AOL Releases Search Logs of 657,427 Users

An anonymous reader writes "AOL has released the search logs of over 650,000 users for research purposes. This looks like it may become a public relations disaster for AOL, as well as a privacy nightmare for the users involved as Michael Arrington of TechCrunch notes: "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 ability 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." This is also being covered on The Paradigm Shift and Oh My News." fantomas adds " Looks like they've just taken it down but it's still available on The Pirate Bay; not sure why but some of the academic researchers are going crazy musing the ethical aspects of letting the world know who's searching for how to kill their wives ..." Update: 08/07 21:32 GMT by T : amromousa writes "AOL is now apologizing for the release ..., calling it a "screw-up," which they're upset and angry about."

Comments

finally, maybe users will wake up

[yagu]

Finally, for all my support nightmares AOL users I know (and there are many!) that I endured over the years, a misstep that may offend and bother them as much as supporting AOL has bothered me for the last bazillion years. Go away AOL! (But, leave a few of your coasters at the store counters, those did come in kind of handy.)

So, all of that aside (the court of public opinion stipulates AOL as stupid and insensitive), how equally egregious and offensive is others would propogate and perpetuate this misguided release of data? Any mirrors still carrying this information (and they are there) serves few purposes for continuing to provide access, and none are defensible: either they are happy and willing to allow potentially embarassing or damaging data to continue to be distributed, or they are sticking it to AOL when AOL has already fallen on their own sword -- enough is enough. It's not okay.

(So, how many wives are either not going to be home tonight, or are going to fix hubby his very favorite dish?)

Re:finally, maybe users will wake up

['nother poster]

(So, how many wives are either not going to be home tonight, or are going to fix hubby his very favorite dish?)

I bet the guy works for Rockstar games and is simply researching their next big hit. "Slap the Ho!" Where you put up with yo biotches shit till...

Re:finally, maybe users will wake up

[Richy_T]

Me too.

Re:finally, maybe users will wake up

[Tackhead]

> (So, how many wives are either not going to be home tonight, or are going to fix hubby his very favorite dish?)

You keep making oblique references to steak and cheese. I do not think that phrase means what you think it means.

(If it's 17556639's favorite dish, maybe his wife is looking forward to death.)

Re:finally, maybe users will wake up

[Irish_Samurai]

So, how many wives are either not going to be home tonight, or are going to fix hubby his very favorite dish?

You're probably just trying to be funny, but this could be a real problem. I know I have had some seriously bizarre search historys when doing research on possible articles to write in my lame ass vanity site. They could very easily be taken out of context and used to make me look like a sicko instead of a cynic who wanted some of the bizarre material that non fiction can provide.

Maybe this guy is doing some research on a book. Maybe he's an artist doing some death metal band's cover. Hell, maybe they have a socially retarded CS major for a dorm mate and are trying to freak them out.

It's the ridiculous release of this type of data and the sensationalist warping of these smallest elements that allow our privacy to get train wrecked.

Re:finally, maybe users will wake up

[Maxo-Texas]

Link probably not work safe.

And vaguely disturbing that it apparently happens enough to have an official slang term.

Re:finally, maybe users will wake up

[Anonymous Coward]

The real issue here isn't that it was AOL that messed up. Sure we all love to make fun of companies like AOL and Wal*Mart, but the fact is that many companies large and small have a lot of personal data (that lives in a gray area) on all of us. Law makers as usual are decades behind the curve. And personal protection is only likely to come at the end of a class action law suit until then.

The vast majority of the public don't know what to be worried about until it all goes to hell. None of us, no matter how /. we think we are, can be an expert in and of all things.

Re:finally, maybe users will wake up

[MillionthMonkey]

Check out Disturbing Search Requests where people search through their logs for interesting HTTP REFERER links from Google and submit the most disturbing. A common reaction is befuddlement from webmasters when Google returns their site in response to certain queries (such as "sweet as food delicious cheap dog fellatio").

Who hasn't typed "how to kill your wife" into a search box by now anyway? (That was a joke! Hi honey!)

Re:finally, maybe users will wake up

[hkroger]

I know I have had some seriously bizarre search historys when doing research on possible articles to write in my lame ass vanity site.

Yeah, me too. I have some really really bizarre search history because of ... um... I mean can we change the topic or something?

Re:finally, maybe users will wake up

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess I can't find ideas for my Aristocrats\\=>// line anymore.

Re:finally, maybe users will wake up

[Skadet]

AOL [is] stupid and insensitive

We should do the world a favor and cap them like Old Yeller.

Re:finally, maybe users will wake up

[SomeGuyFromCA]

> Karma BROKEN since March 2006. I show excellent karma but get no karma bonus. Ah well.

yes you do:

Starting Score: 1 point
Karma-Bonus Modifier +1 (Edit)
Total Score: 2

did you adjust karma bonus down to +0 in your display settings?

Re:finally, maybe users will wake up

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, I work at google and we just toss those in every once in a while for fun. We've got a web form to submit these. I think my friend frank was responsible for "sweet as food delicious cheap dog fellatio" -- he spends all of his 20% time at disturbingrequests.google.com (only visible on our internal network)

Re:finally, maybe users will wake up

[jZnat]

You don't see the karma bonuses on your own posts.

Re:finally, maybe users will wake up

[Maxo-Texas]

Wow- seriously?

I could until march.

Then it just stopped one day.

THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH for the info! happy happy joy joy.

Re:finally, maybe users will wake up

[Anonymous Coward]

You care too much.

Re:finally, maybe users will wake up

[Sinus0idal]

You're just about as useless as jpegs to Hellen Keller.

Re:finally, maybe users will wake up

[kruhft]

Me three.

--
kruhft

Re:finally, maybe users will wake up

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to do this on my own site. I really wish that disturbingrequests.google was opened up to the world, but I can also understand the reasoning why it's not.

Incidentally, Hi Mr. FBI man! Yeah, I never actually did get around to writing that story about the murder, but I'm still thinking about it. And if you want, I have the notes. So, yeah.

Re:finally, maybe users will wake up

[digitalsatori]

me too!

Re:finally, maybe users will wake up

[silverkniveshotmail.]

My favourite of all time was from a limewire search request, I'll never forget it.

With cum dogs bang! and her sex!

Re:finally, maybe users will wake up

[Anonymous Coward]

Hilfe, ich ertrinke in sperma.

(result from Google Suggest Beta)

Damn

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh crap. And I just used my search engine to find Slashdot.

Re:Damn

[Anonymous Coward]

Double crap. I used a search engine to see if anyone was already working on my project before trying to patent it...

Searching for SSN's??

[StarvingSE]

personal names, addresses, social security numbers and everything else someone might type into a search box.

Who in their right mind would type their social security number in a search box, in plain text??? I mean, really???

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[RonnyJ]

AOL users! ;)

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Pulse_Instance]

Keep in mind that this is an AOL search box the lowest common denominator of internet users. They probably still find Hampster dance funny.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[jamsessionjay]

What makes you think someone is searching for their own SSN?
Isn't it possible someone is searching for information on someone else? Checking to see if someone has listed their SSN else-where would help to narrow the scope of targets for data theives.

But yeah, you're probably right. Someone probably searched for their SSN to see if anybody who had taken it would use it somewhere in plain text, and assumed that the information they were passing to their trusted ISP was secure. Hah, imagine that, trusting a company to not release your private information without a warrent?

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[cbr2702]

Who in their right mind would type their social security number in a search box, in plain text??? I mean, really???

Maybe they want to be sure no one's posted it anywhere?

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[The Good Reverend]

I have. I want to know if it's out there anywhere on the public internet. Same reason I search for my phone number, full name, etc.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[radarsat1]

Who in their right mind would type their social security number in a search box, in plain text??? I mean, really???

Who in their right mind would give their SSN to AOL?
People really don't understand these issues.. I've this to be true recently when an HR person at my university asked me to send my SSN to her over email. Also, a couple weeks ago I booked a room at a hostel over the internet, and apparently I mistyped my credit card information, so they asked me if I could to to them again over email. You know, I just said "No, I'll call you." But it just goes to show that most people just don't even think about privacy issues. Even professionals who should know about these things. They just don't. Either that or they don't understand the technical side of it... like that email is not encrypted, etc.

As for search engines, I've no idea why you'd be searching for one on Google, unless for instance you wanted to see if your own was available somewhere--Which is funny, now that I think about it. How can you search for your own online information (to see what is out there) without giving it away yourself by typing it into a search engine?

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[AxemRed]

Someone who wants to see if it's posted on the internet somewhere.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a good way to find out if your SSN is being mismanaged by sloppy organizations.

I've read of someone who tried it only to find that a group/department at his college had is SSN# posted :-(; which he now fixed. My guess is that his identity is safer for ahving done this.

Of course, a partial SSN with a wildcard match might be a better idea.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Anonymous Coward]

But I thought AOL was the Internet? Now I'm confused..

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Anonymous Coward]

514 05 2874

Oh, oops... Posting as AC for obvious reasons.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Anonymous Coward]

Go Kansas!

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[drix]

Well, the thought never occured to me, but I just did it. If that number is publicly accessible on the web, I want to know about it.

Unfortunately, though, Google thought I was entering a subtraction problem. The answer was -966. Now go theft my ID :-)

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[BigCheese]

It's modded funny 'cause it's true.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Anonymous Coward]

At work I got a call from someone who checked the memmorize password box for checking their email by accident. This upset them because they often sent and received email with "sensitive information". I sent them an email with directions on how to uncheck and told them that email was basically like sending a postcard.

I then recomended we use a different company for our accounting.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Maxo-Texas]

There was a short period when harris county, texas listed the voter registration cards online... which all had SSN's on them.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Anonymous Coward]

May be just to check whether it's already not somewhere on the web, i.e., it hasn't been already compromised.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Donut2099]

No, the internet is a series of tubes. AOL is a dumptruck.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume you're joking, but giving that result will reduce the number of possible social security numbers to 100, given your place of birth (the first three digits are determined by the location where your SSN was issued; it is likely somewhere you grew up). This leaves 100 possibilites for the inner two numbers. Instead of having 1000 possibilites for the remaining numbers, we only have the one that satisifies the subtraction.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[ryanduff]

To be fair, anyone could type in a nine digit number and it could be anyone's number. For example, 165-32-4865. I'm sure this might match someone reading slashdot at this very moment.

Now, when they're typing in searches with their name and number in the same search, yes, that's dumb!

I haven't had a chance to look at the data myself, but I'm sure it's happened.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[sasdrtx]

I presume you're trying to be funny. A search for a particular ssn hardly gives away any information at all. Without knowing the name, you've got nothing. Address and date of birth are probably necessary to do anything interesting.

There are lots of easier ways to get all that besides mining search records.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[jafiwam]

Actually, I have seen/read places that suggested just that.

The goal being, you can find out if a particular number is on some list (or news group or whatever) on the web.

Not a good idea, considering they are easy to recognize as a SSN even by the lay-person AND the fact that that type of list is not typically posted on a web site (or linked) where it might get crawled.

So, if you find your own number, you know you have a problem and need to get a credit report, etc. So on the outside, it makes some sort of sense.... being paranoid doesn't always mean the person has the tech skills to know how to be paranoid right.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Anonymous Coward]

> I have. I want to know if it's out there anywhere on the public internet

it is now.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[ivan256]

How do you know it's their SSN? Maybe they're typing in somebody else's.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Anonymous Coward]

And that dump truck is full of manure.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait. You mean like the hamsters run through the internet tubes? Awesome. Are they carrying tiny little packets?

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Jherek Carnelian]

Also, a couple weeks ago I booked a room at a hostel over the internet, and apparently I mistyped my credit card information, so they asked me if I could to to them again over email. You know, I just said "No, I'll call you."

I send my credit card numbers over email all the time. But I only use "throw-away" numbers that are generated on the fly and can only be charged by a single vendor up to a specific amount (pre-set by myself). Most of the big card issuers offer a similar service for free (last I heard, MBNA, which has offered it for at least 5-6 years now, has not had a single instance of succesful fraud involving such throw-away numbers, never mind free, they ought to be paying me to use the service).

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you just reference a Will and Grace episode on Slashdot?!?

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[fragmentate]

I know your SSN.

It's 000-00-0966!

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Novalight_2550]

lol, some people just dont know anything about how to act and what to do and not to do on the ineternet still, most are those like our fathers and mothers who werent really in sync with the whole computer "thing." BTW... i happen to still find hamster dance frigging funny as hell, even more so after drinking or ... *Cough* smoking *cough* yeah...

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Anonymous Coward]

We should not forget that most people dont even know what logging is, or what good it is for, not to mention "logging search queries in plain text,, huh? " Cant blame the users,, aol is in the search engine business, they know these things are happening (users are typing in all strange kinds of things) and should take necessary measures to protect the sensitive information.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[ilctoh]

Hmmm... hypothetically, if you did find your SSN on some website somewhere, what would you do about it?

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Anonymous Coward]

What is a hampster dance? Is it some funny kind of double ended Monroe transfer?

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Mr.123]

The dataset contains personal information including first and last name, SSN, last known address, and telephone number of at least 2 individuals. There are a few more with SSN and full first and last names.

One person was apparently trying to locate another person and entered the search query. So it's not even about you giving up the data, it could be anyone that knows you and is searching online on your name. This release is bad news.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[nelsonal]

Well you see the internet is this series of tubes, filled with little dancing hampsters who pass packets of data over to a dump truck and when the dumptruck gets full the whole thing crashes until it's dumped. The dump truck is called "core" for some reason, thus creating the term core. For all senate interns reading this, I'd be happy to show you the cute little hampsters dancing. Just send your phone number. Perhaps we could get your boss in for a great PR shoot!

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[spiffyman]

Did you just notice a reference to a Will and Grace episode on Slashdot?

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[RobertLTux]

if you really want the full horror (and won't lament the resulting configuration) its a www. .com (note its C O M CM is just as bad but....)

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Anonymous Coward]

That's unreasonably paranoid. I sure hope you never give your credit card to waiters.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Anonymous Coward]

I do, I regularly search google for it, hopefully, I get no results.

Unless I supply additional information along with it such as name, address, DOB etc.... It's just an unconnected number.

Really....

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[sowth]

I find it ironic that you won't send your credit card number by unencrypted email, but your solution is to give it over an unencrypted telephone connection.

I doubt it is any more difficult for someone to eavesdrop on a phone conversation than to capture network packets...

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[slushdork]

So, after reading this, I thought I'd have some fun with Google:

- Go to http://www.ssa.gov/employer/statewebcali.htm and pick an SSN prefix for a particular state (say, CA, which is from 545 to 573).

- Go to Google, click Advanced Search, and in "With all of the words:" enter "SSN".

- In "Return web pages containing numbers between" enter 545000000 "and" 574000000.

- Click Search and stare in horror all the student listings, bankruptcy filings, etc. posted with names, SSNs, addresses, etc.

I'm sure I'm not the first to think of this, but if you abuse any of this information, the Erinyes will come after you!

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[cromulence]

I know your SSN. It's 000-00-0966!

Way to go you clod!!! That wasn't his SSN, that's mine. I demand you remove it from the internet before everyone else knows it!!!

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Anonymous Coward]

(the first three digits are determined by the location where your SSN was issued)

Only in a very general way. Mine, in fact, starts with 722, yet it was issued in San Francisco. Hint: Railroads were given special series to distribute. The hiring guy pulled mine out of a drawer within five minutes of my application being accepted. No interaction with SSA needed, beyond reporting the issuance after the fact.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Memnos]

Yup, and it's the solution to CC fraud that seems to best combine security and ease of use. It should be ubiquitous for everything online, and as much as possible offline. It should be pushed into your face by credit card companies and banks.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[sacrilicious]

Who in their right mind would type their social security number in a search box, in plain text??? I mean, really???

