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May 22, 2006
Academic server records
Academic server records: Last Friday, Ohio University announced that some of its servers, holding personal data, have been compromised for over a year. About 2000 people have had their Social Security identifier and personal health histories compromised. Lots of bloggers this season are focusing on "Should the (US) government request various data histories?" I think that's the wrong question -- I think we should be looking more at "What happens when data is centralized, and how can we protect against its misuse?" Information on the audience is valuable -- Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and the whole search field is using knowledge about the world to amass knowledge about the public, in hopes of getting higher targeted ad rates or whatever. These various valuable repositories thus become targets for scammers. Thieves can try to break in, but it's easier to social-engineer access -- search companies are hiring quickly, and you'd have to insure that all employees with sensitive access will not fold to bribes or threats. I believe that such strong data sources are natural evolution, and a practical necessity, but people who focus solely on government access and not also on criminal access are making it harder for us to successfully adadpt, I think. [Update: Changed reference to "Ohio University"; see comments.]
Posted by John Dowdell at May 22, 2006 07:11 PM
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Just a quick note/correction. It's Ohio University in Athens, not Ohio State University which is located in Columbus.
[jd sez: ack! thanks, jb, I'll correct the main record immediately.]
Posted by: jb at May 22, 2006 07:36 PM
Maybe you should also be lobbying the British Government on the behalf of us. They seem to think we are all paranoid crackpots, whilst many of us understand the practicalities of centralising data, we don't trust the government not to leave:
a: Huge loopholes in the law allowing businesses access to these records for advertising and worse.
b: Huge security holes in the systems allowing anyone access. Have you seen their track record?
Posted by: Glen Pike at May 24, 2006 01:06 AM