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If you value anything you have on a computer you should... - 8/12/2012 11:07:02 PM

outlier

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Matt Honan who is a senior writer for Wired Magazine got hacked and lost
everything from his phone, computer, email and twitter account. Included
were his only pictures of the first 18 months of his daughters life.

He writes about the mistakes that made it possible and what he will
do differently in the future.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat-honan-hacking/all/

If you then do a Google search for "Wired and Hacked" you will see the lessons
others have taken from his experience. Lessons best learned without paying
the price yourself.

< Message edited by outlier -- 8/12/2012 11:09:10 PM >

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RE: If you value anything you have on a computer you sh... - 8/12/2012 11:12:47 PM

littlewonder

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I don't worry about stuff lost on my computer since I put a copy of everything online and not just on my drive. And anything I do have on my drive is just not important enough for me to be concerned about. I've gone through many computers over my lifetime that died to the point I couldn't save anything so it's not a concern to me. I always try to warn people not to save stuff directly to their drive unless they don't care about losing it. And if you do, make a backup copy elsewhere.

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RE: If you value anything you have on a computer you sh... - 8/13/2012 12:28:37 AM

FrostedFlake

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Here is the money shot.

quote:

It turns out, a billing address and the last four digits of a credit card number are the only two pieces of information anyone needs to get into your iCloud account. Once supplied, Apple will issue a temporary password, and that password grants access to iCloud.

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RE: If you value anything you have on a computer you sh... - 8/13/2012 3:57:34 AM

Tumblweed

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I had a virus mark all my files hidden. I am still finding them.

Really, I just deleted the virus, took it out of startup and started restoring stuff. I can do everything but you know what ?

I have no desktop at all. NOTHING.

That's cool I am doing fine through explorrer and all that. I can get to all my progs, files, everything basically - because I know what I am doing.

My firewall is hardware. Fuck all this Windows shit, and now I got a box that I run once in a while, Ubuntu 11.10. I am learning it. When they pull the plug on XP that is where I will be.

Weed

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RE: If you value anything you have on a computer you sh... - 8/13/2012 3:58:53 AM

Tumblweed

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Oh, just so you know why I am not crying, I got four PCs.

T

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RE: If you value anything you have on a computer you sh... - 8/13/2012 4:01:06 AM

ARIES83

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Im to old and scared of new things to start
putting my stuff in some new-fangled cloud...

I knew that iCloud was a bad idea I tells ya...

-ARIES

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RE: If you value anything you have on a computer you sh... - 8/13/2012 4:10:21 AM

DeviantlyD

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I heard about this on NPR.

quote:

ORIGINAL: FrostedFlake

Here is the money shot.

quote:

It turns out, a billing address and the last four digits of a credit card number are the only two pieces of information anyone needs to get into your iCloud account. Once supplied, Apple will issue a temporary password, and that password grants access to iCloud.

Except...you can't do that anymore, from what they said on the NPR story.

ARIES83: You're too old? You aren't even outta your 20's yet!!!! *LOL* And it wasn't just the iCloud, it was Amazon too.

I have nothing connected together. It's all separate. And I do try to back up to an external hard drive.

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RE: If you value anything you have on a computer you sh... - 8/13/2012 6:06:42 AM

tj444

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Having files/stuff backed up online is ok but only if you back it all up elsewhere also,... it should be considered to be and used as secondary back-up.. With the ease that the govt can shut down file sharing sites like Megaupload, innocent people that had their own info saved online were denied access as their accounts and illegal file sharer accounts were treated the same by the US govt.. The govt was going to delete all the accounts and info they held, I dont know if they finally did that but legal legit accounts were caught up in that nightmare.. so its not just hacker situations people should be wary of..

I have an external hard-drive that i use.. what happened with Megaupload showed me the folly of trusting others, especially big corps like Amazon or Apple, with my files..

