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French government agency confirms breach as hacker offers to sell data

bleepingcomputer.com

141–150 of 168 posts

Re: French government agency confirms breach as hacker offers to sell data

#141

Would it be possible to spread so much noise that data like this becomes useless? Could an LLM be used to help here?

Assuming this is a serious question, no. The database was compromised. Some people have the authoritative source of information. Any noise they will just ignore because they know it's not in the "real" dataset.

Re: French government agency confirms breach as hacker offers to sell data

#142
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let us know how it works out. It's great in theory to stick to your principles but taking on the government in that way is almost certainly a losing battle. There are better ways to bring about change.

Not sure the French of all people need lectures on bringing about change and taking on the government.

The person I responded to didn't seem to be French ("governments" not "or government") and I'm not sure the French have a history of opposing their governments through copyright violations.

Re: French government agency confirms breach as hacker offers to sell data

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let us know how it works out. It's great in theory to stick to your principles but taking on the government in that way is almost certainly a losing battle. There are better ways to bring about change.

It all starts by noticing that there is something odd about the way governments are trying to structure things, and then raising awareness about it. There might be better ways to bring about change, but if you don't say what they are then that doesn't help much.

There's a whole spectrum available from dialogue with government members to bloody revolution. But I don't see how passive aggressively breaking arbitrary civil laws that happen to be your pet peeve either raises awareness or puts any pressure on the government at all.

Re: French government agency confirms breach as hacker offers to sell data

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Penalties don't work for government agencies. Taxpayers would pay for it and it doesn't act as an incentive. The way to fix it is to empower one government agency to do aggressive pentesting against every other agency, hospitals, banks, infrastructure, and big corporations, with salaries matching the private sector. Impose a legally-enforced deadline to fix any issues, with a fine (for private actors) or demotion of…

I agree with the premise that SSII audits are useless, but your solution sounds like bandaid on a cancer. The real solution solution is stop this surveillance machine madness! I understand that identity is required for property deeds and bank accounts for tax reasons and that should 100% not be online. But for the rest, it should be entirely outlawed to collect personal information beyond what's necessary for the ser…

Flagged for AI use.

Re: French government agency confirms breach as hacker offers to sell data

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the premise that SSII audits are useless, but your solution sounds like bandaid on a cancer. The real solution solution is stop this surveillance machine madness! I understand that identity is required for property deeds and bank accounts for tax reasons and that should 100% not be online. But for the rest, it should be entirely outlawed to collect personal information beyond what's necessary for the ser…

Flagged for AI use.

Tough luck, i've never used any machine learning in my life (that i know of). AI tools are part of the same problem, the same techno-fascism i was decrying in my comment. I'm just curious how you could even think i was using AI????

Re: French government agency confirms breach as hacker offers to sell data

#146
post #78
post #10

> the data stolen in the breach could include full names, dates and places of birth, mailing and email addresses, and phone numbers on an undisclosed number of citizens Nothing really new here sadly, this information about me have leaked half a dozen of times in the past 2-3 years or so. These things will never change if the only penalty the company/agency gets is "send a message to your users saying you are sorry an…

Or maybe the government should not require companies to KYC you for every little stupid thing or action you do in this world. What happened to requiring only the information that's actually required? Why do I need to be KYCd in the systems when buying banana, ordering delivery, etc. Because of the inevitable breaches and leaks - KYC is the illicit activity. The selling point of KYC was preventing fraud and money laun…

[deleted]

Re: French government agency confirms breach as hacker offers to sell data

#147
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe the government should not require companies to KYC you for every little stupid thing or action you do in this world. What happened to requiring only the information that's actually required? Why do I need to be KYCd in the systems when buying banana, ordering delivery, etc. Because of the inevitable breaches and leaks - KYC is the illicit activity. The selling point of KYC was preventing fraud and money laun…

> Or maybe the government should not require companies to KYC you for every little stupid thing Actually.... Say what you like about the French today, but one good thing they have is an electronic service[1] where you can generate single-use KYC ID: - That only discloses minimum information required - For a specific recipient organisation - For a specific duration - For a specific use-case by that organisation More c…

I'm not exactly sure of the details, but isn't this similar to DigiD in NL? There too you can "prove your Identity and log in" via the govt app. The server side of the 3rd party has to handle the rest (eg user account information etc.), nothing is shared beyond "this is the guy who's signing in, verified by the govt".

Re: French government agency confirms breach as hacker offers to sell data

#148
post #78
post #10

> the data stolen in the breach could include full names, dates and places of birth, mailing and email addresses, and phone numbers on an undisclosed number of citizens Nothing really new here sadly, this information about me have leaked half a dozen of times in the past 2-3 years or so. These things will never change if the only penalty the company/agency gets is "send a message to your users saying you are sorry an…

Or maybe the government should not require companies to KYC you for every little stupid thing or action you do in this world. What happened to requiring only the information that's actually required? Why do I need to be KYCd in the systems when buying banana, ordering delivery, etc. Because of the inevitable breaches and leaks - KYC is the illicit activity. The selling point of KYC was preventing fraud and money laun…

KYC: Know your customer or know your client (KYC) laws, regulations and guidelines in financial services require regulated businesses and professionals to verify the identity, suitability, and risks involved with maintaining a business relationship with a customer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer

Re: French government agency confirms breach as hacker offers to sell data

#149
post #10

> the data stolen in the breach could include full names, dates and places of birth, mailing and email addresses, and phone numbers on an undisclosed number of citizens Nothing really new here sadly, this information about me have leaked half a dozen of times in the past 2-3 years or so. These things will never change if the only penalty the company/agency gets is "send a message to your users saying you are sorry an…

Yeah we are all walking with online targets in our real life. Technology has failed us spectacularly

Re: French government agency confirms breach as hacker offers to sell data

#150

It seems to me we must move away from worrying about ransomware, data breach, data protection as that ship has already sailed and everyone's PII has already been stolen. We should think of how to verify people's identities online (for things like government benefits etc). I have heard of the Dutch and the Japanese using national digital identity systems although I am unclear how they work. India is doing biometrics.…

Something can probably be learned from Sweden, where nearly all information is public by default.

Here's my home address btw, super easy to find if you know my name.

DoB is on there too, who I live with, which door in the building, if I have a car, a dog or contract phone.. You can even pay a small fee and get an extract of the income register to see how much I earn.

https://mrkoll.se/person/Jan-Martin-Harris-Harasym-Snapperup...

https://www.ratsit.se/19891030-Jan_Martin_Harris_Harasym_Mal...

Yet somehow it seems to work.

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