Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Marketing Firm Exactis Leaked a Personal Info Database with 340M Records

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 307 posts

Re: Marketing Firm Exactis Leaked a Personal Info Database with 340M Records

#41

Post by tejtm »

axaxs wrote: post #20
craftyguy wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When will this stop? When's the last straw? When the top folks in the US government are personally affected. Until then, "congressional hearings" and presidential ambivalence is the most action we'll get out of them. Most people don't really understand what the significance of these events are.

I hate the fact that I feel so small and insignificant because of the futility of speaking to a representative. I did try to contact Rand Paul last year. He never bothered to reply, but did add me to his mailing list. Great.

On the bright side, we do not know that he has leaked it yet :)

Re: Marketing Firm Exactis Leaked a Personal Info Database with 340M Records

#42

Post by axaxs »

paulie_a wrote: post #40
axaxs wrote: post #14

When will this stop? When's the last straw? If I gave a bank 100 dollars, and they lost it, I'd have avenues with which to pursue some sort of justice. If I give a company my data, and they lose it, oh well. I wish all personal data was treated like HIPAA, at a minimum.

It won't.

Let's discuss how we can fix this. I'm actually considering leaving my job of 8 years for a probably to be doomed privacy startup. Either way, I'm interested in solutions and more importantly working towards them, even for free.

Re: Marketing Firm Exactis Leaked a Personal Info Database with 340M Records

#43

Post by mmiller9 »

axaxs wrote: post #42
paulie_a wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It won't.

Let's discuss how we can fix this. I'm actually considering leaving my job of 8 years for a probably to be doomed privacy startup. Either way, I'm interested in solutions and more importantly working towards them, even for free.

Legislation. We need legal repercussions for people who wantonly mishandle our personal information. Sorry, but the market can’t help us. This kind of shit needs to be illegal yesterday. It’s just impossible because we have a Congress that is so remarkably out of touch that they won’t do anything about it.

Re: Marketing Firm Exactis Leaked a Personal Info Database with 340M Records

#44

Post by axaxs »

patrickg_zill wrote: post #39
axaxs wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that recent? I just started getting it this year. Is there a way to opt out?

From what I know, it started a few years ago; but not all big stores had the equipment in place to send it (the cc processors give them a discount for sending the line-item level 3 data). With the advent of the chip and pin cards in the USA, it seems logical that just about everyone upgraded to equipment that does support it; which might explain why you are only seeing this in the past year.

So, this seems a little opposite of what I meant. Naive me always assumed I pay with a card, the store gets my cc info to charge and we part ways. I'm getting in the mail ads from Meijer, for items I buy frequently. This tells me they were able to extract my home address and name from my credit card. Is that accurate?

Re: Marketing Firm Exactis Leaked a Personal Info Database with 340M Records

#45

Post by dizzant »

patrickg_zill wrote: post #31
axaxs wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the depressing part. I usually shop at Meijer because they were the last grocery left without annoying loyalty cards. As of this year, I've began receiving in the mail coupons for specific items I'd bought there. So either my credit card company has sold my data, or it was 'stolen' when they scanned my license to buy beer at some point(they require scanning the license, not DOB entry). I'm tired of this.

The credit card info is called "level 3 data" and they in some cases have line item by line item detail. Not just "spend $24.89 at Meijer store #349" but each individual thing, e.g. you bought 2 avocados.

Is this data available to mortals? I don't even have digital itemized receipts for credit card purchases, and it's my purchase!

Re: Marketing Firm Exactis Leaked a Personal Info Database with 340M Records

#46

Post by joering2 »

axaxs wrote: post #42
paulie_a wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It won't.

Let's discuss how we can fix this. I'm actually considering leaving my job of 8 years for a probably to be doomed privacy startup. Either way, I'm interested in solutions and more importantly working towards them, even for free.

Congress grilled Equifax and nothing. Average person saw Equifax commercial on “hey be smart we will keep your info safe with alerts” and thought “wow this company cares about my data” when its precisely opposite.

If the congress is unable or doesnt want to draft a bill to stop predators from milking money off of your data, then that money probably ends up in their pocket some way. Or at least some of it.

Please dont quit your job for the sake of your security - food, shelter, etc. Move these assholes out with next election. Vote in young people that are probably as angry about this shit as you are, in hope they won’t sell out their soul.

Re: Marketing Firm Exactis Leaked a Personal Info Database with 340M Records

#47

Post by paulie_a »

axaxs wrote: post #42
paulie_a wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It won't.

Let's discuss how we can fix this. I'm actually considering leaving my job of 8 years for a probably to be doomed privacy startup. Either way, I'm interested in solutions and more importantly working towards them, even for free.

Figure out a way to make the data collected useless. You can't hide and block every attempt to track, collect and generally have your privacy invaded. But it may be possible to throw a wrench in the gears by making so much noise the data is low quality.

Re: Marketing Firm Exactis Leaked a Personal Info Database with 340M Records

#48

Post by mmiller9 »

aalleavitch wrote: post #10

This is laughable. Data security is a fairy-tale. We've all been bought and sold and there is nothing any of us can do to fix it.

Erm, not opening up this fucking Elasticsearch instance to the entire internet would be a pretty easy way to get like 90% of the way there. I do operations. I can tell you exactly how not to make rookie mistakes like this. But security isn’t sexy, and it isn’t profitable, so it falls by the wayside.

Re: Marketing Firm Exactis Leaked a Personal Info Database with 340M Records

#49

Post by mmiller9 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #22
mr_spothawk wrote: post #11

spoiler alert: nobody goes to jail.

In all seriousness, what law (in the US) has this company broken? I'm assuming all the data they got was somehow obtained through legal channels in the first place? People may be up in arms about this being a "breach", but think about it: they're a "data brokerage" company. Consider this breach a sale price of $0. My point is what should be scary is that all of this data is bought and sold about all of us, all the ti…

Just because it’s legal doesn’t make it right. No, there is no law against this. That’s a problem, and it will continue to be a problem until it either affects enough CEOs or some Congressman’s kid gets screwed over by it. Until then we’re all going to be forced to clean up the messes ourselves.

Re: Marketing Firm Exactis Leaked a Personal Info Database with 340M Records

#50

Post by DCoder »

axaxs wrote: post #14

When will this stop? When's the last straw? If I gave a bank 100 dollars, and they lost it, I'd have avenues with which to pursue some sort of justice. If I give a company my data, and they lose it, oh well. I wish all personal data was treated like HIPAA, at a minimum.

> If I give a company my data, and they lose it, oh well. I wish all personal data was treated like HIPAA, at a minimum.

And yet, when GDPR tries to address the issue, HN is full of "blocking the damned EU users completely" and "stop stifling honest companies".

Post reply on HN