On a good day, Android TV, Google’s Android OS for TVs, allows users to display photos from their Google Photos albums as screensavers. That’s a nice perk — when it doesn’t potentially share your private photos with strangers. Over the weekend, a disturbed Android TV owner took to Twitter when he realized, through the Google Home app, he could access a massive list of random accounts, as well as photos they’d added to their Google Photos albums.
If someone were to click on “linked accounts” while setting your Google Photos screensaver, the Google Home bug apparently showed a giant, scrolling list of users. From there, the bug allowed limited access to users’ personal images in Google Photos, which could then be displayed as Ambient Mode screensavers. That is, someone could have theoretically displayed your photos as screensavers on their Android TV without you knowing it. The user who discovered this bug theorized that the list of accounts were other users with the same TV model, but that hasn’t been confirmed yet.
Source: https://www.engadget.com/2019/03/04/android-tv-bug-google-photos/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer_us=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_cs=8Fqln9lODPqYT_jIco5F4Q
Submitted by: Arnfried Walbrecht
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