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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."
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?)
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?
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?
Maybe they want to be sure no one's posted it anywhere?
This post written under Gentoo-linux with an SCO IP license.
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.
I've read of someone who tried it only to find that a group/department at his college had is SSN# posted
Of course, a partial SSN with a wildcard match might be a better idea.
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!
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
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?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
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.
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.
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.