Security Followups

Just goes to show that there's no such thing as bad publicity. You would think that reports of Paris Hilton's T-Mobile Sidekick being hacked would be bad for Sidekick sales. Well, just the opposite appears to have happened; Sidekick sales are skyrocketing. In fact, post-Hilton-hack sales have been so strong that T-Mobile is considering doing an ad campaign with Hilton spoofing the incident!

While the Hilton hack was good for a chuckle, another recent security breach was less than amusing. Bank of America claimed yesterday that it lost tapes containing confidential data on 1.2 million customers -- most of them federal employees, including some members of Congress. The tapes were reportedly stolen in December by baggage handlers at an airport.

The incident begs a couple of questions. First, if this happened in December, why are we hearing about this now? Two months have elapsed, and damage may have been done already. Second, why are tapes being shuttled in baggage this day and age? If it were 1970, I could understand...

Source: Techdirt, MIT Technology Review