AOL Information Leak (Holy Crap)

Well I'm back, nothing exciting. But I just saw this in the news, holy crap. This could possibly be the biggest information and privacy failure in the history of the internet. With over 650,000 users affected, I can only imagine what lawsuits this could bring. Not to mention, if someone is found to be doing illegal activities because of this leak, will it be legal to prosecute them?


"The 21 million search queries also have exposed an innumerable number of life stories ranging from the mundane to the illicit and bizarre.

For its part, AOL has apologized for a researcher's disclosure of the massive database and has yanked the file from its Web site. It was too late: The database already had been mirrored.

That database does not include names or user identities. Instead, it lists only a unique ID number for each user. What that means is that it's possible to view the search terms that users of a single account typed in while using AOL Search during a three-month period (Google, Yahoo, and MSN Search aren't included).

From that massive list of search terms, for instance, it's possible to guess that AOL user 710794 is an overweight golfer, owner of a 1986 Porsche 944 and 1998 Cadillac SLS, and a fan of the University of Tennessee Volunteers Men's Basketball team. User 710794 is interested in the Cherokee County School District in Canton, Ga., and has looked up the Suwanee Sports Academy in Suwanee, Ga., which caters to local youth, and the Youth Basketball of America's Georgia affiliate.

That's pretty normal. What's not is that user 710794 also regularly searched for "lolitas," a term commonly used to describe photographs and videos of minors who are nude or engaged in sexual acts."

http://news.com.com/2100-1030_3-610...03098&subj=news

cool story - never searched through AOL before though, even though I do dial-up through it... but I'm not worried.