How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking
By Mat Honon
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.
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From Oscar®- and Emmy®-nominated filmmaker Kirby Dick (This Film Is Not Yet Rated; Twist of Faith) comes The Invisible War, a groundbreaking investigative documentary about one of America's most shameful and best kept secrets: the epidemic of rape within the U.S. military.
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Definitely not the smartest action taken by the protestor, but interesting how one can be charged with terroristic threats AND disorderly conduct.
Occupier charged with terroristic felony for protesting in front of bank
A protester belonging to an Occupy Wall Street group in rural Pennsylvania is being charged with felony attempted bank robbery and a terrorism-related charge for holding signs up during a demonstration at a local Wells Fargo branch.
David C. Gorczynski, 22, was charged on Tuesday with attempted bank robbery and terroristic threatening, both felonies, as well as one misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct. Police detained him after he walked into an Easton, PA Wells Fargo branch with a sign that read “You’re being robbed” and another that said “Give a man a gun, he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob a country.”
Gorczynski was at the Wells Fargo bank as part of a demonstration led by Occupy Easton, the small Pennsylvania town’s OWS offshoot.
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Good news.
Judge repeats: Parkway feeding can go on
A federal judge on Friday reaffirmed his July 12 order blocking enforcement of Mayor Nutter's rule banning groups from feeding homeless people along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
Within hours of the release of the 56-page opinion and preliminary injunction by District Judge William H. Yohn Jr., the Nutter administration filed notice of appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
At a hearing last month and in writing Friday, Yohn encouraged representatives of the city and four religious groups that challenged the June 1 ban to try to resolve the dispute for the good of the city and the homeless.
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Come on, which is it: Close on Sundays so you can go to church and be with your family or... use your religion to make more money on Sunday, your slow day?
Pa. eatery says business up after religion flap
The proprietor of a central Pennsylvania restaurant that made national headlines when its Sunday discount to anyone showing a church bulletin was challenged by a member of an atheist's group says the controversy hasn't hurt business.
snip
About a year ago, the restaurant started offering 10 percent discounts to diners who bring in a current church bulletin on Sundays. Prudhomme, who owns the establishment with husband David, said the promotion was designed to boost business on a traditionally slow business day.
Last month, John Wolff of Lancaster County filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission against the discount. Wolff, who is an atheist and member of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, said Prudhomme's should not give out discounts based on faith.
"I bear them no ill will, but they shouldn't be pushing religion," Wolff said.
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Comments
Good morning
h/t to triv33 for sending this to me.
Good Morning
Excellent Lewis Black clip!
Those Randian asshats need to be
reminded every damn day and in every way we can think of that not only is government NOT a dirty word, they could not fucking do without what it provides--so STOP trying to fuck it up for all of us!!!! m'kay?
Exactly.
Build your own roads and get the goods out to market if government is so terrible.
And pay for the education of your future
employees and the education of the people who will teach them.
Yep and the list goes on
It would be awesome to have a law where they decide to opt out of government services and they are beat down by the police(like OWS protesters are sadly) for using public roads and then sent to Somalia where their dream economy is.
I had a lot of fun last night. Thank you for hosting
a great party.
Warning: Heavy with videos, give it a few seconds to load.
Party On The Square- Hot Enough for Ya?
Good morning.
I can't remember if I mentioned this to you before, but did you see Chris Hayes on the Colbert show? He was really good.
And you must be happy that he was back today :)
Indeed, he was great on Colbert, but it was a bad show today
Obama's two main surrogates were on Maddow and MHP and it was all about waiting for Paul Ryan to speak so I made fun of Paul Ryan(who I do hate) even though I'd rather talk about other things.
I smell deep Kabuki.
Let's see, Obama (and we'll assume Dem Party leadership) wants to cut Medicare and Social Security. Now we get this Ryan fellow, the committee chairman who's put forth a plan doing just that, as Romney's VP.
That stage appears set. Lights, camera, action.
I feel ya, Big Al!
It is getting so damn hard to watch. It's not even good theater.
There is also this tidbit
Chickenhawks abound.
Ryan pick cements lack of military service in presidential race
Can't post replies
This time the issue came up on Chrome for the first time.
