Dutch Queen’s phone number is published by Wikileaks

THE SEPTUAGENARIAN Queen Beatrice of the Netherlands has become an unlikely victim of the fallout between the Guardian and Wikileaks and has had her phone number released in the pile of unredacted US diplomatic cables.

The leak was reported by security professional Graham Cluley on his Naked Security Sophos blog. Here the phone number was obliterated but we did learn that the Dutch Queen speaks English and screens her calls via a Mr Pim Waldek, the grandmaster of her household.

"Although unlikely to be the most harmful, the personal phone number of the 73-year-old Dutch monarch is just one of many pieces of information which probably would have been better not published on the internet," wrote Cluley, as he explained that she was not the only Netherlander to be exposed.

"Amongst those to have had their contact details exposed alongside the Dutch Queen include former Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, foreign minister Ben Bot and Defense minister Henk Kamp."

Aside from the fact that the latter reminds us of a particularly hellish tenting holiday, these sorts of announcements might serve to bring more attention to a problem, particularly now that the cables are widely available.

in this case the Queen might get a lot of prank calls, says Cluley, but it also shows just how much exposure the leaks are causing to individuals, whether they be activists or officials.

Wikileaks said that if the releases had been managed properly they would never have led to such exposures.

It has claimed that its plan to release redacted cables was thwarted by the Guardian newspaper, which allegedly exposed the password to the encrypted file of cables in a book. With no alternative, the whistleblower was forced to release them itself. µ