Paris Hilton's Phone Hacked - Address Book, Pictures, Notes
Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2005 12:14 pm
Paris Hilton's address book, famously kept on a T-Mobile Sidekick, has been popping up all over the internet after someone managed to figure out her password.
The Drudge Report says that it has confirmed the authenticity of many of the numbers, presumably a polite way of saying they've been crank calling Anna Kournikova and Lindsay Lohan all weekend. The FBI has reportedly opened an investigation.
Files exposed to the world also include Paris' travel habits, airline and hotel preferences, along with her private notes.
The information landed online just days after hacker Nicolas Jacobsen pled guilty to a single charge of intentionally accessing a protected computer and recklessly causing damage. Jacobsen was arrested by US authorities last October, but had had access to T-Mobile's servers for more than a year. He reportedly amused himself by accessing US Secret Service email, and raiding other Sidekick users' accounts.
William Genovese, a friend of Jacobsen's in the hacker community, told Security Focus that Jacobsen sent him pictures of celebrities, purportedly snapped with their camera phones. Genovese faces unrelated charges for allegedly selling leaked Microsoft source code.
While Paris must by now be used to being overexposed online, many of the people in her little black book were less than pleased with the leak. According to the Drudge Report (http://www.drudgereport.com), one starlet said "I gave her my number after we met in Miami, I did not know she f**king kept it on her cellphone!"
Reality TV star Victoria Gotti told New York Daily News that she had received over 100 phone calls in two hours. "It's driving me insane," she said.
T-Mobile to probe Paris' security breach
T-Mobile's American arm has launched an investigation into how Paris Hilton's address book made its way from her Sidekick PDA/phone onto the web.
The mobile-phone firm's computer forensics team is on the case, and is considering all possibilities: "This includes the possibility that someone had access to one of Ms. Hilton's devices and/or knew her account password," the company said in a statement.
It could not provide any further details because of "the sensitivity of the situation", but advised Sidekick users to avoid simple passwords, and to change their password regularly.
Over the weekend, phone numbers and email addresses of many of Paris' celeb mates, including Christina Aguilera, Lindsay Lohan and Anna Kournikova were exposed online, along with private notes, and details of hotel and airline preferences.
In related news, UK research from mobile network services company Intervoice found that more than half of the UK's mobile phone users keep all their contact details on their phones, without maintaining a separate address book. One in three say they worry that a lost handset would mean losing touch with friends.
Something Ms. Hilton can probably relate to.
Comment: I have seen the leaked pictures... she sure does like to take pictures, including some lesbian ones where she's kissing and topless. Nothing spectacular, but interesting nonetheless. Makes you wonder how secure Verizon is... (I use Verizon)
Call this odd, but I actually like READING those magazines. The pictures are what I look at first, but it's ultimately the articles that I like to read. My favorite magazine is Stuff. The writers are hilarious and the Facts sections are so funny and interesting!