An amusing but serious story appeared today on the Wired Blob Threat Levels. The blog "Sex Lube Maker's 250K Customer List Slides Onto Net" describes:
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More than 250,000 people's names and addresses are now naked on the web after the maker of a popular sexual lubricant called Astroglide accidentally exposed lists of people who bought or requested free samples of its products, proving that there's no such thing as a free lubricant. BioFilm, a privately-held California company specializing in sexual lubricants, exposed customer data files dating from 2003 to 2007 to Google's search engine in early April. Google then indexed the pages and made local cache copies. A search on an individual's name now reveals that person's home address and the product they requested or ordered.
"
While the story has some features that slide by you, the serious part of the story is that 250,000 people have lost part of their identity because of poor data policies.
Caveat emptor when giving out any identity information on the internet or you might be surprised how easy it is for your identity to slide into the public view.
Guy
www.authenticationworld.com
guy.huntington@authenticationworld.com
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