Sysop.ca

So I’ve been avoiding iTunes for at least 5 years, simply because I was unwilling to relinquish control of my music. After recent issues with winamp’s support of my old iPod nano I finally decided to download the latest itunes and give it another whirl. I know I should have simply bought a non-apple mp3 player but this one was a gift and until it dies I’m going to keep using it. So far so good, my iPod has been behaving well and iTunes hasn’t been too annoying. As a nice bonus our new house has a central speaker system that I have the airport jacked into, so we can play our music from iTunes wirelessly to the house.

One side of me hates supporting the man and giving up control of my music but the other side is tired of constantly organizing and dealing with ripping CDs. iTunes is definitely a one stop shop for importing and managing my music. Damn you Apple!

I signed up for elance a few years ago when I was looking for work and thought of doing a little consulting. I never really saw any decent paying work on their site and really kinda forgot about them until I received this e-mail today.

Dear xxxx,

We recently learned that certain Elance user information was accessed without authorization, including potentially yours. The data accessed was contact information — specifically name, email address, telephone number, city location and Elance login information (passwords were protected with encryption). This incident did NOT involve any credit card, bank account, social security or tax ID numbers.

We have remedied the cause of the breach and are working with appropriate authorities. We have also implemented additional security measures and have strengthened password requirements to protect all of our users.

We sincerely regret any inconvenience or disruption this may cause.

If you have any unanswered questions and for ongoing information about this matter, please visit this page in our Trust & Safety center: http://www.elance.com/p/trust/account_security.html

For information on re-setting your password, visit: http://help.elance.com/forums/30969/entries/47262

Thank you for your understanding,

Michael Culver
Vice President
Elance

I commend them for going public with this rather embarrassing story, a lot of companies hide these events. However, I’m annoyed that all these companies that retain this kind of data really only care about security after this kind of thing happens.