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Hundreds of Millions of Chinese Chat Logs Leak Online (ft.com)

Hundreds of millions of private chat logs from Chinese users have been left exposed on the internet, a researcher has found, in another worrying case of weak data protection in China. Financial Times reports: Victor Gevers, a security researcher at the cyber-security organisation GDI Foundation, said that he had found a database of 364m records [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source.], containing social media profiles and chat logs linked to names and identity card numbers.

The database was freely accessible online to anyone who searched for its IP address, and user profiles were stored together with photographs, addresses and locations, said Mr Gevers. The main database was piping data to 17 other servers depending on which area the data came from, Mr Gevers said. [...] A large number of the records had the names and addresses of web cafes on them. Chinese cyber-security experts have long warned that web cafes collect vast amounts of customer data.

1 of 41 comments (clear)

  1. Re:May be paywalled? by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 3, Funny

    C'mon. It IS paywalled. Just because you pay to get through the paywall doesn't mean it isn't paywalled. It just means that you have paid to get through the wall.

    This is true of every. single. article. you link that is also paywalled.

    This is Slashdot.

    You're not supposed to actually read the article.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch