"It's distressing and worrying therefore that these sorts of details should be appearing in the public domain."
I'm more concerned about the information that's thought to be private. Remember the Palin email incident? That guy just googled the answers to her password reset questions.
These things will be thought of as the 21st century's "lost briefcase."
The main idea of the article, namely wasting tax payers money (1), is probably the most interesting thing.
Regarding security, sure foreign spies don't need that kind of information. But how about the average "joe" who holds a grudge against him, who just wants to "scare" him a little bit?
(1)
"A great deal of taxpayers' money has been spent over the past several decades making sure he and his family are protected from security compromises. Well, it doesn't seem to be very relevant anymore, does it?"
It makes me laugh, all these movies like Bourne Identity or the James Bond franchise or TV shows like X-files or Spooks where governments and intelligence agencies are made out to be a powerful and capable (if sometimes malevolent) entity. The reality is that any (Western) intelligence agency couldn't spy their way out of a wet paper bag.
And this is hardly the first highly public breach... MI6 staffers are notorious for leaving unencrypted laptops on trains or in taxis. But as an ordinary UK citizen, under the New Liebour government, I'm relieved that they're so completely incompetent.
Ooh... scary biscuits! Al-qaeda could poke him. This is just the Tories trying to sound tech-savvy by noting that his missus hadn't changed her privacy settings. So what? I haven't changed my privacy settings. Was it top-secret or classified information? No.