As long as they type in their SSN only when surfing through a proxy, they should be safe. Sadly, most people are too naive to follow this simple safety procedure.

;)

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[munpfazy]

I find it ironic that you won't send your credit card number by unencrypted email, but your solution is to give it over an unencrypted telephone connection.

  I doubt it is any more difficult for someone to eavesdrop on a phone conversation than to capture network packets...

If by *someone* you mean, "someone who works for the phone company, or is a government agent, or someone who knows where I live and is motivated to spend time and energy and to risk serious criminal charges by physically attaching hardware to my house and furthermore someone who is willing to spend enormous amounts of time listening to my conversations," then you are correct.

If instead you mean "someone who doesn't work for the phone company and isn't a cop and who isn't willing to go to extremes to attack me as an individual," then you're far better off using the phone.

The barriers to combing unencrypted email for useful data is a lot lower than the barrier to tapping phone lines. Not only are there more people with physical access to the message (either legitimately or illegitimately), but they have the great advantage that they can read huge amounts of data at a single point and can employ automation to scan for interesting material. And, the guilty party needn't even be located in the same country as you - which makes the whole thing a lot more tempting than having to mess around with wire strippers in the bushes by your house while risking huge wire tapping penalties if caught.

The exception, of course, is an analog cordless telephone. It's still unlikely you'll happen to live within a few blocks of someone who's life is dull enough they'd be interested in listening to all of your conversations and who is also willing and able to use credit card info, but not totally impossible.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[jZnat]

You know you could just search for "545000000..574000000" to do the numerical range thing, right? Works in Ruby, too, IIRC.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess is that his identity is safer for ahving done this.

Yeah, if we guess something is true, it must be!!

Maybe you should guess that your typing doesn't suck...

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[onemorechip]

No, I think he mistook a Simpsons reference for a Will and Grace reference.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing taken from "Will and Grace" can be considered a reference since the writers simply recycle old sitcom jokes instead of creating new ones.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[the-amazing-blob]

Once I run this php code, I'll have it

$n1=0;
$n2=0;
$n3=0;
$n4=0;
$n5=0;
$n6= 0;
$n7=0;
$n8=0;
$n9=0;
$count=0;
for($n1=0;$ n1<10;$n1++)
{
for($n2=0;$n2<10;$n2++)
{
  for($n3=0;$n3<10;$n3++)
  {
   for($n4=0;$n4<10;$n4++)
   {
    for($n5=0;$n5<10;$n5++)
    {
     for($n6=0;$n6<10;$n6++)
     {
      for($n7=0;$n7<10;$n7++)
      {
       for($n8=0;$n8<10;$n8++)
       {
        for($n9=0;$n9<10;$n9++)
        {
         if($count==1000000)die();
         $num1=(100*$n1)+(10*$n2)+$n3;
         $num2=(10*$n4)+$n5;
         $num3=(1000*$n6)+(100*$n7)+(10*$n8)+$n9;
         if((($num1-$num2)-$num3)==(-966))echo "$n1$n2$n3-$n4$n5-$n6$n7$n8$n9<br>";
         $count++;
        }
       }
      }
     }
    }
   }
  }
}
}

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[MotherSuperior]

Actually, I considered this myself, and it occured to me to just write a quickie script to google through all possible SSN's, and store the result for mine. Same for the phone number. Maybe not exhausting all possibilities, but all possibilities within a specified range, or adding it to a randomized list. Just as my fingers hit the keyboard, I started asking myself. Is this *really* a good idea...? :)

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[advocate_one]

you want to see stupid??? one UK based ISP uses peoples phone numbers for the account name... ie. 0181******@xxxxxxx.co.uk. Madness... it's a spammer's wet dream... no need to do a dictionary attack... just make up phone numbers for any particular town or exchange you want to hit with a "targeted" mailshot, or raid the phone book to hope that person uses that ISP so you can really personalise the spam or phishing attempt.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[jez9999]

Funny, I don't recall seeing any e-mail addresses in such a format. Could you please tell us which ISP so we can steer clear of it?

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[radarsat1]

It should be pushed into your face by credit card companies and banks.

Honestly, I didn't even know such a possibility existed... sounds really useful.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[The_REAL_DZA]

Hmm, nice. Of course, you'll need a computer the size of a planet (say, Earth) and a couple of billion years of "CPU time" (and I have a sneaking suspicion the answer you'll get for all your trouble is "42".)

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[spyrochaete]

If you searched for your SSN and then clicked a link, that website now has your SSN in its logs. Web servers usually save referrer data in its logs to see what search terms people use to find their site. I highly recommend not doing that again!!

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[drix]

Or just a brain. I ran that in my head and got "000-00-0996". Correct me if I'm wrong here.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Anonymous Coward]

think about it dude. Computer the size of earth and 42? Try I think the first result is what hes gettig at.

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[Bretski]

Ironic, because now it IS posted somewhere thanks to AOL. I just found 175 probable SSNs in the searches, some with names, addresses, DOB, etc contained in the same search. Wow this is bad.

% egrep '\<[0-9]{3}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{4}\>' *txt | wc -l
175
%

Re:Searching for SSN's??

[gravy.jones]

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) { for (int i = 0;i 1000;++i) for (int j = 0;j 100;++j) for (int k = 0;k 10000;++k) { int l = i - j - k; if (l == -966) printf("%d - %d - %d = %d\n",i,j,k,l); } return 0; }

Killing wives?

[SoCalChris]

Way to jump to conclusions. How do you know that they weren't working on a screenplay, or simply trying to find a phrase they heard mentioned somewhere?

If "End of the world" was searched for, how do you know if they are looking to the lyrics for an REM song, or trying to build a WMD?

Re:Killing wives?

[no_pets]

Or, even "Bare Naked Ladies".

Re:Killing wives?

[a16]

Did you even read the link? Whoever this user was, he wasn't writing a play. And the point here is the possible implications of these logs being released in a place like America, whether this guy is planning on killing his wife, a sick freak, or having a joke - should the logs really be released for all to read and make their own minds up?

His last search history is as follows, if he is writing a screen play, I don't want to see it!
17556639 how to kill your wife
17556639 how to kill your wife
17556639 wife killer
17556639 how to kill a wife
17556639 poop
17556639 dead people
17556639 pictures of dead people
17556639 killed people
17556639 dead pictures
17556639 dead pictures
17556639 dead pictures
17556639 murder photo
17556639 steak and cheese
17556639 photo of death
17556639 photo of death
17556639 death
17556639 dead people photos
17556639 photo of dead people
17556639 www.murderdpeople.com
17556639 decapatated photos
17556639 decapatated photos
17556639 car crashes3
17556639 car crashes3
17556639 car crash photo

Re:Killing wives?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe he just has a healthy wife-killing fetish going on that he would never dare act on. Thought crimes aren't here just yet, people.

Re:Killing wives?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or looking for flash animation

Re:Killing wives?

[JudgeFurious]

I don't think we can afford to just assume that they were looking for the lyrics to an REM song. I think we have to assume they were trying to aquire or build WMD's and I think that means we have to destroy their entire country. They might have even been trying to download copyrighted material. The only way to be sure is to take em' out.

  The price of liberty is eternal vigilence. The price of not being "us" is apparently that odd invasion every now and again.

  In the immortal words of George W. Bush; "Sucks to be YOU! HA HA HA HAHAHAA HAH HAH HA!"

Re:Killing wives?

[bunions]

I don't know why, but this just makes me giggle:

17556639 how to kill your wife
17556639 how to kill your wife
17556639 wife killer
17556639 how to kill a wife
17556639 poop
17556639 dead people
17556639 pictures of dead people
17556639 killed people
17556639 dead pictures
17556639 dead pictures
17556639 dead pictures ...


I just love the random poopsearch that pops up out of nowhere.

Re:Killing wives?

[neo]

Sure looks like lyrics to me.

17556639 how to kill your wife
17556639 how to kill your wife
17556639 wife killer
17556639 how to kill a wife
17556639 poop
17556639 dead people
17556639 pictures of dead people
17556639 killed people
17556639 dead pictures
17556639 dead pictures
17556639 dead pictures
17556639 murder photo
17556639 steak and cheese
17556639 photo of death
17556639 photo of death
17556639 death
17556639 dead people photos
17556639 photo of dead people
17556639 www.murderdpeople.com
17556639 decapatated photos
17556639 decapatated photos
17556639 car crashes3
17556639 car crashes3
17556639 car crash photo

Re:Killing wives?

[lymond01]

1-7-5-6, 6-3-ni-eee-ine!

Re:Killing wives?

[userlame]

They were probably looking for this: http://f0rked.com/flash/v=endofworld

Re:Killing wives?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, in this post 8/6 world you can't be too careful. Thinking about commiting a crime, even if it turns out to be a musing, must be taken seriously. The "inconvenience" suffered by the perpetrators of these heinous thought crimes, when they are thrown in jail and have their names dragged through the mud, is insignificant compared to the potential for loss of life.

I mean doesn't the act of actually searching for information about a crime indicate an intent? I'm sure if we give our police and government the tools they need to persecute... err i mean prosecute crime, then we can trust in nearly all cases they will do so appropriately and in the poli... err i mean public interest.

Re:Killing wives?

[Hoi Polloi]

Steak and cheese!? This man is clearly going to commit murder then suicide via hardening of the arteries.

Re:Killing wives?

[Anonymous Coward]

It has to do with steak and cheese, but you might not want to look it up on UrbanDictionary...

Re:Killing wives?

[toleraen]

That's no random search! Looks like he's looking at pictures related pictures so the shock of seeing the aftermath isn't as great.

And we all know what the last thing a person does before they die is...

Re:Killing wives?

[bunions]

... what? search the internet for photos of poop?

Re:Killing wives?

[Rayston]

uhh, is there something I am not seeing? How does this search pattern indicate that he wasnt writing a play? or a book, or just morbidly curious(wierd but mostly harmless), or putting together some resources for a plot for an RPG group or any of a million other things. I have done similiarly unusual searches on just as distasteful subjects for completely innocent reasons. ....well innocent in that I wasnt going to kill or harm anyone real.

All this search pattern indicates is that...he searched for some wierd stuff. Thats it, absoloutely nothing else can be reliably inferred without some more context. Just because I read the communist manifesto doesnt make me a communist, it makes me a guy who reads a controversial book. You need more information before you can come to any more conclusions.

Thanx

Rayston

Re:Killing wives?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Maybe he's just a perv.

Re:Killing wives?

[Anonymous Coward]

All this search pattern indicates is that...he searched for some wierd stuff. Thats it, absoloutely nothing else can be reliably inferred without some more context. Just because I read the communist manifesto doesnt make me a communist, it makes me a guy who reads a controversial book. You need more information before you can come to any more conclusions.

Of course. But, to cop-types who are paid to be suspicious and to put the worst possible construction on even a "Good morning", it could be a real problem if they encountered a "suspect" found to have such a search history. (Remember -- to cops, there are only three kinds of people in the world: cops; cops' families and suspects.) Anyway, the next thing from a cop's mouth would be, "Does your spouse know you do such searches? You know this would likely come out in court, so why not save yourself a lot of grief and spill your guts right now, preferably without a lawyer? The fact that you might be implicating yourself, even without being arrested, should be of less consequence to you than that, if you don't co-operate, we can probably twist this into an 'obstructing justice' or 'withholding evidence' case, good for, oh, maybe seven years. With Bubba. Perhaps you should consider the fate of Martha Stewart, who can certainly afford lawyers far superior to those to whom you might have access."

Re:Killing wives?

[Anonymous Coward]

MOD PARENT UP (cmon, it's obviously a joke, you humorless bastard)

Re:Killing wives?

[fishbowl]

"Way to jump to conclusions. How do you know that they weren't working on a screenplay, or simply trying to find a phrase they heard mentioned somewhere? "

Here's one I have seen nobody suggest, but that immediately sprang to mind when I saw some of the searches:

A law enforcement officer doing research, whose case has just been compromised due to this data incident.

Re:Killing wives?

[LordSnooty]

Please, I'd be surprised to find out that 17556639 is anyone other than a bored 15-year-old kid looking for some racy photos. I mean, "poop"? "Steak & cheese"? Is everyone who visits rotten.com or ogrish also planning to kill their wife?

Re:Killing wives?

[mlk]

Mushroom Mushroom!

Re:Killing wives?

[Rayston]

All the more reason the Police (or anyone else for that matter) shouldnt be looking at this without some sort of due process and/or the cooperation of the searcher themselves. Due process that started with some sort of reasonable reason for suspicion. At this point, given the search as the only piece of "evidence" we dont even know if the guy even HAS a wife or not.

Thanx

Rayston

Re:Killing wives?

[uglydog]

i gotta remember the smiley faces next time ;-)

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Since most people search for their own name, this really isn't very private. I imagine law enforcement may use this to track AOL users. I wonder what the legal implications are...

it's a geographic location!

[krell]

You insentive clod! The end of the world is a geographic location! Not everyone has been sold on the junk science of the round earth!

Re:it's a geographic location!

[Man Eating Duck]

Actually, it IS a geographic location in Norway :)

It is 1.5 hours drive from where I live, and a really beautiful place.

More info here.

Furthermore, I just searched for "End of the world" on google...

Re:it's a geographic location!

[IameScript]

Assuming space and time are equivalent, the end of the world IS a geographic location!!

Re:it's a geographic location!

[fishybell]

damn...outta mod points...

I wanted to mod you informative...

Hopefully Google takes note

[zibix]

I hope that Google will now mark aol.com as an unsafe website to visit.

This just in

[Klaidas]

Company calls data posting a mistake.
Hmm, I wonder if this "sorry" will be enough

Re:This just in

[neonprimetime]

I like that how the first sentence of the article says these research logs were posted 10 days ago, yet still somehow it JUST reached the /. front page today :-)

PR disaster? O RLY?

[cashman73]

This looks like it may become a public relations disaster for AOL,. . .

O RLY? Certainly, it's not the ONLY public relations disaster for the company! Isn't AOL synonymous with PR disasters nowadays? ;-)

Funniest thing so far

[saskboy]

A friend of mine downloaded this dataset.
A teacher's credit union employee was searching for sexy underwear, how best to conduct a relationship with a co-worker, and have sex in a pickup.
Just before that, she was searching for cars. And appears to have cancer as well, or lives with someone with cancer. Maybe it's her sick husband.

I wonder if that demonstrates why someone wouldn't want their Google searches or AOL info to make it into the public realm. AOL is obviously a bastion of consumer rights.

Re:Funniest thing so far

[ivan256]

You still don't know who that person is, so why does it matter.

Why were you ever under the delusion that aggrigate data about your searches would be kept private. You don't even have an implied right to privacy when you send un-encrypted data across the internet. Not only are people stupid if they're upset about this, they're stupid if they're surprised.

Calling this is a consumer rights issue is a joke. There are no rights involved here other than ones that people made up after the fact because they were irrationally upset.

Re:Funniest thing so far

[saskboy]

"You still don't know who that person is, so why does it matter."

Because sending the data to the business she works for, it could ruin her life. It's not very hard to link the data with the employee, or let someone who might want to link it, do that.

Re:Funniest thing so far

[ivan256]

Not only is it hard to link the data to the employee, it's *impossible* to prove the link.

Besides, the user herself (assuming it's a she) is at fault, not AOL. The user had no reasonable expectation that somebody wasn't watching what they were searching. Hell, there's a good chance it was logged by their employer's firewall.

You can only think this is a privacy issue if you are neglectfully ignorant of how the internet works.

