Meanwhile, across the pond…

Self-proclaimed ‘Hockey Mom’ and US Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s also been in the wars of late (none of it lipstick or bovine related, however, which must be a relief to Republicans everywhere).

Last week, hackers accessed Ms Palin’s Yahoo e-mail account using information obtained from Wikipedia and other online databases. In a salient reminder of just how treacherous cyberspace can be, her date of birth, zip code and other personal information freely available in the public domain were all used to defeat security questions prior to her in-box, messages, pictures and address book being posted on the whistle-blowing website, Wikileaks.

While Yahoo, the FBI and the US Secret Service have all commenced formal investigations, this is a prime (albeit high-profile) example of just how easily personal information can be ‘hijacked’ online.

DM’s under growing scrutiny for the role mail items play in scams like Forwarding Address Fraud (FAF) and Impersonation of the Dead (IOD) Fraud, but with ‘cyber-crime supermarkets’ selling personal information online for as little as 50p, according to a recent Symantec Internet Security Report, malicious web-based activity could indeed be the bigger of the two evils.

At least Ms Palin’s hackers will probably serve jail time when caught. Which is more than can be said for the UK, where our government seems to have indefinitely shelved plans to imprison data thieves.

Shame on Westminster, shame.