8 ms·

+1 for the moral high horse. Everytime something gets hacked the hacker community blames the victim for using less-than-optimal security. Well guess what? There

+1 for the moral high horse. Everytime something gets hacked the hacker community blames the victim for using less-than-optimal security. Well guess what? There is no foolproof system. The same reactions are seen when sites go down. 'Oh, but they should have used a distributed, redundant buzzword compliant system in a multitude of nuclear bunkers and this would never have happened'. Every system has weaknesses. And every person or team is imperfect. Sure there are lessons to learn, but lets show some sympathy and ask the persons involved what they would improve, not assume that we understand everything and dictate what they should have done.

deleted 14y ago
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mchanson 14y ago
Not having any backup is, for a technically capable user, indefensible.
- protomyth 14y ago
  For a non-technical Mac user, I would hope someone mentioned buying an external hard drive for Time Machine. Seems to work fine for the normal case.
  - mchanson 14y ago
    Yes. I push this with extended family. Best ~$100 investment a Mac user can make. Windows 7 built in backup works fine too.
    - atworkatwork 14y ago
      Ubuntu uses Deja-Dup for backup, and I've heard it works wonders too.
  - lparry 14y ago
    I'm curious how remote wipe acts when a computer has multiple partitions or multiple drives (internal or otherwise); would a remote wipe with a connected USB drive for time machine nuke that too?
- hnriot 14y ago
  How is it even possibl? iOS devices back themselves up every time they are plugged into a Mac automatically, and it's really difficult not to have a Mac backup, time machine just does it automatically whenever it feels like it. I find that within the Mac ecosphere, it's hard not to have backups. I backup gmail with gmvault to a thumb drive, which I suppose is beyond many non technical people, but I'm sure google will figure out how to restore his account without much difficulty. I wish I knew how this person knew how his password was compromised, it sounds reasonably secure.
  - rbritton 14y ago
    I have apps in the App Store and have to deal with a certain level of technical support. You'd be amazed how few people still plug their iOS devices into the master computer.
    - iron_ball 14y ago
      Well, honestly, why should it be necessary?
  - sigkill 14y ago
    I had no idea about a Gmail backup solution. I just had a network of duplicate accounts which get copies of mails and password resets if my primary ever got hacked. Thanks. Link for the lazy - http://gmvault.org/ http://gmvault.org/
  - egypturnash 14y ago
    I suspect a lot of people ONLY have the devices, and have not spent the extra few hundred on any kind of backup. A Time Capsule? A third-party remote backup service? An external HD? That costs MONEY! I personally haven't plugged my iPad into my Mac in ages. Then again I've also made damn sure it's backing itself up to the cloud. I'm not sure if this is the default setting. It should be, IMHO. (And I gotta say, it's really freeing to know that even if all my possessions are destroyed, I will have lost at most a day or so of work.)
    - 14y ago
yulerhow 14y ago
I bury encrypted backups in my backyard. It's not foolproof but it seems much more secure than depending on an online backup. /highhorse
- ktizo 14y ago
  I tried that, but then my backups got eaten by a high horse, high on horse.
alexqgb 14y ago
Except in this case we're talking about a solved problem. The simple rule - and is really is simple - is 3/2/1: three copies, two local, and one remote. Anything less is "backup", not backup. Time Machine (a free utility that ships with OSX, not a military-grade absurdity) would have handled the full restoration of the laptop, which could then restore the wiped iPad and iPhone fully. He'd still have the email hacks to contend with, but at least he'd have his tools back. It's not his fault that he became a target, and blame for the attack should be firmly limited to the agressor. But the severity of the consequence was clearly amplified by substantial incompetence and / or indifference on his part.
- rogerchucker 14y ago
  I recently tried a full system restore from Time Machine (from the Disk Utility in Recovery) on a zeroed out partition and it kept failing midway giving me a generic error. Ended up installing OS fresh and restoring files selectively inside Time Machine. I've lost a lot of respect for Time Machine since then.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - r00fus 14y ago
    I also failed my TM restore but that was back in 2007 - it's since improved a lot, but I still keep a roughly 2-3mo old imaged disk - ie, SuperDuper/CarbonCopyCloner. This restore also takes only minutes, as you can boot from external.
  - yardie 14y ago
    As a counterpoint, I have an office full of Macs and TimeMachine on a Synology NAS. Everybody lurvs it. I have done 3 full restores and 2 migrations with it (not even going to count the number of "oh, shit!" events). It couldn't be any simpler. As the office Mac expert I have to do very little except boot into recovery mode and get it on the network. I'm not sure what your error was but it might have been for the best. If there was corruption in the backup image then you'd be complaining about how it restored a corrupt backup.
tripzilch 14y ago
> +1 for the moral high horse. Everytime something gets hacked the hacker community blames the victim for using less-than-optimal security. Well guess what? There is no foolproof system. The same reactions are seen when sites go down. 'Oh, but they should have used a distributed, redundant buzzword compliant system in a multitude of nuclear bunkers and this would never have happened'. Every system has weaknesses. In this case, the guy had ALL his shit wiped. Not a clumsy move at work causing months of extra work, or some dickhead hacker having some fun with your account credentials, no they actually thoroughly deleted a huge chunk of his personal data. See it's like, if a pyromaniac burns down someone's home, maybe there were ways to prevent that, but you don't go blaming the victim then either. Some times the first thing is sympathy. There's times to be heartless and times to be not. Remote-wiping all his personal stuff was so unnecessarily malicious, sympathy comes first. And besides, in this case, not having any non-remote-wipeable backups, the only thing you could possibly maybe blame him for is putting all his stuff in the cloud. Yeah no not smart, maybe, but it simply doesn't weigh up to the fact that someone actually went through the trouble of meticulously deleting all of it. Not stealing, or defacing, but deleting.
notime 14y ago
There may be no foolproof system, but there are systems: 1. ABP: Always be paranoid. No two passwords are the same. Don't make domino accounts such that when the security for one fails, everything else fails. Limit the number of online accounts. OR 2. Be open: live a life where you are always mentally ready to be hacked and obliterated. Don't be stupid, but don't track to fight being hacked all the time.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

