The advantage of pulling the plug
Another story about iPad/AT&T (USA-only) subscribers getting hacked. The exploit was due to a bad security design on AT&T’s part, rather than any problem with the iPad itself (other than the fact that the iPad device is popular, and thus a target for hackers).
The core lesson here is that any networked data is likely to be vulnerable.
I remember a decade ago that the visionaries were saying that in the future, all data will be networked, and thus impervious to the usual problems with locally held data – you don’t have to worry about a disk crash or a house fire wiping out your photo albums.
However, the flip side of having everything up on the internet is that you are susceptible to getting hacked, and your data security compromised.
The Battlestar Galactica mantra of “no networked computers” seems to be quite relevant in the 21st century as well. The copy of Windows XP I have has probably a dozen unpublished exploits out on it, running a browser (Firefox) that likely has a ton of exploits and this website running WordPress has been known to be susceptible to spam-style attacks where hacks modify the script template for Google gaming purposes.
It seems the only valid security model these days is pulling the network jack out of the computer.