Today, the headlines in the dutch press especially nu.nl say that the internet in the trains is unsafe. It is possible to read mails people send and see what invoices get paid using online banks and they blame the dutch provider KPN.

There are so many things wrong with this piece that i’m annoyed by it. I hate journalists which just copy some press announcement, without verifying the facts at all or even make a simple call to some random specialist. Go home and don’t call yourself a journalist.

Every single bank in NL uses a https connection to communicate with the users, so it is simply not possible to eavesdrop the communication and see the actual invoices get paid. Eavesdropping on mail and MSN-conversations is not the responsibility of the provider of the internet connection. Their responsibility is to provide Internet, not build the security layer of the applications.

So, nu.nl, get your act together, fire the trainee who copied the press release and try to be real journalists. I see it a lot in news sites. It has no added value to copy press-releases. You can only be successful when you add value.