Sincere Apologies
Its amazing how in life one still keeps learning. Such was the case yesterday. When I was originally contacted by the Macheist team I honestly thought it was a funny prank and one that was in support of the great developer community our platform has. To often in the Mac community we take ourselves way to seriously and the idea of participating in something other sites were already participating in seemed harmless. I wasn’t doing it for traffic, or fame, just for fun. Of course in the process I let down the readers of this site, and the web hosting provider, and the maker of the excellent CMS the site uses.
In hindsight I’m not upset with anyone really but myself. I still think the original idea was a fun one, but looking back, it obviously was not a good idea because it had the potential to harm others.
So, hopefully, dear readers, you will forgive Apple Matters and we can back to the task at hand, which is writing, and reading about everything apple. Once again, I am sorry. For more background on the Macheist go http://macheist.com/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=74152%23p74152.
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Comments
Everyone makes mistakes! Relax a little ...
We all make mistakes but frankly your post yesterday seemed very insincere. Why didn’t you post something like this then instead of something that seemed sarcastic and merely a CYA post for the benefit of Expression Engine?
This site has lost some credibility in my eyes.
To often in the Mac community we take ourselves way to seriously
!
Hadley
we all make mistakes - doing something for a laugh and later realising it was a stupid thing to do…
but I do have to agree with natf here - your “apology” yesterday was weak and very poorly put together (just check the typos for a start!) I can only put this down to a) you wrote it in a real “blue funk” of shock and realisation or b) as a result of the former you had imbibed a little too much of your preferred “nerve tonic”
Oh, and reading the apologies from other “hacked” sites I get the impression someone wrote a script “I didn’t get any money” and “I just thought it would be a laugh” and “wanted to support indie developers through MacHeist…”
All a bit lame (like the stunt really) - I mean I came to AppleMatters and found it “hacked”, seemed a bit as odd this is hardly a rabid “fanboy” site but hackers are a bit unhinged so I let that go - you have Apple in the name, maybe that is enough… but your RSS was still up, so I thought OK give it a bit and they’ll take down the silly hack and be up again - but you weren’t, and that seemed very fishy to me.
Overall poor judgement I think, I am not going to go on and on about it, what is done is done - but I think you do need to think long and hard about why you thought this even seemed like a “good laugh”
What I fail to see is what you hoped to achieve by the means you partook in. I read weasley words like ‘harmless fun’, ‘just a joke’ and ‘funny prank’ but nowhere is there evidence of forethought beyond the initial ‘ok, let’s do it’. If I dress up in black with a monster mask and fire a blank round in my neighbour’s face then later apologise saying it was only a joke aimed at alerting him to the dangers of opening the door to strangers, then most people would be justified in thinking me a raving idiot. Naive and thoughtless is more like it.
Malcor was an exercise in eating one’s own young.
‘Fraid I might think twice about links to Applematters from now on.
I have to say, I fail to see what the big deal is. A bad marketing idea gone wrong. It happens (and as a matter of fact happened to a close friend of mine who actually received death threats!)
The worst that seems to have happened is that this site was down for a day or less? If that has an adverse affect on anyone but Hadley, then you should probably re-examine your internet browsing habits. As for me, I simply went on my merry way, figuring the site would be back up in short order. It was. And that’s that.
I don’t think it’s a big deal as far as the visitors to the site go, but it could have a negative effect on the Expression Engine developers and the hosting company for this site, since a hacked site can imply that a) the CMS software has security holes and/or b) the servers are not properly secured.
Judging by yesterday’s post, I don’t think the Expression Engine people were too impressed.
The problem is, a year from now when someone searches for Expression Engine security issues, as part of their due diligence for choosing a CMS, the fact that Apple Matters runs it and was “hacked” will show up. They may or may not dig into it enough to see it was a hoax.
It could have an impact on Expression Engine, beyond the here and now.
I have never before been so disgusted in one of my favorite sites. One user on the Macheist forum stated:
“You arseholes wasted everybody’s time with a cheap stunt that made a lot of hosting firms look bad. Further more you actually encouraged many mac haters to think it’s ‘ok’ to hack Mac sites.
Disgraceful.”
Crap like this separates the divide even further between the Mac Faithful and the PC elitists. I will now delete this site and every other one that took part in this, and make sure that all of my Mac Faithful friends know of this and choose to delete your site and the others as well. It might have been a PR stunt, but it was a bad stunt to pull. Way to F*ck it up for the whole mac community and those who wasted hours going over code on their site to make sure this didn’t happen to them, as well as giving the ok for every hacker that wants to, to try and hack a mac site. First and last post to this site…..
What have I learnt from this matter:
1. Clever PR will always catch attention.
2. That Apple Matters (AM) support clever campaigns.
3. That AM will sincerely apologies if his second judgement reveals that other people might be negatively impacted.
4. That some people do not accept apologies.
5. That some engines are more vulnerable than others, but that there is an engine such as Expression which according to Hadley is solid.
6. Sometimes supporting mechanisms have more clout than the mechanism.
7. That some people think that in a years time security searches of todays events will prove anything.
8. That some people think they can “delete a site” because it is “disgraceful”.
“To often in the Mac community we take ourselves way to seriously”
Hadley, if you’re talking about something being more than necessary it’s spelt “too”— “too often,” “too seriously.” Same goes if you’re adding something on top: “my friend decided to come too.”
I don’t mean it to be a criticism of your writing abilities because I think the rest is splendid! I’m sure you just wrote the post so fast you didn’t notice.
Apologize for nothing, just move forward and know its in the past, and everything has a purpose in terms of mistakes made and shaping perceptions in the future. One time I got in the face of the guy who does my car repairs, basically told him that his lifestyle was due to his decisions. It wasn’t right, but he also took another look himself…
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