The BBC is reporting that a Sheffield Hallam University journalism student made a rather juicy purchase from a homeless man: a BlackBerry containing “the personal details of cabinet ministers, top civil servants and police officers:”
Journalism student Darryl Curtis said it held hundreds of phone numbers, with data which led him to think it belonged to an ex-Sheffield council chief.
Details of cabinet ministers including Ed Balls and David Miliband were on the BlackBerry, said Mr Curtis, 44.
Police believe it was stolen from a car and that they have traced the owner.
Curtis purchased the device after the homeless man informed him that the device held “the numbers for Tony Blair and Buckingham Palace.” However, the fun doesn’t stop at just phone numbers, folks…
Mr Blair’s number was not stored on the device. However, Mr Curtis said he found the National Insurance number, home address and computer passwords of a former chief executive of Sheffield City Council.
Score! I wonder where else those passwords are used. Anyway, STOP LEAVING YOUR MOBILE DEVICE IN YOUR CAR. That is all.
(CC licensed image from Marvin Kuo)
OK, that one made me laugh!
One could argue that your Crackberry has access to more information than your laptop does. In some cases, your laptop needs a network to access data; your Crackberry has that built in already.
@Aaron:
Agreed. [it’s-like-a-broken-record] With the emerging, transient, nay ambient nature of data, combined with the proliferation of mobile devices with access to enterprise networks and aforementioned data, we should anticipate further hilarity [/it’s-like-a-broken-record]. To your point…something about “the network is the computer.”
Doesn’t surprise me in the least, what with ministers falling asleep on trains and jumping out of taxis and leaving laptops behind. It is amazing this doesn’t happen more often