Celebrity Phone Record Hacking As A New Pasttime

from the privacy-schmivacy dept

Fri, Jan 13th 2006 12:56am — Mike Masnick

Jeremiah writes "In 2001, Techdirt discussed the purchasing of phone records by third-parties. Well, today, AmericaBlog went and purchased Gen. Wesley Clark's cell phone records from November. This obviously has huge national security implications, not to mention obvious privacy issues. The blogosphere is currently using this exploit to do its own investigating in the current Abramoff scandal, which displays how this loophole could (theoretically) be used in the public's best interest." We discussed the availability of phone numbers earlier this week. The AmericaBlog post focuses its outrage on how come the government isn't doing anything to stop this, but that's the wrong target. The real question is how come the mobile operators are letting this information out in the first place?

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5 Comments

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LWD, 13 Jan 2006 @ 5:33am

So let me get this straight
A cell phone company WON'T release the GPS data on a phone even when the customer is GIVING permission so that the GPS can be used to track his stolen car with his child inside, per yesterday's news. But they WILL sell anyone's records to anybody who waves a credit card in their face, regardless of how sensitive the call data might be. Good to know.
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jeff, 13 Jan 2006 @ 9:02am

Hmm...
This is a fuc*ing enormous security hole in a big system. Someone could go buy a cabinet members phone records, get his kids phone numbers by a simple elimination process, then maybe talk their kids into going somwhere and meeting who they think is a peer. Kidnap. Ransom. More jobs in big media.

All bad things.

It'd be nice if the government catered to people instead of corporations. Maybe if they did, this problem wouldn't exist.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Jan 2006 @ 12:21pm

Re: Hmm...
you seem to have thought this through....
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Jan 2006 @ 12:55pm

natl security?
last I checked he was retired and a failed
Presidential candidate.
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tom seaman, 23 Sep 2006 @ 6:19pm

every ones a coward
fuck all ov u
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