Con of the day proofs: you have zero privacy

Next at eleven: a con that has the cellular business up in arms and why your personal phone records out in the open.

That's probably how a local television news station would advertise the news of the latest con that is going around in the cellular sector.

Websites like eFindOutTheTruth.com and locatecell.com are selling individual's phone records. Pay about $100, give the site a name and a (mobile) phone number and soon you'll receive a list with all the numbers that have been dialled from that number.

It turns out that the con works ridiculously easy. An employee for one of the sites calls a carrier's customer service claiming to be the owner of the number, armed with  information such as address and sometimes even a social security number. Or they pretend to be co-workers or field technicians, anything that gets them the records.

Customer service easily lets go of the security protocol and coughs up the information.

Cingular yesterday won an injunction against one of the websites. But the real problem here are flawed security policies and a lacking privacy legislation.

As a consumer, you can only be extremely paranoid about your privacy and assume that you have none. Prepare for the worst, and hope that things will turn out for the better.

Tags: mobile phone record, privacy