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Complete bogus - but lets play: If you were the NSA; why would you even hint to the user that you were taking screenshots? Its not like the blink animation is t

Complete bogus - but lets play: If you were the NSA; why would you even hint to the user that you were taking screenshots? Its not like the blink animation is tucked away from software control.

samstave 13y ago
That wasnt my point: irrespective of any "nefarious interest" in said screen shots; IS the iOS device actually capturing every single screen change via a screenshot? As I understood it - there were certain apps that were captured in the past. This was so that when the app loaded it had the previous state shown as quickly as possible, and it would then refresh. My point was I am noticing this flashing screen cap anim on literally EVERY screen change... this does not make sense to me and I am wondering why the device does this. Finally, I surmise that if it actually IS doing these caps, that if one COULD get access to them one could then build a pretty clear session history. Again, I said it was a simple suspicion. I have no idea if this is actually happening; but the device seems to be revealing the caps happening... but I am not so sure.
- ewoodrich 13y ago
  The screenshots that are used for transition animations do not make the dimming "screenshot" effect that occurs when pressing the Menu and Power button. That invisibly occurs immediately prior to an animation, to produce a less computationally intensive 2D effect. The iPhone 4 runs iOS 7 terribly and more likely you are seeing some graphics stuttering from the (albeit limited on that device) new iOS 7 fade/transition animations.
- coolnow 13y ago
  If you were the NSA, would you be taking screenshots just as the target was /switching/ apps, instead of taking them while they're using it? Oh, he's opened Mail, take a screenshot of Mail's splash screen while it's loading, now don't do anything. Oh, he's done using the app, quick, take a screenshot of his empty inbox before the app switches to Candy Crush. Not to mention that the screen flash while a screenshot is being taken is a usability feature and is there to help us know when a screenshot has been successfully taken. I know there are tweaks on Cydia that allow screen recordings, so why are the NSA messing about taking screenshots of some unimportant (no offense, i mean it in a national security sense) guy? tl;dr your iPhone 4 is struggling with iOS 7 and probably has some redraw problems, most likely no one is taking screenshots of you while you're switching apps.
  - samstave 13y ago
    I am not talking about the "NSA taking screen shots" -- I am talking about the iOS taking screenshots... this is just a "nice feature" that any phone tapper/hacker (like the NSA) could exploit. My question is: Does the iOS device, in fact, take a screenshot of every single transition? everyone seems to miss my question, thus I must be posing it poorly. What I said again, simply, was that: I knew that some transitions had a screen capped to allow for a faster, subjective, transition to the user... a UX cheat. However, I noticed that my iOS7 device APPEARS to be doing this on EVERY transition... Is it really capping, or, as you smartly suggest; the iPhone 4 is a POS that struggles in the anims for each transition. Finally, I was just surmising that should the device, indeed, take a screen for every transition; this could be a sweet exploit in rebuilding session actions for any user of the device.
    - coolnow 13y ago
      Ah, i see what you mean. I think you are correct in that iOS takes a screenshot of pretty much every transition, but i'm willing to bet that it has nothing to do with the screen flashes as it should be automatic and in the background. The screen flashes are UX features for user controlled screenshots. I believe the screenshots of each application's state before transition has to be stored somewhere and if someone manages to access them, some damage could be done, but at the same time, not that much. I don't know exactly how the screenshots are queued up (is there 1 screenshot for each application? If i open the app again and navigate to another view and transition out, is the first screenshot overwritten?) Apologies, your initial comment sounded like you thought you were being targeted by the NSA or something.

Complete bogus - but lets play: If you were the NSA; why would you even hint to the user that you were taking screenshots? Its not like the blink animation is tucked away from software control.

samstave 13y ago

That wasnt my point: irrespective of any "nefarious interest" in said screen shots; IS the iOS device actually capturing every single screen change via a screenshot? As I understood it - there were certain apps that were captured in the past. This was so that when the app loaded it had the previous state shown as quickly as possible, and it would then refresh. My point was I am noticing this flashing screen cap anim on literally EVERY screen change... this does not make sense to me and I am wondering why the device does this. Finally, I surmise that if it actually IS doing these caps, that if one COULD get access to them one could then build a pretty clear session history. Again, I said it was a simple suspicion. I have no idea if this is actually happening; but the device seems to be revealing the caps happening... but I am not so sure.

ewoodrich 13y ago
The screenshots that are used for transition animations do not make the dimming "screenshot" effect that occurs when pressing the Menu and Power button. That invisibly occurs immediately prior to an animation, to produce a less computationally intensive 2D effect. The iPhone 4 runs iOS 7 terribly and more likely you are seeing some graphics stuttering from the (albeit limited on that device) new iOS 7 fade/transition animations.
coolnow 13y ago
If you were the NSA, would you be taking screenshots just as the target was /switching/ apps, instead of taking them while they're using it? Oh, he's opened Mail, take a screenshot of Mail's splash screen while it's loading, now don't do anything. Oh, he's done using the app, quick, take a screenshot of his empty inbox before the app switches to Candy Crush. Not to mention that the screen flash while a screenshot is being taken is a usability feature and is there to help us know when a screenshot has been successfully taken. I know there are tweaks on Cydia that allow screen recordings, so why are the NSA messing about taking screenshots of some unimportant (no offense, i mean it in a national security sense) guy? tl;dr your iPhone 4 is struggling with iOS 7 and probably has some redraw problems, most likely no one is taking screenshots of you while you're switching apps.
- samstave 13y ago
  I am not talking about the "NSA taking screen shots" -- I am talking about the iOS taking screenshots... this is just a "nice feature" that any phone tapper/hacker (like the NSA) could exploit. My question is: Does the iOS device, in fact, take a screenshot of every single transition? everyone seems to miss my question, thus I must be posing it poorly. What I said again, simply, was that: I knew that some transitions had a screen capped to allow for a faster, subjective, transition to the user... a UX cheat. However, I noticed that my iOS7 device APPEARS to be doing this on EVERY transition... Is it really capping, or, as you smartly suggest; the iPhone 4 is a POS that struggles in the anims for each transition. Finally, I was just surmising that should the device, indeed, take a screen for every transition; this could be a sweet exploit in rebuilding session actions for any user of the device.
  - coolnow 13y ago
    Ah, i see what you mean. I think you are correct in that iOS takes a screenshot of pretty much every transition, but i'm willing to bet that it has nothing to do with the screen flashes as it should be automatic and in the background. The screen flashes are UX features for user controlled screenshots. I believe the screenshots of each application's state before transition has to be stored somewhere and if someone manages to access them, some damage could be done, but at the same time, not that much. I don't know exactly how the screenshots are queued up (is there 1 screenshot for each application? If i open the app again and navigate to another view and transition out, is the first screenshot overwritten?) Apologies, your initial comment sounded like you thought you were being targeted by the NSA or something.