Bell Canada - Largest telecommunication company in Canada, servers wer hacked. So far, 1.9 million e-mail, and 1,700 phone numebr and named leaked.

[ResidentRad]

10 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Kind of unrelated but at the same time not...

Look! More evidence that having companies collect personal data about you is a horrible idea.

Just imagine what damages this could have caused if Bell was collecting and/or if the attackers had gotten more info out of their systems.

 

I kind of hope more things like this will happen, so that people who always say they "have nothing to hide" and "it's OK for company X to do it because company Y does it too" realize what terrible idea it is to just have all your personal data gathered left and right.

Attacks like these are getting more and more common, so it's of upmost important to limit the amount of personal information companies have access to.

Yes, instead only official entities should have access to it, right? 

I assume you have no Google, MS or Apple services? You do not have a credit card (which has just as much personal information attached to it). Do you avoid Steam et al? How about sites like this. Are you running behind 18 VPNs to actually cover your digital footprint? 

Where do you draw that line? 

[GoodBytes]

12 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Kind of unrelated but at the same time not...

Look! More evidence that having companies collect personal data about you is a horrible idea.

Just imagine what damages this could have caused if Bell was collecting and/or if the attackers had gotten more info out of their systems.

 

I kind of hope more things like this will happen, so that people who always say they "have nothing to hide" and "it's OK for company X to do it because company Y does it too" realize what terrible idea it is to just have all your personal data gathered left and right.

Attacks like these are getting more and more common, so it's of upmost important to limit the amount of personal information companies have access to.

And how do you suppose that they provide service to people? And send billing information? And tech support?

 

I guess making the service free for all if the way to go... but sadly we didn't reach StarTrek universe, and this thing called money and barter. It is human nature to not do things without getting something back.

[ResidentRad]

2 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

And how do you suppose that they provide service to people? And send billing information? And tech support?

Carrier Pigeons or Rufus the Dog, who locates customers through smell. 

 

The question we should ask is how can we get companies to finally agree that securing their information is a priority? that they shouldn't cheap out on keeping information secure and perhaps put some more money towards their IT departments to allow for said information to be more secured and its access be more transparent. 

 

In reality, that's what we should do. 

 

 

 

[GoodBytes]

36 minutes ago, ResidentRad said:

Carrier Pigeons or Rufus the Dog, who locates customers through smell. 

 

The question we should ask is how can we get companies to finally agree that securing their information is a priority? that they shouldn't cheap out on keeping information secure and perhaps put some more money towards their IT departments to allow for said information to be more secured and its access be more transparent. 

 

In reality, that's what we should do.

That involves money. Which means they might not be able to surpass their shareholders financial target, so the stock will drop. Beside, if you do a business case, most people don't know what this news really means, and they won't change ISP regardless. They see is as "too complicated", and then they are hooked with their e-mail being the one from their provider... if they switch they lose it all. So why do anything? And you can apply the same thing with most companies that always fall with this.Even if there is a mass lawsuits... they probably go "A settlement will cost x millions, while fixing and upgrading our stuff would cost xx millions... so lets settle".

 

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, ResidentRad said:

Yes, instead only official entities should have access to it, right? 

I assume you have no Google, MS or Apple services? You do not have a credit card (which has just as much personal information attached to it). Do you avoid Steam et al? How about sites like this. Are you running behind 18 VPNs to actually cover your digital footprint? 

Where do you draw that line? 

1 hour ago, GoodBytes said:

And how do you suppose that they provide service to people? And send billing information? And tech support?

 

I guess making the service free for all if the way to go... but sadly we didn't reach StarTrek universe, and this thing called money and barter. It is human nature to not do things without getting something back.

Nice strawman arguments you got there.

 

All I said was that this is another example of a big company getting customer information stolen, and it is a worrying trend. As a result, I think it is important that people try and limit the amount of personal information companies have on them. The less companies who has access to it, the smaller the risk of getting it stolen, and the less information each company has the less damaging it will be if something were to happen.

 

 

But please, keep pretending like the world is black and white. That there are only two extremes and no middle ground. It's pretty hilarious to read.

Quote

Someone posted concerns about how future attacks might gain access to massive amounts of personal information, and suggest rational actions to limit the risks and potential damages? Better tell them that they should go back to using carrier pigeon, or that they are insane and that we can't expect everything to be free!

 

 

1 hour ago, ResidentRad said:

The question we should ask is how can we get companies to finally agree that securing their information is a priority? that they shouldn't cheap out on keeping information secure and perhaps put some more money towards their IT departments to allow for said information to be more secured and its access be more transparent.

 

In reality, that's what we should do. 

Do we even know how this attack happened? For all we know, Bell might have done really well in terms of security. Security is not something that you can just throw money at and then everything gets fixed. It's a very complex subject where the best solution is not always feasible, and even the best systems leave big holes open that nobody though of or had a solution for.

 

It's easy to sit on the side and just go "they fucked up because they didn't take it seriously", but without facts we have no idea. Even if we have all the facts laid out, it's easy to have 20/20 hindsight.

[GoodBytes]

2 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Nice strawman arguments you got there.

