White House BlackBerries Stolen.

In New Orleans, white house staff left all their BlackBerries on a table outside their hotel conference rooms. Thats what Rafael Quintero Curiel, a Mexican diplomatic, noticed before you stole them and ran for Mexico..

Everyone entering the room was required to leave his or her cell phone, BlackBerry and other such devices on the table, a common practice when high-level meetings are held. American officials discovered their missing belongings when they were leaving the session.

Secret Service Agents caught him at the airport at which point Curiel denied ever taking them, until the Agents showed them footage from the security cameras. Curiel claimed diplomatic immunity.

I would consider this low level social engineering, more than outright stealing. Hackers sometimes role play as someone else in order to gain access to systems. In this case all he had to do was pretend he was part of that big meeting, and wait for an opportunity to gain some intelligence.

Just the fact there was no one guarding those BlackBerries makes me wonder about the rest of our governments security.