Another Word For It Patrick Durusau on Topic Maps and Semantic Diversity

February 16, 2015

Jeb EMails – Poor Pickings for SSNs

Filed under: Privacy,Security — Patrick Durusau @ 4:57 pm

I have been meaning to mention Jeb Bush’s release of his emails as Florida governor as training data. JebEmails A reported 300,000+ emails were available in six files (original Outlook (.pst) format). The raw files aren’t available now due to SSNs being included in the original data release?

Anyone with a copy of the original data have a pointer?

That may seem callous but one of the rantings about the privacy violation, does mention:

Most of the exposed numbers (roughly 12,500) came from a spreadsheet attached to an email, meaning most of the people screwed over weren’t just randomly messaging their personal information to the then-governor. The bulk of the social security numbers were from a PowerPoint email attachment about people on a family services waiting list.

How many people on a family services waiting list do you think have accounts at stock trading houses or even a credit card with an unlimited overdraft privilege?

What are the odds that some of the 80 million SSNs hacked from Anthem Health Insurance might fall into one or both of those categories?

To say “privacy” and “breach” in the same sentence isn’t a signal to go to DEFCON 1.

Some breaches of privacy are more serious than others. Unless and until priorities are debated and adopted for sliding scale of types of privacy, public discussion will continue to flail about ineffectually every time privacy is mentioned.

When Jeb’s emails become available, again, I will return to the topic of using them as demonstration data.

PS: I saw that Jeb’s emails ended in 2007. Did Jeb stop using email after he left the governor’s office? Or is there a seven year blank spot in his email record?

I first saw this in a tweet by Charles Ditzel.

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