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RE: If you value anything you have on a computer you sh... - 8/13/2012 8:42:12 AM

RemoteUser

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Anything I want to keep is backed up. I don't want irreplaceable files on a machine if that machine could be compromised.

That reminds me, I should do a backup for some things of (and for) my girl!

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RE: If you value anything you have on a computer you sh... - 8/13/2012 9:07:42 AM

SpaceSpank

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It's not really a weakness in icloud or amazon cloud services.

I work with this kind of thing all the time, it's part of my job. I see it MUCH more than people that just hear about it on the news.

The bottom line is that most hacks are not clever bits of coding exploits that took years upon years of dedicated research. Those do happen, but then they get patched quickly.

Why would you spend all that time trying to be clever when the weakest link of almost any technology is the human factor?

This story illustrates it in abundance.

He had his accounts linked and intertwined with a poor strategy for backup. For the average person? Probably not a big deal. For a highly visible member of a technology magazine? Especially one with a large online presence? Much bigger deal.

Second was the apple policy for resets. Not a weakness of the product at all. They hacked nothing, they didn't guess his password, brute force it, infect him with a keylogger, etc. They simply got a small bit of readily available information and let Apple open the door for them to walk in.

Then they just followed the breadcrumb trail through all the accounts to reach their goal, collateral damage and inconvenience were a non issue.

I see this often, and I see people blame others... They get some really crappy e-mail with a link/attachment and open it up... thus infecting their machine... and do they say, "Oh, I'm an idiot and I just fucked up my computer!"... no, it's usually, "Goddamn Windows/Microsoft is so damned insecure!".
Never mind that the exact same thing would infect a Mac or Linux machine had the exploit been written to do just that.

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RE: If you value anything you have on a computer you sh... - 8/13/2012 6:20:56 PM

Winterapple

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FR
The only photos the guy had of the first
18 months of his daughters life were only
digital ones stored on the computer and
other devices? Nobody in the family took
a snapshot? Nobody made a brag book
for grandma? No one in the family keeps
an offline photo album or scrapbook?

I make copies of anything I don't want
to lose. Anything that gets wiped out
isn't irreplaceable.

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RE: If you value anything you have on a computer you sh... - 8/13/2012 6:24:52 PM

JeffBC

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quote:

ORIGINAL: ARIES83
Im to old and scared of new things to start putting my stuff in some new-fangled cloud... I knew that iCloud was a bad idea I tells ya...

"The cloud" and "cloud computing" in general are bad ideas for a wide variety of reasons. I mean.. in theory they'd be good ideas. But at least in the US & Canada the idea that I'd want to pay utterly usurious data rates to star crap on someone else's server that I could store for almost nothing on my own computer makes no sense to me. Although I can understand why the cellular industry loves the concept. Me? I don't even own a cell phone and I'd never buy a data plan. I'm trying to stop giving my money to the companies that are hurting me with my own money.

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RE: If you value anything you have on a computer you sh... - 8/13/2012 9:26:15 PM

littlewonder

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quote:

ORIGINAL: tj444

Having files/stuff backed up online is ok but only if you back it all up elsewhere also,... it should be considered to be and used as secondary back-up.. With the ease that the govt can shut down file sharing sites like Megaupload, innocent people that had their own info saved online were denied access as their accounts and illegal file sharer accounts were treated the same by the US govt.. The govt was going to delete all the accounts and info they held, I dont know if they finally did that but legal legit accounts were caught up in that nightmare.. so its not just hacker situations people should be wary of..

I have an external hard-drive that i use.. what happened with Megaupload showed me the folly of trusting others, especially big corps like Amazon or Apple, with my files..

I don't use sites such as megaupload to save my stuff online. Google works just as fine and so does my school's skydrive for my college papers and such. And yeah as someone said, the guy had all his stuff linked and most of the time it's simply human error when stuff like this happens.

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RE: If you value anything you have on a computer you sh... - 8/14/2012 4:15:01 AM

mons

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Outlier''

Thankso much for posting this it has helped me so much!

jane

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