Tag Archive for ‘stupid’ at T. Longren

Tag Archive for 'stupid'

AOL Data: First Searcher Identified

Published

on August 9, 2006

in Internet, Personal, Search and Security

. 2 Comments Tags: america-online, aol, aol-data, department-of-justice, DOJ, privacy, Security, stupid, wrong.

Techcrunch has information on the first person positively identified from the AOL data. AOL searcher number 4417749 has been identified as Thelma Arnold, a 62 year old widow living in Lilburn, Georgia.

As you might expect, the searches made by her are pretty innocent. Her search queries range from “numb fingers” to “60 single men” to “dog that urinates on everything.” The New York Times has a pretty in-depth article about Thelma and other, yet unidentified searchers.

Ms. Arnold, who agreed to discuss her searches with a reporter, said she was shocked to hear that AOL had saved and published three months’ worth of them. “My goodness, it’s my whole personal life,” she said. “I had no idea somebody was looking over my shoulder.”

In the privacy of her four-bedroom home, Ms. Arnold searched for the answers to scores of life’s questions, big and small. How could she buy “school supplies for Iraq children”? What is the “safest place to live”? What is “the best season to visit Italy”?

Wonder when we can expect the first lawsuits to be filed? Personally, I expected some yesterday. AOL had a shitty reputation before, I’d be surprised if this doesn’t end up sinking them at some point.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Web Interface for AOL Data

Published

Tyler

on August 8, 2006

in Internet, Personal, Search and Security

. 1 Comment Tags: america-online, aol, aol-data, department-of-justice, DOJ, privacy, Security, stupid, wrong.

A commenter over at Techcrunch put together a simple little web interface to the AOL search data.

Michael Arrington from Techcrunch spoke with Andrew Weinstein over the phone lastnight about this. Andrew is the AOL employee who first issued the apology that can be seen over at Techcrunch. Anyway, Michael thinks Andrew is truly pissed off about what happened, as he definitely should be.

What I’d like to know, is how the decision came about to release this data in the first place. This had to be a decision made from pretty high up the ladder. Another thing, AOL shouldn’t even allow access to this data in it’s raw format. Or, very, very few people should be able to access the raw data, except for a few servers. I mean, nobody at AOL should have any reason to use such detailed data. Instead, there should be a reporting type system that runs reports based on the raw search data, that way nobody can actually see the data itself, only the summarized reports.

I don’t think Jason’s idea of turning off logging is practical. It’s really quite simple, don’t allow access to the raw log data.

Philipp Lenssen has some pretty good commentary over at Google Blogoscoped. He’s taken some time to see what individuals are searching for, pretty amusing:

At 10:08 PM, 28963 looks for “porn sites”. 28963 quickly amends the search query to read “freee porn sites”. (Two days later, 28963 shows a sudden interest in genital warts.)

He’s got a lot more of them, so head over to Google Blogoscoped for more amusement. Garett Rogers at the Googling Google blog at ZDnet has some commentary too.

This is the type of news that will reach every single AOL user. People will be boycotting the company because of their blatent disregard for the privacy of users. As my fellow Canadians would understand — this could be the TSN turning point.

Markus Frind has put together nice post detailing how one AOL user likes searching for ways to commit murder. Some of his commenter’s are upset, but Markus asks some good questions:

Users in the comments are pissed off at the idea that people can be arrested for planning a crime like murder, calling it minority report like. I ask you why is it that americans have no problems arresting people that are planning or researching how to conduct terrorist attacks? Yet if a person plans on killing his wife that is ok, until he actually does it? How many people do you have to plan on killing before its ok for a company like AOL to hand your records over to the government? I am not taking sides, I’m just pointing out the obvious double standard. This story will open a can of worms, and will decide just how private your data online really is.

Popularity: 5% [?]

AOL Releases Private Data

Published

Tyler

on August 7, 2006

in Internet, Personal, Search and Security

. 0 Comments Tags: america-online, aol, aol-data, department-of-justice, DOJ, privacy, Security, stupid, wrong.

So, AOL released a bunch of search data. Doesn’t sound so bad right? Well, it is, because AOL included identities, so basically you can see who has been searching for what. The data spans over a 3 month period. It even gives information as to which links were clicked on the search results page. No usernames are included, but user ID’s are, which can be linked back to usernames with little trouble. From Techcrunch:

The utter stupidity of this is staggering. AOL has released very private data about its users without their permission. While the AOL username has been changed to a random ID number, the abilitiy to analyze all searches by a single user will often lead people to easily determine who the user is, and what they are up to. The data includes personal names, addresses, social security numbers and everything else someone might type into a search box.

The original download has since been taken offline. However, there’s plenty of mirrors. The data in its compressed form weighs in around 439M, uncompressed it reaches just over 2 gigs.

UNEASYsilence has taken time to look through some of the data. Some of what they saw actually frightened them.

There are some truly scary things in this database.

There are hundreds of searches from people looking to kill themselves and even more scary are searches from users that seem to be looking to commit murder.

People are fucked up. Really though, some good could come of this. With all this super detailed search data, certain groups of people could be targeted. For example, those searching for “boylove” or “child love” constantly could be assumed to be some sort of pedophile. I could see groups like The War Against Nambla using this information to find new sickos to target.

UPDATE: AOL is now saying this was a screw up. Initially the data was reported to be released to the public for research purposes. Jason Calacanis, an AOL employee, is suggesting that AOL “NOT KEEP LOGS of our search data.”

Popularity: 3% [?]

