Season 20 of South Park
featured a storyline
where the people of the world were thrown into a state
of mass panic over the threat of their internet search histories
being made public.
In the show, the plot was pulled together by Denmark as a campaign
to end internet trolling once and for all, even at the cost of
privacy. So, South Park of course naturally
took a comedic jab at the concept, but
there's no denying that
in 2018, the idea of our search histories being made
public has become a genuine societal fear, and
probably something that would subsequently end in chaos for millions of people.
Most probably wouldn't expect such a thing to ever actually
happen, excluding extreme cases involving things like hackers,
but this actually has happened in the past
and on a large scale, even
I'm not referring to instances where companies sell your information to each other,
I'm talking about having an actual log
of things that you typed into search engines
being posted on a public website for everyone to see.
So. Who exactly was the culprit behind this
massive information leak and privacy breach?
AOL. Now for anyone in the audience who doesn't know what AOL is
for some reason or if you're too young,
just think of it as Google, Pre-Google. Anyways, so
what happened was on August 4th, 2006
AOL decided for some reason that it would be a
good idea to release a file containing
over 20 million keywords collected
from roughly 650 thousand
of its users over a 3 month period.
Just 3 days later the file was deleted but
given how the internet works by then the data had already been mirrored
and immortalised on other sites,
and can still be referenced today without much effort at all.
Now, why did AOL think this was a swell
idea that definitely would not lead to massive backlash?
According to articles I found on the issue,
they claim it was for research purposes, and no
that doesn't make any sense to me either, but
since I don't want a conspiracy theory channel,
I'll let you guys debate the motivation in the comments. From what I could
find the data was supposedly meant for a select few
but was somehow sent public, it's a whole thing.
Anyway, since this was for *cough cough* "research",
AOL did try to at least
mask any identifying information before publishing the data.
How did they do this? By replacing their usernames with numbers,
and that's it. As
you can imagine, this helped shield the identities of most of the
650 thousand users, but not all of them.
Many of the user's search histories contained keywords
that gave away personal information.
Now how did that happen?
Think about the times you search for restaurants, or businesses, in your area (?)
Over enough entries it wouldn't be hard for someone to assume
you live near everything you search for
and probably frequent those locations. It's not
100%, but it is obviously still concerning
I mean, most people have no idea that their Google accounts have actual
maps showing where they've been, but that's a topic for another time
An AOL user dubbed 4417749
is a great example of what I'm talking about in regards to this AOL stuff.
Now
this person's leaked data showed searches for
things like landscapers in Georgia, dog that
urinates on everything, numb fingers,
Homes sold in like subdivision when it counted Georgia, and
a number of people with the last name 'Arnold'.
Based on this information alone, the New York Times
was actually able to locate this user and identify
her as 62 year old Thelma Arnold,
a widow from Lilburn, Georgia. She consented
to have her identity revealed by the New York Times in an article,
where she can be quoted as saying "My goodness, it's my
whole personal life, I had
no idea someone was looking over my shoulder".
Thelma's other searches included inquiries for
travel advice, how to donate to charity and the safest
places to live, amongst other things. Naturally though,
out of the 650 thousand users who had their data
leaked, not all of their search histories were
as benign. User Number 2708
for example, searched for such things as
revenge tactics, voice changer, help with revenge
and how to humiliate someone. Sprinkled in between these
were searches for music and books.
User 3067593's
searches illustrated a particularly
heartbreaking narrative, with inquiries for
signs of miscarriage, pregnancy complications
pregnancy with twins,
pregnancy danger signs, stress, relationship trouble,
signs divorce is on it's way
how to avoid divorce, chatrooms for lonely married people,
dad and miscarriage,
and how to know if your marriage is over.
Out of all the users affected by the data leak however,
there was one in particular that stood out and sparked
the most discussions from people online, and that of course
was User 927.
The records for 927's
search history begin on March 1st of 2006,
with searches for basic things like Yoko
Ono, All American Rejects, Green Day, et cetera.
The final search for that day was 'heal time for broken legs'.