Re:Funniest thing so far

[schwaang]

Why were you ever under the delusion that aggrigate data about your searches would be kept private.

Maybe because AOL's privacy policy says so? First because it defines Member Information to include:

information about the searches you perform through the AOL Service and how you use the results of those searches;

And then it says:

AOL will only share your AOL Member information with third parties to provide products and services you have requested, or when we have your consent

Re:Funniest thing so far

[rapidweather]

Well, I was going to post something here about the 657,427 hapless individuals having their search records publicized by AOL, but the entire post was censored before it could be submitted by the little guy sitting on my shoulder across from the other little guy in the devil suit sitting on the opposite shoulder.

After this revelation, a lot of this will be going on from now on.

I suppose from now on, I'll just have to guess how to XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX in a pickup.

See, it happened again.

Re:Funniest thing so far

[stnf]

What's your point? I'm both a third party and willing to offer her sex in a pickup.

Re:Funniest thing so far

[ivan256]

Keep reading.

Get down to the part about AOL Search, which has additional privacy terms. It is implied that they have your consent unless you opt out of the data collection.

Re:Funniest thing so far

[ivan256]

Also keep in mind that this data is transmitted in plain text over the public network. I continue to maintain that you have to be delusional or uninformed if you consider that data to be private, regardless of whether AOL says they are keeping it private or not.

Re:Funniest thing so far

[AK Marc]

Not only is it hard to link the data to the employee, it's *impossible* to prove the link.

It is easy to link the data to a single person, and impossible to prove the link. However, proof isn't necessary to fire someone or take away their red stapler and send them to the basement.

Besides, the user herself (assuming it's a she) is at fault, not AOL. The user had no reasonable expectation that somebody wasn't watching what they were searching. Hell, there's a good chance it was logged by their employer's firewall.

If they are running AOL on their work computers, then I would guess their IT department couldn't find a log if they were in a forest and all the trees fell over. However, did you consider the possibility that the searches were on her home computer and were able to identify her employment from her home searches?

You can only think this is a privacy issue if you are neglectfully ignorant of how the internet works.

So if some 3rd pary could have stolen her information, then it's ok for any company to violate their published privacy policy? You have a weird sence of right and wrong.

Re:Funniest thing so far

[HTH NE1]

You still don't know who that person is, so why does it matter.

Ever done a vanity search?

Re:Funniest thing so far

[ivan256]

then it's ok for any company to violate their published privacy policy

They didn't violate their own policy. Yes I've read it.

Consent to use your personal information is opt-out according to their policy. I'm guessing this person (I still want to know why you keep saying 'she') didn't or the searches wouldn't have been in this list were it made public or not.

You have a weird sence of right and wrong.

I can't think of a better thing to say to you for intentionally misconstruing my argument and putting words in my mouth than: "Fuck you."

Re:Funniest thing so far

[vidarh]

By your argument practically all internet users are uninformed. Fair enough. However that means most of these searches are likely made with the belief that they'd stay private. Whether or not someone theoretically could intercept it has no relevance as it was a company providing them a service who - whether they technically had the right or not - blatantly abused their customers trust.

You're being delusional if you think that technicalities of whether or not it's wise of people to assume their searches will stay completely private affects peoples right to be pissed off when a service provider they have a customer relationship to releases it to the general public.

Re:Funniest thing so far

[tinkerghost]

32 'X' / 'XXX' = 10 /w 2-
how to 'have sex with 10 other people and a midgit' in a pickup?
Hmm, ambitious - I would recommend a 1 1/2ton pickup for that.

Re:Funniest thing so far

[AK Marc]

They didn't violate their own policy. Yes I've read it.

I read it too. They violated it.Consent to use your personal information is opt-out according to their policy.

Use != distribute to an unrelated 3rd party for purposes unrelated to AOL or any services AOL provides to the customer.

I can't think of a better thing to say to you for intentionally misconstruing my argument and putting words in my mouth than: "Fuck you."

I didn't intentionally misconstrue it. You asserted that because it was transmitted insecurely anyway, she shouldn't expect it to remain private, so it is her fault that someone gets a hold of it. It doesn't matter that it is the person that she intentionally sent the information to misusing it, you seem to assert that anything transmitted unencrypted is fair game. So, since you are trying to straddle some imaginary fence only you can see, and you get pissed off when someone points out that you are blaming the victim (how very Republican of you, and no, I'm not a Democrat), I'll answer back with a hearty Fuck You Too. Hey, after all, it is a thread about AOL (me too!). Perhaps if you were more clear when you were blaming the victim that you think they deserved it for wearing a short skirt or whatever, people wouldn't misunderstand. After all, you said "You don't even have an implied right to privacy when you send un-encrypted data across the internet" which is completely wrong, since there are overt privacy policies, as well as no practical way for a non-ISP to get my traffic unless they commit fraud to perpitrate a man-in-the-middle attack. The Internet isn't some big flat network that everyone can see everyone else's traffic. It's roughly as secure as a long distance phone call. When I call a friend out of state, my call is passed to at least 3 phone companies, all of which have equipment installed designed to make it easy to tap calls, yet the courts have ruled that I do have an expectation of privacy. If you see the Internet as vastly different, then you don't understand how it works (and yes, telling someone on Slashdot that they don't know tech stuff is another way of just telling you "fuck you").

Have a nice day and go fuck yourself.

Re:Funniest thing so far

[ivan256]

I didn't intentionally misconstrue it.

Ok, maybe you didn't misconstrue it. Maybe you're just a moron.

Here's the issue... You are directly implying that I said what they did was right, when what I really said was that nobody should be surprised. Quite honestly, that's rude and insulting.

as well as no practical way for a non-ISP to get my traffic unless they commit fraud to perpitrate a man-in-the-middle attack.

What does 'non-ISP' have to do with anything. Who is to say that your ISP isn't logging your searches? If they're a big ISP they almost certainly are in the log files for their transparent proxy. And that is to say nothing of the routers and firewalls that may be between you and the internet any time you sit down at a terminal you didn't configure yourself. I will say it one more time... You have no expectation of privacy when sending unencrypted data over the internet unless you personally have taken steps to guarantee it.

Re:Funniest thing so far

[Anonymous Coward]

Get down to the part about AOL Search, which has additional privacy terms. It is implied that they have your consent unless you opt out of the data collection.

Um, no. The privacy policy's only reference to AOL Search is:

Additionally, some AOL Service offerings (AOL Search for example) allow you to control what information is collected or used when you use that offering.

This only refers to what information is collected and used, not how it is used. AOL even admits that this breech violated their privacy policy.

Tracing back to a user

[gstegman]

It occurs to me that it would be pretty difficult to trace back to the user who is doing the searching by knowing what they are searching for. Sure I have Googled myself and have entered my address into Google Maps, Map Quest, etc. But I have Googled about a hundred other people and thousands of addresses. It would be an interesting game of what do all these things have in common for someone to triangulate all this information back to who I am. Granted I have never done a search on my or anyone elses Social Security Number, that's just asking for it.

Re:Tracing back to a user

[Speedcraver]

I just traced all of your searches, I know who you are. You are Kevin Bacon!

Re:Tracing back to a user

[RonnyJ]

The biggest problem for an 'average user' is if somebody has access to the data, and tries some searches for names, schools, etc. If they turn up results, it's very possible that they could identify somebody they know.

Re:Tracing back to a user

[thefirelane]

But I have Googled about a hundred other people and thousands of addresses

988905: Brittney Spears
988905: Bill Clinton
988905: George Clinton
988905: George Clooney
988905: G. Stegman
988905: Mother Teresa


Guess!

Re:Tracing back to a user

[Unknown Poltroon]

WEll, look at it this way, im pulling it down to do a search for my familys name, and then to run through any other random names that comes to mind. Once you have a name, then you can start tyring things togethere. Or maybe you just want to blackmail everyone who looked up "horsepron". You have a name, and maybe a general location, you can go to town. I think this is going to be a HUGE mess, and i think it will be much easier than you think to narrow it down to a specific name and user.

Re:Tracing back to a user

[eln]

I find stalking can be much more effective if I stick to just stalking 2 or 3 people at a time.

Re:Tracing back to a user

[ivan256]

Hmm... None of them?

And so the hell what? Even if you could make a guess, you still couldn't prove it.... And even if you could prove it... WHO CARES? These people didn't even have a reasonable expectation that this data would be private. Their browser even told them so the first time the submitted data.

Re:Tracing back to a user

[jamsessionjay]

The thing is, it wouldn't be that hard to find out who you were with a search data set similar to your own. First of all, the all the male/female names can probably be taken out based on your other searches. There just aren't that many women interested in certain areas, and like-wise for men. Next; have you ever been in any organization in your life? They usually post your name and information on their websites. I still have my name on a high school track website from years ago. If you've ever been a member in track/quiz bowl/fraternity/sorority/band/computer club/conference speaker/open source developer or are on facebook/myspace/blogger, then you can base that information from all the people who you have searched for against these data mining operations.

See, there isn't any information that you need or use in your life that can't be tracked back to you. That's why privacy laws are so important and where problems with identity theft are just too easy to happen.

Re:Tracing back to a user

[imsabbel]

Oh, if you are such an avid search engine user, there WILL be something to ID you.
And then, all those 100s of searches for addresses and people will become perfect data-mining ore for your personal profile.

Re:Tracing back to a user

[harmonica]

People tend to search for names of people they know from their workplace, school, community.

Re:Tracing back to a user

[enrgeeman]

does that make his bacon number 0 or 1?

get over it - there is no privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no privacy! Get over it!

-Scott McNeally

The last nail in the coffin

[NightWulf]

This is the last nail in the coffin for AOL I would say. This is a horrible invasion of privacy for people. Many people, myself included have probably searched for our own names, addresses, cities, credit card numbers, etc. I really hope that an attorney somewhere sues AOL into oblivion over this.

Some intresting tidbits:

17556639 how to kill your wife 17556639 how to kill your wife
17556639 wife killer 17556639 how to kill a wife
17556639 poop 17556639 dead people
17556639 pictures of dead people 17556639 killed people
17556639 dead pictures 17556639 dead pictures
17556639 dead pictures 17556639 murder photo
17556639 steak and cheese
17556639 photo of death 17556639 photo of death
17556639 death 17556639 dead people photos
17556639 photo of dead people 17556639 www.murderdpeople.com
17556639 decapatated photos 17556639 decapatated photos
17556639 car crashes3 17556639 car crashes3

160689 light brown colored semen 3/2/2006 16:30 9 http://experts.about.com/

6497dog eat monkey5/22/2006 5:39
6497dog eat monkey5/22/2006 5:39
6497capuchin monkey dog5/22/2006 5:39
6497dog eating monkey5/22/2006 5:40
6497dog eating monkey5/22/2006 5:40
6497dog eating monkey5/22/2006 5:40
6497dog eats monkey5/22/2006 5:40
6497dog eats monkey5/22/2006 5:41
6497eating capuchin monkey5/22/2006 5:41
6497eating capuchin monkey5/22/2006 5:41
6497eating capuchin monkey5/22/2006 5:41
6497kill capuchin monkey5/22/2006 5:41
6497killing capuchin monkey5/22/2006 5:41
6497slaughter capuchin monkey5/22/2006 5:42
6497feeding capuchin monkey5/22/2006 5:42
6497feeding capuchin monkey5/22/2006 5:42
6497eyes capuchin monkey5/22/2006 5:42
6497tail capuchin monkey5/22/2006 5:42
6497tail capuchin monkey5/22/2006 5:43
6497tail capuchin monkey5/22/2006 5:43

6497beach stud speedo5/23/2006 1:24
6497beach martin ricky5/23/2006 1:24
6497beach martin ricky5/23/2006 1:25
6497beach martin ricky5/23/2006 1:25
6497beach martin ricky5/23/2006 1:25
6497beach martin ricky5/23/2006 1:25
6497beach martin ricky5/23/2006 1:27
6497beach martin ricky5/23/2006 1:27
6497beach martin ricky5/23/2006 1:28
6497beach martin ricky5/23/2006 1:28
6497beach martin ricky5/23/2006 1:28
6497beach martin ricky5/23/2006 1:28
6497beach martin ricky5/23/2006 1:29
6497-5/23/2006 1:55
6497-5/23/2006 1:55
6497recent5/23/2006 1:55
6497speedo triathlete5/23/2006 1:55

3302children who have died from moms postpartum depression
3302children who have died from moms postpartum depression
3302rotovirus2006-03-24 19:55:12
3302statistics on infancide
3302statistics on infantcide
3302statistics on infanticie
3302statistics on infanticide postpartum depression
3302statistics on infanticide postpartum depression
3302statistics on infanticide postpartum depression
3302pictires of tom cruise and his wife
3302people magazines pictures of tom cruise and katie holmes

2652898my space.com (about 100 times)
2652898different ways to jerk of
2652898how to not ejaculate so early
2652898my penis has a big erection
2652898free videos of big dicks

Thanks to FARK.com for the snippits.

Re:The last nail in the coffin

[Anonymous Coward]

I think 3302 is just news items from that time period (resolution of crazy lady case in Texas). Not sure why it's interesting except to note that people will read a news item and search for related materials.

Re:The last nail in the coffin

[Jugalator]

Another blog covering that stuff:
http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2006/08/07/aol-s earch-data-shows-users-planning-to-commit-murder/

Re:The last nail in the coffin

[ivan256]

Yeah, if I were 6497 I'd.... Well I'd be ashamed that I liked Ricky Martin, but that's about it.

There is no privacy issue here. Even if users names had been used, you don't have a right to privacy of submitted internet form data unless you are using encryption and the server operator has agreed to enforce your privacy. Every major browser informs you of this the first time you submit data, and every time until you acknowledge it.

This was not a well thought out move by AOL, but that's about it.

Re:The last nail in the coffin

[madcow_bg]

There is no privacy issue here.
If there was no privacy issue, nobody would be mad at them for releasing the info.

Even if users names had been used, you don't have a right to privacy of submitted internet form data unless you are using encryption and the server operator has agreed to enforce your privacy.
Yes, you have a right to privacy. Spoofing is not too legal, I mean you cannot do whatever you want with the information. Or if someone attaches to your home network and starts distributing the information, that is not wiretaping, is it? You should have encrypted it...

Every major browser informs you of this the first time you submit data, and every time until you acknowledge it.
And I will download and use from now on the first browser that declares AOL.com to be a phishing site.

This was not a well thought out move by AOL, but that's about it.
Oh, I hope they didn't think about it. I believe that they must stand against the wall and be shot. Who the hell they think they are to distribute the information of their users without their consent?

Re:The last nail in the coffin

[ivan256]

If there was no privacy issue, nobody would be mad at them for releasing the info.

That's funny.

It's cute that you actually believe that too.

The people are mad because the situation is not what they expected. There are many, many cases where things are not what people expect and said people get upset about it. Frequently in these cases, the issue is that people weren't paying attention. That is the case here. It's not a privacy issue, it's an attention issue.

Re:The last nail in the coffin

[\\]

It tickles me pink that someone, while trying to figure out how to kill their wife, took a break to visit what used to be my web site. Warms my heart :D

Re:The last nail in the coffin

[evilviper]

Even if users names had been used, you don't have a right to privacy of submitted internet form data unless you are using encryption and the server operator has agreed to enforce your privacy.

If your search engine and ISP has a privacy policy, you have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Your data isn't going to be routed through Joe Blow's cable modem, or through routers in China. A reasonable expectation isn't a guarantee, but that's not the point.

It's really only those two parties that could have put together a list like this.

Re:The last nail in the coffin

[headLITE]

Many people, myself included have probably searched for our own names, addresses, cities, credit card numbers, etc.

