It appears that 21-year old Philip Nourse began his campaign of
harassment after the woman ended their nine-month relationship. He
persuaded two of his friends, both employees of mobile phone
operator O2, to intercept the woman's SMS text messages which
revealed that she had been unfaithful to him.
He then hacked into an account that she maintained with the
popular Friends Reunited web site, altered her details, and posted
explicit photographs of her on the site's message page for anyone
to see. He also hacked into the woman's e-mail account and directed
one of her friends to the images. Finally, he set up a web site
where he showed explicit video footage of her.
Nourse pleaded guilty to unlawfully obtaining personal data,
unauthorised modification of a computer program and harassment. He
was convicted and sentenced to five months' imprisonment. He was
also banned from the Friends Reunited service because he obtained
the woman's password and accessed her account without
authorisation.
The two O2 employees have been sacked, prosecuted for data
protection-related offences and, according to comments from O2
reported on TheRegister.co.uk, received fines.
This week, analysts Gartner pointed to the case saying it serves
as an example of the insecurity of SMS.