Anyway, thanks for the heads up, Glinda. I have Colbert on dvr--I'll watch.
I have to say, the church bulletin thing bugs me. I don't see it as a violation of anyone's rights for people with certain beliefs to do their thing. I know that religion is in the faces of atheists all the time, and that many times it is inappropriate. But I believe the push to take religion out of everything public and semi-public to be misguided, to be a form of attempted tyranny by the minority. I'm sorry, but it bugs me. I won't get into my more general thoughts about fundamentalist atheism. Often not much difference between wanting to impose no belief and wanting to impose specific beliefs. Anyway, I think that behavior creates polarization and hurts liberal causes in general with little worthwhile gained. Let people do their thing. People of religion have every right to find ways to congregate. I know it's a complex issue.
Geemoo, also Pete Seeger was interviewed on Colbert.
Great, great, great.
Moving on...
I do see it as discrimination in a public venue. Why can't I get the same discount as another person in a public place?
So a person sitting next to me orders waffles, I order the same thing but I pay more because I don't go to church.
Try again
I turned off the AJAX comments module. Try the browsers and see if you get errors.
Works for me, now ...
... in both Chrome and Firefox. Let me check, since I am on the basement computer with three browsers on it ...
... IE9 as well.
(Yesterday when trying to hit reply in the stock Android browser on my Nook Color ~ I'll check that out some other time, as its presently located two stories above my head at the moment)
As per below, it does depend in part on whether the ...
... the policy does in fact discriminate.
For example, a general policy to give a 10% discount to people with some form of church service bulletin doesn't discriminate against atheists and agnostics, provided that Unitarian bulletins are accepted ~ lots of Unitarians are atheists and agnostics.
If there was some form of order of service from a synagogue, would that work? Or a mosque printed up an order of service, would that be accepted? A Sikh or Buddhist temple?
Its when you start discriminating in favor of some denominations and/or religions and against others that it stops being appropriate for a restaurant selling to the general public.
So frustrating I can't reply
Safari, chrome, firefox--I get an error message every attempt top reply. What is that?
Anyway, here are my replies. I would love to be able to not pay the part of my taxes that goes to assault with intentional to do bodily harm in the many forms our government uses.
As to Kabuki, yep. Obama will have to compromise with the Rep V-P candidate who never stood a chance of winning nation-wide support. It'll show how mature he is.
Same here geomoo, can't reply.
I don't know about safari and chrome and all that, but I did say Abacadabra, that didn't work either.
Ummmm. I have no trouble replying.
I'm using Firefox.
All I can suggest at this point, although I'm going to report this problem, is close out of all brower windows, come back and try again ???? Sorry, that's all I got.
It's fascinating to me that people who are and will be affected
by the cuts to Medicare and SS, will willingly vote for Romney/Ryan. Then again, it's also fascinating that people who are and will be affected by Obama's wars and pivot toward full blown Empire and confrontation of Russia and China, will willingly vote for Obama/Biden.
Or is it just that the lessor of two evils is in the eye of the beholder?
h/t to Cassiodorus
What Paul Ryan Has and Obama Wants
That article says it all
What Paul Ryan Has and Obama Wants.
It's not that complicated, but it's good to see it spelled out plainly.
Amen.
For entertainment value only:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19222053
Mitt introduces new VP running mate as "the next PRESIDENT" of the United States. Too funny!
Reply to Glinda
Come on, are you dying to go eat at a restaurant filled with folks who just came from church and are proud of it? Why insist on rights that you actually have no interest in? I'm sorry, but to me that's just fucking with people because you don't respect what they do (not pointing at you personally, natch).
Reply to Geomoo
Oh, we definitely disagree here.
What's next? Ten restaurants in "your" area offer discounts to married couples in a state that outlawed marriage between gay couples. Would that be okay?
My whole point, and I'm probably not making it very well, is enough already of trying to make people feel different, not as "good" as other people, not worthy of being treated equal: No discounts for you because you don't meet my standards.
Of course I'm not equating a financial discount to equal rights for gay marriage, or racism, discounts for white people only, nothing like that, but enough already, you walk into a store, a restaurant, a public place -- public, why wouldn't we expect to be treated equally?
