Original Post, February 22, 2005:

I started to post this on my Webdream for entertainment, specifically yet another Pavlov’s dog.  But, if you cypher through the silliness and nothingness of the headlines, there is a pertinent issue here that had similar ramifications last week.  I’ll start with the silliness to familiarize everyone with what prompted this.

Paris Hilton’s Sidekick hacked

Now, the press has been quick to post the obvious, her contacts, her calendar, and of course, more tawdry pics were made available to the public.  However, Gawker sums the situation up succinctly for me:

Paris Hilton’s ever-present T-Mobile Sidekick II has been hacked, with pictures and contact information from the mobile device showing up in various places on the web (only to be quickly expunged). Since the Sidekick II stores copies of all its data on T-Mobile’s servers, this means that it’s more than likely that everyone who uses the Sidekick (which is only available from T-Mobile), is at risk of having their private pictures exposed to the world. There is a rumor going around that her password was conned out of her, though, which would be lovely to hear (since it would mean the servers are theoretically intact).

OK, you’v gotten juicy gossip and semi-juicy pics.  Now, it gets even deeper:

ChoicePoint Inc., under fire for being duped into allowing criminals to access its massive database of personal information, said Monday that consumers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and three U.S. territories may have been affected by the breach of the company’s credentialing process. The data warehouser also announced plans to rescreen 17,000 business customers to make sure they are legitimate.

Bascially, ChoicePoint was “duped” into giving confidential information to unscrupulous individuals who in turn “probably” committed fraud against clients of ChoicePoint who never even knew they were clients.  Now, the methodology I suppose is that ChoicePoint was “duped” by the “unscrupulous business” writing a check.

Now, to be fair, in both cases there may be situations occurring other than sloppy business practices.  But, in both cases, it could be attributed to sloppy business practices, and that’s where it gets scary.  Paris necking with a babe could do her serious harm if her “beau-to-be” doesn’t know about it or like it too much.  ChoicePoint aiding and abetting identity theft can cause a tremendous amount of anguish to an individual suddenly confronted with thousands of dollars of revolving credit debt.

What is happening is that the social fabric we rely on is changing very rapidly.  Used to you kept all your confidential stuff in a paper diary.  You hid it.  If someone got ahold of it, you knew how they got ahold of it.  You knew exactly who to blame.  In Paris’s case, if it is the fault of T-Mobile, who do you blame?  The person who hacked?  The person who maintained security on the server?  The person who sold you the “faulty” equipment?  The person who sold you the service? No longer is confidentiality mano et mano, it involves LOTS of people.  And, it’s never guaranteed electronically. 

I’ll be watching the Paris Hilton event to see how it pans out.  If it is the fault of T-Mobile, which I truly suspect it is for more reasons than I have listed here, I’d like to see how it affects society if at all.  I’m already of the opinion that the new information tsar needs to be involving the feds into the internet services that so dictate our every day lives.  They’ve pretty much had a hands off attitude, but the T-Mobile and ChoicePoint situations spook me.  It’s just getting way too easy to get ahold of stuff people are not supposed to.   Norton and Microsoft can’t stop every body.

A Massachusetts teenager has pleaded guilty to hacking into the cell-phone account of hotel heiress and Hollywood celebrity Paris Hilton, a high-profile stunt by the youngest member of the same hacking group federal investigators say was responsible for a series of electronic break-ins at data giant LexisNexis.