Snapchat a social networking app popular for sharing photos with friends that self-destruct after a few seconds has had a security breach. The servers of Snapchat were hacked that has resulted in usernames and mobile numbers of over 4.6 million users being exposed and possibly available on the internet.

According to reports, Gibson Security on August 27, 2013 had pointed out flaws in Snapchat’s “Find Friends” feature. The exploits were recently made public and as a result hackers were able to access information from Snapchat servers.

Find Friends is an optional service that asks Snapchatters to enter their phone number so that their friends can find their username. This means that if you enter your phone number into Find Friends, someone who has your phone number in his or her address book can find your username.

Snapchat has posted a blog post acknowledging the security breach and explained how the hackers got the information:

… it was possible for an attacker to use the functionality of Find Friends to upload a large number of random phone numbers and match them with Snapchat usernames. On New Years Eve, an attacker released a database of partially redacted phone numbers and usernames. No other information, including Snaps, was leaked or accessed in these attacks.

This security breach is clearly a result of Snapchat not working quick enough to patch the security holes in time. The flaws had been exposed 4 months ago however, the company failed to take action which has now resulted in 4.6 million unhappy users.

The developers are now working on an updated version of the app that will allow users to opt-out of Find Friends feature and will be “improving rate limiting and other restrictions” to avoid such attacks.

Snapchat was recently approached by Facebook for acquisition for about $3 billion however, the company refused the offer. The social networking app to share photos and short video clips is popular among teenagers. Sharing photos without leaving any tracks behind has proved to a successful strategy behind Snapchat’s user base.

Gibson Security has put up a website “GS Lookup – Snapchat” to allow users to check if their details were stolen by entering their username on the website. The site notes that only specific areas of America were included. It also suggests some steps you could take in case your details were stolen.

This is not the first time such a security breach has happened in a social networking application. Recently even Skype was targeted by hackers during the holiday season.

Apple introduced Siri with the iPhone 4S, a virtual personal assistant on a mobile phone, and providing users access to voice activated commands. Wolphram Alpha is integrated with Siri on iPhone 4S running iOS 5. The service is a collection of information and can provide anything from flight info, to searches of people, and even math problems.

Since its introduction in October, Siri has grown increasingly reliant upon carrier’s 3G networks and Wolphram Alpha to provide users with information, therefore, it is not surprising that Siri makes up 25% of Wolphram Alpha’s searches.

On Tuesday, it was reported by The New York Times that Apple’s Siri software accounts for 25% of all searches on Wolphram Alpha’s information database.

Less than three years ago, Dr. Wolfram created a new kind of search engine, called Wolfram Alpha . Unlike Google or Microsoft’s Bing, Wolfram Alpha does not forage the Web. It culls its own painstakingly curated database to find answers. […] the technology has come a long way, including delivering many answers for Siri, the question-answering personal assistant in the Apple iPhone 4S.

Wolphram Alpha was originally introduced for math and science queries but has now grown to incorporate local show times or calculating distances. It is also used by other search applications and mobile devices, which provide their users with information from the web.

Siri accounts for about a quarter of the queries fielded by Wolfram Alpha, whose staff has grown to 200.

Apple sold over 37 million iPhones last quarter, resulting in the iPhone claiming the number one spot for smart phone popularity, and putting Siri and Wolphram Alpha’s software into the hands of millions of people. With this increased adoption of the iPhone 4S, there is no doubt that 25% of Wolphram Alpha’s searches derive from iPhone users.

{via iMore}

Last night the Apple online store went down for some maintenance, and when it came back up, the white iPhone 4 that the company has been promising since last June had vanished. The device’s SKU was removed from Apple’s database, and images on Apple’s website that previously showed the white device had been changed to show a black one instead.

Apple has been experiencing issues with manufacturing the device that has delayed – and possibly cancelled – its launch. Speculation has put the delays down to problems with the white paint, light leakage and even camera issues, but the Cupertino company is yet to give an official reason as to why the white iPhone 4 still hasn’t launched.

The removal of the white handset’s SKU from Apple’s database doesn’t necessarily mean that the company has ruled the device out altogether – it could be updating its system with a new SKU – but the eradication of the white iPhone 4 images on Apple’s website doesn’t look too promising.

Apple’s senior vice president Phil Schiller announced in a message on Twitter in mid-March that the white device would be available this spring. However, it seems Schiller may have been a tad too optimistic.

I personally believe that the white iPhone 4 will be the device that we never had the pleasure of meeting. I believe Apple has removed all evidence of the device from its website as a subtle sign to inform would-be white iPhone 4 owners that it has given up on trying to deliver the device, and that they too should give up and purchase the black device instead.

Of course, it could be a sign that there will be an iPhone 5 this summer after all. If Apple was to release the white iPhone 4 this spring and announce a fifth generation device just months later, there’s going to be a large number of unhappy customers with a device just months old that’s already a last-generation iPhone. To prevent this upset, Apple may have decided its best to just rule out the device and hope that people forget it ever existed when the new device is announced in June.