The Washington Post alerts users of BlackBerry, Symbian Series 60, and Windows Mobile cellular PDAs that their calls and messaging may not be secure.

A British-owned e-spy service offers tracing for the locations of smartphones, as well as turning them into bugs and reading both sides of text and e-mail transmissions for three of the four major cellphone-PDA systems. Only Palm’s Treos (and Series 80 Symbian devices such as Nokia Communicators) are exempt from the company’s bragging of breaches:

“Read their SMS, Call Log and Email and know their Location”

“…extra Remote Listening feature – Be a ‘Fly on the Wall'”

“Download directly into the phone any time after purchase”

Ironically, the company’s demo feature was so poorly constructed that minor alterations to the URL returned by the demo request could reveal up to a year’s worth of data, but the Post reports that’s been closed since they first reported it.

Slashdot discussions mention the ease by which such snoopware could be pushed to devices remotely, and how standardized employment agreements give employers the right to monitor the content of devices they issue. Heck, I even downloaded a GSM cell site tracking program that, if its data was downloaded, could track me from cell to cell (if I were so foolish as to use an employer-issued shoephone).

Have you considered how to secure your mobile devices from a rogue sysadmin, and how much personal information you give your employer through using company devices? Join the discussion.