6 ms·

> This is actually almost entirely public data Birthday is an included item. That's definitely private as it is often used to confirm identity. "almost publi

> This is actually almost entirely public data Birthday is an included item. That's definitely private as it is often used to confirm identity. "almost public" is meaningless. One data item, like credit card number, or birthday, can make this a dangerous leak.

fav_collector 9y ago
> Birthday is an included item. That's definitely private as it is often used to confirm identity. mylife.com publicly posts birthdays so apparently not
- unityByFreedom 9y ago
  No kidding, but I don't want that information out there, and I imagine most people don't. Just because some skeezy website shares all my personal information does not make it public information. It's private to me and I'd rather it remain undistributed, where possible. Overall point being, this US voter data leak is bad. That appears to have released information on all of us that we consider private.
  - __david__ 9y ago
    > Just because some skeezy website shares all my personal information does not make it public information. I kinda think it does mean exactly that. Just because you don't want something to be public doesn't mean that it isn't public.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - unityByFreedom 9y ago
      So do you consider your daily schedule, gps locations of where you go, to be public information? Nothing about the definition of public or private restrict either to being protected by the government. I can consider some information private without it being protected in the legal sense. That said, I expect that any government entity that released my birthday would be held responsible for a data leak.
      - __david__ 9y ago
        > So do you consider your daily schedule, gps locations of where you go, to be public information? Nope. What's your point?
        unityByFreedom 9y ago
        Your words, > "Just because you don't want something to be public doesn't mean that it isn't public." In the future, your location data could be tracked, shared/hacked, analyzed to produce more information, and breached just like this RNC dataset. My point is, something private doesn't become public when a criminal exposes it. It's still private to you.
        __david__ 9y ago
        What? It isn't public because it isn't public. Not because I don't want it to be public. If in the future it is no longer public, then I won't consider it private. I may not be happy about it, but that doesn't change the fact that it is public at that point.
        unityByFreedom 9y ago
        If a criminal releases 100,000 credit card numbers, we don't all of the sudden consider credit card numbers to be public. We try to limit the spread of the leak, if possible, and shore up whatever security lapse occurred. Nowhere in that scenario to we begin to consider credit card numbers public. So it is with birthdays. There isn't any government organization who will distribute that information.
        __david__ 9y ago
        You most certainly do consider stolen credit cards public! You don't just limit the information and hope for the best—you attempt to inform everyone affected of the breach and try to get everyone to change their card number (because it's public at this point).
nostrademons 9y ago
Birthday is almost certainly public. You can get it easily from the DMV or from any of several dozen commercial providers that resell government data: https://www.dmv.org/public-records/ https://www.dmv.org/public-records/ That it's used to confirm identity shows how weak identity-theft protections are at most institutions, not what's public information. (For that matter, mother's maiden name is basically public information as well: you can get it from genealogical records.)
- mfoy_ 9y ago
  How many dark patterns are used by truth-finder.com? Seriously.
- jack_kc 9y ago
  The site you linked to is not affiliated with any state DMV. It links to a sketchy background check service that appears to be a scam. Edit: spelling
  - unityByFreedom 9y ago
    That, and, I've never consented to release my birthday publicly. I consider it to be private, therefore it is private. It's mine! I expect the government would not release it since they use it as part of an identifier all the time. There's no perfect identifier. That's why we need security. This is a major lapse. Pretty sneaky of the comment above yours to try to pass dmv.org as a government website.
    - crooked-v 9y ago
      > I've never consented to release my birthday publicly. Too bad. The government doesn't care about you consenting to things. In fact, making you do things without your consent is literally the entire point of organized government, even if we usually overlook that because it's for a good purpose (for example, taxation to pay for health care or national defense).
      - 9y ago
creepydata 9y ago
Um, no. Your birthday is certainly not private information. Births are openly published in the local paper and online. Not to mention stuff like this - http://www.wfsb.com/story/26835982/website-displaying-voters-personal-information-has-right-to-do-so http://www.wfsb.com/story/26835982/website-displaying-voters...
- unityByFreedom 9y ago
  Um, yes. It certainly is. I don't want it released publicly, nor have I consented to release it to any website. If there are websites out there sharing that private information, they're doing it without my consent.
  - Gargoyle 9y ago
    You may consider it private, but that doesn't make it legally private. Which is the kind of privacy under discussion in this thread.
    - unityByFreedom 9y ago
      Nobody has restricted this conversation to the legal sense. Is your daily schedule, when you go to work,drop off your kids, what route you take to work protected legally? No, but you probably wouldn't want to share that information publicly either. Yet, in the future, a data breach could reveal such information, and a business could seek to resell it.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - creepydata 9y ago
    Did you read The link I posted? If you are a registered voter in Connecticut your birthday is public information by law.
    - unityByFreedom 9y ago
dragonwriter 9y ago
> Birthday is an included item. That's definitely private as it is often used to confirm identity. Lots of things that are actually not private data are used to confirm identity; “it is used to confirm identity” is not a disproof that a piece of information is public information.
- unityByFreedom 9y ago
  Would you like to share your full name and birthday with the world? I wouldn't. Therefore it is private.
  - idbehold 9y ago
    That would disclose way more information than just my name and age. You would then be able to associate that information with my HN username and all the data associated with it.
    - unityByFreedom 9y ago
      I don't follow.
      - creepydata 9y ago
        idbehold can't post his or her name and birthday without revealing he or she is the owner of the idbehold hacker news account. Which is more information than name+birthday, it's name+birthday+hacked news posting history. http://www.dc.state.fl.us/activeinmates/detail.asp?Bookmark=38&From=list&SessionID=1053117630 http://www.dc.state.fl.us/activeinmates/detail.asp?Bookmark=... This is a random guy. His named ERNEST BELL JR and his birthdate is 10/05/1959.
        unityByFreedom 9y ago
        > dbehold can't post his or her name and birthday.. Not sure why you're replying for someone else.. > This is a random guy. His named ERNEST BELL JR and his birthdate is 10/05/1959. Inmates obviously lose some rights when convicted. Data security is minor compared to losing the freedom of movement. Also doesn't surprise me that Florida would make all information on its inmates public.

