techdirt - The first charges under the federal pretexting law have been filed by authorities in Ohio. The law came about after the 2006 scandal in which HP spied on some of its board members and reporters, in part by calling their mobile operators and posing as the members to access their calling records (a method referred to as "pretexting"). After the high-profile case, politicians responded to calls to "do something" by putting the law into place. This worked out well for the mobile operators, which were able to avoid much scrutiny over how or why they released the info in the first place. The operators spun pretexting as a governmental problem, and sought to play down the fact that they were actually the ones giving out info to people they shouldn't. So kudos to the operators for being able to continue to so deftly stay out of the spotlight of scrutiny for what are, essentially, data leaks.
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