Cell phone pictures and privacy

It seems that Philip and Tina Sherman have an affectionate marriage. In their case, this would include Mr. Sherman taking naughty pictures of Mrs. Sherman. Nothing wrong with that if that's your bag, baby. Just don't lose the phone:

An Arkansas man on Friday filed a lawsuit against McDonald's, alleging a restaurant location uploaded nude photos of his wife onto a web site.

In the suit, Phillip Sherman said he left his phone at a McDonald's location in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and that a manager promised the phone was secured for him to retrieve it. After picking up his iPhone, photos of Sherman's wife Tina Sherman made their way onto a web site -- along with her name, address and contact information, the suit claims.

Oops.

Now I can see how the Shermans are mad enough to spit nails over this, and expect that some McDonalds employees will soon be ex-employees. But a word of security advice to any other Mr. (or Mrs.) Shermans out there:

Assume anything on your cell phone is public information. Losing your phone is giving your data to whoever find it.

Pretty simple, mkay?

Oh, and it seems that "Tina Sherman Pictures" is way up the Google rankings. I'm certain that neither of my readers would actually (ahem) investigate, but if any of these sites tells you that you need a new codec to see the pics, just say "no". "Free Download" is Intarwebz-speak for "Open Your Mouth And Close Your Eyes."

H/t Pogo Was Right.

UPDATE 24 November 2008 21:24: Boy, that didn't take long. I seem to be the #3 Google hit for the search string "mrs sherman cell phone pictures". Boy, howdy - some folks are fixin' to be disapointed.