Well, nothing is quite impossible if you put your mind to it that is. 100 years ago there were no Smartphones nor was there any feature phone, the Internet as we know it today was nothing like now, in short, it was virtually non-existent. And yet despite the difficulties, the man advanced in Technologies over the years to include smartphones of all shape and sizes like the Apple, Android and Kindle devices. The Net now is much more advanced to include online payments, like payment of tax extensions etc, all done on the Net. 200 year ago whoever was told that this will one day be possible would doubt it with all his or her might. Once more things can only be difficult and not impossible.
What I’m trying to say is this, yes it’s possible to view private pictures on Flickr, I know now that there are two sets of people that this revelation will impact. One set- the set of exploiters, those who are interested in how they will beat the system and open all private Flickr photos. This revelation will gladden their hearts.
The other set of people are Flickr users, people who are interested in their security, they value their privacy, if it’s private let it be private if it’s public let it be public. And not having someone else snooping around looking at my pictures without authorization. This set of people are worst hit by this revelation.
Imagine you have a collection of personal images. Images of your children, wife, husband, images that are intimate, images that you can’t make public. You all collect this images and turn it into an album and then you make it private, thinking it’s secured. What if you later see any of those images flying about the Net especially on Twitter and Reddit or 4chan were such things land?
This is what people face, many people have seen the photos they set private somewhere else, in fact others have gone ahead to receive emails from the security team of Flickr notifying them that their private photos is now public! With an explanation somewhere at the end of the mail. Even paid customers and pro users are not exempted from this.
Search online, in many blogs and forums you’ll see people complaining about this, although in 2014 they’ve been less and less of such complaint compared to 2013, at this rate come 2015 every private picture may truly remain private and hidden, but if the bug becomes wider and sneaky people becomes smarter then they may not remain private after all.
Here is how to view private images on Flickr, I’m writing this out more as both a security measure and an explanation about why people can view them, despite the securities put in place.
View Flickr private pictures how?
The pictures can only be viewed via two major obvious ways, although there are others which are not so obvious.
URL Flickr is designed in such a way that users can share their images through a direct link. So there is need for you to be careful about who you give the link to. Interested people can manipulate the URL and use it to see private pictures.
Account The only other way is through account hijack. You might think this is impossible that one can hijack your account, well think again remember no impossiblity only difficulty. A guy with a Twitter username A just A got his account hijacked and sold!
