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> Certainly, calling out poor security practices is a good thing, however this level of scrutiny is going to require a major shift in mentality for a large port

> Certainly, calling out poor security practices is a good thing, however this level of scrutiny is going to require a major shift in mentality for a large portion of the industry. "Move fast and break things" just isn't going to cut it anymore. When 339 million guest records are involved, anything less shouldn't cut it anymore.

polskibus 7y ago
30p per record doesn't seem much.
- jocro 7y ago
  Only a tenth of those are in the EU, mind.
  - addicted 7y ago
    $3 per EU record doesn't sound all that much either.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      It's about £3.3 per EEA record, which is closer to $4 than $3, not that likely changes whether it seems like all that much.
    - vkou 7y ago
      The monetary value of the median hotel guest record to the sort of nefarious powers that be that scoop up hotel guest databases is ~$0. It may even be a negative amount. The monetary value of a particular person of interest's guest record may be more than that, but those people are few and far between. If you disagree, please let me know who I can get in touch with, who will pay me $4/guest record. I'll quit my day job, and set up camp outside a hotel lobby, recording guests and license plates.
      - arcticbull 7y ago
        It might have something to do with a 5.25 million unencrypted passport numbers and 8.6 million payment cards, Of which no doubt mine was one
      - kragen 7y ago
        The benefit to the nefarious buyer is not the same as the damage to the hotel guest. In fact, there's no reason to even expect them to be similar in value. And the relevant measure of central tendency is the mean, not the median, since we're looking at the sum of all the damages from all the records being copied. Keeping one gay Egyptian dude from getting outed and killed justifies protecting hundreds or thousands of boring middle-class vacationers from Ohio.
        vkou 7y ago
        The personal, quantifiable damage to me of every one of my guest records in my past five years getting stolen by some shadowy cabal is zero. That's because I haven't done anything particularly interesting. Neither have most people. If you're ready to wire me a few hundred dollars, I'll be happy to share records of my, and my wife's stays with you. It'll be a waste of your money, but who am I to judge? A few people have done some very interesting things. For them, those numbers are substantially higher than zero. You haven't disproven my point. The quantifiable, median damage is zero. This is relevant, because this sub-thread tries to quantify the harm by taking the fine, divides it by the number of records, produces $3, and posits that the leak has done more than that amount of harm. Because, obviously, if any harm comes, the harm is over three dollars. Well, yes. It is. If you can measure the harm, of course it's more than three dollars. For most people, though, the harm is immeasurable. Pointing out that the median harm is zero exposes the absurdity of the original argument.
        kragen 7y ago
        So you're saying that, because the median damage is zero, the mean could be arbitrarily small, and in particular might be less than US$3? That's probably true, but your original argument about the purchase price of the data doesn't help to support that. There's also a problem we haven't brought up in this thread, which is that the main damage from privacy invasion is not to people individually, but to human society as a whole. Increasing the price of doing anything particularly interesting can condemn an entire society to domination by mediocrity.
- ckastner 7y ago
  As I mentioned in another comment: It sets an important precedent for future acquisitions.
  - polskibus 7y ago
    Yup, that's the whole point of GDPR - see data as a liability (not just as an asset).
TallGuyShort 7y ago
"Move fast and break things" was never going to cut it. Anyone who has the word "engineer" in their job title, certified or not, should expect better of themselves.
- ljm 7y ago
  That maxim only works out when you’ve got such a solid CI/CD setup that you can roll out to a tiny percentage of users and automatically roll back and notify if they error out. Move fast and break things all you want if you have such an amazing safety net. But at that point you’re not breaking anything, you’re just letting the real world fill in the gaps in your test suite with an insignificant impact. Still, not good enough if you’re dealing with money, medical stuff, vehicles, etc. You’re getting into life or death territory there.

polskibus 7y ago

30p per record doesn't seem much.

jocro 7y ago
Only a tenth of those are in the EU, mind.
- addicted 7y ago
  $3 per EU record doesn't sound all that much either.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    It's about £3.3 per EEA record, which is closer to $4 than $3, not that likely changes whether it seems like all that much.
  - vkou 7y ago
    The monetary value of the median hotel guest record to the sort of nefarious powers that be that scoop up hotel guest databases is ~$0. It may even be a negative amount. The monetary value of a particular person of interest's guest record may be more than that, but those people are few and far between. If you disagree, please let me know who I can get in touch with, who will pay me $4/guest record. I'll quit my day job, and set up camp outside a hotel lobby, recording guests and license plates.
    - arcticbull 7y ago
      It might have something to do with a 5.25 million unencrypted passport numbers and 8.6 million payment cards, Of which no doubt mine was one
    - kragen 7y ago
      The benefit to the nefarious buyer is not the same as the damage to the hotel guest. In fact, there's no reason to even expect them to be similar in value. And the relevant measure of central tendency is the mean, not the median, since we're looking at the sum of all the damages from all the records being copied. Keeping one gay Egyptian dude from getting outed and killed justifies protecting hundreds or thousands of boring middle-class vacationers from Ohio.
      - vkou 7y ago
        The personal, quantifiable damage to me of every one of my guest records in my past five years getting stolen by some shadowy cabal is zero. That's because I haven't done anything particularly interesting. Neither have most people. If you're ready to wire me a few hundred dollars, I'll be happy to share records of my, and my wife's stays with you. It'll be a waste of your money, but who am I to judge? A few people have done some very interesting things. For them, those numbers are substantially higher than zero. You haven't disproven my point. The quantifiable, median damage is zero. This is relevant, because this sub-thread tries to quantify the harm by taking the fine, divides it by the number of records, produces $3, and posits that the leak has done more than that amount of harm. Because, obviously, if any harm comes, the harm is over three dollars. Well, yes. It is. If you can measure the harm, of course it's more than three dollars. For most people, though, the harm is immeasurable. Pointing out that the median harm is zero exposes the absurdity of the original argument.
        kragen 7y ago
        So you're saying that, because the median damage is zero, the mean could be arbitrarily small, and in particular might be less than US$3? That's probably true, but your original argument about the purchase price of the data doesn't help to support that. There's also a problem we haven't brought up in this thread, which is that the main damage from privacy invasion is not to people individually, but to human society as a whole. Increasing the price of doing anything particularly interesting can condemn an entire society to domination by mediocrity.
ckastner 7y ago
As I mentioned in another comment: It sets an important precedent for future acquisitions.
- polskibus 7y ago
  Yup, that's the whole point of GDPR - see data as a liability (not just as an asset).

TallGuyShort 7y ago

"Move fast and break things" was never going to cut it. Anyone who has the word "engineer" in their job title, certified or not, should expect better of themselves.

ljm 7y ago
That maxim only works out when you’ve got such a solid CI/CD setup that you can roll out to a tiny percentage of users and automatically roll back and notify if they error out. Move fast and break things all you want if you have such an amazing safety net. But at that point you’re not breaking anything, you’re just letting the real world fill in the gaps in your test suite with an insignificant impact. Still, not good enough if you’re dealing with money, medical stuff, vehicles, etc. You’re getting into life or death territory there.