Information Technology and Paris Hilton
InfoWorld columnist Chad Dickerson's take on the Paris Hilton T-Mobile episode is instructive:

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Thank goodness my weekly column focuses on the trials and tribulations of real IT professionals with real concerns instead of Paris Hilton.

That being said, with deep reluctance, I am obligated to extend coverage of Paris Hilton to the world of enterprise IT....As expected, T-Mobile remains tight-lipped about exactly what happened while it investigates, but theories range from a malicious hacking job to the oldest approach in the book, social engineering (that is, she may have given someone her password)....

Paris Hilton’s Sidekick could have been your CEO’s BlackBerry or your vice president of sales’ Treo. Each of these devices and associated services is different in nature and would require unique approaches by mischief-makers intent on compromising them, but they all have one thing in common: lots of key personal information is flung far from the comforts of centralized IT management. By their very nature, mobile devices roam anywhere and everywhere a user goes, and no one would carry them around if they didn’t hold important data such as e-mail and phone numbers....[F]or your CEO, it might be the terms of a highly sensitive business deal or the confidential details of a thorny employment situation....

Now that most IT managers accept that mobile devices are here to stay, they must educate users on basic security measures, because when it comes to mobile device security, users are the primary gatekeepers....

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