Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Email ID leak still well below the national average

Gawker reports that some hackers broke into AT&T’s network and stole email addresses for 114,000 people. Then the hackers called Gawker to crow about it.

Let’s stop and think about this for a moment.

First, 114,000 accounts breached is still a very small number when you consider that we’ve sold more than 2 million iPads, and even smaller when you consider that there are 300 million people in the United States, and 1.3 billion people in China. Basically we’re talking about less than one-one-hundredth of one percent of the U.S. population here. So let’s all take a deep breath and remember this is not a big deal.

Second, the people who did this broke the fucking law! Now they want to be treated like heroes because they call themselves “Goatse Security,” like they’re some kind of legitimate security consultants? Yeah. Good luck with that.

Third, is this Gawker’s new business model? Colluding with people who steal stuff? Really? Well, here’s an idea. Try breaking into the houses of celebrities, stealing their stuff, then running pictures of the stolen goods on your blog under a headline that says, “Huge security breach discovered at Jack Nicholson’s mansion.”

Then, when the cops arrive, tell them that they can’t come into your office, because you’re a journalist, and you’re not going to tell them who broke into the mansion, because you’re a journalist, and the whole point was not to steal stuff but to make a point about how easy it is to steal stuff.

Because you’re a journalist, and this is what journalists do. They steal shit and write about it, and then blame the people they stole from for not having better burglar alarms.

Fuck you, Gawker. FBI should be arriving at Ryan Tate’s house in three, two, one …