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Database Error Exposes Sensitive Information On 1,700 Kids (csoonline.com)

Posted by timothy on from the u-really-know-kids dept.

itwbennett writes: Researcher Chris Vickery discovered that the Arlington, Virginia based child monitoring service uKnowKids.com had a misconfigured MongoDB installation that left sensitive details on over 1,700 children exposed for months. UKnowKids helps parents monitor their child's activities online, by watching their mobile communications, social media activities, and their location. And so the database stored 6.8 million private text messages, 1.8 million images (many depicting children), Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram account details, in addition to the children's full names, email addresses, GPS coordinates, date of birth.

5 of 62 comments (clear)

  1. Stupidity... by Longjmp · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Summary:
    Stupidity of helicopter parents backfires.

    --
    There are fewer illiterates than people who can't read.
  2. Re:Is all this exposure to the internet worthwhile by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Well, clearly the only way you can gather this much information is to install a monitor daemon on all their client appliances.

    Rather than having it talk to a single central server as it did in this case, why not run that server on a PC in the household and have it sync to that when it's on domestic wifi?

    Oh, right : because it wouldn't enable the corporation to collect a huge corpus of highly monetizable data about children for later analysis.

  3. Not offtopic by Etherwalk · · Score: 2

    mostly kids... they could use some press?

    There's nothing wrong with putting a topic in perspective. Parent should not have been modded offtopic.

  4. Re:Is all this exposure to the internet worthwhile by Bengie · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Seems they misconfigured their Mongo DB, MongoDB server's firewall, inter-vlan firewall, and edge firewall. When the entire system is misconfigured, you use the word "inept".

  5. Re:Is all this exposure to the internet worthwhile by cayenne8 · · Score: 2
    Damn...I'm sure glad I grew up in a time when as a kid, I didn't have to worry about being monitored 24/7, and having a fucking helicopter parent hovering above my every move.

    Hell, I guess in todays Bizarro world, my folks would have been arrested for being neglectful parents, and I'd be in safe, loving foster care....

    I'm sad that kids can't grow to be kids like we did back in the day....actually having the freedom to fail and fuck up, and learn valuable life lessons from said mistakes.

    It also helped there wasn't a camera everywhere too, for obvious reasons.

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........