Yahoo User Sues Over Password Leak

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
Joined
May 9, 2000
Messages
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There is nothing worse than a Yahoo (user) scorned or in this case, exposed. Yahoo is being sued by Jeff Allen, et al, in a class-action suit for failing to provide adequate security measures resulting in the breach of Yahoo’s database, exposing 450k accounts to identity theft.

Allan's account on the Yahoo Contributor Network site contained personal information including his name; e-mail address; PayPal e-mail address; date of birth; residency/citizenship; physical address and telephone number; and even his Social Security number, among other information
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what kind of moron/idiot gives out that king of information.

serves them right
 
I'm on Yahoo! mail, and I got my account hijacked a few months ago... now I'm worried.

I feel like a complete, er, yahoo.
 
Crap, forgot that post editing is disabled in this forum... gaah.

By "yahoo" I meant "idiot". As in, "I got nailed by corporate stupidity that shouldn't exist".
 
Didn't Yahoo used to have those chat room things? That was a long time ago, but it was more popular back then.
 
... and this is why they force you to agree to UAs that state you are not allowed to file a class action lawsuit against them.
 
dumbfuck put his SS#.. WHY ??!!

especially with a free webmail that uses no encryption when reading emails. good job.

and what does he expect to gain? non-lawyers never win shit in a class action.
 
dr.kevin said:
dumbfuck put his SS#.. WHY ??!!

especially with a free webmail that uses no encryption when reading emails. good job.

and what does he expect to gain? non-lawyers never win shit in a class action.
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So then there is no reason to punish yahoo for their security problems? Because the lawyers would be the only one making out big? Are you that ego centric that unless the pay out is for you, you wont do shit.
 
After reading some of these posts about yahoo i want to switch to another email service. any recommendations?
 
dr.kevin said:
dumbfuck put his SS#.. WHY ??!!
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Maybe I am too old, but, I still think it's odd to hear people referring to the SSN as sacred.

Did you know that up until about15 years ago, your SSN was not even a secret number. It was printed right on the front of all military ID's, on college ID badges, etc, and it had nothing to do with a persons credit rating. Heck, the gov't used to send SSN cards to people in the mail without an envelope, like a post card.

Not to sidetrack the argument here but where did we go wrong with this bullshit?
 
People need to be careful with their data, but there is always going to be a point where unless you live out in the woods with no electricity, you will have to trust someone with your information and just hope they have some clue what they are doing. There is no way for someone to know ahead of time which companies have security flaws waiting to be exploited.

Like this guys social security number and stuff. He was a paid contributor so it was required for them to have that data for him to get paid. He didn't do anything wrong, per se, in that he couldn't have possibly known that the SQL wasn't properly sanitized or that stuff was being stored plaintext.

Short of hacking them yourself and finding out, there's no way to know. Giving personal information to companies, government agencies, etc., is just part of life unless you live in the woods with your banjo music. You can avoid giving it to shady people, scammers, or whatever, but there's not much you can do to predict or protect your data from a legitimate company having a security breach.

You can only mitigate your loss. Use separate passwords on different sites even though it's annoying, don't save credit/debit data, and get new credit/debit card numbers every so often so if any data is accidentally or maliciously saved it won't be good for long. You can try and ask sites/companies to erase your data after you're done doing business with them, but you have no way of confirming it, so that's kind of pointless.
 
BBA said:
Maybe I am too old, but, I still think it's odd to hear people referring to the SSN as sacred.

Did you know that up until about15 years ago, your SSN was not even a secret number. It was printed right on the front of all military ID's, on college ID badges, etc, and it had nothing to do with a persons credit rating. Heck, the gov't used to send SSN cards to people in the mail without an envelope, like a post card.

Not to sidetrack the argument here but where did we go wrong with this bullshit?
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In the UK, there is an equivalent, Nation Insurance Number. I didn’t think that it was secret either. However, from what I have heard, on the subject of “Identity Theft”, having that SSN along with a range of other personal information makes it easier for someone to set up an account. On its own the SSN or NIN has very little value. Even your Credit Card number has little value without expiry date & home address etc.

The big threat would be if someone was to set up a database of millions of potential victims, collecting information about them from various sources, so that they would have enough information to act is if they were them.
 
One day, there will be a Bot version of "you" going around.:eek:

(If they pay my bills, then I don't mind.;))
 
The Achilles heal of identity theft is the social security number in the US, but that is because while it was never intended to be used as an identification source (thank you government), it has tentacled its way into every aspect of identity you can think of. You can't get a job without it, you can't apply for a loan without it, you can't get a bank account without it, you can't really do much without it and yet it's the lynchpin of identity. Simple solution is to do away with SS numbers altogether as a real means of identification.
 
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