Yeah, I thought about that too and wrote a little perl script that just prints out all valid (as far as the checksum is concerned) credit card numbers in the data set. I found 30 Visa numbers, 4 MasterCards, 3 American Expresses and 2 times Discover. Some of them could be session ids or some such, although that's unlikely. So it's not that much after all, but it's still reasonable to believe that at least some of those numbers are credit card numbers from people trying to check whether their credit card number was leaked on the internet.

Searching for your credit card number to see if it is on the internet, then having AOL put it on the internet - Priceless.

Re:Just like the Bush Phone Tapping

[RonnyJ]

In many cases, you can link a set of search queries to a person, since the queries often include personal information. Privacy is definitely being violated here.

How did the data get out?

[Bromskloss]

Was it by mistake, or did someone request it?

Re:How did the data get out?

[Richard_at_work]

It was a deliberate statistics set release by AOL meant to be used in studies.

Re:How did the data get out?

[Bromskloss]

It was a deliberate statistics set release by AOL meant to be used in studies.

Oh man, that's worse than I thought. So stupid. Thanks for the info, the blurb should have included it.

New data just released

[Anonymous Coward]

657,437 searches for "how to cancel AOL"

Re:New data just released

[ak3ldama]

yes! haha, mod parent up please.

Re:New data just released

[CompotatoJ]

657,437 searches for "how to cancel AOL"

Not quite that many. I downloaded it and ran the command on the 10 text files containing the search logs:

cat * | grep -c "cancel aol"

There were actually 667 searches for how to cancel AOL.

Re:New data just released

[maelstrom]

Useless use of cat

Re:New data just released

[trollable]

1321

Re:New data just released

[kabocox]

657,437 searches for "how to cancel AOL"
Which brings up 43,400 hits on google.

Here's another interesting one

[Anonymous Coward]

03012003 linux source code
03012003 frivolous law suit
03012003 shady lawyers
03012003 companies that hate linux
03012003 secret funding

Download Data here

[Snake98]

The piratebay link is dead, here is one from mininova, http://www.mininova.org/tor/388815

Re:Download Data here

[Yvanhoe]

Dead too, they are moving fast...

Re:Just like the Bush Phone Tapping

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop worrying about big brother looking over your shoulder.

Yes, stop worrying, Big Brother is watching. Don't worry, you'll be safe, as long as you don't think anything unacceptable.

Child Porn

[db32]

Ahh...great...maybe I can expect a call from authorities if Google ever caves. I got one of those stupid ICQ Child Porn spams one day and started googling for reporting agencies. Not that I think it would do much good, but hey...I would rather have reported it and have it do nothing than to not have reported it and have no chance of it doing anything.

In Soviet....err...In America the government watches you! Ahh...how the times have changed...Working on losing the 1st Ammendment and 4th Ammendment in 8 years. As Thomas Jefferson said "The beauty of the 2nd Ammendment is that you don't need it until the government tries to take it away"... I recently had a picture taken of my baby girl at the National Archives with those 3 terribly important documents honestly wondering if they will mean anything or even exist by the time she is old enough to show her kids the picture.

But hey...may just be me being a pessimist...so maybe the spooks won't get up and arms datamining slashdot and seeing my TJ quote and come interrogate me for being a terrorist...just in case...

Last post!

Re:Child Porn

[PlusFiveTroll]

Whoever modded you Troll must have meant to hit the "True and too depressing to look at button, Hide from other users". And remember when searching "Overthrow facist goverment" and "bombs, guns, weapons" to use someone elses computer.

Re:Child Porn

[db32]

I don't get it either. I was actually hoping for some +funny, but hey...I like gallows humor :)

Re:Child Porn

[ChronosWS]

The documents mean nothing if we don't stand up to defend them. Teach her that, and teach her to be completely uncompromising about it. Maybe then her generation will have it better than ours.

Re:Child Porn

[michaelhood]

http://www.asacp.org/ ASACP works hand-in-hand with Customs and the FBI to eliminate CP on the web and otherwise.

Finally!

[bcmm]

Read the data. Finally, conclusive proof that AOL users are stupid.

Nice Try #17556639

[jeblucas]

Well, looks like we can match one "random number" to someone.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

Re:Just like the Bush Phone Tapping

[ironwill96]

No privacy issues? Just look at some of the data that you can link to a specific user ID over that 3 month period. It is not too hard to figure out who it is. As TFA points out, many people type in their own name to search engines to see if they show up anywhere on the internet. Tied with birth dates, horoscope searches, SS #'s etc, it is not too hard to figure out who a particular user is.

But wait, you were being sarcastic right?

AOL is sorry... they got caught.

[Anonymous Coward]

*******Update***** Monday July 7th 10 AM PST AOL Officially comments in the comments section below.

Andrew Weinstein

All -

This was a screw up, and we're angry and upset about it. It was an innocent enough attempt to reach out to the academic community with new research tools, but it was obviously not appropriately vetted, and if it had been, it would have been stopped in an instant.

Although there was no personally-identifiable data linked to these accounts, we're absolutely not defending this. It was a mistake, and we apologize. We've launched an internal investigation into what happened, and we are taking steps to ensure that this type of thing never happens again.

Here was what was mistakenly released:

* Search data for roughly 658,000 anonymized users over a three month period from March to May.

* There was no personally identifiable data provided by AOL with those records, but search queries themselves can sometimes include such information.

* According to comScore Media Metrix, the AOL search network had 42.7 million unique visitors in May, so the total data set covered roughly 1.5% of May search users.

* Roughly 20 million search records over that period, so the data included roughly 1/3 of one percent of the total searches conducted through the AOL network over that period.

* The searches included as part of this data only included U.S. searches conducted within the AOL client software.

Our apologies again.

Andrew Weinstein AOL Spokesperson

Re:AOL is sorry... they got caught.

[Anonymous Coward]

They are sorry they got caught? You thought they were really trying to release this to the public, but secretly? That has to be the dumbest comment I've ever read.

This is a disaster, PR or otherwise, but it can be no doubt that it was done with the best intentions, since AOL really has nothing to gain from this other than the good PR from helping researchers.

Data mining such things is silly

[Rakishi]

The sheer number of false positives makes this data useless; you'd waste so much police time following false leads that you'll be unable to use it on better methods that give back useful leads. There are dozens to hundreds or reasons to search for such things that are perfectly harmless (random curiosity, research, interest in the morbid, etc.). And the act of searching shows neither a desire to do something nor is it illegal in itself. I've searched for a lot of things that may look odd if taken out of context and without knowing the reason for it, and we should have the right to do so without scrutiny. If I want to know how to make EM weapons or how a suitcase nuke works out of sheer curiosity then I shouldn't fear the police knocking on my door.

It's akin to saying that if you play a violent video game (say one of the more realistic ones) you are a psychopath and must be investigated for potential murder.

Re:Data mining such things is silly

[deepb]

The data was intended to show exactly what you described - samples of search engine usage. There's no such thing as a "useful lead" or a "false lead", because the data doesn't contain leads - it contains search strings.

Really, the only way to invalidate this data would be to prove that the test subjects were conscious of AOL's intent to publish the data, causing them to alter their search habits. Other than that, it is what it is. If you don't understand the value of something like this, it's because you don't fall under AOL's original target audience for this data.

Re:Data mining such things is silly

[Rakishi]

There's no such thing as a "useful lead" or a "false lead", because the data doesn't contain leads - it contains search strings.

Of course it contains potential leads; or rather it has the potential to make people think that without the anonymous ids it would contain such leads. All you need is a nice law that gives the police access to the data with full user information attached and they can parse it for all the leads they wants.

As I hear it there are more than one data miners who are making good business selling such snake oil to the government, which is not necessarily a good thing.

Really, the only way to invalidate this data would be to prove that the test subjects were conscious of AOL's intent to publish the data, causing them to alter their search habits.

I was not invalidating all usage of the data but rather a particular form of usage, as well as attempts to derive certain conclusions from such data. In other words it is a response to people who want the government to have full access to such data to find "terrorists" and whatnot. It's also a response to the people posting in blogs trying to find amusing links in the data.

Other than that, it is what it is.

My point exactly, I was simply noting a certain usage this data is not suited for.

If you don't understand the value of something like this, it's because you don't fall under AOL's original target audience for this data.

I understand the value of such data; certain people put too much value into such data.

If you do not understand or see the potential value that certain people see in this type of data then that is not my fault however it doesn't invalidate my point in any way.

Re:Data mining such things is silly

[deepb]

I was not invalidating all usage of the data but rather a particular form of usage, as well as attempts to derive certain conclusions from such data. In other words it is a response to people who want the government to have full access to such data to find "terrorists" and whatnot. It's also a response to the people posting in blogs trying to find amusing links in the data.

Look at the subject of this post, "Data mining such things is silly". Sure sounds to me like you're covering "data mining" as a whole, not just misinterpretations of the data.

Of course it contains potential leads; or rather it has the potential to make people think that without the anonymous ids it would contain such leads. All you need is a nice law that gives the police access to the data with full user information attached and they can parse it for all the leads they wants.

So it would contain "leads", but not without a new law allowing police to use hearsay, gathered from the Internet, as evidence when obtaining arrest warrants against the general public. Sure - ignoring the multiple conflicts that law would have with the US Constitution, I guess it's not too much of a stretch. Thanks for the insight; admittedly, I rarely consider imagined unconstitutional laws when responding to Slashdot posts.

I would recommend re-reading your original message so you can sync up with yourself on what your original opinion was. I'm not going to waste any more time responding to frantic backpedaling ..

Re:Data mining such things is silly

[Rakishi]

Look at the subject of this post, "Data mining such things is silly". Sure sounds to me like you're covering "data mining" as a whole, not just misinterpretations of the data.

Right, it's slashdot. People here don't RTFA so why would I expect them to read the posts either. Either that or you are utterly unable to perform reading comprehension and read between the lines.

So it would contain "leads", but not without a new law allowing police to use hearsay, gathered from the Internet, as evidence when obtaining arrest warrants against the general public. Sure - ignoring the multiple conflicts that law would have with the US Constitution, I guess it's not too much of a stretch.

Arrest warrants? Not really, search warrants are more likely. Then again since my post was aimed mostly at people who for some odd reason want such laws and why they're morons it's not like I care much about the details or problems involved.

Too lazy and busy to find and respond to those posts directly.

I would recommend re-reading your original message so you can sync up with yourself on what your original opinion was. I'm not going to waste any more time responding to frantic backpedaling ..

Suit yourself, and frantic backpedaling? You seem to think that I care enough about this to put much mental effort into it. Unlike you I don't really give enough of a damn beyond amusement. If I did I would have spent time to write my first post more coherently but evidently I didn't.

Also, how the heck can you draw all these assumptions and conclusions from a post which was written semi-coherently and was quite visible missing half of what it was supposed to say? Not to mention that some of your conclusions are downright absurd, as there is evidently a specific aim in the original post explicit or not.

Re:Data mining such things is silly

[deepb]

Also, how the heck can you draw all these assumptions and conclusions from a post which was written semi-coherently and was quite visible missing half of what it was supposed to say? Not to mention that some of your conclusions are downright absurd, as there is evidently a specific aim in the original post explicit or not.

Ahh yes, shame on me for not realizing you omitted certain key portions of your original post. I usually spend a few minutes reading the mind of anybody I decide to reply to, but I was feeling a bit lazy earlier.

Either way - I agree with you on this one. Why did I assume that your semi-coherent ramblings were worthy of a reply? Obviously, you don't care about what you're doing beyond the level of self-amusement, so why did I waste my time replying? I have no idea!

PS - use commas to break up long sentences!

Pirate Bay Link Broken

[barik]

The Pirate Bay link is broken and the feed is no longer available from the site.

Re:Pirate Bay Link Broken

[barik]

Well, it looks like the torrent is still available through MiniNova: http://www.mininova.org/tor/388815

14 download mirrors + BitTorrent link to the file

[russiste]

The file is available here:

http://www.gregsadetsky.com/aol-data/

There are 14 mirrors listed there. They have all been added after this first mirror went live less than 20 hours ago.

I have already transferred 863Gb of data in that short period of time.

Obviously

[rsilvergun]

you're not married.

Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

The data was sent out anonymously. It had noones name attached to it. What is the big f'in deal?

I'm all for being gun ho about our rights and protecting our privacy, but this was 100% anonymous and was meant to be used for research purposes. I guess I just don't see what the big hoopla is..

Re:Seriously?

[Manchot]

People often search for their own names. Even if they don't, it can often be incredibly easy to narrow down who a person is. For example, I often search on my university's web page. I'm sure it would be obvious to anyone who looked at my search records to surmise that if I'm searching for an academic calendar at my college's web page, I probably go here. From there, it would be easy to guess that since I often search for "EE," I'm probably in the electrical engineering department.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

You dont see the big deal because you are stooopid. Collect ten things you know about a person that they may have searched for. For example, if they bought a car recently they almost certainly did a search with the car name. Rank the id's based on whether they match these 10 thing. They'll be in the top few, if not the "I'm feeling lucky" top match.

This works for other things, for example search posts for "noones", "f'in", and "hoopla" to start honing in on your alter-ego.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if the searches were ID'd with just a single random number, ALL of those searches are traced to a single user.

Given a large enough data set, it could be possible to identify that individual, as well as private information that was never meant for public consumption.

While a single, out-of-context search would hold no value, tying a series of searches to a single individual would give away a lot of information.

Re:Just like the Bush Phone Tapping

[Anonymous Coward]

so I don't really see the privacy issue

Then you're an idiot. The info itself can contain private info, and being linked by ID makes it much easier. Imagine this set of searches:
Susan Smith phone number
britney spears
Smallville high school
shoe store near smallville
Smallville abortion clinic
dr. joe jones

6 searches and already we can assume the user lives in smallville, is young, knows susan smith, and is looking for information on abortions.

Now, if instead of 6, we had every search for a month or two. How much more information about this "anonymous" user do you think we could find?

Or the Jack Lemmon movie

[bw-sf]

"Did you ever see that film 'How to Murder Your Wife'? Awfully good, I saw it six times" -- Basil Fawlty.

User 17556639

[aquatone282]

FTA:

17556639 how to kill your wife
17556639 how to kill your wife
17556639 wife killer
17556639 how to kill a wife
17556639 poop
17556639 dead people
17556639 pictures of dead people
17556639 killed people
17556639 dead pictures
17556639 dead pictures
17556639 dead pictures
17556639 murder photo
17556639 steak and cheese
17556639 photo of death
17556639 photo of death
17556639 death
17556639 dead people photos
17556639 photo of dead people
17556639 www.murderdpeople.com
17556639 decapatated photos
17556639 decapatated photos
17556639 car crashes3
17556639 car crashes3
17556639 car crash photo

Mmmmmm. . . Steak and cheese. . .

Re:User 17556639

[Anonymous Coward]

Steak and cheese is a website for freaks like user 17556639 and the occassional office moron.

Well...you ARE an AOL user...

[bigdavesmith]

I'm sorry, but if you're still using AOL at this point, you deserve whatever crazy coked-up junk they throw at you.

And how can you determine who a user is with their search info? I mean, who searches for themselves, or puts in their own information? And these are AOL users... Most likely these read as ['huge tits and dicks', 'free smileys','screensavers and cursor fun',...].

Re:Well...you ARE an AOL user...

[apflwr3]

I'm sorry, but if you're still using AOL at this point, you deserve whatever crazy coked-up junk they throw at you.

Really? You think someone deserves to have their search history broadcast to the world because they (essentially) chose the wrong ISP? I certainly wouldn't take technical advice from someone who still uses AOL but I wouldn't wish them harm, either. Besides, we're not talking about AOL's shady billing practices (which are common knowledge.) This came out of nowhere.

