A VC - Latest Comments in Losing A Phone - A Social Media Security Breach?

Re: Losing A Phone - A Social Media Security Breach?

fredwilson — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 07:43:03 -0000

Thanks so much

I wish I had been able to use your service a bit more

Re: Losing A Phone - A Social Media Security Breach?

pfreet — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 07:37:33 -0000

There is a company in Atlanta working on a really cool solution to this problem. Not completely sure if it could help here, but I like what they're doing: http://www.imhonest.com

Re: Losing A Phone - A Social Media Security Breach?

Alasdair — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:47:57 -0000

There's a Singapore startup with a nice solution to this problem. www.wavesecure.com

Re: Losing A Phone - A Social Media Security Breach?

Mark Jambas — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 18:52:04 -0000

hehe we have separate teams who look after email support and to the ones who look after blogs, and we both saw this one about the same time :-) Thought you and your readers might appreciate an answer on your blog rather than email in case others have the same question.

ShoZu will now be completely deactivated and if anybody tries to do an upload it will just throw an error and tell them it's not activated. Any feeds and sites on ShoZu's home screen will also vanish.

Hope this helps.

Best,
Jambo

mark.jambas@shozu.com

Re: Losing A Phone - A Social Media Security Breach?

Jason Preston — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:15:34 -0000

I alternately use Hahlo and PocketTweets on my phone for twitter, and it's been a gripe of mine that Hahlo signs me out once over week and I have to re-enter my information.

But I hadn't thought of it from a theft perspective. It's probably a good feature in case anyone else ends up with my phone...

Re: Losing A Phone - A Social Media Security Breach?

fredwilson — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:09:09 -0000

And thanks Mark

I just de-activated my account. Making it a lot less likely that someone
will be posting to this blog from my lost N95

Re: Losing A Phone - A Social Media Security Breach?

fredwilson — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:07:05 -0000

It's interesting that I sent an email to shozu support yesterday about 10
minutes after I realized that I had lost the phone and got back a
acknowledgement but nothing else since. But my support question was answered
by a Shozu representative on my own blog! I am not sure if that's good news
or bad news, but its interesting nonetheless.

Re: Losing A Phone - A Social Media Security Breach?

gregorylent — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:26:11 -0000

oh, it completely wont function... forgot

Re: Losing A Phone - A Social Media Security Breach?

gregorylent — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:25:20 -0000

i'll call it

Re: Losing A Phone - A Social Media Security Breach?

Mark Jambas — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 13:26:02 -0000

Hey there Fred,

Sorry to hear that you lost your phone, but alas, here at ShoZu we have definitely thought of everything including a way to remotely deactivate your phone :-)

Just log in to www.shozu.com on your computer, click the "My account" tab at the top, then "Application setup", then "Deactivate ShoZu on my phone"

ShoZu on your phone does not connect directly with your Facebook, Flickr, blog, etc, it goes through our server in the middle first which is what makes all of its functionality possible. So the good thing about all this is that you can step in here in the middle and totally deactivate it as well. You can then use your old account on any other phone you decide to install ShoZu onto, and all of your old settings will sync up with that device.

Hope you manage to recover the phone but I fear it might have become a permanent part of the Paris tarmac by now!

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Best,
Jambo

mark.jambas@shozu.com
http://shozu.vox.com

Re: Losing A Phone - A Social Media Security Breach?

ukleafer — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:31:05 -0000

I'd do it now, pre-emptively, in case someone gets there first and changes them, thus effectively taking ownership.

Re: Losing A Phone - A Social Media Security Breach?

kenberger — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 11:05:39 -0000

REMOTE DATA WIPE- a point in favor of WinMo phones.

My AT&T Tilt disappeared in Cambodia, more likely loss than theft. I went to my Exchange account and issued the data wipe command. A couple months later I saw acknowledgment that the command went through (I guess it took that long for someone to find it and get it online).

Problem solved.

Re: Losing A Phone - A Social Media Security Breach?

Marcel Weiss — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:41:18 -0000

That's one of a thousand reasons why Twitter really needs to finally implement an API-key. (though they're busy with other more fundamental stuff right now obviously)

Re: Losing A Phone - A Social Media Security Breach?

Abe Murray — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:19:59 -0000

I use a PIN to secure my iPhone - similar reasons as earlier posters. However, I find it frustrating to enter my PIN nearly every time I open my phone. It would be much cooler to have one of the following:

- a "gesture" that unlocked the phone - could use my muscle memory to do this, wouldn't be much more work than unlocked iPhone swipe, and would be hard for anyone else to replicate

- a "soft lock" system that periodically required the PIN, and shut down access failing to get it. This way you aren't hampered in regular usage, but know that it wouldn't stay open for too long out of your hands. (The iPhone kind of does this, but the delay isn't configurable enough and is too short)

Cooler would be an RFID jewelry piece that synced to the phone and locked it automatically out of range. :-).