On March 3rd we get several searches for 'human
mold', then searches for 'dog sex'
The next several entries are for
flowers of different kinds,
and then we see an abrupt turn to inquiries for inquiries
to 'rape porn'.
Over the next 2 months the bizarre set of searches continue
with things like '4 month old ultrasound of a girl' ,
genital names, corpse bride, farmboys,
bestiality, 'anime gravitation',
paper doll maker, child incest,
'J. Edgar Hoover sex life', appendicitis,
hentai incest,
pee fetish, incest rape, chlamydia,
sexual torture, electric sex torture
hardcore rape, free porn, child hentai,
baby names, 'child molestation and rape porn',
'japanese child slave molestation' and rape porn,
virtual children.
One thing I did wanna point out is the clear
mental progression as you make your way through the list.
At first the searches are definitely disturbing
but by the end we have genuine attempts at locating
material that involves harming actual children.
Keep in mind,
what I read to you isn't the complete list and took place over
a period of 3 months.
In between these disturbing searches were more mundane things
like TV shows, hairstyles and tutorials.
Because of this, people have theorised
that perhaps 927 isn't a single person,
that maybe
the more innocent searches were done by family since in 2006,
people were much more likely to share a desktop
or laptop with people they lived with,
instead of everyone having their own devices.
Who User 927 is exactly,
is unknown. Amongst the inquiries,
the only possible identifying information that could be
gathered under the account were searches for news sites in Colorado,
but that unfortunately doesn't give us a whole lot to work from.
Where things get tricky is that
of course User 927 wasn't the only one
with a disturbing search history.
There are others, such as User 6048640
who attempted to search for child brides,
12 year old brides and sexy 12 and 13 year olds.
User No. 6416389
searched for things like 'feasting on
thighs of young girls', 'girls strangled and eaten',
'girls cut up into steaks',
and 'cannibals feasting on buttocks of young girls'.
Some users even search for things along the lines of 'how to kill
my wife' or 'how to get away with murder'. Of course,
questions concerning what to do with users
with suspicious search histories has come up,
and is a debate
that seems like it isn't going to die down anytime soon.
Now, just to clarify, when I say 'suspicious'
I mean just that. Suspicious but not
outright illegal like some things found in 927's
and other's search histories. Now for example,
there were a lot of keywords within the leaked data
about illegal drugs. Whether or not
these were entries from people genuinely looking to break a
law or students doing a research paper is unclear.
Despite this, though
there is of course reason for people to be suspicious.
Just a few years ago
a user on amazon.com left a string
of disturbing reviews on items that would imply
that he was killing people.
One review was for a folding shovel and it read:
'Keep in car for when you have to hide bodies and you left the
full shovel at home'.
Another review is for a chainsaw:
'Works excellent...
getting the neighbour to stand still while you chase him with it
is hard enough without having an easy to use chainsaw'.
The final review is for a padlock;
the user described them as solid and claimed to have 5
of them on a shipping container that quote:
'won't stop them, but sure will slow them down til they are too old to care'.
So of course,
in most cases posts like these are seen as jokes,
or trolls,
but in this case the man behind them turned out to be Todd Kohlhepp,
a serial killer who was caught after the police were able to
track down one of his victims who was still alive and
locked in a shipping container.
He wasn't joking in his reviews.
In the aftermath of the 2006 AOL search data leak-
the company
was sued and also announced the resignation of their chief technology officer.
They also naturally received backlash from digital rights groups,
privacy advocates and the American public.
The main question, of course, to come from this whole situation was
how much privacy and anonymity
to people actually have rights to when it comes to the internet. Obviously,
it's still a debate that goes on to this day, and is
not going to go away anytime soon.
It only gets more complicated as new technology emerges.
The internet is, by nature, a complicated place.
On one hand, people are now more connected than ever,
to each other, to resources, to information
leading to new and exciting opportunities we never had
before it existed. But, the internet is a double edged sword,
and the same opportunities exist for everyone,
including those looking to abuse them. :)