News - Gizmodo reporter is hacked via Apple tech support

[HEXUS]

Gizmodo Twitter taken over and writer’s MacBook, iPhone and iPad all remotely wiped.

Read more.

[martian_aphid]

Not a glowing endorsement of apple's security policies, though who would trust them with security I dont know :S

[dfour]

lets hope this teaches some fo the deciples of the cult of apple a few lessons although I fear they will just keep their rose tinted iglasses(trademark) on and swear apple can do no wrong (still).

[Firejack]

He works in the tech industry and didn't backup his data?! I'm amazed by that. Shocking.

I'm not in the least bit surprised by Apples part in this mess.

[Demonwar]

Wow...goes to show that this remote stuff isn't all it's cracked up to be. Apple fanboys surely are incoming though.

[MaddAussie]

Back-ups - simples!

[kingpotnoodle]

If you're Joe Normal you're probably safe by the usual Apple mechanism - obscurity, but all Mac using celebs must be a little concerned by this exploitation of the suppliers of their precious.

[Unique]

is this the same gizmodo that got the lost/stolen iphone4 and posted details about it online and got them raided by the police?

[brasco]

Quite an elaborate scam, but there doesn't seem to be any hacking going on?

is this the same gizmodo that got the lost/stolen iphone4 and posted details about it online and got them raided by the police?

That's the bell that rang in my head but it was Jason Chen who got hold of the iphone4.

[aidanjt]

Yet another example of why 'the cloud' is a disastrous idea in reality.

[crossy]

I'm not Apple bashing, but I thought remote wipe was a feature that only applied to smartphones and tablets, and while I can see the use of it for a laptop (or other easily stealable device) I would have thought that such a "service" would at least be opt-in. Isn't this the case? (I'm curious)

The Apple folks who were socially engineered should be ashamed and I would have thought that should have been set in stone that there was no way to get around the security questions in doing account admin (otherwise, why the heck have them!!!).

The guy concerned is also a total moron - for someone not to back up their important stuff is bad enough, but for a tech journalist its akin to a joiner having a broken front door. What's wrong with a cheap (and readily available) USB crate and that Time Machine thingy that Mac owners seem to be so happy with? And gfiven I've never owned a Mac, if I can come up with a solution then it can't be bloomin' rocket science.

Yet another example of why 'the cloud' is a disastrous idea in reality.

That's an unsustainable statement - presumably muggings are justification why credit cards are a bad idea, or accidents a cue for the abolition of automobiles?

Like most things in this (tech?) life - cloud services are great if used and run properly. In this case it looks like the second part of that statement wasn't true.

However, I'm not that sold on free cloud services, thinking that it's still the case that you get what you pay for.

[aidanjt]

That's an unsustainable statement - presumably muggings are justification why credit cards are a bad idea, or accidents a cue for the abolition of automobiles?

Red herring. Walking in public is a low risk activity. Pumping all your data over the internet is a high risk activity, akin to waving around huge bundles of cash in the lowest chav estate you can find, where all you can depend on for protection are the cops, who may take it upon themselves to help themselves to your cash instead of the thugs on the excuse that you might be a terrorist or a pedo or whatever nonsense justification they care to come up with.

Like most things in this (tech?) life - cloud services are great if used and run properly. In this case it looks like the second part of that statement wasn't true.

Even if you do use it 'properly', you're massively exposed.

However, I'm not that sold on free cloud services, thinking that it's still the case that you get what you pay for.

iCloud is a paid for service, and it still sucked.

[crossy]

Red herring. Walking in public is a low risk activity. Pumping all your data over the internet is a high risk activity, akin to waving around huge bundles of cash in the lowest chav estate you can find, where all you can depend on for protection are the cops, who may take it upon themselves to help themselves to your cash instead of the thugs on the excuse that you might be a terrorist or a pedo or whatever nonsense justification they care to come up with. Even if you do use it 'properly', you're massively exposed.

I can see that you're closed to the idea, so I'm not going to bother arguing.
As to the risk part of cloud services there's two key phrases: "client side encryption" and "service level agreement". That said the vast majority of my explicit cloud use doesn't cover anything sensitive (unless you count my odd taste in music or the odd landscape photo), the stuff that is sensitive that's cloud-ed is stored as encrypted (e.g. AES256 bit - done at my end with no sharing of ANY keys).

iCloud is a paid for service, and it still sucked.

Thought iCloud was free too - at least on a basic level. If I'm wrong then I appreciate the correction. Not that I'm ever likely to use it...