mchanson 14y ago

Not having any backup is, for a technically capable user, indefensible.

protomyth 14y ago
For a non-technical Mac user, I would hope someone mentioned buying an external hard drive for Time Machine. Seems to work fine for the normal case.
- mchanson 14y ago
  Yes. I push this with extended family. Best ~$100 investment a Mac user can make. Windows 7 built in backup works fine too.
  - atworkatwork 14y ago
    Ubuntu uses Deja-Dup for backup, and I've heard it works wonders too.
- lparry 14y ago
  I'm curious how remote wipe acts when a computer has multiple partitions or multiple drives (internal or otherwise); would a remote wipe with a connected USB drive for time machine nuke that too?
hnriot 14y ago
How is it even possibl? iOS devices back themselves up every time they are plugged into a Mac automatically, and it's really difficult not to have a Mac backup, time machine just does it automatically whenever it feels like it. I find that within the Mac ecosphere, it's hard not to have backups. I backup gmail with gmvault to a thumb drive, which I suppose is beyond many non technical people, but I'm sure google will figure out how to restore his account without much difficulty. I wish I knew how this person knew how his password was compromised, it sounds reasonably secure.
- rbritton 14y ago
  I have apps in the App Store and have to deal with a certain level of technical support. You'd be amazed how few people still plug their iOS devices into the master computer.
  - iron_ball 14y ago
    Well, honestly, why should it be necessary?
- sigkill 14y ago
  I had no idea about a Gmail backup solution. I just had a network of duplicate accounts which get copies of mails and password resets if my primary ever got hacked. Thanks. Link for the lazy - http://gmvault.org/ http://gmvault.org/
- egypturnash 14y ago
  I suspect a lot of people ONLY have the devices, and have not spent the extra few hundred on any kind of backup. A Time Capsule? A third-party remote backup service? An external HD? That costs MONEY! I personally haven't plugged my iPad into my Mac in ages. Then again I've also made damn sure it's backing itself up to the cloud. I'm not sure if this is the default setting. It should be, IMHO. (And I gotta say, it's really freeing to know that even if all my possessions are destroyed, I will have lost at most a day or so of work.)
  - 14y ago

