Now that Amazon is shipping the Kindle Fire, I got to thinking: what if you gift the Fire or any other Kindle? Well, if you do, make sure you do what Laptopmag.com says in their post and keep YOUR Kindle account safe. After I read this, I did some more thinking: What if someone stole your shiny new Kindle off of your porch? If this happens, then that thief has access to ALL of your books and can purchase books on your account. This is bad. This is very bad. Gear Diary’s own Michael Anderson and Dan Cohen are both trying out the Kindle Fire, and both commented in our Yammer on how easy the setup is. However, in this day and age, ease of use can also be a liability. I think Amazon should stop shipping Kindles pre-registered to your account. The practice is a risk to our credit cards and Amazon accounts. Your stuff is still cool Amazon, but it needs to be secure too, and doing this is not a secure practice anymore. Especially with the USPS, UPS or FedEx just leaving their easily identifiable packages sitting on your doorstep.
So how do you prevent this from becoming a problem? Go to Best Buy or Walmart and purchase your Kindle there. These are not pre-configured so your account will not be at risk. Right now that’s the easiest way I know. The second may be to just ship it to yourself as a gift. That way if it does get pilfered, you’re safe.
Either way, ease of use usually does equal a reduction in security. So when something seems very easy, start looking for the security reduction, and be careful!