I want to spare you some of the pain that recently greeted me after a night out with friends. I returned to my car to find the rear window smashed out and my backpack gone. It contained my brand new MacBook and iPad.
The worry, of course, was whether my backpack was in the hands of tech-savvy crooks, so I prepared for the worst.
What I learned over a long weekend about my own approach to security is the subject of this week’s Kahney’s Korner.
After the break-in, I realized I’d done a few things right, and a few things wrong. I had two-factor authentication turned on, and had logged my devices with Find My iPhone, which allowed me to remotely wipe them. Trouble is, the thief never connected them to the Internet.
That made me worried about what I’d done wrong. For starters, leaving my backpack in the car.
In addition, the login password for the MacBook was turned off. Although I went to great pains to create a complex 21-character password, I allowed my kids to turn it off while they did their homework. Tired of logging in with the long password, the young Kahneys disabled it. Easy for them, and for any hacker who got their hands on the machine.
So I had to spend a very long weekend doing triage. It was a huge pain in the ass, but you can learn from my mistakes.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander is an expert on:
Apple and Apple history
Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Tim Cook and Apple leadership
Apple community
iPhone and iOS
iPad and iPadOS
Mac and macOS
Apple Watch and watchOS
Apple TV and tvOS
AirPods
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
22 responses to “Kahney’s Korner: Lessons from having my MacBook stolen”
What was your backpack with a brand new MacBook and an iPad doing in the back seat of your car? If I know I will not be able to carry my backpack with me it goes into my trunk while I am inside my office so nobody will see it is there.
Never leave your devices anywhere in the car. Some people have scanners to find them. A laptop in the trunk is always a no go.
it can be ok in cooler climates but I still don’t….Please explain these scanners….if the laptop is off how could it be “found” ? link?
Please don’t put background music on a video where the speaker is what we want to hear. Other than that, thank you for the advice!
Your kids use the same account on your mac as you do? Really? REALLY?
Did you record the audio onto a wax cylinder?
Finally solved the audio problem. The new Kahney’s Korners will have glorious audio. Thank you for watching.
I think he used a carrot as a microphone
“Kahney’s Korner: Lessons from having my MacBook stolen”
PLEASE tell me how a guy who has his own “Korner”, who works for Cult of Mac, and sports a “Security Badge” logo(!)… leaves his devices in a car, not even protected with passcodes?! Don’t you even know about having different accounts on your Macbook for kids? Do you actually get a salary from Cult of Mac, or do you pay •them• just to hang around?
Incidentally, it’s a no-brainer to anyone who works with these devices on a daily basis that Find My Device or Erase My Device will absolutely not work if not connected to the Internet. That’s REALLY old news, and you, of all people, should have known better.
Sorry, but advice from •you• on this subject is ridiculous. I’m now out of your Korner.
Ahm… I think Mr. Kahney IS Cult of Mac. He can do what he damned well likes.
Kudos to Mr. K for admitting he did something so dumb. Not every Mac pundit would stand up and reveal themselves to be mortal.
As for the ‘Security Badge’, ever heard of something called irony ? And he’s aware that Find My Device won’t work without an internet connection: that’s the point he’s making.
No, it’s not smart to leave your backpack in the car or allow your kids to switch off your PW. But it takes cojones to admit it to the world.
So enough with the criticism, already.
have to disagree there it NEVER something you do….period…
BS. Owner or not, CofM has issued hundreds (if not more) articles about how to stay secure, not to mention being among the first tech sites to lambast Apple for security issues. Cajones? For what?
It would be like getting an email from the president of Chase bank saying to be careful, explaining that he lost his identity because he never changed his password from his birthday to something more complex. If Agilebits founder Dave Teare posted that he just learned he should have relied on his own great product 1Password, or he might not have gotten his passwords stolen, CofM and the whole tech world would have a field day. Sorry, but being the owner of CofM (if he truly is), makes it even worse. The criticism is valid
Gosh. When someone begins their reply with the word ‘Bullshit’ it really puts you in your place, doesn’t it !
Then there’s the “issuing of hundreds (IF NOT MORE !)” edicts by CoM on how to stay safe. Hardly a day goes by at CoM HQ without Kahney and Co cooking up ever stricter papal bull(s), on the topic while basking in their own simple frail humanity.
“Look’ you thunder, ‘go on, just LOOK at the number of books Mr Kahney has written about Apple and Macs. And he screwed up. That makes me right, doesn’t it ? And if I’m right Kahney is wrong and so must be thrown out of paradise. Or has he jumped before the tech press, sniffing blood (or BS ?) and circling round for the kill, waited to see who would be first to push Kahney off the top of his pedastal, so that he falls like Lucifer, as a lesson to all other Macpundits ?”
About two thousand years a thoughtful young bloke got nailed to a tree for suggesting that the world might be a marginally better place if people started being nice to each other. But before this happened he was asked whether it was right to stone an adulteress to death. ‘Sure, he replied. ‘And whichever of you is without guilt can chuck the first stone’.
So, before we defenestrate or crucify Mr. K, may I suggest we take a quiet moment to reflect how often we have walked down the street with a password-free iPhone, or omitted to switch on a firewall, or used the same simple password for a dozen accounts.
Can anyone find a stone ? Pebble ? Handful of grit ?
I thought not.
You’re making all my points for me. Many books written about Apple devices, runs a site that almost daily posts information about how to be as secure as possible—including advertising deals for services and products to aid in just that—but not enough sense to follow his own advice. Then posts his experience as a warning to readers. And you, an apologist, for no apparent reason.
Spin this any way you wish. You’re obviously invested in the Cult, and therefore you must be right. Many thanks for setting me straight, and all the respondents above and below who agree with me in part or whole. Now we’ve all been duly corrected.
“You’re almost making my points for me”
No, I’m not. Not by any stretch of any imagination.
“You’re obviously invested in the Cult”
No I’m not. Read my previous posts.
All the respondents above and below…agree with me in part or whole
No they don’t. My comments were solely on your posting.
“Now we’ve all been duly corrected” If you consider my correction due, then we have no problem.
But that’s me over and out on this topic. Peace and love to all.
@Jack… Face it, Jack. You’re wrong, and most respondents agree. Nothing in your last post is worth responding to, save these: Your use of ad hominem is incorrect, and “duly” has nothing to do with “due” in the context it was used. Otherwise, your word-smithed response is just silly and argumentative. Q.E.D. (Look it up.)
By the way, your valediction “Peace and love to all” is as childish as the rest of your post. It is not only inappropriate, but obviously insincere.
If you need extra income with average of 50-300 dollars a day for doing basic work at your home for 3-4 h each day then this may interest you…
PEOPLE don’t leave ANYTHING in your car you do now want stolen. I don’t even leave my charge cable because it tells people there’s PROBABLY an apple device in the glove box more than likely. Owner’s fault for leaving it there, I take my computer bag in the store with me or wherever I need to leave the vehicle but still need my laptop with me like if on my way to a meeting or whatever….at a bare minimum lock it in the trunk but watch the heat possibility…..
I agree. The criticism is well placed. This is a case of a person not taking the same advice he gives to others. To me that calls his character into question. This is not something I would have chosen to share with the world and humiliate myself with. Lessen learned? I should hope so. However this lesson needent have been learned if he practiced what he preached.
Thanks for sharing your unfortunate event. It just shows that we can easily slip into complacency with our security. One comment about the video…the music overdub was horribly annoying!
Meh
Beware: “Nonlinear junction detectors” can see your hardware, even when turned off.