yulerhow 14y ago

I bury encrypted backups in my backyard. It's not foolproof but it seems much more secure than depending on an online backup. /highhorse

ktizo 14y ago
I tried that, but then my backups got eaten by a high horse, high on horse.

alexqgb 14y ago

Except in this case we're talking about a solved problem. The simple rule - and is really is simple - is 3/2/1: three copies, two local, and one remote. Anything less is "backup", not backup. Time Machine (a free utility that ships with OSX, not a military-grade absurdity) would have handled the full restoration of the laptop, which could then restore the wiped iPad and iPhone fully. He'd still have the email hacks to contend with, but at least he'd have his tools back. It's not his fault that he became a target, and blame for the attack should be firmly limited to the agressor. But the severity of the consequence was clearly amplified by substantial incompetence and / or indifference on his part.

rogerchucker 14y ago
I recently tried a full system restore from Time Machine (from the Disk Utility in Recovery) on a zeroed out partition and it kept failing midway giving me a generic error. Ended up installing OS fresh and restoring files selectively inside Time Machine. I've lost a lot of respect for Time Machine since then.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- r00fus 14y ago
  I also failed my TM restore but that was back in 2007 - it's since improved a lot, but I still keep a roughly 2-3mo old imaged disk - ie, SuperDuper/CarbonCopyCloner. This restore also takes only minutes, as you can boot from external.
- yardie 14y ago
  As a counterpoint, I have an office full of Macs and TimeMachine on a Synology NAS. Everybody lurvs it. I have done 3 full restores and 2 migrations with it (not even going to count the number of "oh, shit!" events). It couldn't be any simpler. As the office Mac expert I have to do very little except boot into recovery mode and get it on the network. I'm not sure what your error was but it might have been for the best. If there was corruption in the backup image then you'd be complaining about how it restored a corrupt backup.

tripzilch 14y ago

> +1 for the moral high horse. Everytime something gets hacked the hacker community blames the victim for using less-than-optimal security. Well guess what? There is no foolproof system. The same reactions are seen when sites go down. 'Oh, but they should have used a distributed, redundant buzzword compliant system in a multitude of nuclear bunkers and this would never have happened'. Every system has weaknesses. In this case, the guy had ALL his shit wiped. Not a clumsy move at work causing months of extra work, or some dickhead hacker having some fun with your account credentials, no they actually thoroughly deleted a huge chunk of his personal data. See it's like, if a pyromaniac burns down someone's home, maybe there were ways to prevent that, but you don't go blaming the victim then either. Some times the first thing is sympathy. There's times to be heartless and times to be not. Remote-wiping all his personal stuff was so unnecessarily malicious, sympathy comes first. And besides, in this case, not having any non-remote-wipeable backups, the only thing you could possibly maybe blame him for is putting all his stuff in the cloud. Yeah no not smart, maybe, but it simply doesn't weigh up to the fact that someone actually went through the trouble of meticulously deleting all of it. Not stealing, or defacing, but deleting.

notime 14y ago

There may be no foolproof system, but there are systems: 1. ABP: Always be paranoid. No two passwords are the same. Don't make domino accounts such that when the security for one fails, everything else fails. Limit the number of online accounts. OR 2. Be open: live a life where you are always mentally ready to be hacked and obliterated. Don't be stupid, but don't track to fight being hacked all the time.