I got hacked mid-air while writing an Apple-FBI story

[mitty14u2]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Goblinmonger (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: USA Today

“I don’t really need to worry about online privacy,” I used to think. “I’ve got nothing to hide. And who would want to know what I’m up to, anyway?”

Just before midnight last Friday, my plane touched down in Raleigh after a three-hour flight from Dallas. As usual, I’d spent much of the flight working, using American Airlines Gogo in-flight Internet connection to send and answer emails. As I was putting on my jacket, a fellow in the row behind me, someone I hadn’t even noticed before, said: “I need to talk to you.” A bit taken aback, I replied, “It’s late … need to get home.”

“I hacked your email on the plane and read everything you sent and received. I did it to most people on the flight.” He had verbatim detail of a long email that he repeated back to me essentially word for word.

I asked Abdo what we could to do protect our privacy. This is what he told me:

Call your representatives in Congress and on a statewide level and express your support for Apple in this case. Here’s a list of all U.S. members of the House and Senate. https://www.congress.gov/members

Make sure your devices are using their built-in encryption features. That’s FileVault for Apple devices and BitLocker on Windows products.

Use a password manager to help you create and store different — and strong — passwords for all your accounts. Don’t use the same password repeatedly, and don’t ever use passwords like “password” or “123456.” Some popular ones include DashLane, LastPass, and Sticky Password.

Download WhatsApp, Telegram, or Signal, messaging apps that go great distances in encrypting voice and electronic messages. Keep in mind that even they are not 100% secure.


Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2016/02/24/got-hacked-my-mac-while-writing-story/80844720/

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IPhone, the Republican Dominated congress is going to make it a law that providers must leave a back door so Government will be able to hack your devices at will! The Media is giving you less than half the story and Government Authorities are giving you even less...................

[rjsquirrel]

1. He packet sniffed the wifi lol

Could happen to you in any coffee shop.

Or he read it over your shoulder and decided to play you. But it wouldn't be hard.

Email is never secure. Ask Hillary.

Wifi is also never truly secure. Even encrypted connections can be intercepted with forged certificates.

[nashville_brook]

6. +1000000

[catrose]

18. Is he correct about the way to avoid that?

As far as packet sniffing goes, I mean.

[EdwardBernays]

2. The only way in the future

To protect your privacy will be encryption. But considering that the US government has had a hand in developing so many encryption tools... Well even that is a long shot.

Of course you could always just send a letter through the mail.

[A Simple Game]

3. Did he hack you or just peek around the back of your seat? n/t

[ChairmanAgnostic]

4. I've read that the best password is "incorrect"

Not so, huh?

[sdfernando]

15. I've toyed with the following stupid idea.

Most, like 99.999999% login prompts obscure the password when you type it.. You usually will see "******" for the input. So my idea was to set the password to all asterisks or *********. Really it is kind of funny but not useful or practical and woefully insecure. But I do get a chuckle out of it.

[0rganism]

17. let's see: dictionary word, all lower case alpha, repeated "c", consecutive "r"s...

nope, not so great
something like !ncorREC+ would be better, naturally it's harder to type

[William Seger]

5. Bad reporting is not helping anything

Hacking email sent or received on a public wi-fi has nothing to do with the FBI/Apple dispute, and the FBI is not asking Apple to put a "back door" in the iPhone.

[MADem]

7. Really--I am no computer expert, but this didn't "make the connection" for me, either.

I tend to believe that the internet just isn't secure. I try to limit my exposure but there's only so much you can do. The safest form of communication is a face to face whisper!!!

[nichomachus]

8. Pro-surveillance posting isn't helping either n/t

[William Seger]

12. "Pro-surveillance posting" ?!

Apparently, you think this is an important issue but not important enough to require any actual facts.

[Warren Stupidity]

10. Well, the fib is using the SB situation as a pr

event in the governments campaign to get all providers of encryption enabled software or hardware to include "back doors" the government can use to decrypt anything.

[ToxMarz]

9. I don't understand why he would have told him he hacked his email

[GreatGazoo]

11. To me, that airplane story lacks the feel of truth.

Who says this "“I hacked your email on the plane and read everything you sent and received. I did it to most people on the flight.”

Would this seem equally true: "Um hi, can you stop squirming and screaming for a second? I need to talk to you...I just shot you in the foot because I want to talk to you about gun safety..."

[nilram]

16. How would he know that that email came from the guy in front of him?

If he was packet sniffing, as others have suggested, then the packets don't have anything except the machine id, not a picture of the person or the seat number.

[JDPriestly]

13. The problem with the FBI's proposal to have backdoors into electronic devices is that it

will create more crime, and not just cyber-crime, but even violent crime and theft and fraud than we now have.

Once you have backdoors into electronic devices, the electronic communications of judges, firemen, doctors, Homeland security officers (private devices), airline pilots, nurses, teachers, police officers, and on and on and on are also hackable. And I don't think I need to persuade anyone that it is the electronic devices of those people who are key to our personal and national security that will be hacked first and perhaps even regularly and not necessarily just by people in the United States.

Cybersecurity is vital to our national security. Hackable electronic devices are a national security risk.

[getagrip_already]

14. simple solution...

use a vpn. That encrypts all your traffic going out over wifi. There are lots of ways to jack a public wifi signal, but if you are using a vpn it's worthless to the attacker.

There are a lot of them. Many can be used with ios or android as wellas windows.

This has been known for years by the way. Email, especially BES, isn't inherently insecure. Open wifi is.

[Goblinmonger]

19. Locking

Please feel free to repost in GD.

Thank you.