Holy Moly! Leaked usernames and passwords!

Popular gossip website Holy Moly has just had a bit of a revamp.

And they've had a raffle with people's personal information while they're at it.

Allow me to explain. For starters, they took the website down entirely for a week, replacing it with a webpage with a countdown. This seems like a bit of a schoolboy error considering the amount of revenue they must pull in through advertising, plus all Google search links go through to a text-only rubbish 404 message that doesn't tell you anything.

This aside, they've commited a much larger schoolboy error.

I got the email through saying:

We've had a bit of an overhaul at Holy Moly!

As well as a fresh lick of paint and a whole raft of new things to click on, we've moved house to www.holymoly.com

Everyone’s password has been reset and some of your usernames may have also changed slightly.

Great eh?

No. Not great. The new username and password they've given me is nothing like my old one. That's because IT'S NOT MINE. IT'S SOMEBODY ELSE'S. What they have done is leaked someone else's personal information in an email sent to me.

I'll be bringing this to the account holder's attention, but the fact remains that this has to be the biggest screwup I've ever seen outside of someone I know emailing the same person three thousand times instead of sending an email to three thousand different people.

So well done Holy Moly! You've set yourself up for a bit of a fall there!

Reality television

What is our obsession with this stuff?

Big Brother, behind-the-scenes documentaries and gossip magazines all carry a single common denominator.

People you want to know better.

The public's fascination with these categories of material is that they want to understand the personalities of the people. They want to know them like they know their own real friends.

Their own friends aren't necessarily going in and out of rehab with drug addiction, they aren't fighting with someone else you know over something trivial, and they're not gripped in the throes of a dirty divorce, or at least they're not doing any of the above in a fashion that you can deem entertaining.

They want to feel the thrill of knowing that this stuff goes on in peoples' lives without actually having to suffer any fallout. They want accessible drama and to be a part of celebrities' lives. They want to be a sort of one-way-friend.

That's only one step away from stalking you know. So maybe they're not all as sick as you all seem to think. If you're reading gossip magazines and watching Big Brother, just remember everyone. You're one step away from sitting in the bushes outside their house.

No more high horses about that one please.