fav_collector 9y ago

> Birthday is an included item. That's definitely private as it is often used to confirm identity. mylife.com publicly posts birthdays so apparently not

unityByFreedom 9y ago
No kidding, but I don't want that information out there, and I imagine most people don't. Just because some skeezy website shares all my personal information does not make it public information. It's private to me and I'd rather it remain undistributed, where possible. Overall point being, this US voter data leak is bad. That appears to have released information on all of us that we consider private.
- __david__ 9y ago
  > Just because some skeezy website shares all my personal information does not make it public information. I kinda think it does mean exactly that. Just because you don't want something to be public doesn't mean that it isn't public.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - unityByFreedom 9y ago
    So do you consider your daily schedule, gps locations of where you go, to be public information? Nothing about the definition of public or private restrict either to being protected by the government. I can consider some information private without it being protected in the legal sense. That said, I expect that any government entity that released my birthday would be held responsible for a data leak.
    - __david__ 9y ago
      > So do you consider your daily schedule, gps locations of where you go, to be public information? Nope. What's your point?
      - unityByFreedom 9y ago
        Your words, > "Just because you don't want something to be public doesn't mean that it isn't public." In the future, your location data could be tracked, shared/hacked, analyzed to produce more information, and breached just like this RNC dataset. My point is, something private doesn't become public when a criminal exposes it. It's still private to you.
        __david__ 9y ago
        What? It isn't public because it isn't public. Not because I don't want it to be public. If in the future it is no longer public, then I won't consider it private. I may not be happy about it, but that doesn't change the fact that it is public at that point.
        unityByFreedom 9y ago
        If a criminal releases 100,000 credit card numbers, we don't all of the sudden consider credit card numbers to be public. We try to limit the spread of the leak, if possible, and shore up whatever security lapse occurred. Nowhere in that scenario to we begin to consider credit card numbers public. So it is with birthdays. There isn't any government organization who will distribute that information.
        __david__ 9y ago
        You most certainly do consider stolen credit cards public! You don't just limit the information and hope for the best—you attempt to inform everyone affected of the breach and try to get everyone to change their card number (because it's public at this point).

