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Data Is a Toxic Asset
- CM30 11y agoI agree, the biggest reason all these security breaches are as bad as they are is because every company and site seems to want to store as much data about its users as they can. And this point from the article is great: <i>The Ashley Madison data breach was such a disaster for the company because it saved its customers' real names and credit card numbers. It didn't have to do it this way. It could have processed the credit card information, given the user access, and then deleted all identifying information.</i> Tip 1 for 'anonymous' or 'secretive' services like this; don't store personal information. There's no reason a site about cheating on your partners needs a real name or any real personal information, at least on the site's part (that can be shared between the actual users when they want to share it). Similarly, there's no reason any anonymous service should store anything bar a username and maybe email address. Or for that matter, get access to any device features like the camera or contact list. That way, if it ever gets hacked, the data is (for people who didn't use their real name and email) completely useless.