Re: @Jake
While this is true, I would certainly balk at giving away unnecessary information, or entrust it when I don't need to. It's one thing to have to provide a bank employee a security question as a necessity for identification and authentication, and another entirely to provide access to private data to a phone store employee for convenience's sake.
Personally, the part of this story that I think isn't getting much attention is the customer that agreed to look at the pictures in question. I'm sure, before he realized that he knew the victim, he was only doing his job as a concerned citizen...
All said I find this whole story entirely and completely predictable, from all angles, and I'm surprised it's not more commonplace (and not at all convinced that it's not, by the way).
Biting the hand that feeds IT
