Marco Arment posted a story about his 87 year old grandfather's experience setting up iCloud on his iPad. Technology has come a long way, but as his story and my experience as the tech support person in my family will attest, there's still a long way to go.
Over the weekend, Wired writer Mat Honan was the victim of a digital attack on his life. In a piece written for Wired and published last evening, Mat reveals the details of everything that happened.
"In the space of one hour, my entire digital life was destroyed. First my Google account was taken over, then deleted. Next my Twitter account was compromised, and used as a platform to broadcast racist and homophobic messages. And worst of all, my AppleID account was broken into, and my hackers used it to remotely erase all of the data on my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook.
In many ways, this was all my fault. My accounts were daisy-chained together. Getting into Amazon let my hackers get into my Apple ID account, which helped them get into Gmail, which gave them access to Twitter. Had I used two-factor authentication for my Google account, it’s possible that none of this would have happened, because their ultimate goal was always to take over my Twitter account and wreak havoc. Lulz.
Had I been regularly backing up the data on my MacBook, I wouldn’t have had to worry about losing more than a year’s worth of photos, covering the entire lifespan of my daughter, or documents and e-mails that I had stored in no other location.
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."
The entire story is a must read. It's an epic tale about a misguided hacker, a tech writer who should have known better about backing up important data, the problem with linking online accounts together by email or credit card and the absolute failure of two of the largest companies in the world to protect their customers.
I've already made a few quick changes to the way I'm conducting my business online and there will be more to come. I'll outline some of the details in a post yet to be written. We all need to appreciate that there's a balance between security and convenience in the digital age. I'm shifting even stronger yet towards security. You?
Apple has made available the latest version of the Mac operating system. The upgrade is available for $19.99, exclusively from the Mac App Store.
Apple has selected a path of constant refinement in this latest OS release. Anyone familiar with OS X Lion, will immediately feel comfortable with the new release. What you'll notice is that everything has a more refined look and feel. It's noticeable everywhere from the Finder window to the renamed Calendar and Contacts apps. These refinements to bring the OS X apps more in line with their iOS counterparts, along with the increased strengthening of iCloud, will make this upgrade particularly attractive to iOS device users exploring the Mac as an option for their next computers.
Taken as a whole, it's a pretty compelling case.