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

New LinkedIn Data Leak Leaves 700M Users Exposed

restoreprivacy.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 153 posts

Re: New LinkedIn Data Leak Leaves 700M Users Exposed

#21

Post by rapnie »

diarrhea wrote: post #16
stuff4ben wrote: post #9

But is this really a problem? LinkedIn is "advertising for yourself", presumably to get a job. With the exception of my phone number, I'm ok with the world knowing this information about me. It's the equivalent of a phone book and I'm putting myself out there and advertising myself in the hopes of getting a job.

I imagine most people do not share your attitude, me included. Especially profile sections set to private staying that way needs to be trusted.

And emails not falling in the hands of spammers is always nice.

Re: New LinkedIn Data Leak Leaves 700M Users Exposed

#22

Post by onion2k »

stuff4ben wrote: post #9

But is this really a problem? LinkedIn is "advertising for yourself", presumably to get a job. With the exception of my phone number, I'm ok with the world knowing this information about me. It's the equivalent of a phone book and I'm putting myself out there and advertising myself in the hopes of getting a job.

I have no problem with people accessing my data, but only so long as it's people who have a valid reason to access that data. In the case of LinkedIn, I don't mind my connections, coworkers, and (reluctantly) recruiters seeing what's on my resume. I do mind a random hacker accessing that information, selling it to anyone who'll buy, and those people then using that data for things that probably aren't related to offering me employment.

Re: New LinkedIn Data Leak Leaves 700M Users Exposed

#23

Post by unishark »

dnate wrote: post #19
stuff4ben wrote: post #9

But is this really a problem? LinkedIn is "advertising for yourself", presumably to get a job. With the exception of my phone number, I'm ok with the world knowing this information about me. It's the equivalent of a phone book and I'm putting myself out there and advertising myself in the hopes of getting a job.

I feel like the lines between a data leak and large scale scraping are getting blurred. At least in their impact for the user. Which is a bad thing as it will support the "so what" attitude that many people have toward their data. It is a fact that all this data is already being crawled by bot nets. If all data is leaked at once, this is similar to a large scale successful crawling of the site. At least from a user p…

Are these details publicly-available for the scraping though?

I'd be suspicious it was an employee with internal access to the data or someone who had hacked such an employee's computer. Of course they wouldn't admit such criminal act and risk getting caught, they'd claim a route anyone could use.

Re: New LinkedIn Data Leak Leaves 700M Users Exposed

#24

Post by martinkraft »

stuff4ben wrote: post #9

But is this really a problem? LinkedIn is "advertising for yourself", presumably to get a job. With the exception of my phone number, I'm ok with the world knowing this information about me. It's the equivalent of a phone book and I'm putting myself out there and advertising myself in the hopes of getting a job.

It’s good to hear that it hasn’t affected you personally, but the severity of the leak must be assessed based on the privacy that was reasonably expected by users. LinkedIn has not met their duty to protect their personal information and that alone is enough to say: yes, it’s a problem.

Re: New LinkedIn Data Leak Leaves 700M Users Exposed

#25

Post by streamofdigits »

stuff4ben wrote: post #9

But is this really a problem? LinkedIn is "advertising for yourself", presumably to get a job. With the exception of my phone number, I'm ok with the world knowing this information about me. It's the equivalent of a phone book and I'm putting myself out there and advertising myself in the hopes of getting a job.

if you look at the sample image there are data points like "inferred salaries", "inferred years of experience", number of connections (and possibly other stuff) that somebody may or may not have wanted to advertise to the universe.

the leaking of semi-public data (over which we may have some control) alongside "inferred bits" and behavioral data (over which we don't) and combined with other legally or illegally obtained sources means that individuals are facing an information environment where long held assumptions about who knows what no longer hold.

lots of people still don't seem to realize what a crushing downgrade it is in all senses (economic, social, political) to be a transparent, mined entity with no sovereignty

Re: New LinkedIn Data Leak Leaves 700M Users Exposed

#26

Post by emodendroket »

onion2k wrote: post #22
stuff4ben wrote: post #9

But is this really a problem? LinkedIn is "advertising for yourself", presumably to get a job. With the exception of my phone number, I'm ok with the world knowing this information about me. It's the equivalent of a phone book and I'm putting myself out there and advertising myself in the hopes of getting a job.

I have no problem with people accessing my data, but only so long as it's people who have a valid reason to access that data. In the case of LinkedIn, I don't mind my connections, coworkers, and (reluctantly) recruiters seeing what's on my resume. I do mind a random hacker accessing that information, selling it to anyone who'll buy, and those people then using that data for things that probably aren't related to offe…

How do you know someone accessing your data through the Web site is a recruiter?

Re: New LinkedIn Data Leak Leaves 700M Users Exposed

#27

Post by emodendroket »

AzzieElbab wrote: post #14
emodendroket wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like just the phone number and email.

Yeah missed that. My LinkedIn api experience is dated, are those visible via api?

Kind of ambiguous from the article's description of "exploiting the API."

Re: New LinkedIn Data Leak Leaves 700M Users Exposed

#30

Post by colllectorof »

literallyaduck wrote: post #18

If Microsoft can't safely code its apis what hope does anyone else have?

This is an excellent question/framing. The security model used in the industry right now is insane and doomed to fail, and yet it is relentlessly pushed forth and defended.
Post reply on HN