If I'm investigating the cause of a fire and find a note that the resident was wondering whether the self clean setting on the oven would strip the paint off some propane canisters, I'm sure going to get suspicious it started in the kitchen.
Eh---the string of coincidence that would have to happen for a lost cellphone to lead to a data breach is actually pretty far fetched.
1. It was actually lost, not misplaced
2. Whoever found it/took it gives darn
3. Whoever found it, and gave a darn, cared about the data on it (unlikely)
4. They knew Podesta was important enough to matter (very unlikely)
5. They knew how to get the data on the phone (possible, if the phone had no passcode at all, extremely unlikely otherwise)
6. Once they had the data, they distributed it in a useful way
So either Podesta was specifically targeted and someone decided to use meatspace to get his data by stealing his phone (unlikely, but possible) or a random dude grabbed a random phone and then a string of very unlikely events took place that led to data being sent to Wikileaks.
I am in no way defending Clinton, or the US intelligence community, or anything like that. I honestly, really, don't give a crap. I'm in IT security though, so this particular thing has grabbed my interest and I find it far more plausible that someone (no idea who, since I'm not privy to any forensic data about the case) deliberately hacked into his email account than the phone scenario.