You think Yahoo isn't capable of doing the same thing? With their DSL partnerships with SBC/ATT/whatever, as well as Yahoo mail and other services, they have just as much personal data on millions of people-- and don't think for a second they're not keeping extensive search records too.

Re:Well...you ARE an AOL user...

[DrXym]

You can say what you like about AOL but do you think Google or whoever doesn't maintain similar data about you?

In all probability they could pull up a full list of all search criteria you've done in the last 30 days. Now you can of course delete your Google cookie, but if you have a Google Ad Sense / GMail / Site Builder / Groups / Toolbar / Desktop etc. account then you're screwed since you can't be anonymous for part of their site and signed in for another. I expect Google cookies are site wide and "self-healing". Same with Yahoo! Same with MSN. And even if you did use a fresh browser session for Googling, who's to say they couldn't reestablish who you are through fuzzy means? If they logged your ip address (or block), browser, operating system, search criteria and browsing habits, it is feasible that they could reestablish a lock even if you deleted your cookies after each session.

The big screw up here (for AOL) is that this data was released in an uncontrolled way and without thinking of the consequences. I bet that list contains credit card numbers, ssns, real people's names, and compromising search terms mixed with personally identifiable terns that could seriously ruin somebody's life.

Re:Well...you ARE an AOL user...

[bigdavesmith]

I don't mean it as wishing harm on AOL users, but come on. What's the saying? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice...uh... When you buy service from ISP A, which has a history of defending the rights of it's users, and using secure and safe practices, and they end up releasing all of your search history...well, that's not cool, and I feel for you. Maybe this will happen to me one day, hopefully not. When you buy service from ISP B, with a history of being sickeningly infected with spyware, viruses, adds, and not protecting its users...if something like this happens, I'm sorry, seriously, but you're asking for it. We all know AOL's history. It's time to move on, you 657,427 users.

Haha

[drix]

Not to make too much light of a really scary situation, but... the kill your wife guy searched 3 times for it and didn't come across this the first two?! What an idiot!

Re:Haha

[Anonymous Coward]

giving people pointers like this. smart. your ego is showing.

Identifying some users is easier than others

[Anonymous Coward]

13455621 how to fucking bury someone
13455621 funky gibbon
13455621 chair repairs seattle
13455621 addams family
13455621 OSS cancer
13455621 FUD spreading

Re:Identifying some users is easier than others

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I see what you mean:

13455621 developers
13455621 developers
13455621 developers
13455621 developers
13455621 developers
13455621 developers
13455621 developers
13455621 developers
13455621 developers
13455621 developers
13455621 developers
13455621 developers

Huh?

[Runefox]

Social Security numbers are common AOL searches? What? Why would anyone type their SSN into an AOL search?

Oh wait.

Uh, oh...

[__aaclcg7560]

I guess last week was a bad time to be signing up for an AIM account.

Thought process:

[imsabbel]

You have to understand: The average user doesnt comprehent that searching _for_ something actually sends this something into the internet.
He will think: "hm. Lets make sure nobody got my SSN in the internet. I will search for it, and if i dont get any hits, nobody has stolen it!" and believe it to be a good idea.

Re:Thought process:

[ivan256]

The average user doesnt comprehent that searching _for_ something actually sends this something into the internet

Is that because they didn't read the dialog box that explains it to themevery time they push 'Submit' until they uncheck the box, or because they weren't paying attention in second grade when they were taught what 'Submit' meant?

Why do people think they have a right to be protected from their own stupidity?

Re:Thought process:

[jez9999]

Why do people think they have a right to be protected from their own stupidity?

Because the lawyers (and sometimes, the courts) tell them they do.

Eh, not always

[Moraelin]

Think of all the stalkers googling the guy/gal they have a crush on, ex-girlfriends/ex-boyfriends obsessively googling for any evidence that their ex might have a life or (god forbid) a good time, or obsessive over-protecting parents googling their offspring daily. (Even when said offspring is in his mid-30's and living half a continent away.)

E.g., if someone assumed that the most googled name is their own, it would follow logically that mom's searches are mine. Since she's the stalker kind of parent who still doesn't want to let go. I _assume_ it would only link me to her interest in taking photos of squirrels, but, in the end, I just have to wonder what else. Does mom have some fetish I don't (want to) know about? Would it bite me in the ass at some job interview with some HR droid taking it out of context? E.g., if (just as a wild supposition) mom had also googled for sexy male actors, would some HR drone somewhere go "eew, he's gay, we don't want one of those in our team"?

For that matter how do you go about people obsessively tracking their signifficant other? God knows every other guy I know seems to love torturing himself with mental images of his wife/gf/secret-love-interest/whatever having wild gangbangs when he's not around. So how do you know if it's the wife googling for herself or the husband doing the google equivalent of prodding an aching tooth? Repeatedly.

And once you've done the connection, then what? There's a lot of stuff someone may google just for research or as a one-time morbid curiosity.

E.g., I know that at the peak of the COH inflation, where you could get a million just for taking part in a costume contest or just asking nicely or whatever, I just had to google for buying COH currency. Not because I needed any, but because it seemed like an incredibly stupid thing to do in an economy where money is _that_ abbundant. When someone told me that it happens, contrary to all common sense, I just had to check it out for myself. Yep, apparently some people were stupid enough to pay RL cash for it.

There's also stuff that that's basically one of those "you had to be there" thing, because it was a phrase taken out of context.

E.g., if I was googling for one of O Henry's stories, I might google for some random phrase I remember relating to scamming someone. (A good number of his stories are about that.) Would someone take that as indication that I intend to actually use such a scam?

So as I was saying, now what? Pass some judgment based on that association?

What is the big deal?

[LinuxFreakus]

I wasn't the one who posted that data, but I'm personally familiar with the situation. I know the type of data that was used, we analyze it all the time. I'm telling you, unless you already had personal knowlege of the person you were looking for, or you were searching for your own searches that you remember doing, there is no way you'd have a real chance to use this data for much of anything. Just a bunch of bloggers looking to make something out of nothing so they can get attention.

Re:What is the big deal?

[kefler]

Well, lets say you owned a site or had access to the web logs from one of the sites clicked on in the
released data. Now you can cross-reference that click with your own logs, and if it happens to be
a forum (phpbb, vbb) you probably can figure out the user who did the click.. After that you can
go through and see what else they had been searching for. Doesn't make it so anonymous.

Re:What is the big deal?

[LinuxFreakus]

Um... no thats a blatant exaggeration.

The only way you'd know who it was, smart guy, is if they were logged in on your site at the time so you could get the user id. But if the user is already logged in then you don't need the AOL search log to tell you who the user is!!

Like I said, this is all a big deal being made about nothing. Bloggers looking for attention.

Re:What is the big deal?

[kefler]

First off, thanks very much for the kind words. I don't know if I'm a smart guy but it's nice to hear once in a while.

Second, by the method described above, you now know user "xyz" on your site is matched with a UID in the AOL search records. From that you can go back and dump all their searches over the last 3 months.

Also, I'm sure you are kidding about the lack of a privacy problem.. Just grep for the SSN regexp and you'll see, some people searched for their SSN, address, drivers license number, full name, and DOB all on one line. Sure its not smart of them to do, but it would be nice if the company they use as their ISP didn't release that to the world without warning.

Re:What is the big deal?

[LinuxFreakus]

You know nothing of the sort. You have no idea if the user ever visited your site, in many cases AOL's caching engine is the only hit you'll ever get on your site and subsequent searches in the AOL log using the same anonymous user number are not even necessarily the same person for a number of reasons which I shouldn't have to get into if you have any idea how this stuff really works. You are grasping as straws.

Someone searching for their own SSN, or name, is foolish for sure, but as I already said, you have no idea if those searches were really entered by those people or if they were other people looking for said people. You don't even know if they were just people goofing around. User level data is so unreliable that we essentially don't use it. The only real use for this data is at an aggregate level for the purposes of identifying patterns, etc.

Re:What is the big deal?

[kefler]

So you're saying we can't tell who it is and what other searches they've done for "reasons that you won't get into". Although I've already personally seen it done. I suppose you're right, it's really just a bunch of bloggers, news organizations, and millions of average users who are making a big deal out of this.. The guys who released this data (you) are the only ones who know that it's not a big deal. Hopefully you find yourself fired in the near future.

Re:What is the big deal?

[LinuxFreakus]

What I mean is you can't prove it unless you confronted someone and they admit they are the person who made those searches, like that NY Times article with the old lady for example.

Clearly you can find a few examples where the evidence does suggest pretty strongly who a person might be, but even if you have a username, you STILL wouldn't know who was really using a computer at the time or why, or if it was even some bot/spyware program on the client.

And just to be clear, I had nothing to do with this data being released. Nothing. The thought would never even cross my mind, never in a million years would I do something so obviously against company policy. Every company in the internet business keeps data like this (and it is vital to the way they all do business), but I have no idea why the guy who posted it somehow thought it would be OK for him to release some of it on the internet. I only wanted to say that many people are over reacting to the situation because they do not understand the technical details.

Believe me, AOL is taking this incident VERY seriously. Things will never be the same again after this.

Competing with Google's 1 Trillion keywords ?

[cpatil]

I had submitted a story to slashdot - which is still pending. Google to open 1 trillion words at LDC in a 6 pack Monday August 07, @08:36AM Pending Was AOL provoked by Google's action ? LOL

Re:Competing with Google's 1 Trillion keywords ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy shit that's a lot of words.

This is silly

[fjf33]

" Looks like they've just taken it down but it's still available on The Pirate Bay; not sure why but some of the academic researchers are going crazy musing the ethical aspects of letting the world know who's searching for how to kill their wives ..."

Because of the presumption that your are not breaking the law? We all have things to hide. Some don't even break the law but could be bad if they were out there. Presumably this guy hasn't killed his wife either. If there was a dead wife and her husband was a suspect, it should not be a problem to get the household computer IP search history from AOL. It is even legal.

Should we investigate anyone that talks about killing someone. We all say that in jest from time to time.

This is the same stupidity behind the automated listening to conversations. It generates too many false positives and it wastes investigator time. Gods know we don't need more fuzzy leads for possible crimes. There are many ACTUAL crimes out there that need investigating.

Maybe you won't object to a camera in every room of your house? After all you are not guilty of anything are you?

There is no privacy

[Ogemaniac]

Especially on the internet. Don't even bother to try. The world is too interconnected now, and there is no going back.

Learn to live with this reality. Your life will be easier.

Start by not doing things that will get you in trouble. Follow up by not doing things that are embarrassing, or not getting embarrassed in the first place. Remember - 95% of men admit to being chronic masturbators. Coincidentally, five percent have been scientifically determined to be chronic liars.

Re:There is no privacy

[Yvanhoe]

Well, even with this attitude, I have a few things to "hide" that are not embarassing things :
- my credit card number
- my door code number
- my social security number
- my windows XP key (yes I was forced to buy one)
- my root passwords
I agree, these shouldn't appear in my web searches, but this is to show you we can't live without any privacy.

Plus there are things that I am not embarrassed with, but that I hide from some people because I know they can not deal with it like adults, these could be revealed by a look at my google searches. Imagine the following scenarios:
- a boss who thinks linux is communism (don't laugh)
- a gal who thinks role-playing is (only) a sexual fetish
- an aunt who thinks heavy-metal is satanism
- a co-worker who thinks that "The Neo-Anarchist's Guide to North America" is an extremist propaganda book (it is a shadowrun supplemental) and refuse to take the plane with me.

Now I agree that in a perfect world, we could work on these different points of view. I could give a technical explanation to my boss, bring the gal to a RPG session (no you don't need to wear anything special), listen a Manowar CD with my aunt and convince my co-worker that a book with advices for smuggling isn't necessarily evil. But now, in this world, lies by omission has become a virtue, a god-gift that allows us to live in society, and keep peace between the sales department, the IT department, the security staff, the management department.

What if he's searching for a story

[Moraelin]

I hate to break it to you, but there are a ton of stories out there dealing with morbid topics. Either seriously (e.g., horror stories, a la Lovecraft or Edgar Alan Poe) or as a sort of dark/macabre humour.

And especially pay attention to the last alternative: there are a lot of stories and sites that are just supposed to be obviously humorous, not actually to be a DYI guide to the subject in their title. E.g., I think there was a humorous site somewhere titled something like "how to pick up underage girls", or something to that effect, and it wasn't actually a paedophile's field guide. E.g., take sites like the Evil Overlord's List, which are just a parody of common movie cliches, not actually a guide to be followed by someone. (Unless they're writing a story involving a stereotypical Evil Overlord.)

So how do you know if that guy didn't google for the title of such a story? Or for some random phrase he remembered from one?

E.g., I remember reading an absurdist play by Eugen Ionesco about some murderer who tempted people to come see the colonel's photo, and then pushed them into some lake. What if I googled for that? Remember, I don't know the title of the play any more, so I can't just google for that. Not that it would make it any better, because the title IIRC was something about an unpaid assassin.

The whole thing didn't even make much sense, other than maybe as a metaphor for something or another. It's an absurdist play, so don't ask me for what it was a metaphor. It contained such gems as the everyman hero asking a police officer something to the effect of "and didn't you send cops to get him?" and getting an answer like "yeah, but they too wanted to see the colonel's photo." Nowhere does it say what colonel or what's special about that photo. I guess it wouldn't be absurdist if it did.

So if I tried googling for that play on the net, would you use your amazing deductive powers to conclude that I'm looking for a hitmal willing to do some pro-bono work? Maybe to whack-off some colonel?

Re:What if he's searching for a story

[Fortran IV]

...there are a lot of stories and sites that are just supposed to be obviously humorous, not actually to be a DYI guide to the subject in their title.

"A Do-Yourself-In guide"? I thought he was looking for help with murder, not suicide.

Re:What if he's searching for a story

[Fnkmaster]

While it wouldn't be very nice to whack a colonel, if you whack-off a colonel, well, that's a totally different story.

AOL Goes After Dead People Too

[chromozone]

AOL was just in the news over the weekend in an article about a woman who can't get AOL to cancel her dead fathers account. What an awful company. Lets not forget AOL was also the company that had the employee who sold a few hundred thousand credit card numbers. I don't think I would even use the free stuff they are now advertising. They probably have rootkits at the ready - easily detectable ones at that - just to really implode in grand style.

  As the Marquis de Talleyrand said after losing a chess game. ""It is worse than a crime, it is a blunder!"

Even dead people can't escape AOL

By David Sheets
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
08/04/2006

Maxine Gauthier doesn't own a computer. She doesn't know the first thing about Web browsing or sending e-mail. She's not even sure where to find a computer's "on" button, as she describes it.

Yet for the past nine months, she has been fighting one of the most persistent and some say irritating institutions in cyberspace: AOL, formerly known as America Online.

"They just haven't wanted to let go," the 55-year-old St. Louisan said. "I don't think they'll ever really let go."

The problem? An AOL account once held by Gauthier's late father still showed billing charges accumulating against it. The account had been dormant for months; the credit card he used for it was inactive at least as long.

Nevertheless, AOL kept charging $25.90 each month for dial-up online access. Late fees for non-payment accumulated on the credit card, too.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/business/columnis ts.nsf/techtalk/story/A0F7FD49EFA6565A862571BF006C 005A?OpenDocument

Re:14 download mirrors + BitTorrent link to the fi

[Yvanhoe]

You should be logging the ips downloading the file and leak that in a few days...

HUGE Screw-up. They're upset because...

[ivan256]

...they usually charge astronomical fees for that kind of data, which is the only reason it had been compiled in the first place.

Re:Just like the Bush Phone Tapping

[TubeSteak]

As an aside - The fun thing about Social Security Numbers is that you can use anyone's SSN for about 99% of the situations where a SSN is requested.

