[Dataloss] AOL in massive PII release

[blitz]

http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/08/06/aol-proudly-releases-massive-amounts-of-user-search-data


"The utter stupidity of this is staggering. AOL has released very 
private data about its users without their permission. While the AOL 
username has been changed to a random ID number, the abilitiy to 
analyze all searches by a single user will often lead people to 
easily determine who the user is, and what they are up to. The data 
includes personal names, addresses, social security numbers and 
everything else someone might type into a search box.

The most serious problem is the fact that many people often search on 
their own name, or those of their friends and family, to see what 
information is available about them on the net. Combine these ego 
searches with porn queries and you have a serious embarrassment. 
Combine them with "buy ecstasy" and you have evidence of a crime. 
Combine it with an address, social security number, etc., and you 
have an identity theft waiting to happen. The possibilities are endless. "

-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://attrition.org/pipermail/dataloss/attachments/20060807/3ffee8e7/attachment.html