[attrition] 88 million... is it really an accurate number?

[lyger]

http://attrition.org/dataloss/rant/88million.html

Tue June 27 18:47:25 EDT 2006
Lyger

For the past few days, I've been doing more research on recent data 
breaches, especially including types of breaches and numbers affected. One 
number keeps coming up in the media: 88 million. In many cases, "88 
million" is described as the number of compromised records. In other 
cases, it is described as "Americans" or "people":

[...]

We know that the number 88,000,000 or so has been calculated by adding the 
number of total people affected from all listed breaches since Choicepoint 
in February 2005. Looking at this total though, it seems to me that the 
number is inflated due to the fact that it appears to represent unique 
individuals. The VA breach really caused me to take a better look at the 
situation and rework some of the numbers.

[...]