nostrademons 9y ago

Birthday is almost certainly public. You can get it easily from the DMV or from any of several dozen commercial providers that resell government data: https://www.dmv.org/public-records/ https://www.dmv.org/public-records/ That it's used to confirm identity shows how weak identity-theft protections are at most institutions, not what's public information. (For that matter, mother's maiden name is basically public information as well: you can get it from genealogical records.)

mfoy_ 9y ago
How many dark patterns are used by truth-finder.com? Seriously.
jack_kc 9y ago
The site you linked to is not affiliated with any state DMV. It links to a sketchy background check service that appears to be a scam. Edit: spelling
- unityByFreedom 9y ago
  That, and, I've never consented to release my birthday publicly. I consider it to be private, therefore it is private. It's mine! I expect the government would not release it since they use it as part of an identifier all the time. There's no perfect identifier. That's why we need security. This is a major lapse. Pretty sneaky of the comment above yours to try to pass dmv.org as a government website.
  - crooked-v 9y ago
    > I've never consented to release my birthday publicly. Too bad. The government doesn't care about you consenting to things. In fact, making you do things without your consent is literally the entire point of organized government, even if we usually overlook that because it's for a good purpose (for example, taxation to pay for health care or national defense).
    - 9y ago

creepydata 9y ago

Um, no. Your birthday is certainly not private information. Births are openly published in the local paper and online. Not to mention stuff like this - http://www.wfsb.com/story/26835982/website-displaying-voters-personal-information-has-right-to-do-so http://www.wfsb.com/story/26835982/website-displaying-voters...

unityByFreedom 9y ago
Um, yes. It certainly is. I don't want it released publicly, nor have I consented to release it to any website. If there are websites out there sharing that private information, they're doing it without my consent.
- Gargoyle 9y ago
  You may consider it private, but that doesn't make it legally private. Which is the kind of privacy under discussion in this thread.
  - unityByFreedom 9y ago
    Nobody has restricted this conversation to the legal sense. Is your daily schedule, when you go to work,drop off your kids, what route you take to work protected legally? No, but you probably wouldn't want to share that information publicly either. Yet, in the future, a data breach could reveal such information, and a business could seek to resell it.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- creepydata 9y ago
  Did you read The link I posted? If you are a registered voter in Connecticut your birthday is public information by law.
  - unityByFreedom 9y ago

dragonwriter 9y ago

> Birthday is an included item. That's definitely private as it is often used to confirm identity. Lots of things that are actually not private data are used to confirm identity; “it is used to confirm identity” is not a disproof that a piece of information is public information.

unityByFreedom 9y ago
Would you like to share your full name and birthday with the world? I wouldn't. Therefore it is private.
- idbehold 9y ago
  That would disclose way more information than just my name and age. You would then be able to associate that information with my HN username and all the data associated with it.
  - unityByFreedom 9y ago
    I don't follow.
    - creepydata 9y ago
      idbehold can't post his or her name and birthday without revealing he or she is the owner of the idbehold hacker news account. Which is more information than name+birthday, it's name+birthday+hacked news posting history. http://www.dc.state.fl.us/activeinmates/detail.asp?Bookmark=38&From=list&SessionID=1053117630 http://www.dc.state.fl.us/activeinmates/detail.asp?Bookmark=... This is a random guy. His named ERNEST BELL JR and his birthdate is 10/05/1959.
      - unityByFreedom 9y ago
        > dbehold can't post his or her name and birthday.. Not sure why you're replying for someone else.. > This is a random guy. His named ERNEST BELL JR and his birthdate is 10/05/1959. Inmates obviously lose some rights when convicted. Data security is minor compared to losing the freedom of movement. Also doesn't surprise me that Florida would make all information on its inmates public.