A new data breach may have exposed personal information of almost every American adult

a reply to: mysterioustranger

2 Terabytes is enough data space to store the entire King James Bible, about 500,000 times over.
(So imagine the amount of text in the Bible, then multiply that by 500,000
| If that seems like enough space for information on 300-400 million people, then of course.(Each person could have MULTIPLE chapters of the "times 500,000 Super Bible" devoted to their information.))

Just as a rough reference guide, for text amount to data storage. (I did the math on this for something unrelated, recently. I didn't just "know this" and it's not BS/out of my ass. That is literal, not an exaggeration. 2 Terabytes CAN literally store the Bible's entire text, about half a million times over.)

"While the database apparently does not include credit-card numbers or Social Security numbers, it does include phone numbers, email and postal addresses as well as more than 400 personal characteristics, such as whether a person is a smoker, if they own a dog or cat, their religion and a multitude of personal interests. "

That's the kind of information used as security questions for bank accounts and other services. What was your mothers maiden name? What was the name of your first pet? What was your favourite subject at school? Where you go to college?

That's more information than the Stasi collected in East Germany. All uploaded onto an Amazon Web Services server and not locked down.

a reply to: toysforadults

Information security consulting services, much less full time employees aren't cheap either. I think my bill rate is over $700 an hour, someone the next level up is over $900 give or take, it only goes up from there. Now FTE info sec employees, figure 175k per year (depending on location, I'm using mine as a point of reference), 4 weeks vacation, 2 weeks sick leave, insurance contributions, 401k match, etc. etc. Heck most of those higher end positions are still offering pensions these days.

As for being cheaper to risk a breach, this is absolutely true. That being said, regulation does one thing only, it brings about compliance frameworks. Compliance does not equal security, look at NERC CIP for example, there are some absolutely goofy things they look for in the standards, and some things that should be glaringly obvious to the most junior info sec professional that are not in there.

What should be the frightening part is all of the breaches that aren't reported by an entity, because there are tons that are just under reporting thresholds that happen all the time. The only people that know are the info sec team and management...

a reply to: stormcell

This is one of the reasons you never give an actual answer to a security question, I know it doesn't make a ton of sense but for my financial stuff the answers to my security questions are wildly different than the ones I use everywhere else.

originally posted by: Archivalist
a reply to: mysterioustranger

2 Terabytes is enough data space to store the entire King James Bible, about 500,000 times over.
(So imagine the amount of text in the Bible, then multiply that by 500,000
| If that seems like enough space for information on 300-400 million people, then of course.(Each person could have MULTIPLE chapters of the "times 500,000 Super Bible" devoted to their information.))

Just as a rough reference guide, for text amount to data storage. (I did the math on this for something unrelated, recently. I didn't just "know this" and it's not BS/out of my ass. That is literal, not an exaggeration. 2 Terabytes CAN literally store the Bible's entire text, about half a million times over.)

Yeah.. I replied above I understand. I myself have the Bible, Koran and a couple dozen books and copies of those copies... from zip and external drives I save back every 6 months or so so I don't lose things myself...

Prob close to 7-8 sets of copies of all.. and the copies.... all total occupying a pretty small amount of gas.

Thanks! MS

originally posted by: mysterioustranger
originally posted by: slapjacks

Wired reported Wednesday that Exactis, a Palm Coast, Fla.-based marketing and data-aggregation company, had exposed a database containing almost 2 terabytes of data, containing nearly 340 million individual records, on a public server. That included records of 230 million consumers and 110 million businesses.

 

Can 2 T even hold that much info? I have 2 Terabytes drives

edit on Thu Jun 28 2018 by DontTreadOnMe because: Quote Crash Course

Absolutely. If it was normalized properly then that's an incredible amount of personal data in addition to the overhead of the basic demographic.

a reply to: Hypntick

and you may be low end info assurance if you go to hotspots like DC, VA Beach, Denver Silicone Valley you can start at that and work your way, way higher

a reply to: toysforadults

Absolutely, if I lived up there I would be well over where I am now. Heck I got offered a spot in LA, and even though the base rate was almost twice what I make it was still a lateral move due to the cost of living differences. I live in a very reasonably priced part of the country considering the the businesses that are present. So yeah I've seen intro level salaries in the 250's for info sec in LA, NYC, SF, DC, etc.

