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It wasn't secure enough for the author of this article.



Not really an average person isn't he?


How is he not an average person, as far as security goes?

1) he didn't use a password app

2) he thought google drive was a safe place for his stuff

3) he thought google drive was a secure place for his stuff

All three things, which I would bet are fairly common assumptions (the last 2 are certainly part of Google's marketing!), turned out to bite him.


He is a public personality and in that role has been related to Bitcoin. And he also has his phone number and email publicly visible on the internet.

https://gizmodo.com/a-tv-anchor-tries-to-gift-bitcoin-on-air...

It seems like this only happens to people who have poor opsec about their email addresses, phone numbers, and are publicly related to the cryptocurrency movement. I mean, I'm sure it happens to other people, but that's the only case I've ever heard about.

I would personally be wary about publicly listing the email I use with my bank, or my phone number, and I've done what I can to scrub the internet of these values. If you have to be publicly reachable through a medium other than Facebook or Twitter, have a separate email and phone number through which you conduct your serious personal business. But most people do not need this kind of public reachability, or else have it through work. For those types of people, it would behoove them to keep their profile small.


Before the identity theft occurred, what about the the author made him particularly "not average"? Being an early twitter adopter or something?


I wouldn't call a writer for ZDnet who probably has a very public persona an average JOE.


A writer for ZDnet might be a public figure, but to call him "very public" seems like a stretch. There are probably millions of people as public or more than him.




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