Don't blame Apple for AT&T's security ineptitude

Yeah, except for the fact that people are Actually blaming Apple for the separate and unrelated Safari overflow exploit that Apple still hasn't patched on the iPhone (which has nothing to do with the Other iPhone-related security issue caused by AT&T you mention). But your reality is nice too.

And I definitely hear a fanboy alert going off somewhere. There are many news articles reporting Verizon was interested in the iPhone, but Apple wanted complete control of registration and technical support, and (most importantly) a bigger cut. In the end, Apple is a corporation like any other, and as the phrase "don't be evil" is nowhere to be found in their corporate guidelines, it all comes down to dollars and cents. AT&T was willing to give apple more money per iPhone customer, and that's probably because AT&T knew its wireless market share was bleeding clients to Verizon, and it knew it needed a last stand, so it was willing to whore itself out much more than Verizon (which probably didn't expecte the iPhone to be as revitalizing as it was). If Verizon had gotten the iPhone, AT&T Mobility would be practically non-existent by now (except for the sliver Verizon & competitors spare to prevent Monopoly suits).

I'm not surprised. Even the cases at Foxconn, a local newspaper here said: "Apple's employees suicide."...

When you recommend (or indeed force as Apple does) another company to be part of your service you need to be completely aware that their failings are going to be treated as yours.

Partners should be carefully selected to make sure their abilities align well with yours.

You can't just shrug off that responsibility. Can you imagine Dell shrugging off LCD failures because the part comes from Samsung? Or your auto manufacturer telling you to go see the tyre company it chose to fit as factory standard?

No.

Don't compare things with government departments - they have little in common with commerce.

Not Apple's fault, agreed. But Apple have aligned so closely with the awful AT&T, they run the risk of damaging their brand when mistakes like this are made.

I guess you don't read the papers or watch TV, then.

Get real guys, big companies hold each other accountable for security all the time. ATT should know better and Apple should know better.
Both Apple and ATT should be in the hot seat for this because they both failed at doing the right thing. You should be thanking the guys at Goatse Security for even publishing that this happened, otherwise you'd never know because ATT/Apple are not likely to talk about something like this.

I own an iPhone, am a fan of Apple, and kind of neutral about AT&T. With that said, I feel that Apple is to blame for this as well as AT&T. Same as Apple checks every app in the app store, they should check and make sure what AT&T does will work.

This is similar to the BP oil spill in the Gulf. BP is getting all the blame, but they don't own the oil rig, nor did they do they work on the rig. There are many companies involved in the oil spill. BP is top in the chain, and should get most of the blame because they should have checked the work done by the companies they hired.

Apple should have checked the work done by AT&T.

For the AT&T fanboys.

Computerworld - The harvesting of over 100,000 iPad 3G owners' e-mail addresses was not a hack or a classic data breach, but a brute-force attack of a minor feature AT&T offered to Apple customers, experts said Wednesday.

According to New York-based Praetorian Security Group, which obtained a copy of the PHP script used to scrape e-mail addresses from AT&T's servers, the attack succeeded because the mobile carrier used poorly designed software.

Agreed. No one with at least two brain cells to rub together honestly finds Apple at fault here. Only sensationalist blogs fishing for page views. Way to add fuel to the fire and show just how mature you are. Calm down, no one is after Jobs' head for this. Now, the Google AdMob exclusion is a another thing...

Its def ATT's fault but jeez peeps. eeeeeasy