“Security concerns are giving some consumers another reason to hold off on the Kindle Fire, one of the holiday’s hottest gadgets,” Mark W. Smith reports for The Detroit Free Press.
“Concerns grew this week over the device’s security,” Smith reports. “In order to use the Fire, users must tie it to an Amazon.com account — with credit card on file — that is set up to purchase items with just one click. This means that anyone given access to the device can buy, with just a tap, e-books, apps, TV shows and music.”
“Even more concerning: If a user has recently logged into the Amazon.com shopping app, the next person who picks up the Fire can use that app to buy anything from the Web giant’s catalog, even if the device has briefly gone dormant between uses,” Smith reports. “Also concerning to some, the Fire’s homescreen includes a carousel of all of a user’s most-recently touched content. When a user opens a book, it will revert to the front of the carousel. When a user then browses to a website, a screen grab of that website heads to the front of the carousel. That carousel is not editable by the user, so there’s no way to hide any of your recent activity from other users.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “GetMeOnTop ” for the heads up.]
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This Kindle Fire thing is just a cash register to buy from Amazon!
Exactly, they should pay you for that kind of access to your wallet.
OK… Don’t EVER lose your Kindle Fire, get it stolen, or let anyone else even touch it.
What’s the problem…? 🙂
All the stuff a “tea leaf” buys is going to get sent to your address … isn’t it.
Not sure about the “one-click” purchases, but it is very easy to direct Amazon to send a regular order somewhere different from the billing address.
And my iPad is linked to iTunes, which has my credit card.
…. it may be linked to iTunes, but you can make it require a password before making purchases. That option does not appear to exist on the Fire.
And NO requirement to have a CC on file. I don’t.
Read the article, the fire requires a CC on file… And you can’t remove it.
And so is my Mac. But iTunes asks me for authentication (user name and password) to make a purchase (or even a free download), even if iTunes is logged into my account.
Any your iPad can have a security code to lock it, requires your password for purchases and can be restricted to disallow access to various functionality such as purchasing.
Bezos saves money hiring 2nd class software developers?
Am I right?
Or they spent so much effort “de-Googling” an older version of Android (2.3), and making it Amazon-centric, that they forgot about some commonsense “user-centric” stuff.
You think *developers* made the decision to not include a password and go with a OneClick purchase system? Or that no one raised the issue during QA testing?
No, this has management and executive orders all over it.
Maybe, maybe not. With some of the outsourced development and testing groups I have worked with, I can easily see this happening. There is not a lot of thinking about security or anything off the strict “happy path” of development and testing. Negative testing just isn’t in the mindset of a lot of outsourced teams in my experience so far. You get what you pay for.
The Kindle Fire can also be rooted with a simple mp3 file – http://yifan.lu/2011/12/10/kindle-touch-5-0-jailbreakroot-and-ssh/
It’s almost Microsoftian in its security.
You mean – lack of.
“When a user then browses to a website, a screen grab of that website heads to the front of the carousel.”
Wot? No porn mode? That’s unacceptable!!!!
Not being able to turn off 1-click is definitely not good form on Amazon’s part, but a passcode can be set on the Fire just like on the iPad so that if someone sits it down (and presses the button or enough time has elapsed) it is locked. No different from any iOS device.
Also, the thing about recently using the the Amazon app and a person being able to purchase things is no different than if I just purchased (or updated) an app from the app store and sat it down unlocked. Anyone who picked it up immediately could then purchase apps without needing my password.
Aside from the 1-click (which *is* an issue) I think the other issues are overblown and not limited to the Kindle Fire.
This is not new to modern devices, everyone captures your data. The only issue with the kindle Fire is that you cannot turn the function off, i am sure amazon will quickly come up with a patch.
http://www.charisbusiness.com/KindleFire