 

All I said was that this is another example of a big company getting customer information stolen, and it is a worrying trend. As a result, I think it is important that people try and limit the amount of personal information companies have on them. The less companies who has access to it, the smaller the risk of getting it stolen, and the less information each company has the less damaging it will be if something were to happen.

You said:

Quote

Look! More evidence that having companies collect personal data about you is a horrible idea.

From this statement, you are saying that absolutely 0 personal information of any kind should be collected by companies as it is a horrible idea.

[LAwLz]

Just now, GoodBytes said:

You said:

From this statement, you are saying that absolutely 0 personal information of any kind should be collected by companies as it is a horrible idea.

I recommend you read my entire post, and not just one sentence. I never said anything about "absolutely 0 personal information of any kind should be collected by companies as it is a horrible idea". I honestly have no idea how you could actually read my entire post, and then come to that conclusion.

 

This is what I said in the same post, a few sentences later:

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

Attacks like these are getting more and more common, so it's of upmost important to limit the amount of personal information companies have access to.

Keyword is "limit", not "go to extreme lengths to make sure 0 personal data ever leaves your computer".

If you chose to interpret my post in that way, then I don't know what to say. You're putting words in my mouth.

 

Just to make it explicitly clear, what I meant was that you should, as I said, limit the amount of personal information that companies have access to. I do not think everything should be free, nor do I think we should go back to carrier pigeon. What I do think is that people should be more careful with what information they share with companies, because attacks like this one is getting more and more common.

By limiting the number of companies who has access to your information, you are less likely to get it stolen.

By limiting the amount of personal information each company has access to, you minimize the damage caused in the case of a data breach.

[Kobathor]

2 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

They see is as "too complicated", and then they are hooked with their e-mail being the one from their provider... if they switch they lose it all.

I'm lucky that I got my email switched from Verizon to AOL forcibly. Ever since Verizon sold FiOS to Frontier, I have no services from Verizon, but I still have my verizon.net email (which I access through Outlook.) Kinda nice not being tied to my internet provider anymore. Still need to figure out how to set up my Outlook account to go through my domain...

[Myxzoid]

On 5/16/2017 at 8:52 AM, Being Delirious said:

Thats why we went telus. $80 for 150/150

And thats still to high.

[NTDaws]

12 minutes ago, Myxzoid said:

And thats still to high.

better then nothing.

[mr moose]

6 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I recommend you read my entire post, and not just one sentence. I never said anything about "absolutely 0 personal information of any kind should be collected by companies as it is a horrible idea". I honestly have no idea how you could actually read my entire post, and then come to that conclusion.

 

This is what I said in the same post, a few sentences later:

 

Keyword is "limit", not "go to extreme lengths to make sure 0 personal data ever leaves your computer".

If you chose to interpret my post in that way, then I don't know what to say. You're putting words in my mouth.

 

Just to make it explicitly clear, what I meant was that you should, as I said, limit the amount of personal information that companies have access to. I do not think everything should be free, nor do I think we should go back to carrier pigeon. What I do think is that people should be more careful with what information they share with companies, because attacks like this one is getting more and more common.

By limiting the number of companies who has access to your information, you are less likely to get it stolen.

By limiting the amount of personal information each company has access to, you minimize the damage caused in the case of a data breach.

If only it worked like that, in today's world of corporate dictatorship, you have to give them what they want or they don't provide the service. Which is kinda BS for things like internet becasue it is an essential service today.

[LAwLz]

3 minutes ago, mr moose said:

If only it worked like that, in today's world of corporate dictatorship, you have to give them what they want or they don't provide the service. Which is kinda BS for things like internet becasue it is an essential service today.

That's why I picked Bahnhof as my ISP.

They got threatened by the Swedish government that they had to log customer data. So they offered everyone a free VPN service (there was a loophole in the Swedish government's request which meant that ISPs were forced to log data, but VPN providers were not) and then went to the EU court with the case (and ended up winning).

 

I picked them for the sole reason that they actually care about privacy and their customers.

[mr moose]

19 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

That's why I picked Bahnhof as my ISP.

They got threatened by the Swedish government that they had to log customer data. So they offered everyone a free VPN service (there was a loophole in the Swedish government's request which meant that ISPs were forced to log data, but VPN providers were not) and then went to the EU court with the case (and ended up winning).

 

I picked them for the sole reason that they actually care about privacy and their customers.

Not in Australia, you have to sign over your first born to join a mailing list here. 

[LAwLz]

5 hours ago, mr moose said:

Not in Australia, you have to sign over your first born to join a mailing list here. 

And as long as people willingly hand over their data left and right without caring, this will become more and more common. Go back 10 years and "digital privacy" was the norm.

 

That's why I think it is important to do what you (reasonably) can to stay somewhat private online.

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

And as long as people willingly hand over their data left and right without caring, this will become more and more common. Go back 10 years and "digital privacy" was the norm.

 

That's why I think it is important to do what you (reasonably) can to stay somewhat private online.

Yeah, I just give them BS names and addresses.  When they realise half their information is bogus they may stop doing.  Or when companies find out they have bought a data set that includes adolf hitler living in Adelaide.