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Some Uber Ride Data Publicly Accessible Through Google
itwbennett writes: On Thursday, ZDNet reported that Uber ride data had leaked into Google search results. Zach Minors confirms in this article that a "site-specific Google search for trip.uber.com produced dozens of links to Uber rides that have been completed and cancelled, in countries around the world including the U.S., England, Russia, France and Mexico. Each link leads to a Web site with a map showing the ride's route, with the pickup and destination tagged with markers. A card on the page also shows the first name of the rider and driver, along the driver's photo, make and model of the car, and license plate number." However, what appeared to be a privacy red flag was not a "data leak," according to an Uber spokeswoman: "We have found that all these links have been deliberately shared publicly by riders. Protection of user data is critically important to us and we are always looking for ways to make it even more secure."
Facebook lets search engines index their public information too.
So people intentionally share their Uber ride info and Google finds it. That is what search engines do.
There is mass surveillance going in and hacking of personal information and THIS is what you are worried about? Who cares?
Quick! Someone match up this data with the Ashley Madison data to find out what correlates.
"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
That's why all the links are 404s now, since it totally wasn't an issue.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
No one would find it then.
Especially when your sysadmin pleads the Fifth Amendment...
If you post something, like an uber link, publicly, it can be indexed by search engine crawlers.
OoO amazing!
Their kind doesn't grok security. They also don't grok humanity. They hate us.
You're completely full of shit, son.
Even information as seeming minor as a driving trip that somebody took could have devastating consequences for the person involved.
Let's say that the person involved is a pastor at a large church. He worked for decades to get to where he is. But he's also a closeted homosexual, with a secret boyfriend. If this secret got out, it would likely destroy his career and everything he has worked for.
Well, it just happens that the pastor's boyfriend lives in the gay district of the city. It's the sort of place that a heterosexual pastor would have no reason to visit, at least in the eyes of his congregation.
So when info about this pastor's vehicular trips, which was intended to be only available to the pastor and his boyfriend, is accidentally released to the public at large, the congregation quickly notices that the pastor makes many trips from his house to a specific location in the gay district. One night some members of the congregation follow the pastor, and catch him in the 69 position with his boyfriend.
Now the pastor has to answer to the congregation for why he was caught with another man's penis in his mouth, and his penis in the mouth of another man. His behavior is deemed inappropriate, given his role at the church and how his behavior violates their beliefs and morals. Even if he doesn't lose his job directly, he still loses the respect of the congregation. Some of them move to other churches, and his church fails due to the drop in membership. His life is ruined.
I know you'll probably say something ignorant like, "Well, he shouldn't have been a faggot in the first place!", but those kind of arguments are irrelevant. The reality is that the unexpected release of information that was expected to be private, even if it may not seem like a big deal to you, can in fact cause a lot of harm depending on the situations of the people involved.
I thought the idea behind the fire-hose was that it would prevent non-stories from showing up. Guess not.
Headline probably should have been, "Uber accidentally shares more information about 'public' rides than its customers expected"
The point of TFA seems to be that specific addresses and start/finish times were published, when the public "shared rides" site makes it seem like that information is hidden.
robots.txt
>> along the driver's photo, make and model of the car, and license plate number.
Isn't this is a lot to disclose publicly about the driver?
"Protection of user data is critically important to us and we are always looking for ways to make it even more secure."
Like the use of a simple robots.txt file which should have been in place on day -1?
I wonder if someone with more time on their hands than I could combine this data with the Ashley Madison dump and identify when and where people met.