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Turkish Citizenship Database Leaked

ibtimes.co.uk

171–180 of 286 posts

Re: Turkish Citizenship Database Leaked

#171
post #107
post #95

Does the publisher of this leak really think the other politicians are better off in keeping private citizens' information private? S/he must have not heard the Clinton's own email server leak issue. Yeah, yeah, it's a cliché, but it shows exactly how much they care about security.

Clinton's email server didn't leak anything, so far as we know. The emails you've read have been released by the State Department as public government records.

FBI hasn't officially concluded the investigation. We'll see.

Re: Turkish Citizenship Database Leaked

#172
post #129

TR citizen here, for the last 10 years only those who are really close to AKP got the government contracts including software like this etc. for stupid amounts of money with no know-how. Therefore this is absolutely normal -at least for us-, only thing that surprised me about this leak is this got into front page of HN. Those software "companies" take millions of liras, usually for stupid CRUD stuff, develop it in li…

> With that info, a terrorist can buy a SIM card for my name, use it to proxy-blow up a goddamn bomb aaaaand I'm in jail.

Or, you know, dead. It's a bit optimistic in the current climate to assume they'd arrest you peacefully.

Re: Turkish Citizenship Database Leaked

#173
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the address data not valuable? Even dangerous.

I don't know about other countries but in the US, there are things called Whitepages which list names, addresses and phone numbers of the majority of people/businesses. Address data is pretty worthless considering how many places you can get such data.

It's 2016 -- forget the Whitepages. Most people publicly update all of this information everyday, multiple times per day, through their social media accounts.

Re: Turkish Citizenship Database Leaked

#174
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With that info, a terrorist can buy a SIM card for my name Well that escalated quickly.. Terrorists wouldn't need this database to supply them with names and addresses as most of that info is public in most countries (white-pages is one place). And I can go to any local shop and get a pre-paid SIM card without any personal info involved. Also, if your country convicts you merely because someone used your name with…

> And I can go to any local shop and get a pre-paid SIM card without any personal info involved. You see, the fact that I could go to any shop and buy a pre-paid SIM card in the US was a surprise to me. Don't expect that to hold true anywhere else. Taking Brazil as an example: you need to provide a photo ID.

I had to present a passport in Spain and Russia, though in Russia they accepted my (US) passport card.

Re: Turkish Citizenship Database Leaked

#175
post #163
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name and maybe address can be found somehow but identity number absolutely can not be found (should not be from now on). Private companies confirm auth with name, surname, X,Y,Zth number of identity number. You have to provide them name, surname and identity number in order to get a SIM card, in this example. You don't need to be convicted for anything anymore if someone wants you to go to jail :) They get you in and…

How does the private company verify that the identity number is not bogus? Do they have some tamper-proof crypto box that validates a secure hash hidden in the ID or would a case like that only be flagged when the SIM registration is pushed to the government? In any case, if it is customary to routinely hand the whole number to private companies (I read your description as "full number on registration, some digits on…

It is actually a grey area since the start. Today they get a zerox copy of your entire ID card which includes Identity Number as well but they should not do that.

The terrorist example I gave came from this grey area in fact. IIRC 2 years ago it was in the news that terrorists open up new SIM cards with regular citizens' information. When I checked it with my info, there was only 1 registered which was mine, when I checked my father however, had 4 SIMs registered and only 2 of them were his.

Re: Turkish Citizenship Database Leaked

#176
post #129

TR citizen here, for the last 10 years only those who are really close to AKP got the government contracts including software like this etc. for stupid amounts of money with no know-how. Therefore this is absolutely normal -at least for us-, only thing that surprised me about this leak is this got into front page of HN. Those software "companies" take millions of liras, usually for stupid CRUD stuff, develop it in li…

Just a note, it looks like this data comes from Mernis(1), a project with quite bad history, developed in 90's and launched in 2000 and internet access started in 2002.

I know a bit about government IT departments and contractors at the time and I had zero faith in their competence so this breach is no surprise to me. Current government is no different than is predecessors, just business as usual.

(1)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Identification_Number

Re: Turkish Citizenship Database Leaked

#177
post #129

TR citizen here, for the last 10 years only those who are really close to AKP got the government contracts including software like this etc. for stupid amounts of money with no know-how. Therefore this is absolutely normal -at least for us-, only thing that surprised me about this leak is this got into front page of HN. Those software "companies" take millions of liras, usually for stupid CRUD stuff, develop it in li…

> With that info, a terrorist can buy a SIM card for my name, use it to proxy-blow up a goddamn bomb aaaaand I'm in jail. Or, you know, dead. It's a bit optimistic in the current climate to assume they'd arrest you peacefully.

Yeah, this is the worst case. If you google "Ali İsmail Korkmaz" you'll see a young protester, beaten to death by police and regime supporter bakery guy. He was classmate of my gf and he probably was the nicest person you can ever met.

Re: Turkish Citizenship Database Leaked

#178
post #131
post #129

TR citizen here, for the last 10 years only those who are really close to AKP got the government contracts including software like this etc. for stupid amounts of money with no know-how. Therefore this is absolutely normal -at least for us-, only thing that surprised me about this leak is this got into front page of HN. Those software "companies" take millions of liras, usually for stupid CRUD stuff, develop it in li…

> With that info, a terrorist can buy a SIM card for my name Well that escalated quickly.. Terrorists wouldn't need this database to supply them with names and addresses as most of that info is public in most countries (white-pages is one place). And I can go to any local shop and get a pre-paid SIM card without any personal info involved. Also, if your country convicts you merely because someone used your name with…

> you have bigger problems

Yes, we do! And that is why leaks like this are especially harmful.

Re: Turkish Citizenship Database Leaked

#179
post #129

TR citizen here, for the last 10 years only those who are really close to AKP got the government contracts including software like this etc. for stupid amounts of money with no know-how. Therefore this is absolutely normal -at least for us-, only thing that surprised me about this leak is this got into front page of HN. Those software "companies" take millions of liras, usually for stupid CRUD stuff, develop it in li…

> Those software "companies" take millions of liras, usually for stupid CRUD stuff, develop it in like years and result is goddamn vulnerable, unaesthetic pieces of garbage.

that's great news! sounds like turkey is closer than anyone expected to being a full fledged western member state!

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