Your bank and Federal/State Gov't are about the only people (I know of) who will check your SSN to be sure it's valid. If you can name any other organizations that always checks SSNs, please feel free to reply and add to this list.

Re:14 download mirrors + BitTorrent link to the fi

[russiste]

Thanks, but no thanks ;-)

Greg

Eh? Security vs. convenience

[raehl]

I mistyped my credit card information, so they asked me if I could to to them again over email.

I am always amused by people who are concerned about sending their credit card number over email. Credit card numbers are just plain not secure period. The number is even printed right on your card, and also encoded in a machine-readable format! It's sent through the mail on your bill, it's printed on receipts (although things are getting much better here), there are plenty of easy ways to illicitly get credit card numbers that are much easier than email.

If you're not willing to send a credit card number through email, then you probably just shouldn't have a credit card at all.

Re:Eh? Security vs. convenience

[shadowbearer]

Reminds me:

  I was biking thru an alleyway on the way home from work a couple of days ago, and I found a bunch of what looked like bill statements scattered all over from, I'd guess, the garbage cans. Since this sort of thing concerns me, I gathered them up and tried to find the recipient ( he turned out to be a block down from there)

  I only looked at them long enough to find an address on them, then gathered them up and dropped them in the mailbox of the owner with a quick note as to how I found them. But even that quick look was enough to see that there were both the account number and the SSN of the recipient printed on them.

  Until that sort of foolishness stops, there isn't much point in securing databases or email, is there? I see it quite often.

SB
  (who hasn't had a credit card in 16 years thru my own choice)

Re:Eh? Security vs. convenience

[devilspgd]

Well... There is one point in securing databases...

Just because some ass-clown didn't bother to take precautions doesn't mean that everyone is that stupid.

I shred everything from dilbert to pizza flyers to credit reports, if someone wants to go to the effort of reassembling bags of cross-cut shredded paperwork, great, I figure I should give them some laughs, and some suggestions for where to eat while they work.

In other words, if that guy's information is stolen from a database, it's probably not a big deal, he's leaving it accessible on the street anyway, but if MY information is stolen, there are good odds it wasn't from my garbage...

What does the data tell us about humans?

[presidenteloco]

Let's step back a minute.

Presumeably, this whole collection is actually interesting and informative data
about peoples' patterns of interest. Yes, the privacy violation of including any personally identifying searches is terrible, but that's water under the bridge now.

Here's a question. Are we, collectively, afraid of finding out what human beings are really like? What our statistical behaviour actually suggests, as opposed to what sanitized morality-focused religious "education" would have us believe about peoples' nature?

The "shocked and appalled" tone of the responses certainly suggests that we are afraid of finding out the truth about ourselves. Some of the negative reaction is, justifiably, about the dumb release of identifying information,
but what of the rest of the negative reaction? Surely it would be fascinating to do some statistical socio-psychological research on this data, and other data like it, and find out answers to questions like "what are people interested in,
in general, and relatively how much are they interested in various topics, and various connections between topics. This would tell us a lot about the behaviour of the human animal."

  Are we ready to know these answers?

Re:What does the data tell us about humans?

[Anonymous Coward]

The data tells nothing about humans, and probably nothing new about AOL users.

Re:What does the data tell us about humans?

[Anonymous Coward]

trends.google.com, have fun

Re:What does the data tell us about humans?

[Zaphod2016]

Most of us already know these answers.

The rest will not be swayed by data, logic or facts.

AOL powered by Google...

[cpatil]

Since AOL is powered by Google, they have released the data which Google had previously refused to share.

Re:AOL powered by Google...

[James Carnley]

What makes you think that AOL is powered by Google?

Re:AOL powered by Google...

[cpatil]

"AOL Search".

Re:AOL powered by Google...

[cybersikh]

AOL search results are branded by the "Enhanced with Google Logo". Just go to AOL.com and take a look for yourself.

Clear your cookies!

[homer_ca]

The way that different search queries are linked to a unique user are with browser cookies. So clear your cookies from all the search engine domains, or refuse cookies from them. And for god's sake, don't be logged in to your Gmail while you're searching on Google in the same browser. They're the same cookie! The same goes for Yahoo mail and Yahoo search, AOL Webmail and AOL search, etc.

My suggestion is run both Firefox and Opera. Use one for webmail, the other for search.

AOL's recent activities seem..

[clickclickdrone]

I am reminded of that joke where the punchline is 'you're not here for the hunting are you?'. They do seem to go out of the way to screw themselves, that's for sure.

This is why the data should not be retained

[Anonymous Coward]

Regardless of privacy policies or "Not Evil", there can be a screw-up if the data exists. If the data exists, there's nothing to disclose.

Funny?

[harmonica]

You have a strange idea of "funny". If your interpretation of events is half true, I'd call that "sad" at best.

Re:Funny?

[saskboy]

Have you heard of "funny strange, not funny haha"?

More data where this came from on Limewire

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want more of this type of data, all you have to do is install the free version of Limewire, wait until it connects to the gnutella network as an ultra peeer, and enable display search queries and you can sit back and watch this stuff scroll by to beat the band, what everyone is search for with limewire.

I imagine you can get yourself the free source code, hack it to capture this and dump it to a text file, and after you've got terabytes, do a sort on it to find out what is the most popular searched terms.

its amazing what kind of crap people search for, that you've never even heard of...

If you can't find a link to this stupid AOL data, here' are some mirrors:

http://www.gregsadetsky.com/aol-data/

Now, the respectable thing to been done by the community would of been to have not made this kind of thing headlines, told AOL this was a BAD IDEA (tm) and why, and it would of slipped into obsurity. Now that its been sensationalized its gone viral and that's where the real damage was done. Places like DIGG and SLASHDOT that sensationalized it.

Now there's going to be a massive game to hunt down and identify as many users on the list... like a game of CLUE.

ISPs and search engine providers have a moral obligation under their terms of service or should, never to release this kind of thing to ANYBODY. Not a government agency, not anybody. In fact, it shouldn't even be logged and saved.

Just like RFID numbers, there is no problem

[Ougarou]

This is no problem at all. It's just like the random numbers in RFID chips, so what's the problem!
:-P

Just remember! All those searches of mine...

[kinglink]

Purely academic!

I swear I'm not into midget goat porn, which involves two girls, a guy, and a alien look alike!! I swear honey, I'm just not attracted to those things.

On the other hand RIAA is probably having a field day. "AHA Mr. Kinglink, you searched for 'Download music free'. Bwahahaha! You're ass is mine!"

my favorite quote from the article...

[the_wesman]

"...the ability to analyze all searches by a single user will often lead people to easily determine who the user is..."

are they predicting the future? '.. the ability ... WILL often ...' how do they know it will happen often? I think it takes more than an ability to analyze data to 'lead me' into finding someone's identity ... maybe I'm nitpicking but the wording of that sentence is worse than this fragmental jive I'm pushing out right now ....

Site owners - can you find the searches?

[harmonica]

There are a couple of lines in those logs that have supposedly led AOL users to my site. However, I can't verify a single one of those with my own logs. Any site owners out there who were more successful? Any explanation for that phenomenon?

Re:Site owners - can you find the searches?

[iansmith]

I got 25 hits to one of my sites, and have full logs for that time period.

I could not confirm a single hit either.

But... if I am not mistaken, AOL has a gigantic web cache. That could certainly be the cause.

I'll keep looking for hits though.. there has to be at least ONE somewhere I can validate.

Re:Just like the Bush Phone Tapping

[dkoulomzin]

Smallville abortion clinic? Did this person get knocked up by Clark Kent?

Hypocrites

[xplenumx]

I'm absolutely stunned by the number of people who are on one hand saying "This is evil! We must protect privacy!" and yet at the same time have downloaded the list and commented on the information therein.

Re:Hypocrites

[LinuxFreakus]

LOL, good point.

By itself this data is useless anyway. I am familiar with the warehouse that holds this data (because I helped to create it), and even if you have all the tables available to cross reference, we still don't even save anything that is personally identifiable. Its a complete joke that people are making such a big deal out of this. AOL uses this stuff purely at an aggregate level.

If you want to bitch about privacy and ethics, why don't you people go shake a few trees around the Bush administration.

Re:Hypocrites

[chezmarshall]

I'm absolutely stunned by the number of people who are on one hand saying "This is evil! We must protect privacy!" and yet at the same time have downloaded the list and commented on the information therein.

There's nothing hypocritical about it. I'm certainly going to download it and take a look, partly to see if I can find any search terms that might allow someone to identify any of my not-so-tech-savvy friends who use AOL. I'll probably look for funny searches, and I'll probably email those results to other friends.

But at the same time, I can say, without being a hypocrite, that AOL was wrong to publish this data and deserves whatever consequences occur. How can I say this without being a hypocrite? Easy. AOL had an agreement with all these people to keep their private information private, and I don't. AOL took money from these people and had a duty to conduct the business relationship in an ethical way, and I don't. AOL could have published the data in a more intelligent way such that bona fide researchers could have benefitted from the data without violating their privacy agreement with anyone, but they didn't. The result is that casual snoops, in the best case, can be nosy others, and in the worst case, that various lowlifes will try to exploit the data one way or another. That's all on AOL, not on me.

Re:Hypocrites

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not private any more.

Re:Hypocrites

[evilviper]

Not looking at something, doesn't make it go away.

I've never heard anyone say that everyone on the planet should be on the honor system to NOT LOOK at private data. They always say the "trusted" party should NOT be GIVING AWAY the data in the first place.

Re:Hypocrites

[LMacG]

Is that any different than "Somebody else broke the window in the car, I just reached in and took the CDs I saw lying there."

Or "Somebody else blew up the armored car, I just picked up the $20 bills that were fluttering to the ground."

Ethics is hard .

Re:Hypocrites

[Anonymous Coward]

People often search for their own name to see what's on the web with their name. That (and other possible searches) will identify them.

Re:Hypocrites

[LinuxFreakus]

No, it doesn't. It is *possible* but how do you know it wasn't someone else searching for them? You would have no basis make a conclusion from such tenuous data.

Re:Just like the Bush Phone Tapping

[Ph33r th3 g(O)at]

And the bank only can if there's already a credit bureau report, or if they sight your card. They don't have any special ability to query the SSA database.

Big problem with this

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen in several places now how the "gubmint" might start asking AOL to identify user 12345 since this user searched on child pron or kill wife or whatever. However, you don't always just search on things you like. You might be trying to find ways to stop it. You might have gotten a spam email and are trying to stop that.

"I think child porn is bad, so I'll put 'bad child porn' in the search and maybe there is a group that stops this kind of stuff."

"What's that restaurant's name, something like 'Big Dicks' or 'Last Dicks' or something?"

"My daughter needs new clothes, I'll search for 'young girls dressing' - oops, I meant 'dresses'."

"I want to make a lot of money, search on 'how to make a killing'"

"What's that famous book, 'Of Human Bondage'?"

Or

"I want to kill my spouse, search on 'poisoning rats'."

Search data is useless.

Conspiracy theory 1

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm Didnt the govt ask for just this kind of info from google sometime ago? And now aol just accidentally manages to release the same kind of info?

Driving Directions

[grahamsz]

I routinely search for

My Address, My City, My Zip to Somwhere else

If AOL had released that kind of data on me, then it's be easy to link my other search history back to this. Fortunately I know that google already know where I live, so i dont have much to fear in searching for directions like that.

Interestingly most of the results i've seen have very few results per user. I probably hit google thousands of times a month.

Re:Jesus vs Buddha - who'd win in a fight?

[Anonymous Coward]

You think Buddha is going to win in a fistfight against a carpenter? Whatever dude! Jesus is gonna smash his face with a fucking hammer!

Time to revisit "personally identifying info"

[geekotourist]

When AOL appologized today, the spokesperson said '"Although there was no personally-identifiable data linked to these accounts, we're absolutely not defending this."

Back in January, related to the story on how the DoJ demands and gets ISP data, AOL had said that "We did not comply with the request made in the subpoena," spokesman Andrew Weinstein said. "Instead, we gave the Department of Justice a list of aggregate anonymous search terms that did not include results or any personally identifiable information."

AOL- you need to rethink that phrase personally identifiable, because it doesn't seem to mean what you think it means. You're hiding behind one technical definition of PII, without concern about whether or not the results actually have PII. If you're releasing results with personally identifying information, then you cannot say you're not releasing PII. I'd written in January I'd writen "I question this assumption by Yahoo, AOL, etc. that search terms, by themselves, have no privacy considerations because they've been separated from personal info. What if the search itself contains personal information? Are the search companies deleting the timestamps and randomizing the order of the search terms themselves? Because otherwise I could see personal info showing up." Obviously, half a year later, they still think that replacing a name with a number takes away the PII. They need to have a talk with, say, the Census Department, about why the department will withhold data about *groups* of businesses in a region. Grouped data can easily become PII data if you can tease out characteristics. AOL didn't even group the data!

As always, relevant quotes from the best.essay.evar on why privacy is a fundamental human right: "If information that is actually about someone else is wrongly applied to us, if wrong facts make it appear that we've done things we haven't, if perfectly innocent behavior is misinterpreted as suspicious because authorities don't know our reasons or our circumstances, we will be at risk of finding ourselves in trouble in a society where everyone is regarded as a suspect. By the time we clear our names and establish our innocence, we may have suffered irreparable financial or social harm..."

"...agents of the state in Canada cannot order Canada Post to photocopy the address on every envelope we send, nor can they order bookstores to keep a record of every book we buy, let alone of every page of every magazine we leaf through. There is no reason why they should be able to exercise such powers with regard to every e-mail someone sends or every Web site he or she visits."

"I do not see any reason why e-mails should be subject to a lower standard of privacy protection than letters or telephone calls. And I do not see why Internet browsing should be subject to a lower standard of protection than book purchasing or researching in a reference library. Canadians should not be subject to greater state monitoring or scrutiny just because they choose to use new communication technologies."

Yeah... right. Angry and upset.

[gd23ka]

Update: 08/07 21:32 GMT by T : CondieR writes "The White House is now apologizing for the Massacre in Falluja..., calling it a "screw-up," which they're upset and angry about."

Re:Just like the Bush Phone Tapping

[PRMan]

Or maybe they watch Smallville... and there are characters on the show named Dr. Joe Jones and Susan Smith?

(I don't know. I quit watching in Season 4.)

Alternative Possibility

[Anonymous Coward]

AOL claims this was released for "academic research." Is there a possibility that the company bypassed agreeing to a government request by making the information it was looking for public in hopes that it would be less damaging from a PR standpoint?

Re:Alternative Possibility

[ScrewMaster]

Possibly ... although if it ever got out that AOL did that there would truly be hell to pay. Besides, as Google has demonstrated there are a lot of PR points to be gained by simply not co-operating with unreasonable government requests. At least, in the United States.

Guess how many AOLers on Slashdot??

[Cutting_Crew]

This may surprise you but guess how many searches for slashdot or people using slashdot.

Take a look here for the building archive.
Ok fess up.. WHO on here is using slashdot that is an AOL lover. For a long time we have poked jokes at AOLers but it seems they are in our midst.

Re:Guess how many AOLers on Slashdot??

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of sick people...

From you link:
user-ct-test-collection-02.txt:461485 12 yearolds porn 2006-03-18 19:13:31 10 http://yro.slashdot.org/
user-ct-test-collection-02.txt:8409862 free farmsex.com 2006-04-10 13:11:48 9 http://slashdot.org/
user-ct-test-collection-03.txt:10108566 teen chat rooms 2006-05-31 16:13:50 141 http://yro.slashdot.org/
user-ct-test-collection-03.txt:10108566 chat rooms for kids 13 through 18 2006-05-31 19:57:37
user-ct-test-collection-03.txt:14994410 kidde porn web sites 2006-03-15 09:07:16 4 http://slashdot.org/

umm... Not that I have something to hide...