Re: Losing A Phone - A Social Media Security Breach?

Dan Weinreb — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 08:22:40 -0000

I just heard a talk from a guy who has developed a forensics package for the iPhone. It is stunning how much info you can recover if you obtain someone's iPhone. Consider that flash-memory file systems go to lots of trouble to allocate new files in empty spaces, rather then overwriting old files, due to the write limitations of flash technology, for example. If you get tired of your iPhone, don't give it away or sell it; apply a shotgun to it.

Re: Losing A Phone - A Social Media Security Breach?

Ben Ortega — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 07:28:45 -0000

I hate losing a phone.

In the past if you lost your phone, you were really upset because it had all your phone numbers. Today, your life is on that device. Pictures, videos, contact information, access to your social circles, and access to your "voice".

Good luck recovering.

Re: Losing A Phone - A Social Media Security Breach?

seamusmccauley — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 06:57:58 -0000

This is a pretty flimsy excuse for whatever outrageously controversial thing you're planning to say later today :)

Re: Losing A Phone - A Social Media Security Breach?

Andy Warren — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 06:46:14 -0000

Social Identity theft huh? They may not take out a loan in your name but they could create a personality variant.

Given the ubiquity of social networks and the much debated longevity of anything posted on the web (especially those sites without a real delete option) this could be one of the most significant threats of the future. With more and more employers using social networks as a research device to identify character flaws, past indiscretions and questionable views this could be a whole lot more damaging than a bad credit record.

Like Identity Theft, security is only as good as the weakest link in the chain (which these days seems to be major retailers, banks and government departments). Social Identity Theft will suffer the same issues. The credit card companies and banks have found that it's still better for them to make it easy to take a credit card or get a loan and take the hit on ID theft and bad debt than it is to make loans and credit cards hard to get hold of (thus reducing spending and interest payments). I suspect the social networks will find the same, as the number of entries to Twitter may significantly decline if you have to go through a 5 level security check and give your mother's maiden name and date of birth for each entry. And a Facebook retina scan may not be a popular option either.

Perhaps there's a gap in the market for an equivalent of Experian or Equifax to develop a centralised "Social Credit Score", so you can check to see what opinions have been published by you (or someone pretending to be you).

Re: Losing A Phone - A Social Media Security Breach?

fredwilson — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 06:23:33 -0000

you can't call it. i messed up and bought a north american version of the phone that doesn't work on european networks. i didn't even realize that they still made phones that don't roam automatically. my blackberries have always worked perfectly well in europe

Re: Losing A Phone - A Social Media Security Breach?

MarkHarrison — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 06:22:42 -0000

I'm not sure that your assumption that more mobiles are lost than laptops is true.

The issue of lost laptops containing Government data is a very hot one in the UK at the moment.

In written answers to a series of questions by Members of Parliament earlier this year, various government departments have admitted to losing over 1,000 laptops and almost 500 mobile phones since 2001.

The Ministry of Defence alone has admitted to having lost 96 laptops and 82 mobile over that period.

Now, it may be that civil servants carry disproportionately more laptops than mobiles, or are disproportionately careless, but it's not intuitive that this would be the case :-)

Re: Losing A Phone - A Social Media Security Breach?

fredwilson — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 06:22:09 -0000

that's exactly what i will do if someone starts posting into my accounts

Re: Losing A Phone - A Social Media Security Breach?

fredwilson — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 06:21:36 -0000

i was using it as a camera. it didn't work as a phone over here

Re: Losing A Phone - A Social Media Security Breach?

fredwilson — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 06:20:49 -0000

fake fred hasn't shown up yet. if he/she does, i'll let you know

Re: Losing A Phone - A Social Media Security Breach?

Conor O'Neill — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 04:54:31 -0000

The YouGetItback guys here in Cork, Ireland have built a solution to this problem on phones and laptops. I have their Mobile Superhero app installed on my N95-8GB. If the phone is lost/stolen, they can remotely lock it down and display a "please ring this number to arrange to return the phone to its owner". It has some very very smart features coming in the near future too.

Re: Losing A Phone - A Social Media Security Breach?

nikan — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 03:27:17 -0000

Sorry to hear this. I suppose you don't want to change the twitter and shozu passwords and that is why you want twibble and shozu deactivated. Nevertheless, it would be wise to change them anyhow for, even if the app providers block access to your account, your passwords stay in the device and who know what one might do with them.