My Kindle2 showed up yesterday. I un-boxed it, turned it on and within 3 minutes had downloaded my first book and was reading away (Thomas Barnett's "Great Powers," if you must know.)
- To purchase a book using the Kindle, the device is linked to Amazon's One-Click purchase capability. This means that once I choose to purchase a book, I simply click "Buy" and it's delivered to the device, automagically charging my credit card. If I lost my device, someone who found it could literally download hundreds of books to the Kindle on my nickel until I am able to do something about it. This would be short-lived, but really annoying.
- It is possible using an Amazon web service to convert documents into the Kindle Format and download them over WhisperNet to your device. Given how convenient this is for reading, imagine what would happen if some crafty person decided to convert and download a sensitive document to the Kindle and then lose the device. Imagine if that document contained PII or other confidential/sensitive information? I wager we'll see a breach notification being issued based on someone losing a Kindle.
- An option for password-protected access to the device itself.
- A content-rating based password-controlled parental rating system for certain materials. My kids already grabbed my Kindle and (see #1 above) downloaded 3 kids books to it. I may not want them to read certain content.
- Remote self-destruct
- Encryption of content (at rest, in motion)
- Security of Whispernet itself
- WiFi (and it's attendant issues)
Recent Comments