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Verizon Technician Is Accused of Selling Customers' Call Records and Location Data To Private Investigator (ap.org)
A former Verizon technician who worked in Alabama is being accused of selling customers' private call records and location data to an unnamed private investigator. Authorities said the data was sold for more than four years, from 2009 to 2014. The Associated Press reports: [Daniel Eugene Traeger] logged into one Verizon computer system to gain access to customers' call records, authorities said. He used another company system known as Real Time Tool to "ping" cellphones on Verizon's network to get locations of the devices, according to the plea agreement. He then compiled the data in spreadsheets, which he sent to the private investigator for years, the court records show. "Between April 2009 and January 2014, the defendant was paid more than $10,000 in exchange for his provision of confidential customer information and cellular location data to the PL, an unauthorized third party," court records state. Though Traeger was based in the Birmingham area, the court records do not indicate whether the information that was sold involved Verizon Wireless customers in Alabama or elsewhere. He faces up to five years in prison, but prosecutors are recommending a lesser sentence since he accepted responsibility, according to terms of the plea agreement.
Of course they do. The pioneering sociologist Max Weber defined the government as the group of people that enjoys a monopoly on force.
The question is how accountable you want the people who are licensed to use force (including powers of intrusion) to be.
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Govt has no such monopoly. You have every right to self defense. Govt monopolizes the rule of law. Otherwise you get lynch mobs and witch hunts.
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Technician should only have access to this information for accounts that were assigned to him.
love is just extroverted narcissism
If you think this is an isolated issue you are sorely mistaken. I'll bet this is a mainstay for PI's around the country. Especially since it took 4 years to catch him. My guess without details is that he got caught when he started using the Location system since that's not something anyone besides SysTechs and LEO would need.
This is an example of why the cloud is bad. Even if companies are trustworthy, can that be said of every single employee in contact with your data?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I had a friend in the FBI. I asked her to look me up. She said it was a crime to look up someone that isn't under investigation (even yourself). So nobody ever does. Every lookup must be linked to a case, and the case manager will see the request. You *will* be caught, fired, and possibly prosecuted for looking up information you don't have reason to. Such a scheme should be used where customer data is used. Including the private sector.
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Everyone has a price.
Low paid call center employees just have a lower one.
You companies who seek to get the cheapest labor you can find would do well to remember this.
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Ea$y An$wer. . . . .