A few weeks ago an AOL researcher mistakenly posted three months of search results for 658,000 users to the internet. While the data was not linked directly to user account, the 36 million search records contained very revealing details about AOL members' search habits and private obsessions.
The search queries themselves did, however, contain personally identifying information such as names and addresses and even, in some cases, social security and credit card numbers. Copies of that data are all over the internet and there is even a searchable database.
The Washington Post reports that the researcher, his supervisor and a higher ranking executive have now been terminated over the affair. The whole issue highlights just how much information is being accumulated about us without our realizing it, and how increasingly transparent our lives have become. What a brave new world we live in. Somewhere in cyberspace is a record not only of who we are, what we earn, our credit history and purchasing habits, but also now our innermost private thoughts, fears and desires.
Consider, for instance, the life of a couple in Baytown, Texas as intimately revealed in their AOL search history for March through May:
She has missed her period and realizes she is pregnant. She is 37 and concerned about the risk of multiple births.
He apparently is diabetic and has bipolar disorder. He likes to keep violent dogs in the house. He is cruel to her and the dogs, probably because of alcohol, methamphetamine and cocaine abuse.
As a born-again Christian she believes fasting and intercessory prayer may help her to obtain healing for her spouse. But is fasting safe with an unborn child? She already worries that her partner's history of drug abuse has harmed the fetus.
She has ideas about becoming an actress. She is looking into opening her own business, perhaps a grocery store and gas station franchise. They are planning to buy a new set of living room furniture, preferably beige.
She needs to start thinking about maternity clothing. He's more interested in finding naked pictures of Beyonce and other 'fine black girls'...
This is somebody's life laid bare... Does she know he searches the internet for girls while she's praying for his healing? Will she get an abortion? Will she leave him or stay? Does she know her life is exposed, even if anonymously, for all to read on the internet?
The data leakage by AOL is not really the problem, only a symptom of a far more complex issue. It's hard to comprehend where this connected world of information is taking us. According to Technology Evangelist,
The privacy violation was extraordinary, but I think the leak may have a positive side effect by helping web searchers understand just how much information search engines know about them. This may also help people understand why it's a big deal when the government asks search engines to hand over search records.
As a security professional I'm aware of the increasing value of 'open source' intelligence gathering. I'm also aware of the incredible potential today's data universe provides for creating a totalitarian society where 'total information awareness' is not just a bureacratic buzzword, but a reality. Whether we care or not, we are being watched.
The New York Times Magazine has an interesting article on the social effects of pervasive internet contact of the sort created by Facebook, Twitter, etc.
I stumbled across