Security News > 2021 > December > This image looks very different on Apple devices — see for yourself
Take a good look at the image below and the device you are on.
If you are using an Apple device and viewing this page on Safari, chances are the image appears quite differently from what you'd see on, for example, Chrome or an imaging app on Windows.
Believe us, it is the same image a.png, interpreted differently by Apple and non-Apple applications.
The 84-line PoC demonstrates how some image rendering libraries can be tricked into showing the alternate version of an image-the one with the 'SECRET MESSAGE.'.
The reverse engineer has released a handy tool called 'Ambiguous PNG Packer' on GitHub that lets just about anyone create PNG images that look completely different in Apple software.
Now had the end result of this parallel-decoding business been merely an erroneous or corrupted image that wouldn't render correctly, it would be easier to classify this as a 'bug.