the future implementation of safeguards to protect user privacy effectively.<\/p>\n<p>Retrieved from: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cryptotimes.io\/2024\/07\/06\/chatgpt-macos-users-surprised-by-unencrypted-chat-storage\/\">https:\/\/www.cryptotimes.io\/2024\/07\/06\/chatgpt-macos-users-surprised-by-unencrypted-chat-storage\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p><!-- \/wp:paragraph --><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":6696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":""},"categories":[15,9],"tags":[32],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acudc.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6713"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acudc.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acudc.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acudc.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acudc.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6713"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/acudc.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6717,"href":"https:\/\/acudc.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6713\/revisions\/6717"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acudc.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acudc.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acudc.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acudc.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}