The Quadrangle

Issue date: 3/9/05 Section: Arts & Entertainment

It is easy to say that it has been a tough year for Paris Hilton. Over the past few months she has had a sex tape circulating the internet, and had her little sidekick Chihuahua, Tinkerbell, dog-napped. To make matters worse, last week, Hilton' cell phone was hacked and all the information, including photos, over 500 phone numbers of fellow celebrities, and sent and received text messages were posted on the Internet. Other exposed information included Hilton' travel habits, airline and hotel preferences, along with personal notes and reminders.

Some of the reminders and notes found on her phone included "Get Birth Control Kill Pill," and "Get check from Rick" (most likely referring to Rick Solomon who made thousands off the sex tape). In addition, nude pictures of Hilton and her kissing a female MTV European VJ were downloaded from her phone and are now available online.

In an interview with Us Weekly magazine Hilton said: "I feel horrible that, once again, someone has invaded my privacy. I want to apologize to all my friends and family. I don't know why this stuff always happens to me, but I wish it wouldn't anymore." (cnn.com)

"The hotel heiress used Sidekick II, which stores information on a server, including some of her phone numbers," a T-Mobile associate said. Having your information on a server essentially means that people can access your personal information through the internet if they know the correct password, or can make a lucky guess.

As of a few days ago, all of Hilton's information was removed from the internet by the FBI and according to T-Mobile, her service provider, agents have found the hacker and are making preventative measures to make sure this never happens again.

The hacker, California native Nicolas Jacobsen, pled guilty to a single charge of intentionally "accessing a protected computer and recklessly causing damage." Jacobsen was arrested by US authorities last October, but had had access to T-Mobile's servers for more than a year, reportedly amusing himself by checking out US Secret Service email, and raiding other Sidekick users' accounts. He faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

William Genovese, a friend of Jacobsen, told Security Focus that Jacobsen would send him pictures of celebrities, taken with their camera phones. William Genovese faces unrelated charges for allegedly selling leaked Microsoft source code.

The Drudge Report says that it has confirmed the authenticity of many of the numbers. T-shirts even are being sold online with the list of people from Hilton's cell phone, and a shirt that says "Paris Made Me Change My Number." Other numbers in her phone included those of Tara Reid, Bijou Philips, Eminem, Fred Durst, Ashley Olsen, San Francisco Hilton Hotel and celebrity attorney, Robert Shapiro.

Reality Television star Victoria Gotti told New York Daily News that she had received over 100 phone calls as word of the accessible numbers spread online. "This went on all night," she said.

"Finally, at 5.30am, I took the phones off the hook. This morning, I put them back on and they started ringing [again]. It is driving me insane."

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