LinkedIn Sues 100 Individuals For Scraping User Data From the Site (betanews.com)

Mark Wilson, writing for BetaNews: Professional social network LinkedIn is suing 100 anonymous individuals for data scraping. It is hoped that a court order will be able to reveal the identities of those responsible for using bots to harvest user data from the site. The Microsoft-owned service takes pride in the relationship it has with its users and the security it offers their data. Its lawsuit seeks to use the data scrapers' IP addresses and then discover their true identity in order to take action against them. LinkedIn says that a botnet has been used to gain access to user data which is then passed on to third parties. The site has a number of measures in place to prevent this type of data harvesting, but it seems that scrapers have found a way to circumvent these security restrictions. A series of automated tools -- FUSE, Quicksand, Sentinel, and Org Block -- are used to monitor suspicious activity and blocking scraping.

Comments

Security my Ass

[ketomax]

The Microsoft-owned service takes pride in the relationship it has with its users and the security it offers their data.

Thanks to LinkedIn hackers are attempting to login to my accounts on sites like Steam, Facebook, eBay, Twitter, etc. Now, I know better and use different passwords for different sites. But, at least these sites have security in place to warn me of suspicious logins while denying the logins.

Is data scraping illegal?

[mwvdlee]

I know scanning the data from a yellow pages breaks copyright law, but using an army of typists to copy the same data from the same source is perfectly fine.
How does scraping data from a website measure up, assuming all scraped data is available to visitors through normal means (i.e. not using security holes).
At what point does using data from a website become "scraping" and at what point does it violate copyrights?

Botnet?

[wcrowe]

So they're saying a botnet was used to gain access to the data, then passed on to third parties. Unless I'm mistaken, the IP addresses will be pointing to machines on the botnet, and the owners of those machines have no idea that is happening. It sounds like a lot of innocent people might get swept up in this.

Also ironic that LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft, who is no doubt responsible for the operating systems running on all those bots on the aforementioned botnet.

Passing user data on to 3rd parties.

[thegarbz]

As a matter of interest, what is the point of LinkedIn if not to pass my user profile to as many people as possible?

They should be hiring these bots, not taking action against them. The whole purpose of LinkedIn is a public advertisement for work. They like to pretend they are a "social network for business" but really all they are is a giant platform for classifieds, and within that purpose the bots are doing a great job.

Scammers harvest LinkedIn for victims

[AnalogDiehard]

I was a (brief) victim of a dating scam. After I got wise and cut them off, I wondered where how they profiled me. My "date" claimed she found me on a FB group but scammers hide their tricks. Googling a quick ego surf revealed that the only place any profile of mine shows up is LinkedIn, which I thought was private. Seeing that I got zero benefit from LinkedIn and I had no other profile stored anywhere, I promptly deleted my LinkedIn account.