Ron DeLia -- the main investigator hired by HP to acquire the phone records of a talkative director, employees and reporters -- told his business clients in 1999 that Social Security numbers were available online, that they represented a growing risk to individuals and that identity theft was now a felony.
While it seems that DeLia himself farmed out the work of fraudulently acquiring phone records to other people, they likely acquired the social security numbers of the targets in able to convince cell phone companies to hand over phone records.(This is hard to know since DeLia and five other 'investigators' pleaded the Fifth today).
Find the newsletter here (.pdf) at archive.org.
Find more good commentary on the irony at Pinhead's Progress, who found the reference and noted it in the comments.
Photo: CarbonNYC