[Anonymous Coward]

but how can someone search for things on the internet without leaving a trace?

Has anyone found their OWN searches?

[iansmith]

I have to wonder if any AOL users have downloaded this and lookef dor, and found themseleves in it?

And if they have.. are any innocent or brave enough to admit it here?

Sheeesh

[Anonymous Coward]

Like /. is any better, first the finger is pointed at AOL for releasing it _then_ tells you where to get it. The editor should have thought a moment before putting this up on the front page.

Probable Cause

[nurb432]

So now, if you search under the word 'terrorist' or 'how to make a bomb' it will be released to the government ( and the world ) *willingly*, which will now suffice as probable cause for a warrant.

What if you searched for something legal today, but made illegal tomrrow, then the records released next week? Now you might have 'forbidden knoledge' and once again you get probable cause..

Lets hear it for freedom!

Not For Me...

[Greyfox]

Since from this day I'll be preceeding the world "AOL" with the word "pervy." That should be some great advertising for them. though. The whole "family friendly" gimmick obviously wasn't working for them. It's obvious that they need to be going after the hard core pervy demographic. "Come to pervy-friendly AOL... you'll be among people you can relate to!" I bet this is just the break they need to return to profitability and an upwardly-mobile number of subscribers.

Re:Not For Me...

[anagama]

I realize it's a joke, but still feel like commenting. "Perversions" are like masturbation. Everyone engages to some extent, but is too shy to admit it. I'm hardly surprised that we'd discover AOLers, whatever their technical incapabilities are, have sexual interests.

Re:Not For Me...

[Greyfox]

And like any joke it has its kernel of truth. If AOL played to that demographic they probably could increase their membership. Since, as you say, everyone's got one.

Another one: "ways to kill yourself"

[Anonymous Coward]

9486162 ways to kill yourself 9486162 suicide by gas 9486162 suicide by natural gas 9486162 how to kill oneself by natural gas 9486162 assisted suicide 9486162 commiting suicide 9486162 methods of commiting suicide 9486162 asphixiation by gas ovens 9486162 suicide by asprin 9486162 suicide by overdosing 9486162 how to commit suicide 9486162 how to commit suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning 9486162 medicines that will over dose you 9486162 how to kill oneself by overdosing 9486162 how to kill oneself by overdosing witn insulin 9486162 how to kill oneself by over dosing witn insulin 9486162 insulin shock 9486162 ways to kill oneself 9486162 gasphyxiation 9486162 ways of killing oneself 9486162 over dosing 9486162 suicide by over dosing 9486162 how long does carbon monoxide poisoning take to kill a person 9486162 asprin over dose 9486162 how to over dose with aspirin 9486162 how to commit suicide by over dose with aspirin 9486162 hh aspirin does it take to over dose 9486162 how to over dose with aspirin 9486162 over dose ways to commit suicide 9486162 how to over dose to kill yourself 9486162 ash.xanthia.com 9486162 how to over dose to kill yourself 9486162 ways to commit suicide 9486162 how to commit suicide 9486162 suicide by aspirin over dose

on killing wives....

[CAIMLAS]

You know, I have to think, instead of assuming that men are bad/evil/whatever in regards to men searching on information on how to kill their wives, that something is seriously wrong with the social and legal institution of marriage for this to be any sort of significant occurance.

If it weren't for the restrictive laws on marriage for men, and how often (ie, pretty much every single time) a man gets seriously fucked in the divorce proceedings, I think there'd be a negligible number of such searches. Consider:

Option 1: Kill wife, and if caught, maybe end up with a strict sentence. If not cuaght, scotch free. if caught and a light sentence, you get all your shit back after your term and parole. (say, 50/50 chance of getting your life back, eventually, all told, if you're "careful")
Option 2: Live with a harpy indefinately, until one of you die (possibly with the thought in the back of your mind, "is she going to kill me in my sleep?"), with every moment of your life a misery; meanwhile, she's spending your hard-earned money on shoes. or, get a divorce and lose everything, and end up paying a large amount of your income for the forseeable future.

Women can (and often do) walk away from marriage with no reprecussions, kids or no. I've seen it several times, and I've never heard of a wife paying child support. On the other hand, I know a guy that's burdened with 50% of his income as child support and lost his house, boat, car, and 10 years of savings (from prior to the marriage, which lasted 6 months).

Boycott AOL. And Slashdot

[General Wesc]

Ah, Slashdot, champion of privacy rights. Constantly bemoaning data retention policies.

...And linking to the data file rather than just reporting about it.

What Slashdot did with this article is as bad as what AOL did. At least AOL had the guts to remove it and claim it was wrong--though likely due largely to the public outcry. I doubt the Slashdot editors (such as they are) will remove their link.

Re:14 download mirrors + BitTorrent link to the fi

[General Wesc]

Nice to see you care so much about users' privacy that you're willing to distribute half a million users' private data.

Oh, but they're AOLers, so they don't have any rights. Rights only apply to the technologically literate, I suppose. Never mind then.

Let me clear my throat ...

[Anonymous Coward]

*cough*cough* ....

CLASS!! ACTION!!!!11!!ONEONE!!

Worst of class or all guilty?

[twitter]

Is AOL really the worst? It's good they publically screwed up but others have been doing the same thing behind your back for years. Most spyware, like Microsoft Windows, comes with an EULA that grants the supplier complete ability to monitor what you do and sell the results to the highest bidder. All of the ISPs, by law, must keep your web activity and email on file so that the feds can come and look through it. Do you trust them to not mine and sell it? Before 9/11 justified all sorts of invasive behavior, US courts had bent over backwards to allow ISPs to read your email with such ridiculous criteria as they could read it if it was "in storage" instead of "in transit". Can you even trust the jokers to keep it to themselves? My ISP might be bright enough to be using Solaris and Apache for web services, but I'm sure they are accessing the information with some crummy Windoze client. If a clerk does not sell them out, it's surely running out over the network multiple times a day. AOL's little "mistake" is just the tip of the iceburg. Abuse over this and "support" issues can be cast far and wide, though one is much more important than the other.

There need to be more of these kinds of scandals because companies should not be keeping this kind of information in the first place. Most don't even want to because it's expensive and prone to abuse. Back when the Feds required Carnivore type logging, all the ISPs objected that it would cost too much. The net result of all of this is places like ChoicePoint. Having a secure OS won't help you when those serving you betray your trust.

Re:Worst of class or all guilty?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=88413&cid=7656 803
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=77588&cid=6896 690
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=73226&cid=6595 921
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=71864&cid=6492 229
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=69025&cid=6312 196
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=49657&cid=5011 656
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=180946&thresho ld=1&cid=14972959
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=129735&thresho ld=5&cid=10823036
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=112229&cid=952 1025&threshold=5
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=137420&cid=114 89094&threshold=5
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=155076&cid=130 11391&threshold=5
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=113493&thresho ld=5&cid=9614809
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=164775&cid=137 51004
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=126301&thresho ld=5&cid=10572437
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=119108&thresho ld=5&cid=10056927
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=135403&cid=112 99129&threshold=5
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=136181&thresho ld=5&cid=11374447
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=134005&thresho ld=5&cid=11203454
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=159878&thresho ld=0&cid=13384602
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=166661&cid=138 99128&threshold=2
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=168164&cid=140 19967
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=168163&cid=140 20030&threshold=5
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=172399&thresho ld=1&cid=14355804

Re:Worst of class or all guilty?

[number11]

All of the ISPs, by law, must keep your web activity and email on file so that the feds can come and look through it.

Cite? Not in the USA, I think (though many of them probably do, to prove what compliant citizens they are). I believe that may now be true in the EU, and the feds are jealous of their EU counterparts, but so far all they can do is ask nicely ("It's up to you, you can help the enemy terrorist paedophiles, or you can help us. Entirely up to you. Did we mention that we have a big secret budget to investigate accomplices of the money laundering pornographic terrorists and executives who have played games with the books?") Or subpoena whatever records you do happen to have kept.

Maybe next year, if the feds aren't too preoccupied avoiding their own impeachment/inditement.

Re:Worst of class or all guilty?

[jb.hl.com]

Most spyware, like Microsoft Windows, comes with an EULA that grants the supplier complete ability to monitor what you do and sell the results to the highest bidder.

Please point me to a specific clause in the Windows EULA that proves that this isn't a complete fabrication. Please. Prove me wrong.

Grammar

[Hal The Computer]

It is 1.5 hours drive from where I live, and a really beautiful place.

So you know, that should be:
It is a 1.5 hour drive from ...

1.5 hours is describing how long the drive is, so you say "a 1.5 hour drive", or if it was farther away "a 3 hour drive". Don't ask me to justify the language, I just speak it. :-)

Re:Grammar

[Anonymous Coward]

Just so you know, English wasn't invented in the US.
His usage is perfectly acceptable in certain countries that don't have a chimp for President.

Re:Grammar

[Man Eating Duck]

Thanks! I'll remember that :)

Re:Just like the Bush Phone Tapping

[JKConsult]

Smallville abortion clinic? Did this person get knocked up by Clark Kent?

And is it possible for a doctor to abort Superbaby?

Re:Just like the Bush Phone Tapping

[morcheeba]

my thoughts, too. I looked for genealogy, either in a search or a website result name. There were a lot of proper names with middle initials and cities:

grep "geneal" | wc = 20657

SSN RegEx of the AOL data

[TubeSteak]

Maybe they want to be sure no one's posted it anywhere?

The results of two very basic regex searches through the AOL data
###-##-#### and ### ## ####

There are plenty of dupes and false positives, but some folks searched for all their info in one go. I didn't mine the results that only pulled up a SSN and no name.

~34KB http://rapidshare.de/files/28590496/SSNs.txt.html

Any other ideas for information that is easy to regex?
(driver's licenses are too varied and CC #s pull up lots of extra garbage)

Re:SSN RegEx of the AOL data

[moyix]

Why would CC numbers pull up extra garbage? The initial pass of #### #### #### #### might, but CCs are constructed so that you can do initial validation just on the number. Check this page for details.

Mouth breathers....

[Hex4def6]

Wow..
I think we are witnessing evolution is action. I'm pretty sure that the following user, for instance, only recently crawled on to dry land. I wonder if they still have vestigal gills?

Query:
24969423 my space. com 3131560415 2006-05-31 19:02:36
24969423 my space. com 3131560415 2006-05-31 19:03:16
24969423 my space. com 2006-05-31 19:03:32 2 http://music.myspace.com
24969423 my space.com 2006-05-31 19:12:00
24969423 my space.com 3131560415 2006-05-31 19:12:25

Bonus points go to

[JumperCable]

Bonus points go to...
A) The person who finds one of the people on the list
B) The most people on that list
C) The person who shows those people AOL's violation of the user agreement
D) The person who introduces them to a lawyer (I usually disagree with such tactics but this must be heavily discouraged)

here's an online database

[daboomboom]

for those of you who don't feel like GREPing through a 2 gigabyte text file, I made a website that has the data accumulated in a searchable SQL database (most of it, at least, it's still being aggregated we speak) enjoy it while the bandwidth lasts: http://www.aolsearchdatabase.com/

Re:here's an online database

[wordsnyc]

Cool, but what do you plan to do with the access logs for that page?

Re:here's an online database

[Anonymous Coward]

This is great except you're sailing a big close to the wind by putting those adverts on there as the readme file says it can't be used for commercial purposes, it's about the only restriction AOL has attached. Still, nice site, certainly goes a bit faster than grep.

Maybe we are pissed about the wrong thing

[JumperCable]

Maybe we shouldn't be pissed that they released the data. Maybe we should be pissed that they collected & stored the data. Once it is housed somewhere it is going to get out. Be it by dolt, scammer, or government intrusion. Does anyone one know of any search engines that do not do this?

Re:Maybe we are pissed about the wrong thing

[LinuxFreakus]

Perhaps the dumbest comment I've seen yet. All search/advertising companies rely on this data to make money. It is not like they can just say "oh, lets just not save any search logs". Thats absolutely ridiculous.

package tracking numbers

[morcheeba]

I use google's package tracking number all the time -- seems like some other people enjoy this, too.

user-ct-test-collection-01.txt:11218337 http to track the status of this shipment on line please use the following;http www.fedex.com tracking action track&tracknumbers
604041010003308 2006-04-28 18:31:15
This person lives in Stamford, CT and ordered a "SL150T-12 Battery" for Home Delivery (5.0 lbs.) from california. Their barcode got messed up in-transit. Left at front door. Signature Service not requested.

user-ct-test-collection-01.txt:2433634 tracking 9102013196683232299662 2006-03-19 17:33:48
Your item was delivered at 8:54 am on March 24, 2006 in CROWLEY, LA 70526.

user-ct-test-collection-01.txt:5736530 ups tracking number 1z05r57w0299803522 2006-04-12 04:01:29
Delivered on: 04/12/2006 9:59 A.M. Delivered to: SOUTH BELOIT, IL, US Service Type: 2ND DAY AIR

user-ct-test-collection-01.txt:11989465 ups tracking 1z5628500342774976 2006-05-31 17:14:22
Delivered on: 05/31/2006 6:12 P.M. Delivered to: FORT WAYNE, IN, US Service Type: GROUND

user-ct-test-collection-02.txt:2103248 tracking 91025562344468252800 2006-03-02 02:11:13
There is no record of this item.

user-ct-test-collection-02.txt:2371993 tracking 1z7e49v20341755740 2006-05-08 12:22:41
Delivered on: 05/08/2006 10:25 A.M. Delivered to: BOTHELL, WA, US Service Type: GROUND

user-ct-test-collection-02.txt:2749649 usps tracking 9121010521297356081254 2006-04-04 17:11:49
Info has been stored off-line, but USPS will send it to your email

user-ct-test-collection-02.txt:5847446 www.ups.com and enter the tracking number 1z00v4270380899979 2006-03-18 16:53:15
Delivered on: 03/20/2006 2:56 P.M. Delivered to: TEMPLE CITY, CA, US Service Type: GROUND ... and so on ...

There were about 120 searches for UPS "1Z..." numbers. I didn't bother parsing for USPS & UPS numbers, but there are plenty of those, too. I'm sure you'd be able to pull some names when the signature service is requested.

Found scary fishable networks

[mattr]

This is really chilling. My Mom uses AOL so of course I picked up a copy of the archive. I just searched for a few terms in one of the ten files it contains. grepped the name of my small home town (population 10-20 thousand) which has grown more affluent in recent years. I found two users who did extensive searches, found a number of full names of individuals, hotel names, domain names, personal searches including phrases you might not want your significant other to see, searches including the full name, position and company of an individual, etc. I found the names of nearby schools and my supermarket. Thank God I didn't see my mother's name in it but on the other hand there are 9 files left to go.. and I was going to post some interesting phrases but then I realized that then anybody could see the name of my town. I don't see how you could defend yourself against this kind of thing, someone else's search could end up as an innuendo and picture this scenario: wife uses AOL at home, husband is geek at work with this archive. Maybe the AOL software caches recent queries anyway, I don't know, but who wouldn't worry if they see the names of various men with online searches to purchase party dresses and sexy music? Hoooo boy, they don't even realize the danger in their 0.3% they released. They are going to get sued into oblivion. Now just need some enterprising /. lawyer to start fishing for clients... ouch.

