Malaysian Cabinet Minister's mobile number displayed for all

Link: TODAYonline

The Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) chief, the highest-ranking ethnic Indian in the Malaysian Cabinet, told reporters that “an enemy of the MIC” was distributing the phone numbers of several party leaders to the public.

“As a result, we have all received various lewd and disturbing SMSes. We know who he is. He (the culprit) thinks he is smart, but we are going to lodge a police report and we will get him,” the Star newspaper quoted him as saying yesterday.

The issue of publishing mobile phone numbers of public figures is always an interesting one. Why didn’t this chap simply change his phone number? The fact that, as the article goes on to report, many people have printed his number out on to banners that are being hung above cafes, gives the impression that the phone number is very much in the public domain and worth changing.

The other issue: I suspect it’s highly ill advised to text rude, lewd or threatening text messages to a member of the Malaysian Cabinet who, one imagines, has access to proper security folk who can look up your number, your name and your address and send the boys round, all within a few minutes.

Or you could just get a pay as you go sim and bang out the rude messages that way…

Or if you were into media management, you could make it clear publicly that the chap has now changed his phone number — even if he doesn’t bother…. that might stop folk texting.