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This is perhaps a bit off-topic but, >after all, the company is fresh off a hack that allowed strangers to steal, view and share nude photos of famous actresse

by gph 12y ago

This is perhaps a bit off-topic but, >after all, the company is fresh off a hack that allowed strangers to steal, view and share nude photos of famous actresses from iCloud accounts Why do people still parrot this line? Unless I missed some later revelation, this was barely even Apple's fault. They may have had some subpar security practices, but it's not like their system was utterly compromised like this makes it sound. I'm not an Apple fan, but they don't deserve the ignorantly parroted line that they let celebrities phones get compromised. And I would especially expect more from the New York Times. That statement is almost libel.

parasubvert 12y ago
It's a David Carr opinion piece. The NYT generally protects its columnists, regardless of how bizarrely out of whack their statements may be (some exceptions exist, usually involving getting the public editor Margaret Sullivan involved). For example, have you read some of the things Joe Nocera has said about Apple (or others, for that matter)? The guy is basically a real life version of a liberal Stephen Colbert: being wrong is a sport!
pbreit 12y ago
First, the line is essentially accurate. Second, when you're storing so many potentially sensitive pictures, etc you have to be at the absolute top of your game with respect to keeping private things private. Not even remotely libel.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
akamaka 12y ago
If the claims that they ignored warnings are correct, I would indeed lay most of the blame on Apple: http://iphone.appleinsider.com/articles/14/09/25/researcher-accuses-apple-of-ignoring-icloud-brute-force-attack-for-6-months http://iphone.appleinsider.com/articles/14/09/25/researcher-... It may be the case that celebrities chose poor passwords, but how can you blame them? Did Apple enforce strong passwords? Did it allow an excessive password retry rate? Did it fail to follow up on warnings from security researchers? Unless the answer to each of those questions is "no", it is entirely fair to blame them.
- gph 12y ago
  I suppose what mostly bugs me is using the word hack. Calling something that appears to be targeted social engineering a hack seems wrong to me. I guess the definition of hacking has been rather fluid in recent years. Course that word has been redefined and misused for a very long time so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
  - transpy 12y ago
    If you can fire up the Task Manager in windows, you are considered a hacker in my circle of friends.

by gph 12y ago

parasubvert 12y ago

It's a David Carr opinion piece. The NYT generally protects its columnists, regardless of how bizarrely out of whack their statements may be (some exceptions exist, usually involving getting the public editor Margaret Sullivan involved). For example, have you read some of the things Joe Nocera has said about Apple (or others, for that matter)? The guy is basically a real life version of a liberal Stephen Colbert: being wrong is a sport!

pbreit 12y ago

First, the line is essentially accurate. Second, when you're storing so many potentially sensitive pictures, etc you have to be at the absolute top of your game with respect to keeping private things private. Not even remotely libel.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

akamaka 12y ago

If the claims that they ignored warnings are correct, I would indeed lay most of the blame on Apple: http://iphone.appleinsider.com/articles/14/09/25/researcher-accuses-apple-of-ignoring-icloud-brute-force-attack-for-6-months http://iphone.appleinsider.com/articles/14/09/25/researcher-... It may be the case that celebrities chose poor passwords, but how can you blame them? Did Apple enforce strong passwords? Did it allow an excessive password retry rate? Did it fail to follow up on warnings from security researchers? Unless the answer to each of those questions is "no", it is entirely fair to blame them.

gph 12y ago
I suppose what mostly bugs me is using the word hack. Calling something that appears to be targeted social engineering a hack seems wrong to me. I guess the definition of hacking has been rather fluid in recent years. Course that word has been redefined and misused for a very long time so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
- transpy 12y ago
  If you can fire up the Task Manager in windows, you are considered a hacker in my circle of friends.