AOL User Identified via the Released Search Data
What did I say? Didn’t I say that the AOL search data can be mined to identify users? I was right! I didn’t want to be, but my fears were 100% justified.
New York Times has successfully identified a 62 year old AOL user by analyzing her query strings, and doing a little investigative work. This is a living proof that this sort of thing can be done, in relatively short amount of time, and with a great deal of accuracy.
If I was a pisher, I would be processing the shit out of this data right about now. ID the user, send a customized pish. Or better yet, call them via VOIP and scam them using the mined information. Just wait - any day now, we will hear about it in the news.
If you will, please rewind your memory few months back. Remember that time when we all loved Google because it refused to turn over their search data to the government? Unlike them, AOL and bunch of other search engines rolled over and complied with that request.
This is exactly the sort of data that they turned over back then. If New York Times could get a positive ID within a day, think of what NSA may dig out over the period of several months…
via /.
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August 10th, 2006 at 12:54 am (518) [Quote]
I use this instead of search engines directly.
Proxies solve the problem. and have for a while.
Its just that nontechies dont know.
http://www.blackboxsearch.com
Posted usingAugust 10th, 2006 at 7:56 am (520) [Quote]
its phish not pish.
also, see if you can get a copy of that. i’m sure the data mining class this semester could have some fun with it.
Posted usingAugust 10th, 2006 at 8:28 am (522) [Quote]
As a side note, google could still very well be a risk
Posted usingCheck it out
August 10th, 2006 at 10:10 am (525) [Quote]
Ze, I posted a link to the torrent in my previous post about it.
As for Google, I’m not surprised. I’m quite sure they mine the shit out of their own search data and use it in AdSense and other projects. Any search engine will likely want to keep this kind of data lying around.
Sigh… There is no privacy on the internet unless you encrypt.
Posted using