I actually quite enjoyed reading Matt Honan’s articles (here and here) for Wire magazine. They were both very informative and I thought they were a great cautionary tale for relying too heavily on passwords and other website security to protect you. It was really interesting that the hackers didn’t seem to be at all interested in Honan’s credit card details or anything like that, but instead were focused on getting his Twitter handle. They also mentioned that they were doing it to point out the flaws in the software that companies used, which is a noble sentiment, perhaps better expressed without ruining someone’s online life.
Honan’s followup article was a nice touch, and I’m glad that he was generally able to sort things out (for the most part). He did note that it was quite a bit easier for him to contact the right people and figure out what was going on with his machine because he’s been in the business of technology for quite a while. Surely, it wouldn’t be so easy for someone like me, and nearly computer-illiterate college student. He also mentions the issues with Apple and their iCloud security. From his point of view it doesn’t seem to make sense that Apple would encourage its users to trust this software, and then not do a better security job with it. This is, essentially, leaving them wide open to something like what happened to Honan, is it not? (This makes me glad that I don’t have an Apple products except my tiny iPod).
It did make me think of my own online accounts and how secure they are. I used to think I was very clever in picking my passcodes; there was one I used above all else because the random jumble of letters and numbers made sense only to me, and no one else knew why. But apparently, hackers don’t need your passwords in order to attack your account. I’m a bit paranoid after reading these articles; computer hacking has gotten very sophisticated, it seems, and that scares me a little. I was, of course, taught never to put your social security number online, nor your full credit card number (which I never have), but according to Honan’s new “friend” Phobia they don’t need all that information to completely wipe you off the digital map.
I think that these articles give us something to think about as we continue to rely more and more heavily on digitization for everything we do. It’s scary to think that all of your documents, your photos, your memories can be wiped away with only a few keystrokes.
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