Good help is not cheap, and cheap help is not good. Heck good help may not be good enough in some situations, which is an area in this country we're lagging behind others in.

From a technical IT point it is amazing how many answers you can store in a small space if you ask the right questions.

Do you have a cat? It takes one bit and you can store 8 questions in one byte obviously you'd need to know the schema do dechiper the data but its a hell of a data set and probably would allow many a company just to look up the area and see theres a lot of cat owners and put some sales offers in that area.

Once the data is out there people will use it as its appeared for free and some sales exec aint going to miss a chance to sell more cat food etc.

a reply to: slapjacks

Another example of why we need to change the constitution to include data under the 4th, as well as some massive reforms in how it's handled by companies.

originally posted by: mysterioustranger
originally posted by: slapjacks

Wired reported Wednesday that Exactis, a Palm Coast, Fla.-based marketing and data-aggregation company, had exposed a database containing almost 2 terabytes of data, containing nearly 340 million individual records, on a public server. That included records of 230 million consumers and 110 million businesses.

 

Can 2 T even hold that much info? I have 2 Terabytes drives

edit on Thu Jun 28 2018 by DontTreadOnMe because: Quote Crash Course

To put it simply, yes. That amount of space would be sufficient for several images, and a lot of meta data on purchases, phone calls,etc... it's not the largest database, but definitely more than enough to have some personal information on you.

originally posted by: Archivalist
Just as a rough reference guide, for text amount to data storage. (I did the math on this for something unrelated, recently. I didn't just "know this" and it's not BS/out of my ass. That is literal, not an exaggeration. 2 Terabytes CAN literally store the Bible's entire text, about half a million times over.)

It can store it billions of times if you compress it. Trillions of times with a good compression library.

originally posted by: stormcell
"While the database apparently does not include credit-card numbers or Social Security numbers, it does include phone numbers, email and postal addresses as well as more than 400 personal characteristics, such as whether a person is a smoker, if they own a dog or cat, their religion and a multitude of personal interests. "

That's the kind of information used as security questions for bank accounts and other services. What was your mothers maiden name? What was the name of your first pet? What was your favourite subject at school? Where you go to college?

That's more information than the Stasi collected in East Germany. All uploaded onto an Amazon Web Services server and not locked down.

Exactly. This is why our Constitution needs some significant updates. I'll leave all the other flaws out of this, but there needs to be actual provisions that define data, who owns it, the protections it has, and who is responsible for securing it.

originally posted by: Maxatoria
From a technical IT point it is amazing how many answers you can store in a small space if you ask the right questions.

Answers are easy, asking questions takes up all the space.

It's because some slick azz computer data tech/salesman convinced the big corporations that that every letter of data can be used to target their specific audience instantaneously and that the public is gullible that they will buy more of their product and services. Though I suspect many do as I do when I get bombarded with ads on goods or services that are obviously pulled from my information, I do my best to never support them again EVER.

Case in point I use my Facebook to promote my business, we have an small number of retail accounts in a few states, have found that it works great can keep them up to date with our info changes etc. However our product line is for a niche market not exactly me demographically personally. Yet now I get a slew of ads from my competitors lol and even from products we sell. It's ridiculous, like after caring for my father for I'd order all kinds of things for his situation medically, now I get ads for a 75 year old man with numerous medical conditions. It's been 3 years and Amazon wants to know why I stopped buying surgical gloves by the gross.

Though I have a wide variety of interests and surf the internet visit my sports and outdoors,music,graphic arts sites I rarely get targeted for stuff I'd actually buy.

a reply to: Aazadan

Doing it right you can run on 6 bits per letter so saving 25% overhead so long as you like questions in uppercase, 96 for lowercase to be included (Theres maths for the obvious reason that especially on high end printers).

Most modern processors aint really geard up these days for such stuff and storage and memory is pretty cheap so who cares.

2TB stores a hell of a lot of crap and its about the size of a precalculated table of wifi passwords if you know the salt.

a reply to: Maxatoria

If you build your own character set, you can store it in 5 bits provided you don't need the digits 0-9.