Private records of 3.5 million people exposed by Texas

[Newsjock]

Source: Reuters

The personal records of some 3.5 million Texans were inadvertently exposed after they were placed on a state computer server that was accessible to the public for about a year, state officials said on Monday.

State Comptroller Susan Combs said there is no indication that any of the information, which included names, mailing addresses, Social Security numbers, and possibly dates of birth and drivers license numbers, has been misused.

... Combs said the information was from the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, the Texas Workforce Commission, and the Employees Retirement System of Texas. The Texas Workforce Commission data breach was the most widespread, containing records of some 2 million individuals.

The data files were not encrypted as required by Texas administrative rules established for agencies.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/11/us-texas-data-idUSTRE73A5MF20110411

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The state has set up the following website:
http://txsafeguard.org

It is notable because the state implies that the affected people are solely responsible for the consequences of this security breach, and that the state isn't going to do anything to help them. Way to go, Texas.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. These exposures are no accident, imo.

They're a way of explaining how private interests "got hold" of the information.

If the info was "accidentally" exposed it removes the liability of companies who gathered it through other, less copacetic, means.


:think:

[Mnemosyne]

6. No accident, agreed - TIA lives.

April 20, 2003

Q&A on the Pentagon's "Total Information Awareness" Program

What is the Total Information Awareness (TIA) Program?

TIA may be the closest thing to a true "Big Brother" program that has ever been seriously contemplated in the United States. It is based on a vision of pulling together as much information as possible about as many people as possible into an "ultra-large-scale" database, making that information available to government officials, and sorting through it to try to identify terrorists. Since the amount of public and private information on our lives is growing by leaps and bounds every week, a government project that seeks to put all that information together is a radical and frightening thing.

http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/qa-pentagons-total-information-awareness-program


517,673,105 RECORDS BREACHED
(Please see explanation about this total.)
from 2,428 DATA BREACHES made public since 2005

http://www.privacyrights.org/data-breach

[Lars39]

2. A *year*?

Good grief. No excuse for that sort of incompetence. They need suing.

[damntexdem]

3. I haven't received a letter yet.

Vested in TRS.

I wonder whether the state will still consider it an individual's problem when 3.5 million people sue them?

[They_Live]

4. I like the way you think (n/t)

[DeSwiss]

5. K&R n/t

[Swede Atlanta]

7. I hate to say it but...........

ROFLMAO..........

With all due respect to progressives in Texas (I'm not far removed living in Georgia) I have much sympathy for you and the voluntary or involuntary nature of these disclosures.

But if this is what Texas votes into office then they deserve it.

[ekelly]

8. It doesn't sound like you "hate to say it" ,

and it doesn't feel like you are giving anyone "all due respect".

I don't think non-progressives "deserve" to have something like this happen to them, either. No one "deserves" to have their life ruined because an agency screwed up.

But thanks for the "due respect".

[russspeakeasy]

9. Texas may be the only state worse than Florida.

[Anakin Skywalker]

10. It'd be excellent if those responsible for the server were H-1B workers!

*snicker* Heh heh.

[katty]

11. there are way too much of this happening, this is no accident