Mobile phones and e-mail have obviously altered our lives immensely, most of it positively, but like anything else there is a downside, too. The very technology that has empowered us with a push of a button to communicate with others across great distances has also opened us up to criminal elements knowingly invading our privacy. We take it for granted that by utilizing the digital technology of mobile phones that we are safe to transmit private data over the air. Think again. If advances in technology have taken us this far, there have been also other advances in technology that criminal elements use to eavesdrop on you. I will not even delve into hi-tech snooping tools or encryption of digital signals; the mere fact that there is still some human element involved in the security of your mobile phone logs may just be the very crack in the security itself. Now lets not start pointing any accusing fingers please.
I recently came across numerous websites that actually sell peoples phone records for cash. Find that hard to believe? I visited one such site based in the US called Locatecell and all you had to do was type in the mobile number you wanted info on, enter a credit card number to pay the $100 fee and the phone records would be sent to you the next day. I read that even the FBI tested this service and to their shock the mobile phone records of one of their agents were sent to them in three hours! The FBI had to quickly educate their security and undercover agents about the dangers these types of sites could pose.
Companies such as these are called online data brokers and they seem to be mostly unregulated by governments. The basic way they acquire the phone records is by pretexting or simply by pretending to be the phone owner and tricking the telecom company into revealing the information. A data broker interviewed actually revealed that he believed what he was doing was legitimate and that he was, in fact, helping track down criminals. Yeah right?! So who is to screen the legitimate clients from the criminal who makes the request? What do we do now when there is that percentage of risk from an eavesdropper? No doubt we cannot live without our mobile phones anymore, but what I want to get across is that you should be careful of what you say or text. For cheating husbands, be most careful of whom you call.