So, T-Mobile has the iPhone, finally. (And, by the way, a new pricing model that doesn’t rely on contracts.) And wow, Gizmodo has a great GIF.
Remember that time Gizmodo interviewed the Craigslist guy and asked him about the company’s controversial changes regarding user ownership of content (which were eventually, and quietly, revoked), and their ongoing legal fight against Padmapper? Us neither. Dudes, you had him on the line — days after your sister site wrote a brutal assessment of the service — and you wrote a puff piece. What the heck? Sure, it’s great that he does all this nonprofit work, but what happened to the idea of holding someone’s feet to the fire?
Those security lapses are my fault, and I deeply, deeply regret them.
But what happened to me exposes vital security flaws in several customer service systems, most notably Apple’s and Amazon’s. Apple tech support gave the hackers access to my iCloud account. Amazon tech support gave them the ability to see a piece of information — a partial credit card number — that Apple used to release information. In short, the very four digits that Amazon considers unimportant enough to display in the clear on the web are precisely the same ones that Apple considers secure enough to perform identity verification. The disconnect exposes flaws in data management policies endemic to the entire technology industry, and points to a looming nightmare as we enter the era of cloud computing and connected devices.
This isn’t just my problem. Since Friday, Aug. 3, when hackers broke into my accounts, I’ve heard from other users who were compromised in the same way, at least one of whom was targeted by the same group.
While Amazon’s system has flaws, it’s Apple’s — with the remote wipe function exposed by merely having a billing address and the last four digits of a credit card — that leads to real questions. Also, Apple’s support was less than helpful for Honan, as they misunderstood him and thought his last name was Herman, not Honan. This story is enough to make you want reconsider using credit cards on Apple accounts. Read the whole thing. It’s scary.
I still can’t get into Gmail. My phone and iPads are down (but are restoring). Apple tells me that the remote wipe is likely irrecoverable without serious forensics. Because I’m a jerk who doesn’t back up data, I’ve lost at more than a year’s worth of photos, emails, documents, and more. And, really, who knows what else. It’s been a @*(!&% night. For now, at least, I’m back on Twitter @mathonan.Wired (and former Gizmodo) writer Mat Honan • Describing the hacking incident he went through last night, in which someone managed to 1) hack his Twitter account, 2) hack the Gizmodo Twitter account, 3) hack his Google accounts and 4) hack his iCloud account, which was then used to do a remote wipe on his iPhone, iPad and MacBook. And no, he didn’t have backups, which sucks, but who expects to have so many parts of their life hacked all at once? There were things he could’ve done to prevent the hacking — two-step authentication on his Google accounts would’ve helped, for example — but it wouldn’t have prevented his devices from getting wiped. Some commenters are expressing thoughts of schadenfreude towards Honan, but we hope he’s holding up OK, considering. Gizmodo’s got a post about what you can learn from Honan’s crappy night.
Why has the Facebook app been so slow? Because the current version of the app is nothing more than a web browser inside an Objective-C shell. Stuff is being constantly pulled from the web, hence the lag time.Gizmodo’s Casey Chan • Explaining the main problem with Facebook’s iPhone app — it’s not really a native app, so it’s slow. But this is apparently changing, according to Nick Bilton of the NY Times, who says a fully-native app is coming — and it’s fast.
Magnets and an iPod Nano are all it takes to make a tiny music player part of your body: It’s not for everyone, and we’re not just talking about the video above. Dave Hurban implanted magnets in his skin to hold the iPod in place, much like a wristwatch. But why, WHY would someone ever do this to themselves? “I just thought it would be cool,” Hurban said. Unfortunately for Hurban, it’ll be harder for him to upgrade his Nano the next time around, especially if Apple changes its style — like, you know, it does nearly every single year. source
A historical tidbit: the original business model for Gizmodo was affiliate fees from purchases of gadgets through Amazon. We didn’t have the scale then to make that work. We do now. In December we made $70,000 from Amazon. Without really trying. No seriously, it was an accident.Gawker Media founder Nick Denton • In a memo regarding his company’s business. Let that sink in a little bit. His company is so big that they can make $70,000 in affiliate fees from Amazon in a single month — something which is hard for many sites to pull off.
I met Steve Jobs while I worked at Gizmodo. He was always a gentleman. Steve liked me and he liked Gizmodo. And I liked them back. Some of my friends who I used to work with at Gizmodo refer to those days as the Good Old Days. That is because those were the days before it all went to shit. That was before we got the iPhone 4 prototype.Ex-Gizmodo editorial director Brian Lam (now on just-launched site, The Wirecutter), discussing the decline of his relationship with Steve Jobs after the iPhone incident. You know the one. It’s why Gizmodo had to stay home Tuesday when the iPhone 4S was launched. Lam seems regretful of the decline of Gizmodo’s relationship — and his own relationship — with Apple. “Sometimes, I wish we never found that phone at all. That is basically the only way this could have been painless,” he said. “But that’s life. Sometimes there’s no easy way out.” A few weeks before Jobs’ death, Lam sent him an apology. Just in time, it seems.
I just kind of had to ask myself ‘Where do I stand?’ I’m just not comfortable being physically manhandled by a federal security agent every time I go to work.Expressjet Airlines pilot Michael Roberts • Explaining why he chose not to get in the full-body-scan machine on his way into work one day last week. This is kind of a bold stand to take, and it plays into the whole spiel that Gizmodo pushed around the time of the Underwear Bomber, which is that the Transportation Safety Administration offers the wrong kind of resources in the wrong place, and that stronger intelligence is better than forcing everyone to take off their shoes. Glad to see a pilot agrees. source (via)
Copyright 2009-2013 Ernie Smith • Ask us stuff! • E-mail us • Follow us on Twitter • Follow us on Facebook
