Cell Phone Records for Sale

tabdelgawad writes "The Washington Post has a good writeup on how 'data brokers' use various techniques to obtain cell phone records of individuals then offer them for sale to anyone who will pay. The data is obtained by either bribing phone company employees, or 'pretexting', or accessing unregistered customer accounts online. Although phone companies are the only source of this information (unlike, say SSNs which are available from many sources), one Cingular spokesman was quoted as saying that this is 'an infinitesimally small problem'."

Comments

"Infinitesimally"

[kihjin]

This is basically a candied way of saying "there's only a few ways they can do it, so don't worry about it."

Wrong. Compromise is as easy as one... that's right, one point of failure.

It's still a vulnerability.

It is a tiny problem for them

[Nf1nk]

It is a tiny problem for them, because it hasn't started to cost them money. They could give half a crap if my info was sold to anyone, it doesn't effect them at all.
There is quite a bit that could be done with this data, from it you can build social webs, For example Bob bought a brand new *foo* Brad is his friend, so perhap we can intrest Brad in a loan to also purchase a *foo*.
I am sure there are dozens of other things that could be found from this info.
I say make the company who releases my personal information pay me a hefty chunk of change, and it will stop being a tiny problem for them.