To use an automotive analogy this is a bit like using social engineering techniques (e.g. pretending to be from the electricity company) to enter someone's hous

To use an automotive analogy this is a bit like using social engineering techniques (e.g. pretending to be from the electricity company) to enter someone's house and then, once in, getting paperwork pertaining to their car. Theoretically you could then ordering a new set of keys from a locksmith, doorstepping the locksmith (when he arrives with the replacement key). You could then steal the car. Realising this stunt could work with any of the manufacturers that the locksmith can get keys for, you could then complain about how useless their cars were, that their locks were essentially broken. Of course, the attack would be entirely theoretical as the car 'stolen' would be one's own (because you were testing this attack vector so you could blog about it). He should have got a job with News International. Essentially their 'phone hacking' relied on standard, factory set voicemail codes and their 'work' only came to disgust the general public when they deleted voicemail messages off a murdered teenager's phone, in so doing giving the parents false hope that she was still alive (as they were able to leave new messages as the voicemail inbox was no longer full). Had the 'journalists' at News International known about this little trick for 2FA then, would they have really been able to glean anything useful? Yes, however, it would have been a one-time trick. As soon as some junior royal (or footballer or politician) realised that they could no longer login to Facebook/whatever (because the password had been reset), they would have to reset it for themselves, plus they would have emails in their main inbox stating that their password had been changed. During this time the Facebook/whatever account could be thoroughly gone through, however, on-going access would be unlikely. So, in practical situations, e.g. getting scoops for 'newspapers', there is still limited use to this technique.