Are the secret Royal Codes now in the Public Domain? What other secrets accompany them?

On Thursday 18th December 2008, The Daily Telegraph reported that a laptop belonging to Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, had been stolen when A thief broke into a photographic studio in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, in England.

One of Fergie’s aides had taken the computer there in order to have private snaps of the Duchess, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, and her former husband Prince Andrew downloaded and archived.

They have very little, if any, chance of being published in a British newspaper, unless the editor is willing to be interrogated and probably charged by police. The thing is that there was almost definitely other data on the laptop’s hard-drive that was of a more sensitive nature: Passwords, address-book, secret royal codes? Would some mad identity thief attempt to pass herself off as Sarah Ferguson? It is a possibility.

Let’s hope that the Royals encrypt their data. Do they though? The UK Government don’t; or at least they didn’t: ‘Remember all the hoo-hah over the last couple of years when sensitive unencrypted records on disks were "lost" in the post, when ministers left laptops with unencrypted disks on the train, and when drives with unencrypted sensitive data were sold on eBay? The UK Royal Family will probably have to change all their passwords and security codes, if they haven’t already done so.

Whether or not the thief was an opportunist who stole the laptop to sell for drugs or similar; the criminals who end up with the machine in all probability are going to be trying every effort they can muster to get at the data on the hard-drive.

While the Duchess has had personal details disclosed in the past without her permission; could this lead to an expose’? Can you imagine headlines such as:-

"Laptop Thief Exposes Diana Death Royal Conspiracy" ?

Everything has both a negative and a positive side at the end of the day; although maybe not for the Royals if this were the case. – However such an occurrence is unlikely.

It does make one wonder, though, about what secrets are contained inside the laptops of the stars and the like.

If Madonna or some such celebrity were travelling on a train in the same carriage as you, and she left her laptop on the table when she got out; what would you do? Be honest now; and do tell.