Praise Allah, I can reply on this computer
Yes, we definitely disagree. I'm used to holding this minority view among liberals. This is what I question: "enough already of trying to make people feel different". Celebrating one's own views is not the same as making other people feel different. Church-goers today are actually in the minority.
Let me pose a hypothetical case with different specifics but the same principles, and tell me if you have the same attitude. Suppose an organic food store offered a 10% discount to people who showed they had just come from donating clothing to the annual drive. Would you find that offensive, as discriminating against people who don't believe in charity or who don't have clothes to give? If so, then we'll agree to disagree on the basis of principle. But if this strikes you as different, then I challenge that you are being inconsistent. In fact, what I sense is that to many liberals, it is the church goers who are less than, who are foolish sheep believing in fairy tales. It is certainly easy enough to find scornful language on this topic.
Yes, I would find that to be unfair, too.
Another example not having to do with religion, a couple years ago a big box store with their own credit card posted ads in the newpapers with coupons: X percentage off if you buy Y with your store credit card.
I thought that was extremely unfair, too. Bob lost his job, is behind in bills, his credit score tanked, so he can't qualify for that discount because he can't get the credit card.
Bob has to buy school clothes for his kids, but the guy standing next to him didn't lose his job, qualified for the credit card, so he gets the discount.
Same public store, same merchandise, but two people paying different amounts.
Granted, yes, yes, that many, if not all, credit cards offer points for this and that. That's one thing.
But a public store to buy a pair a pants, one person gets a discount but the other person paying cash doesn't.
By the way, this store got a lot of complaints over this policy, and they've since changed it and made it equal for everyone. Although they do give perks in another way if you have the credit card. But everyone pays the same discounted price for that pair of pants.
I witnesseed security theater yesterday
At the Orlando airport. After we had all disrobed and had our belongings and persons scanned, just as we boarded, a TSA agent set himself up in the boarding line and started ramdomly picking people out to rifle through their shit.
I asked my friend, who had just had his gym bag searched, what legitimate purpose did that serve? Anybody? I'm at a loss.
I have no reasonable explanation.
`
good afternoon.... so the firing guy marries the
food stamp cutter. what a ticket! methinks Mitt just needs a patsy to blame his loss on...
not that any of that is really news worth caring about... :D
Well, Allah zapped my response ability
This is reply to you, Glinda. I salute your consistency and I stand corrected on the assumptions I was making about your attitude. The way you describe it, it does make sense and I could be persuaded. I would still say that not everyone who is eager to attack this restaurant shares your understanding. It is disingenuous to pretend that liberals, particular atheists, are tolerant of religious people. I used to have marathon debates with RandomActsofReason, carrying on long after the thread was dead. Once during one of these which was still active, another user jumped in and opined as how these aggressive atheists would be fascist-like were they to be in power. I agree with that assessment. I'll leave aside that believing you know there is no god is no more defensible than believing there definitely is a god. In fact, at least religious people call it faith and don't pretend they've figured it all out. But that aside, my critique lies in the notion that the mere fact of other people expressing themselves in the public sphere somehow impinges on one's own rights, that to me is anathema to the tolerant, liberal society I wish to work toward. Underlying much criticism of religion, to me, is very real scorn, scorn which is not justified in the least by a certainty of being right.
All the damage done by the religious right, all the blurring of the lines between church and state--I think these issues should be kept carefully separate from accepting that people who believe what may be nonsense have the right to be treated with respect, and to have the expression of their beliefs be alive and well in the public sphere. This is a sticky, complex issue. I don't know if I have expressed myself well enough. I'll just end with a critique of an attitude I feel I see often with liberals: "Because I'm reality-based and tolerant, it is my right to limit your participation in the public sphere." Something like that. The blind spot, to me, is in feeling justified in being intolerant toward those who have lost their right to be treated respectfully. It's hard, but if we want a culture of respect, we need to commit to that.
You have shown me that perhaps this example is different. I would still like to see the liberal response if some libertarians attempted to stop the example I gave. I think you would find yourself in the minority.
