Personal data of 48 million people leaked by data analytics company

LocalBlox, a data analytics company, describes on its website how it “automatically crawls, discovers, extracts, indexes, maps and augments data” from a variety of sources, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Zillow to build a “360 Degree people view,” that is then sold to marketers.

LocalBlox left a 1.2 terabyte file containing the personal data of 48 million individuals in an Amazon ‘storage bucket,’ password unprotected and accessible to anyone.
Source

A "data analytics" company, LocalBlox, has leaked personal information of 48 million people. What sorts of information are we talking about? Well, basically everything about a person:

a person’s first and last name, online identities, address, birthday, email and phone numbers, salary, housing information, credit rating, skills and interests, among hundreds of other data points

This company and many others like it scour the internet, hoarding every little detail they can find about people so that they can sell that information. Sometimes it's sold "legally", as in to "marketers", e.g. people who see you as money. Sometimes it's sold illegally, as in to criminals, such as those involved in identity theft or credit card fraud. In even scarier circumstances, that information may be provided to governments who may not have the best interests of its citizens in mind - think Chinese citizens being arrested for having the wrong political opinions or religious beliefs.

There are already very strong laws in place regarding the handling of personal data in certain fields, such as how hospitals or other such medical establishments are required to protect your health information. Why then is it legal to sell a vast stash of other personally identifiable information, without the consent of those whom the information concerns? I think it's time we need to take a stand against the practice of hoarding and selling personal information. It's unethical, it's dangerous, and it's sometimes highly illegal.

Good. Let this be a wakeup call. Its about time people realize they're not actual celebrities just because they pour all their data's and thoughts and favorite colors and soon into these corporate monsters. That this stuff is dangerous.

originally posted by: trollz

LocalBlox, a data analytics company, describes on its website how it “automatically crawls, discovers, extracts, indexes, maps and augments data” from a variety of sources, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Zillow to build a “360 Degree people view,” that is then sold to marketers.

LocalBlox left a 1.2 terabyte file containing the personal data of 48 million individuals in an Amazon ‘storage bucket,’ password unprotected and accessible to anyone.
Source

A "data analytics" company, LocalBlox, has leaked personal information of 48 million people. What sorts of information are we talking about? Well, basically everything about a person:

a person’s first and last name, online identities, address, birthday, email and phone numbers, salary, housing information, credit rating, skills and interests, among hundreds of other data points

This company and many others like it scour the internet, hoarding every little detail they can find about people so that they can sell that information. Sometimes it's sold "legally", as in to "marketers", e.g. people who see you as money. Sometimes it's sold illegally, as in to criminals, such as those involved in identity theft or credit card fraud. In even scarier circumstances, that information may be provided to governments who may not have the best interests of its citizens in mind - think Chinese citizens being arrested for having the wrong political opinions or religious beliefs.

There are already very strong laws in place regarding the handling of personal data in certain fields, such as how hospitals or other such medical establishments are required to protect your health information. Why then is it legal to sell a vast stash of other personally identifiable information, without the consent of those whom the information concerns? I think it's time we need to take a stand against the practice of hoarding and selling personal information. It's unethical, it's dangerous, and it's sometimes highly illegal.

All of that is public information. The idea that any of it is even bought and sold anymore gives you an idea as to how stupid this $ for data thing is.

a reply to: trollz

Bad but good at the same time imo. I gave up my personal info the second I got a bank account. Aside from that the only form of social media I use is ATS. But I never said what my favorite color is lol ( it’s green hehe)


Also something I would like to point out that in 99% of all T&C agreements you sign physically or through a E signature. If you look about one paragraph up from the last there is a nifty couple of words there. Generally they go as follows.
By signing this form you agree that some of the information given can be used by our affiliates.
Well now think about the form they have to sign with their affiliates. It says the same thing.
BAM your info is all over the place.

a reply to: trollz

Last time I checked we were marked with numbers at birth long before the invention of the internet and social media.

We've been watched, studied and exploited for quite some time.

Or as some would say...

"That bell's been rung"

a reply to: trollz

Only hundreds of data points?

Acxiom brags about having "3,500 market-leading indicators" in their comprehensive data on 250 million US addressable consumers.

i360 claims 199 Million Active Voters, 290 Million Consumers, 101 Million Identified Individuals, 311 Million Matched Devices and 1800 Unique Data Points on their website.

These guys have been slacking clearly.

a reply to: trollz

a person’s first and last name, online identities, address, birthday, email and phone numbers, salary, housing information, credit rating, skills and interests, among hundreds of other data points

Wonder what that applies to in full, beyond Amazon or other, such as any accounts(for ex. ATS) hooked to an e-mail account that was databased through the company.

originally posted by: theantediluvian
a reply to: trollz

Only hundreds of data points?

Acxiom brags about having "3,500 market-leading indicators" in their comprehensive data on 250 million US addressable consumers.

i360 claims 199 Million Active Voters, 290 Million Consumers, 101 Million Identified Individuals, 311 Million Matched Devices and 1800 Unique Data Points on their website.

These guys have been slacking clearly.

Maybe the whole point of their work was a sort of "Hacktivism". Put together a big enough set that would get peoples attention, and get them to think, then "leak" it so it (hopefully) does what it was meant to do...

originally posted by: theantediluvian
a reply to: trollz

Only hundreds of data points?

Acxiom brags about having "3,500 market-leading indicators" in their comprehensive data on 250 million US addressable consumers.

i360 claims 199 Million Active Voters, 290 Million Consumers, 101 Million Identified Individuals, 311 Million Matched Devices and 1800 Unique Data Points on their website.

These guys have been slacking clearly.

3500 data points... pfft

Cambridge has trumpeted its massive data trove, boasting 5,000 data points on every American. Cambridge claims to have built extensive personality profiles on every American, which it uses for so-called “psychographic targeting,” based on people’s personality types.
www.wired.com...
Data drives all we do.
Cambridge Analytica uses data to change audience behavior. Visit our Commercial or Political divisions to see how we can help you. lol

The industry is called data brokerage.

“The extent of consumer profiling today means that data brokers often know as much – or even more – about us than our family and friends, including our online and in-store purchases, our political and religious affiliations, our income and socioeconomic status, and more,” said FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez. “It’s time to bring transparency and accountability to bear on this industry on behalf of consumers, many of whom are unaware that data brokers even exist.”

The report finds that data brokers collect and store billions of data elements covering nearly every U.S. consumer. Just one of the data brokers studied holds information on more than 1.4 billion consumer transactions and 700 billion data elements and another adds more than 3 billion new data points to its database each month.

meh the idiots will carry on using social media and happily giving away all their data .

privacy is dead as the dodo in todays world .

originally posted by: staple
Cambridge has trumpeted its massive data trove, boasting 5,000 data points on every American. Cambridge claims to have built extensive personality profiles on every American, which it uses for so-called “psychographic targeting,” based on people’s personality types.

Not every "American" even uses the interwbes.

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

You are right but do they possibly use
A credit/debit card.
Cell phone.
Library card.
Any devices with Bluetooth or WiFi.

You may not freely give your info away but there are many other ways even more valuable than Facebook "likes"
Edit for clarity... This kind of tracking was in place long before the internet made it easy.

a reply to: trollz

LocalBlox, a data analytics company, describes on its website how it “automatically crawls, discovers, extracts, indexes, maps and augments data” from a variety of sources, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Zillow to build a “360 Degree people view,” that is then sold to marketers.

We programs on our computers doing fake website surfing so when company's like this gather data there's not signal. It's just noise.