Kazaa Users Expose Personal Files
from the like-that's-a-surprise dept
I'll admit that this doesn't come as a surprise, but it seems that many people out there misconfigure file trading programs like Kazaa to make their entire hard-drive open for sharing. A study conducted by HP Labs found a fair number of machines that clearly had their email inboxes open to be snagged by anyone who put in the right search term. Some people even left financial data exposed. To see if there were others out there looking for such "open" hard-drives, the Labs did another test, where they put up some fake "private" files - and found that those files were downloaded by a few people. Thus, if you're stupid enough to share your entire hard-drive, expect people to snoop around.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
