Paris Hilton Hacked, Photos and Voice Mail Revealed Online
"ashton_kutcher.jpg" — one of the many images allegedly stolen
Om Malik — ever a source of juicy gossip and inside scoopage — has reported that Paris Hilton’s voice mail and T-Mobile Sidekick data has been cracked and publicly released on the Web.
Her address book, text messages, notes, and dozens of camera-phone pictures — including some apparent naked lesbian action — have been making the rounds since early this week. Word has it that her celebrity buddies are pissed at being forced to change their phone numbers because of the break-in.
How did this happen? T-Mobile makes the information users collect on their Sidekicks available to them on the Web, protected only by a password. Users are allowed to set a security question so that they can change the password if they’ve forgotten it. Chances are you’re familiar with such questions yourself — “Where did you go to school?”; “What is your mother’s maiden name?”; “What is your favorite pet’s name?”; etc. Paris chose the pet-related question, and everyone knows how strongly she feels about her Chihuahua, Tinkerbell. Poor, dim Paris. Don’t you know you have to be careful with such things when you’re (in)famous?
The story doesn’t end yet, however. While polishing off this entry I checked back at Om’s blog, only to discover that Ms. Hilton is now the subject of mobile phone virus that’s making the rounds. The virus promises naked pictures of Hilton, but deletes all the data on your phone instead.
You have to feel a little bit bad for someone who’s gone through so much, but then again she brought so much of this on herself by failing to protect her information that it’s hard not to laugh. And how sorry can you feel for a millionaire heiress and television starlet, really?
Schadenfreude, thy name is Paris Hilton.
(Props: Photo Matt)
Updates:
- 3/1/2005 at 11:52 AM — MSNBC technology correspondent Bob Sullivan goes into detail about the security flaws that made Paris’s voice mail easy to crack. You could be at risk yourself, particularly if you are a Sprint, T-Mobile, or Cingular customer.
