Yesterday I had a little discussion with Jon skeet on twitter about the News of the world incident.

@jonskeet: I’m hearing a lot about journalists behaving immorally, but nothing about the apparent lack of security of phone systems. Odd.

@chrissie1: so you would partially blame the shop owner if his stuff gets stolen?

@jonskeet: To put it another way: if someone took advantage of an ISP vulnerability to read your email, wouldn’t you be furious with the ISP

@chrissie1: No, since they did not invite people to read your mail, if you find a wallet on the street would you bring it back or not?

@jonskeet: I don’t see how the two are related. Are you saying you think ISPs etc have no duty of care over private information? Wow.

@chrissie1: I just think that ISP’s don’t have bad security intentionally, it would be morally wrong if it was intensional on their part.

@jonskeet: I haven’t claimed that the phone system had bad security intentionally either. I said we haven’t heard about the security side.

@chrissie1: probably because that is to geeky and most people don’t really understand anyway.

@jonskeet: That didn’t seem to be a problem in the Sony case, where the focus appeared to be Sony…

@chrissie1: Because they turned the hackers into some kind of modern day Robin hood’s.

My opinion ,and mine alone, is that you should never blame the victim. And yes the ISP is a victim here. True they could have had better security and true you trust them with your data. But we also trust the postman with our mail and we don’t expect him to drive around in a tank to protect your mail. No one expects you to not have glass in your house because burglars could easily break it and get in.

Why do I have to lock my door to keep people out and prevent them from stealing my stuff? Why can’t I park my car in certain streets because that means it will certainly be broken in to? Why do cops check cars and give fines to people who did not lock them? What is wrong with society that we will blame victims for not trying hard enough to stop a crime?

Can a women ever be blamed for being raped? Apparently yes (look it up), but I prefer no.

So can we blame the ISP for having bad security and letting people in without consent? I would say no, however it is never that easy is it. I would say that the NOTW journalists had no business snooping around in there, you just don’t do that, it is wrong and they knew it.

In all honesty I can only blame the people that stole the data not the ISP. That is if they did not have that security flaw in it intentionally. If the ISP did not skimp on security for the sake of making more money than I can live with that. Of course I have no idea what they did. And I am sure that protecting yourself from script kiddies and stupid attacks is something you should always do, I also think that every security can be broken and that the person who breaks that security is doing so willingly and knowingly, which in my book makes them a criminal.

This was my Friday morning rant, please move on, nothing to see here.