When Your Local Newspaper Helps Identity Thieves By Printing All Your Private Info

from the whoops dept

Fri, Mar 16th 2007 8:15am — Mike Masnick

Forget worrying about whether various companies or government agencies are leaking your data to identity thieves, now you need to wonder if you're local newspaper is going to help them out. Apparently, the Morning Sentinel in Waterville, Maine ran a photo of a lottery winner which clearly showed the lottery paperwork, including the winner's name, address, telephone number, date of birth and Social Security number. In other words, everything you need for a bit of identity theft -- and who better to target than a recent lottery winner? So far, the only thing the newspaper has done is promised to hire someone to review the person's credit reports. Either way, it seems pretty bad that no one caught on to the fact that they were about to print all this information in the newspaper.

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11 Comments

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Max Lyon, 16 Mar 2007 @ 9:09am

Lawsuit in the making....
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Lazerus King, 16 Mar 2007 @ 9:12am

Wow
And they say lightning never strikes twice...
WINNER!
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Ayal Rosenthal, 16 Mar 2007 @ 9:17am

cache
So did google get an opportunity to cache that information as it was trolling the web? Hopefully, the newspaper took it down in time so that the info is a little bit harder to get. Hopefully...
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Matt, 16 Mar 2007 @ 9:24am

re cache:
and if google had, this would be the time a reasonable person would email them, and ask them to take it down, instead of going "lawyerzilla" on them... Save that for the idiot newspaper!
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Sam, 16 Mar 2007 @ 10:50am

do you guys know...
The readers of this page know a lot about technology that the average newspaper staffer doesn't know. Hopefully, they'll learn before they publish all of our stuff in the newspaper.
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Kentucky Fats, 16 Mar 2007 @ 1:49pm

Newspapers
With freedom of the press comes responsbility. I have seen responsible journalism two or three times in my long life.
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Nehmo Sergheyev, 16 Mar 2007 @ 1:59pm

I couldn't find the pic. That doesn't mean it isn't available. But it's not that harmful. Social Security numbers are available through a number of sources. The kind of people who want them already know these sources.

And I doubt there's any law suit. Not everything is actionable. Usually, you have to show damages.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Mar 2007 @ 10:30am

Freedom of Press
> With freedom of the press comes responsbility.

Freedom of press does not mean inflicting harm on civilians. It means reporting the atrocities and wrong doings of the government. Freedom of press means that the government cannot coerce, threaten, intimidate, or punish someone for printing stories about the government's actions or about alternative political philosophies. It does not mean that you can victimize innocent people who have nothing to do with government to make a quick buck.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Mar 2007 @ 6:05pm

Ever heard of sarbanes-oaxley?
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Alan, 18 Mar 2007 @ 10:13pm

The reporter that snapped the picture was probably just pissed off that their ticket didn't win and this was payback.
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Robert Martin, 19 Mar 2007 @ 7:16am

Coward, I've heard of Sarbanes-OXLEY, but I have no idea how it relates to THIS...

??
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