Stall The Ball

A couple of sites are dealing with AOLs latest escapade where they released a load of data on their users search patterns. AOL quickly moved to remove the data from their site but the damage was done. The data is now mirrored and one site has gone to the trouble of sticking it into a MySQL database so you can search quiet easily.

EDIT site seems to be down now?

I decided to engage in a bit of sleuthing just to see what could be gleaned.

Follow up:

I’m not a professional analyst, nor did I trawl through for the juiciest easiest to find information. But it is amazing what you can glean from the records. Or in the case I use here what you can infer/guess.

Firstly I did a search for “Ireland”

Finding a suitable target “1766125” I went back and stuck that into the search which uncovered a lot of information

Below this are the pertinent results but in summary

I think 1766125 is a female, from Scottsdale Arizona, looking at either moving to Ireland or coming over for an extended stay. Has a dog, currently ill not drinking a lot of water. Has kids, one in preschool the other a bit older. Is interested in, has friends or relations from Tallaght or Howth possibly but definitely Clontarf. Gambling seems to be a factor as well.

Some of the searches that caught my eye

Irish Times Airline – Lots of airline searches Tallaght Monster.ie Gamblers anonymous marc fitzgibbon howth clontarf sea scouts new covenant preschool Couple of preschool searches Female? FCUK Yoga ann taylor loft clontarf dublin summer camps violations of lease laws scottsdale arizona couple of scottsdale searches department of homeland security phoenix north dublin amenities and clubs for kids pet surgical center of phoenix decreased water intake in dogs

Some AOL users who searched for keywords including their social security numbers are, quite rightly, in a panic. Very very scary stuff and it makes the current data retention arguments very timely.