Too Little Too Late

AT&T is stepping up the protection of its customers' voice messages amid mounting security concerns raised by the phone hacking incidents in the U.K.

The Dallas telecommunications giant changed its policy today so that a password was the default setting for its cell phone voice mail boxes, Chief Privacy Officer Robert Quinn posted on a company blog. New phones will automatically have the settings changed, and beginning early next year, existing customers who upgrade their phones will also see the change.

It's a step, but if not for anything besides liability reasons I expected to see large sweeping improvements in security measures.  A PIN protection for voice mail is the very first level of protection.  As much as I am in favor of protecting privacy, the people on the other end gotta put forth a certain amount of work on their own.  PINs and passwords fall under that category.