A major difference in severity here- 7 million accounts, the staggering majority of which will never be compromised, distributed discretely to a handful of black hat types, or one account distributed to the entire newspaper's readership and compromised by one grey hat with a conscience. This is still not something to panic over. It's simply good for a belly laugh. I'm not familiar with the guy but he sounds like someone who has convinced himself that his expertise magically translates to everything.

Clearly someone was trying to make a point, and yes it is necessary to protect data, but Mr. Clarkson demonstrates rule #1 for data protection: most data breaches occur due to silly practices by end users. Social engineering and bubble headed end users are probably responsible for most problems.

I have no data to verify that since I'm just waking up, but I am a firm believer (ask any DRM software engineer) that if a lock is conceivable so is the key, or a way to nick it from someone else.

I do have to say, these sort of colossal account data breaches happen far too often. I get spam mail now because of a subscription account that became compromised- legal notifications and all. I'm grateful it's no worse than that.

Personally, I suspect I have less to fear from black hat hackers than I do from Corporate America- think Enron or Halliburton. Robber barons all.