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An e-mail I wrote this morning:

Dear ChoicePoint,

I write to you regarding your company’s recent security breach, as reported on C|Net and various other news sources.

While I am aware that your company has informed Californians whether or not their data hs been compromised, I also realize that your company did so only because it was required to by law. I do not live in California, but I certainly imagine that your company has my records, and I am not in the least convinced that only Californians were affected.

I want to know for certain that any records you have on me have not been compromised by this or any any past similar acts of negligence on your part in failing to secure my personal data.

Who do I contact within your company to obtain a notarized statement attesting to the status of my records, and whether they have been affected by this security breach? And if in fact my records have been compromised, where should my lawyer send notice that I expect to hold your company fully liable for any damages as a result of your company’s gross negligence? Your company has, after all, gathered data on myself and millions of other Americans without our knowledge until today, and most certainly without my consent. Thus, I feel it reasonable to expect at the very least that such serreptitous data gathering would entail a responsibility to make that data secure.

We’ll see what kind of answer I get, if any.

Murphy’s First Law of Handheld Electronics: The price of an item is directly proportionate to its vulnerability to destruction during a wayward trip to the pavement.

Corollary: A gadget’s vulnerability to floor drops is directly proportionate to the device’s propensity to commit suicide with such a drop, all on its own.

No, that’s not mine. It belongs to some other poor soul. If it were mine, I wouldn’t be so… calm.

Well, one thing is for certain. I’m no longer interested in switching to Cingular, as I had previously mentioned.

Why? Because they have decided, moreso than other carriers, to put the screws to mobile data users. This is nothing new in the wireless phone industry; most companies love to tout their high speed data networks and “unlimited” data plans, but in practice, there is a limit to “unlimited” and once you cross the threshold, well, they’re no longer so willing to let you use that wonderful high speed data network of theirs.

Well, Cingular is now raising the bar again, and not in a good way. For a while, they have offered unlimited data for mobile phone users for $19.99 a month. Starting On February 13, however, their new rate brochures indicate that this previously unlimited data plan will change to a mere 3MB of data per month, for the same price. Just lovely.

Add to the fact that Cingular seems to be intent on scaring users of PalmOne’s Treo 650 into not getting the current unlimited data plan, and you have a really user-unfriendly situation. I really don’t understand why a wireless carrier would introduce a device for use on their network that they know will likely make extensive use of the packet data network (after all, that’s what it was designed to do), and yet go out of its way to discourage people from using the device’s features, and penalize those who will use the network anyway. At least other wireless companies are perfectly okay with PDA/smartphones on their network using the unlimited plan, and will even look the other way on tetherinng a laptop to your phone for even more data usage (despite official policies restricting such use), so long as total usage isn’t egregious.

So, despite having the network wiht the most users, it looks like Cingular is not the company to go to if you’re a power user (or even just an average ringtones & graphics data user). They certainly have a capable high speed data network, but hell if they’ll let you use it. Sprint, on the other hand, has similar devices and comparable coverage on their data network, and appears quite happy with letting people actually use them.