5 ms·

U.S. service members' data is easy and cheap to purchase online, study finds

19 points by arkadiyt 3y ago

chunkyks 3y ago
> The research has prompted fears that a lack of major regulation in the data brokerage sector may constitute a national security risk. At least you have to pay now. Historically OPM just gave it away for free. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management_data_breach https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Manageme...
- halJordan 3y ago
  That joke's a little played out.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - DANmode 3y ago
    Which part was the joke? Isn't their hack how the CIA folks within China went down?
londons_explore 3y ago
We let enemies know details of our nukes and other capabilities to prevent war. Someone won't start a war against us when it is clear they will lose. Wars only happen when both sides think they can win because one or other side is hiding some advantage. For this reason, I think we shouldn't be secretive with which of our people are employed by the military, and which divisions they're in or what training. All of that is info an enemy needs to know our capabilities.
- halJordan 3y ago
  Phew, that was a roller coaster for being so short. Unfortunately human beings have human rights, and American citizens have constitutionality-protected human rights. So no, right off the bat. The Chinese don't need to know the details being sold by these data brokers. The info you seem to want public is already largely public.
  - londons_explore 3y ago
    Plenty of jobs require your name be published. Imagine the US president deciding he doesn't want anyone to know his name/gender/photo!
    - phanimahesh 3y ago
      Elected public officials should not be compared to military personnel.
- serf 3y ago
  >For this reason, I think we shouldn't be secretive with which of our people are employed by the military, and which divisions they're in or what training. if that was actually somehow the case then one would think that world powers would then just flood the information marketplace with erroneously prestigious and elite soldiers en masse -- and then the next group would do the same thing until any real information that may be derived is so dilute as to be useless strategically. large weapons are a unique and demonstrable capability -- I fail to see how that metaphor applies to leaked personnel data.
footlose_3815 3y ago
My company gets hit by smishing attacks to our employees personal cell phones, and I'm certain this is how they're getting the info. These kinds of brokers who don't have any kind of regulation, or moral compass to be good stewards of the data. Bad actors look up the employees on linkedin, look up the employees on rocketreach (or similar), and send text messages "As the CEO" to all the employees they scraped that day. Data brokers are insidious and their creep has been out-of-sight. For example, search yourself on Rocketreach. I found tons of personal data about me on Rocketreach. The only way to get it taken-down is to make an account and ask them to take it down. There really should be a DMCA for personal information. I really wish we had tougher privacy laws in the USA.
- phanimahesh 3y ago
  Data brokers having regulation and moral compass is a wild fantasy imo. I can not tell if you are being serious.

19 points by arkadiyt 3y ago

> The research has prompted fears that a lack of major regulation in the data brokerage sector may constitute a national security risk. At least you have to pay now. Historically OPM just gave it away for free. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management_data_breach https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Manageme...

halJordan 3y ago
That joke's a little played out.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- DANmode 3y ago
  Which part was the joke? Isn't their hack how the CIA folks within China went down?

londons_explore 3y ago

We let enemies know details of our nukes and other capabilities to prevent war. Someone won't start a war against us when it is clear they will lose. Wars only happen when both sides think they can win because one or other side is hiding some advantage. For this reason, I think we shouldn't be secretive with which of our people are employed by the military, and which divisions they're in or what training. All of that is info an enemy needs to know our capabilities.

halJordan 3y ago
Phew, that was a roller coaster for being so short. Unfortunately human beings have human rights, and American citizens have constitutionality-protected human rights. So no, right off the bat. The Chinese don't need to know the details being sold by these data brokers. The info you seem to want public is already largely public.
- londons_explore 3y ago
  Plenty of jobs require your name be published. Imagine the US president deciding he doesn't want anyone to know his name/gender/photo!
  - phanimahesh 3y ago
    Elected public officials should not be compared to military personnel.
serf 3y ago
>For this reason, I think we shouldn't be secretive with which of our people are employed by the military, and which divisions they're in or what training. if that was actually somehow the case then one would think that world powers would then just flood the information marketplace with erroneously prestigious and elite soldiers en masse -- and then the next group would do the same thing until any real information that may be derived is so dilute as to be useless strategically. large weapons are a unique and demonstrable capability -- I fail to see how that metaphor applies to leaked personnel data.

footlose_3815 3y ago

My company gets hit by smishing attacks to our employees personal cell phones, and I'm certain this is how they're getting the info. These kinds of brokers who don't have any kind of regulation, or moral compass to be good stewards of the data. Bad actors look up the employees on linkedin, look up the employees on rocketreach (or similar), and send text messages "As the CEO" to all the employees they scraped that day. Data brokers are insidious and their creep has been out-of-sight. For example, search yourself on Rocketreach. I found tons of personal data about me on Rocketreach. The only way to get it taken-down is to make an account and ask them to take it down. There really should be a DMCA for personal information. I really wish we had tougher privacy laws in the USA.

phanimahesh 3y ago
Data brokers having regulation and moral compass is a wild fantasy imo. I can not tell if you are being serious.