"The other big issue highlighted by the Honan case is that it is way too easy for bad guys to wipe your Apple devices. In retrospect, it really seems like there should be more between having your laptop, phone, and tablet wiped than a single password. At the very least, a security question, but ideally something like a credit card number (compared against a stored hash), confirmation SMS to a pre-registered backup phone (spouse's phone, friend's phone, relative's phone, etc) or a confirmation robo-call to a work phone number."
That depends a lot on what kind of threats you're trying to protect yourself against. I suspect there's a lot of people for whom the correct response to a misplaced phone/laptop is "remote wipe immediately - if it turns up in the back seat of my car I'll just restore from backup - if was left in a plane/taxi/competitors-office/deacon I want everything o. It wiped _right now_!"
I bet if pg lost a laptop with emails/documents about current and prospective YC deals or exits, he'd rather not have to wait till a office hours robo-call gave him a remote-wipe-PIN.
It didn't work out for @mat, but I think "good backups and easy remote wipe" is a better default than "making remote wipe harder just in case your backups don't exist."
Comments
"The other big issue highlighted by the Honan case is that it is way too easy for bad guys to wipe your Apple devices. In retrospect, it really seems like there should be more between having your laptop, phone, and tablet wiped than a single password. At the very least, a security question, but ideally something like a credit card number (compared against a stored hash), confirmation SMS to a pre-registered backup phone (spouse's phone, friend's phone, relative's phone, etc) or a confirmation robo-call to a work phone number."
That depends a lot on what kind of threats you're trying to protect yourself against. I suspect there's a lot of people for whom the correct response to a misplaced phone/laptop is "remote wipe immediately - if it turns up in the back seat of my car I'll just restore from backup - if was left in a plane/taxi/competitors-office/deacon I want everything o. It wiped _right now_!"
I bet if pg lost a laptop with emails/documents about current and prospective YC deals or exits, he'd rather not have to wait till a office hours robo-call gave him a remote-wipe-PIN.
It didn't work out for @mat, but I think "good backups and easy remote wipe" is a better default than "making remote wipe harder just in case your backups don't exist."