Pocket PC security freaks will keep a tighter grip on their PDAs after this news. A couple of teenagers were recently arrested after making off with a laptop belonging to a US government official during a home burglary in Aspen, Maryland.
The big deal was probably the confidential database containing names, birthdates and Social Security numbers of roughly 30 million veterans.
In today's world of increasing identity theft, this is no small concern. It may not surprise you that mobile theft is on the rise.
My article regarding a spate of iPod muggings and relative Pocket PC criminal indifference means that even the mobile digital player crowd has succumbed to this somewhat.
The teens had no idea of the security fiasco sparked by stealing the seemingly innocuous laptop until they got wind of a $50,000 award being issued by the FBI according to Part 1 of a TechNewsWorld mobile security article.
This presumably resulted in no small amount of pants wetting and expletives as events unfolded like a bad episode of Scare Tactics.
A more accurate analogy would be to swap an indictment at the curtain call instead of letting the incontinence-stricken, terrified victims in on the joke.
Pocket PC security is generally not amongst our highest priorities for most folks.
This will probably be the case until a PDA carrying celebrity makes tabloid headlines, crying foul as hackers excitedly post their most intimate pics and chat transcripts online.
Until that happens, we'll have to leave things to Lindsay, Paris and the unfortunate crowd opting to go with SideKicks in spite of such news.
You couldn't pay me enough to abandon my Pocket PC to go with T-Mobile at this point.
I don't care that much about my Black Eyed Peas rants about craptacular yet catchy music or my Pocket PC Galaga scores making the headlines.
Not that PDA security is not at risk. One of my former colleagues was chagrined to return to his cubicle to find his beloved PDA gone after leaving it docked in the cradle on his desk.
Personal experiences seem to indicate that most folks bent on theft tend to make off with the actual hardware, supposedly after some teeth-gnashing, futile wireless access hacking.
Still, there is hope for those paranoid about Pocket PC security over wireless with downloads like Pocket PC Airscanner Security Mini Bundle which had admittedly low download numbers due to lack of interest, in spite of vaunted antivirus and encryption features.
It may be the last thing on our minds until someone actually develops a Pocket PC virus malicious enough to be concerned.
