The macOS version of ChatGPT did not apply encryption to chat conversations, leaving them open and exposed on your PC.

OpenAI launched a desktop version of ChatGPT for macOS at the end of June. This version of the chatbot can be accessed without opening a browser. Behind the scenes, ChatGPT forgot something important. Chat conversations were stored without any encryption.

Forgot encryption

Since ChatGPT runs locally on your PC, your chat history is also stored on your computer. Pedro Jose Pereira Vieto discovered that OpenAI forgot to sandbox the chat history and shared his discovery in threads. This means that the chat history was stored unencrypted and in plain text on your computer.

This makes your conversations easily accessible to those who have physical access to your device. A clever hacker could also develop an application that sneaks into your chat history. To demonstrate, Pereira Vieto has developed an app ChatGPTStealer and demonstrated to The Verge how such an app can steal chat history.

OpenAI has now fixed the bug with an update to the macOS app. Install it as soon as possible if you want to be sure that your conversations with ChatGPT remain private. A locally running version of ChatGPT should address concerns about privacy and sharing of sensitive data. Users must opt ​​out of having their data used to train the GPT models.