User 8409862

[4D6963]

greping through the data for User 8409862, you can deduce a few likely facts :

-This is a man
-He most likely lives in Colorado
-He is presumably in his 40's or 50's considered he's a fan of Ted Nugent
-He likes going camping
-Due to all of the above we can deduce he fits in the redneck category
-He's a Windows user, probably a X-Box owner and has spyware issues
-He's most likely bisexual
-He's very interested in bestiality, gay porn, MySpace and regular porn
-He has once been attracted on Slashdot because of this comment mentionning his favourite website, farmsex.com

Pretty scary to be able to find all of that about the privacy of this random man, if you ask me. If anyone is wondering how I found this user, I took the first one from this grepped list that attracted my attention

Yeah, I read it...

[pb]

So what if he is a sick freak--he sounds like the stereotypical rotten.com user and/or slashdot crapflooder. Personally I'd much rather have my psychopaths spending their time in their parent's basements searching the internet for pictures of death and human waste than actually out there participating it.

assuming that these searches were chosen randomly,

[wordsnyc]

aren't we looking at a big pile of data that can be mined for primo Google Adwords?

Some thoughts

[quokkapox]

This event should be a wake-up call for privacy for everyone.

This is a fucking diaster for AOL. There will be lawsuits, and I'll bet you someone will die because of this (due to stalking, spouse finding out secrets, etc.). Use your imagination. This data is chock full of so much personal information, it's scary. I'm terrified that everything I've ever searched for in google is similarly logged in a data center somewhere and could be just as easily revealed but for whatever security they have in place, along with a dubious "don't be evil" guarantee.

If you're an AOL user you need to zcat this through grep ASAP for one of your unique searches, ASAP, to make sure you're not in the dataset. They can't ever "unrelease" this data.

This could take down AOL quicker than you can say "retention specialist". This is like Merck's VIOXX problem. THIS IS REALLY REALLY BAD. Got TWX? SELL SELL SELL. Holy fucking shit.

Re:I agree...this IS a problem

[symbolic]

Take an interesting case for example...someone does searches related to the production of methamphetamine. An uninformed onlooker might easily conclude that that the individual conducting the searches was interested in producing meth. But perhaps they wanted to learn *about* meth so that they could keep an eye out for suspicious behavior by *others*. Or maybe they encountered a situation where they suspect someone of producing meth, but weren't sure about what they were seeing (or hearing, or smelling, or whatever else might apply). Because situations like this can easily exist, I believe that the release of search data is LOADED with potential to present an horribly inaccurate picture of what's actually going on.

Consider this...

[cyberbian]

In light of all of the illegal wiretapping, and requests for search data that have been perpetrated by a clearly criminal presidential administration that the search records were only left up long enough to bypass the Google refusal? If the reports that AOL search is basically rebranded Google search, has AOL not cooperated in an end run on Google's refusal? While I understand that many Americans would be terrified by the prospect that their president (I use the term loosely) could possibly be involved in any corruption, it's happened before on at least two occasions, most recently for lying to the American public about an otherwise inoccuous sexual act. Having full knowledge of illegal wiretaps, GW is still overseeing the juggernaut that is America, and the rest of the world is cowering in fear over what he'll do next. It seems to me that the words of a famous president come to mind 'Beware the military industrial complex...' I think that might include an ex-Haliburton CEO and an ex-Oil Tycoon...
I pray for your continued safety.

SSN is NOT an ID

[Anonymous Coward]

What backward country of morons use SSN to identify anybody???? No wonder ID theft is like stealing a cookie from a child in US.

Get yourselves reasonable ID cards, and centralized system of citizens who lives where. Then you might have possibility to tackle those millions of illegal immigrants before spanish is most used language in US.

Face it, Gov't issued US Passport is ONLY even remotely reliable ID in United States. Remotely means, there's still plenty of forgeries going around as it doesn't feature too smart safeguards. Was it philly or what issues driving license without photo and sends it via mail? For christs sake, that's just damn stupid.

You really are a nation on the brink of destruction, too much MTV and lously public schooling has mentally circumcised 95% of americans.

Re:SSN is NOT an ID

[The_REAL_DZA]

blah blah blah...too much MTV and lously public schooling has mentally circumcised 95% of americans.

Thanks for the pointers there, comrade (from your suspicious lack of certain articles -- such as "a", "an", and "the" -- I couldn't help but imagine a Russian or "Slavic" accent) but I wonder if you've actually put your mental foreskin to any use lately?

Yet another reason...

[templeofboom]

...to get out of the mainstream internet and check out anonet http://anonet.org/. Much more comfortable knowing your online experience is VPN'd, so your idiot ISP can't make a blunder and share your info with the world!

Searchable db online

[benh57]

http://www.aolsearchlogs.com/ - forums as well. Pretty cool, a little slow though... local zgrep is faster.

Karma bonus

[lga]

That is bizzare. All those posts that show in my history as +4, are actually +5 when I log out and look at them. Why on earth would slashdot think that hiding my karma bonus from me is a good idea? For months I thought I just didn't get one anymore.

Re:Karma bonus

[Maxo-Texas]

Yea, they made the change without telling anyone apparently.

Good to see I'm not the only one who felt this way!

Not down

[Stellian]

All in all, it's a nice data set to play with. Mirrors here.

Re:Just like the Bush Phone Tapping

[z0idberg]

for that you need to take the green pill.

Search Results

[Sushhh]

Welcome to the Yahoo Search Engine!
>Enters: "how to kill your wife"

Search results:
1. Spouse-assassins-R-us -
Celebrating two decades of resolving marital disputes!
2. DIY Forums -
Take one gun, one bottle of Jack Daniels, start conversation about "needing more space"; let nature take course
3. http://www.aruba.com/
World renowned night-life!

:P
PS. Does anyone know why this guy entered "steak and cheese" in his hungry search for killing and death? I could search for it myself over at Yahoo, but you know, I DO value my privacy...

SSN?

[bilbravo]

From the article: "The data includes personal names, addresses, social security numbers and everything else someone might type into a search box."

Who puts their SNN into a search box? Don't give me that "These are AOL users" crap either...

Sorry, they *removed* the User ID?

[samj]

For them to *remove* the User ID they must have been tracking it in the first place! It's one thing to have various search terms aggregated - most people over time will search for something that at least approximately identifies them (ie their name, address, etc.), but at least if you're using Google et al your name, billing address, credit card number, etc. aren't associated by way of a username to each and every search query you conduct!

Re:Sorry, they *removed* the User ID?

[LinuxFreakus]

First of all, why is this surprising to you at all. They HAVE to know who the users are, they are billing them! Aside from that and for marketing campaigns however, usernames are never used. There just isn't reliable or useful data do be had by including usernames.

Also, anyone who uses AOL.com does not have to be a logged on user, and you have no way of knowing if a "unique user" in that case is really "one person". Even in the case of logged on users, you still can't know that, it is pure speculation.

User level data is worthless.

Your next ridiculous assertion is that on google, you don't have a username to associate you with your searches. HELLO, have you heard of GMAIL? or any of the other services they offer which require usernames? Google most certainly can and does have usernames associated with its log data. Perhaps not as much as AOL, but believe me, that is where google WANTS to go. In order to sell more advertising, google needs demographic information about it's users, and that is the only REAL reason google is now coming out with more and more services which will make people more likely to be logged on users

Well...

[GmAz]

Well, the search results shouldn't be that weird. I mean, you have to be a psycho killa these days to still be using AOL. Their tech support would make anyone go homicidal.

Y'know what really scares the pee-water out of me?

[The_REAL_DZA]

If you read this guy's entire list, among the methods he's obviously considered for his better-half's demise are:

• decapitation
• car crash (severed brake line? Kinda cliche', but still...)
• poop (laxative overdose, maybe?)

and perhaps most heinous of all:

• steak and cheese !!!

What kind of monster is this?!?! Of course, if this guy's identity is determined, I think we should get his picture out to all the Hardees restaurants ASAP; that burger does look "killer"...

I for one

[Krojack]

DON'T CARE

I wouldn't bother waisting my time poking though some search logs.. but thats me and my opinion..

AOL Spin(TM) "Those responsible have been sacked"

[6ULDV8]

"It was a mistake, and we apologize. We've launched an internal investigation into what happened, and we are taking steps to ensure that this type of thing never happens again." Really... We're not having layoffs... We're firing the person responsible along with 4,999 others that he may have come into contact with http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/04/003214 . See? AOL cares.

How is it hypocritical

[phorm]

I'd say it's a lot better to have an educated opinion on the topic (aka by seeing what went up) than to just spout off. Furthermore, I fail to see how downloading the list further violates anyone's privacy.

If you advocate safe driving does it mean you won't slow down around a car-accident (a fairly normal human reaction)? The accident has already happened, we're just making comments on how stupid the driver was for going 50mph over the limit....

AOL Data Analyzing Tool

[zozer]

For those of you who can't download or store the AOL data.. Here is an Overture-like tool that shows top 1000 results for any give keyword/phrase. The tool then allows you to view the websites clicked and their average page placement. They DON'T show the user data for privacy concerns.. This one seems to be the best one out there. http://dontdelete.com/ (the domain is still replicating) OR the IP 63.212.167.185

Yes, M$ grants themself permision to monitor.

[twitter]

Please point me to a specific clause in the Windows EULA that proves that this isn't a complete fabrication. Please. Prove me wrong.

It's easier for me to cite other people's opinions than it is to dig through M$'s obnoxious EULAs.

Here's one 2003 study which validates practices others have found looking at tools like fastfind even further back. M$'s EULA fun has been going on for a while. They usually pretend they are looking for copyright violations in their snooping. Here's more:

• Forced "upgrade" of EULA
• Remote Admin "rights"

It could be true that non free software requires such invasive practices to maintain itself in the world. That's just one more reason to avoid it.

Re:Yes, M$ grants themself permision to monitor.

[iced_773]

It's easier for me to cite other people's opinions than it is to dig through M$'s obnoxious EULAs.

One thing wrong with that statement: opinion != fact. Also, after taking into account the domain name of your link about fastfind, it may be prudent to take such an assertion with a sizable grain of salt. Furthermore, your first /. link is a story from "BSD Vault", which suggests some form of ulterior motive or cherrypicking. Considering your posting history, mindless MS-bashing to promote an alternative is not unheard of.

The bottom line: if you want to make a statement about Microsoft's EULA, or any EULA for that matter, you have three options:

a) Actually READ the license and reference the part you're using so it can be confirmed (we see an instance of this in the update to your second link)
b) Link to an analysis of the license from a NEUTRAL source (granted, CyberSource does appear to fit this criterium)
c) Stifle the urge and shut up. There is nothing to gain by calling Windows "spyware" in your OP, and despite your one good link, you still haven't proved that Microsoft auctions off its users' actions.

One more thing - if Microsoft commits such horridly intentional breaches of privacy and rights that it's commonly known, why hasn't the DoJ done anything? Why aren't privacy advocates and watchdog groups in a perpetual clamor about it?

Re:Yes, M$ grants themself permision to monitor.

[jb.hl.com]

It's easier for me to cite other people's opinions than it is to dig through M$'s obnoxious EULAs

NO. I did not ask for other peoples' studies (and those two bullet points, especially the last ones, seem more like provisions given for features so that people don't try and cry foul when Automatic Updates downloads something). I asked for a citation from Microsoft's EULA where it says that they are allowed to monitor or read what is on your computer. I don't care how obnoxious a EULA is, it can't be any more obnoxious than you making shit up to scare people.

LOLOL, "M$". And no, they don't

[Anonymous Coward]

twitter,

Nothing in the first link asserts what you originally claimed. "Collect" != "Phone home"; in fact Windows will always ask you before sending personally identifiable information to them of any kind (for example, crash reports). That's a comparison of the GPL with a EULA, for sakes.

As for your other "proof" - please find something other than fuckmicrosoft.com (LOL) or the ever-reliable Splashdork to make your point. We'll be waiting.

Thanks!

HTTPS urls are not truncated

[Anonymous Coward]

my search behavior has been changed now that I know google and everyone else does this.

Re:assuming that these searches were chosen random

[LinuxFreakus]

For a short time, yes, the aggregate data will be useful for such things... but the keywords change so much that this data will be worthless soon. Which is why AOL wasn't concerned about releasing this data (from a competitive advantage standpoint anyway). In terms of the privacy issues, it was clearly a stupid thing to do, even though this data is completely harmless. Non-technical folks simply don't understand how useless user level data (of this type) really is, and therein lies the problem.

Search Queries as Narrative

[gesualdo]

Searching though this database, I came across a few series of queries which I found to be quite sad, interesting, and moving. And here's a new type of narrative, search queries.

A few examples...

http://www.aolstalker.com/user.php?uid=672368

http://www.aolstalker.com/user.php?uid=154448

THOUSANDS OF NAMES in the data!

[bushwhacker2000]

Apparently these users were searching about an email they received, if the names were not right would they have bothered to search? This could turn out to be a REALLY big stink for AOL. AOL, I would hate to be you right now xD (listed just a few)



2502254 dear christopher biggs this email was sent automatically by the paypal server in response to your request to recover your password. ...snipped... 3/14/2006 11:55
9641340 dear michael commander this email was sent automatically by the paypal server in response to your request to recover your password. ...snipped... 3/6/2006 22:03
385395 dear jan guillory this email was sent automatically by the paypal server in response to your request to recover your password. ...snipped... 3/7/2006 12:45
1015205 dear todd bennett this email was sent automatically by the paypal server in response to your request to recover your password. ...snipped... 3/3/2006 17:29
3936014 dear chris ballew this email was sent automatically by the paypal server in response to your request to recover your password. ...snipped... 4/2/2006 23:40
8852669 dear david perkins this email was sent automatically by the paypal server in response to your request to recover your password. ...snipped... 5/19/2006 16:08
4932438 dear matthew moore this email was sent automatically by the paypal server in response to your request to recover your password. ...snipped... 3/3/2006 14:44
3833909 dear tara fickle this email was sent automatically by the paypal server in response to your request to recover your password. ...snipped... 3/31/2006 22:16
3286034 dear floyd mann this email was sent automatically by the paypal server in response to your request to recover your password. ...snipped... 5/24/2006 21:58
2951846 dear carol jones this email was sent automatically by the paypal server in response to your request to recover your password. ...snipped... 3/26/2006 22:03
10328054 dear sandra hodum this email was sent automatically by the paypal server in response to your request to recover your password. ...snipped... 4/1/2006 17:09
14443828 dear patti melton this email was sent automatically by the paypal server in response to your request to recover your password. ...snipped... 4/8/2006 15:47
10328054 dear sandra hodum this email was sent automatically by the paypal server in response to your request to recover your password. ...snipped... 3/22/2006 1:00
23101619 dear simon vanson this email was sent automatically by ebay in response to your request to recover your password. ...snipped... 5/14/2006 16:47
8555719 dear robert a. jampol this email was sent automatically by ebay in response to your request to recover your password. ...snipped... 3/26/2006 12:32
19796609 dear thelronda belts this email was sent automatically by ebay in response to your request to recover your password. ...snipped... 5/4/2006 9:19
181017 dear gary house this email was sent automatically by ebay in response to your request to recover your password. ...snipped... 4/23/2006 22:11
1673527 dear george ernest this email was sent automatically by ebay in response to your request to recover your password. ...snipped... 3/4/2006 9:55
6582836 dear douglas davis this email was sent automatically by ebay in response to your request to recover your password. ...snipped... 5/21/2006 22:52
6397147 dear david caines this email was sent automatically by ebay in response to your request to recover your password. ...snipped... 3/31/2006 17:35
2534897 dear mark michelini this email was sent automatically by ebay in response to your re

What comes to mind... (Google-AOL co-operation)

[henleg]

Is that AOL is the very same company Google are co-operating with. Even if Google are having totally different routines and policies regarding their userdata (I have no idea to be honest), this will reflect negatively upon Google inc.