Who would have thought that we could learn from Paris Hilton?

When I first saw this, I thought it was going to be related to the "hacker" (I say that in quotes because all the guy did was notice poor security in the T-Mobile interface through Danger's SideKick site, not exactly "mad skillz") who was recently nabbed by the FBI.

While this might be related, it appears to be slightly different in that it is Paris Hilton specific - although still related to the SideKick and T-Mobile. Apparently now her phone book, notes, and photos are all now online. As you can imagine, her phone book has plenty of "famous people" in it and now that it is on the net, many people are going to have to change their numbers because of this. Additionally the notes are personal on both sides and then there are the pictures which in true Paris Hilton fashion are NSFW.
The Superficial has the scoop.

While I never would have thought this blog would have anything to do with Paris Hilton since I prefer the technical bent - this is an excellent example of why it is bad to entrust companies to handle our information properly. Because generally speaking, that doesn't often happen correctly.
As I noted in that other link, the FBI also got burned by using SideKicks and their e-mail was seen by someone they were trying to investigate.

If you do business which you don't want other people to read/see/hear, then it is that much more crucial that you are careful with how you handle it. It might not be a big deal if someone got ahold of my phone since I mostly have restaurant numbers in there and some relatives numbers - there is nothing in there which would ruin my life or others were it to get out.

Posted by Eric at February 21, 2005 01:26 AM | TrackBack