Another example
Now most grocery stores offer discounts only available to people who have a discount card for that store. These cards are easy to get, and often enough the cashier will run her own card through if you don't have one. But I hate these things--they amount to penalizing people who don't want to participate in data collection. I'm assuming, Glinda, that you agree that this is yet another example of what we are discussing, and that you are against these cards. In any case, I would like to see how much liberal outrage one could drum up against this instance of some people getting a discount that other people don't get. I doubt you would find anything approaching the passion for the principle being claimed in the case of church-goers getting something.
Regartding the grocery stores (and drugstores),
there is no need to give your real information. Sign up for the card, get your card, but the info you fill in does NOT have to valid.
I know, because I never fill in my real information, yet I still get the discounts on their sale ads with the card in my hand that I got without revealing my personal information. The grocery stores and drug stores don't require validation of personal information. Unless you want check cashing privileges.
Bottom line, I don't think that's an analogous argument because you don't have to give your personal information in order to get those cards.
I have one more example for you of the public not being
treated equally.
Sweepstakes. I'm sure you're familiar with the "no purchase necessary" rule in order to enter one's name in a sweepstakes.
I can't say that I understand this rule/law very well, but I do know that people didn't have to buy anything to enter their name in the sweepstakes, as there was always a workaround.
However, there is something new going on that I absolutely detest, and that has to do with Facebook.
A perfect example: I'm a customer of Amazon, and I pay $79.00 a year for Amazon Prime, meaning everything I order through Amazon Prime, I receive in two days.
Amazon Prime a little while ago offered "free" movies and TV show streaming for Amazon Prime customers. Pretty cool.
Okay, so I'm paying for quicker shipping and free movies and TV shows. That is a service I chose to pay for.
But then... Amazon offered up a sweepstakes of some kind, prizes, prizes, prizes.
BUT -- I could not enter the sweepstakes without creating a Facebook account and going through Facebook.
I wrote to Amazon and told them I wanted to enter their sweepstakes, but they told me I had to have a Facebook account and enter the sweepstakes through Facebook.
Now all of a sudden, a third party is involved. I would have to give my information to one of the most intrusive companies in the world, Facebook, in order to be eligible to enter an Amazon Sweepstakes.
That sucks.
Either Amazon has found a loophole in the ...
... sweepstakes laws, or they are flouting them, imagining that the sweepstakes laws don't apply to them.
I don't know which I would put at short odds, there, given the massive number of consumer and labor protection laws on the books that are simply flouted by venders and employers.
I attempted to look up the applicable laws, and found
this link, but had to step away for bit. I'm going to do some more research tomorrow.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2243/why-do-contests-say-no-pur...
regarding the Romney/Ryan ticket - to paraphrase Churchill
Never was so much stolen from so many by so few..........
yeah, that's all mine..........
Regarding Church Bulletin discounts ...
... for me, it depends on whether they discriminate. If some denominations / religions "count" and others don't, then a restaurant that is open to the general public shouldn't do it.
If they accept any "church" program, Christian church, Sikh temple, Jewish synagogue, Muslim mosque ... and they accept a church program from a Unitarian church, so they don't dimscriminate against agnostics or atheists ... then there's nothing wrong with it.
If some religions count and others don't, that's discriminatory.
Yeah, but atheists don't go to Unitarian churches.
~
HEY AIGEANTA! DOWN HERE!
Sorry, same error message.
On the grand conspiracy that told Romney to pick ...
... Ryan as part of a plot for Romney to lose and then for Obama to cut Social Security ...
... what is the evidence in favor of that over (1) rich people pushing for the rollback of Social Security investing in effective propagandists and getting their focus-group-tested messaging entrenched into the status quo discussion of Social Security over the course of thirty years (2) a Hedge Fund Democrat pushing for the fictitious benefits of "deficit reduction" because he has bought the establishment story hook, line and sinker and (3) a Republican candidate seeing the race moving against him and seeing a need to gin up the base making the base-friendly pick?
One reason a status quo establishment is so much more robust than a grand conspiracy is that it doesn't need a single master committee meeting in secret to come up with the strategy, it only needs individual groups that have a vested interest in the status quo to engage in their own private deliberations, and the end result is as if there was some grand conspiracy to maintain the status quo.