I Humped Your Hummer

Published

Tyler

on August 2, 2006

in Funny, Internet and Personal

. 0 Comments Tags: amusing, automobiles, Funny, GM, hummer, hummer-humping, hump, stupid, vehicle.

Humping Hummers, sounds fun right? It sure looks fun too! These crazy kids go around town humping hummers, just for fun and amusement. Bet they’ll stop when they get caught humping the wrong persons Hummer. I’d kill em if I owned a Hummer and someone was humping mine.

Still, engaging in Hummer Humping would probably be quite fun on an otherwise boring day.

Since the Hummer was made available commercially for civilian use in the early 1990s, it has increased dramatically in popularity, attracting such diverse constituencies as: soccer moms, drug dealers, and professional athletes and other celebrities. You may well ask, “Where do I fit into this mix?” It’s a fair question to pose, and one that we hope to satisfy here. For those of us who cannot or do not care to own a Hummer, there is still a fun and easy way to be a part of this craze.

The act of humping a Hummer and videotaping it can be interpreted in a variety of ways—it can be seen as a political statement, a piece of performance art, an opportunity to satisfy a roaring libido, or a an amusing activity to engage in as you’re walking down the street. Whatever your motivation, this website serves as a friendly forum to share your experiences humping Hummers. Whether it’s submitting your own Hummer humping videos, sharing a sighting, or passing on a bit of Hummer-related news, we hope you will see this site as a resource and a place to exchange your Hummer encounters.

[via UNEASYsilence]

Popularity: 4% [?]

Pro-Lifer Upset at Satire

Published

Tyler

on July 12, 2006

in Funny and Personal

. 1 Comment Tags: blog, blogs, liberal, pro-choice, pro-life, satire, stupid, the-onion.

I think the title pretty much sums up this post. This guy needs to stop taking himself so seriously, along with a few million other liberal hippies.

Here are some quotes from a pro-abortion person, Miss Caroline Weber, who wrote an article at The Onion online magazine.

The Onion Article

When referring to the killing of her child she said:

“I am totally psyched for this abortion!”

“Those pro-life activists made it pretty clear that, unlike me, they actually think abortion is bad and to be avoided. Are they nuts? Abortion is the best!”

“It wasn’t until now that I was lucky enough to be pregnant with a child I had no means to support.”

“I just know it’s going to be the best non-anesthetized invasive uterine surgery ever!”

The Onion is a well known satire website. They even have a syndicated radio show that airs across the nation on various FM stations.

The Onion article this guy is upset about is dripping from every pore with sarcasm. You gotta be seriously out of touch with reality to take something like that seriously. Out of touch is probably easy for this guy, he’s pro-life after all.

Jay Tea at Wizbang got a good kick outta this too.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Merry Christmas: Have Fun Dying

Published

Tyler

on December 5, 2005

in Govt., Personal and War

. 2 Comments Tags: asshat, blog, blogs, bush, Christmas, death, democrat, George-Bush, holidy, iraq, islam, john-kerry, kerry, news, politics, republican, stupid, united-states.

Joshua Sparling, who’s been at Walter Reed Army Medical Center recovering from a gunshot wound he got in Iraq, got a really special Christmas card the other day. The cards outside looked all patriotic and pretty. The text inside the card read “Have a great time in the war and have a great time dieing in the war” “P.S. DIE”. Sweet huh?

Can’t imagine how Mr. Sparling felt after getting a card like that. I don’t think I could resist hunting the “christmas death wishing” pig down and gutting him immediately. Michelle Malkin has a mailing address for Joshua Sparling if you want to send him a real Christmas blessing.

Another disgusting piece of news today too, involving my good buddy John Kerry. Kerry seems to think American soldiers in Iraq are the ones really spreading terror. Captains Quarters has a link to the full transcript, quoted below.

SCHIEFFER: All right. Let me shift to another point of view, and it comes from another Democrat, Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. He takes a very different view. He says basically we should stay the course because, he says, real progress is being made. He said this is a war between 27 million Iraqis who want freedom and 10,000 terrorists. He says we’re in a watershed transformation. What about that?

Sen. KERRY: Let me–I–first of all, there is so much more that unites Democrats than divides us. And Democrats have much more in common with each other than they do with George Bush’s policy right now. Now Joe Lieberman, I believe, also voted for the resolution which said the president needs to make more clear what he’s doing and set out benchmarks, and that the policy hasn’t been working. We all believe him when you say, `Stay the course.’ That’s the president’s policy, which hasn’t been changing, which is a policy of failure. I don’t agree with that. But I think what we need to do is recognize what we all agree on, which is you’ve got to begin to set benchmarks for accomplishment. You’ve got to begin to transfer authority to the Iraqis. And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the–of–the historical customs, religious customs. Whether you like it or not…

SCHIEFFER: Yeah.

Sen. KERRY: …Iraqis should be doing that. And after all of these two and a half years, with all of the talk of 210,000 people trained, there just is no excuse for not transferring more of that authority.

Wow, that’s some top-notch hippie-babble right there. Young american soldiers are “going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children”? What the fuck Kerry? He can’t pull much more shit than that outta his ass. Or maybe he can, can never tell what those hippie-liberal-douche-bag types are in to sexually. So, in all reality, he’s probably got a lot more room for a lot more shit.

You suck Kerry, we’d all be dead now if you’d been elected. heh. The Political Teen has video, unless the videos are down right now.

For more commentary go see:
PunditGuy
Blogs For Bush
A Blog for All
Weapons of Mass Destruction (w/ a well deserved Asshat Alert)
Say Anything
Donkey Stomp
Lifelike Pundits
The Political Pitbull

Popularity: 4% [?]