Why the study showing that jailbreak apps leak less private data than App Store apps is flawed

Following the Path debacle which led the world to realize that many apps indeed upload some of your private data to their servers, much ink has been spilled about the subject. To the point that Congress sent Apple a letter to express their concern, but also to ask for more details about the situation. Apple later commented on the matter saying that apps will now need explicit user permission to access contacts.

In the meantime, a year-old study by a group of researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara showing that jailbreak apps leak less data than App Store apps was uncovered. For a site like us, and for many jailbreakers alike, this study was a blessing as we could once again claim that jailbreaking can actually make your device more secure.

The problem is that this study is flawed and proves nothing…
Using a tool they developed (PiOS), the researchers analysed 825 free applications available in the App Store, and 582 jailbreak apps available on the BigBoss repo.