美国在线就隐私数据泄漏致歉

美国在线发布了一个包含658，000个用户三个月匿名检索记录的文件，但迫于公众的压力，在星期一将其从网上摘除。

Internet服务提供商在一份声明中称：这些泄漏出来的从三月到六月的检索记录，占据了这断时间内所有检索记录的0.33%。几个Blog 与该事件有关，估计大约几百，也可能上千人下载了这些数据。

AOL发言人 安德鲁。爱因斯坦在声明中说到：“虽然没有与这些泄漏帐号相关的私秘数据被泄漏，但我们不能绝对保证这这一点。这是一个错误，我们表示道歉。我们已经展开了内部调查事情的缘由，并且我们将采取错误保证类似事情不会再发生”。

经过过去两年发生的事件，公众对隐私已经变得更加敏感。在五月，退伍军人事务部警告说：在五月初，一台膝上电脑和外置硬盘从一个雇员家里被盗。最终被找回来，在这两个设备里面，包含了大约2千6百五十万退役士兵的详细信息的的数据库。Texas大学在四月警告学生和工作人员，大约19700包含个人身份信息的记录被一个黑客访问。

这些事件和其他2005年发生的事件促使布什政府强制要求联邦机构配备更好的安全以保护移动设备的敏感数据。
 

原文：http://www.securityfocus.com/brief/274

 

 

America Online posted a file containing three months of anonymized search queries of 658,000 users and then pulled the data down on Monday following a public outcry.

The searches, conducted between March and May, accounted for 1/3 of one percent of the total searches conducted during that period, the Internet service provider said in a statement. Several blogs picked up on the incident, estimating that hundreds and perhaps thousands of people downloaded the data.

"Although there was no personally-identifiable data linked to these accounts, we're absolutely not defending this," AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein said in the statement. "It was a mistake, and we apologize. We've launched an internal investigation into what happened, and we are taking steps to ensure that this type of thing never happens again."

The public has become more sensitive to privacy breaches following a number of high-profile cases in the past two years. In May, the Department of Veterans Affairs warned that a laptop and external hard drive had been stolen from an employee's home early that month. While the two devices were eventually recovered, they had contained a database with the personal details of nearly 26.5 million veterans. The University of Texas at Austin warned students and workers in April that 197,000 records containing personally identifiable information had been accessed by an online attacker.

The incidents and others in 2005 led the Bush Administration to mandate that federal agencies deploy better security to protect mobile devices with sensitive data.