Is our information seriously worth nothing?

Let's play a game.

Go to https://haveibeenpwned.com/Passwords and type in an old password that you don't use anymore. 
This website will scan through the leaked files of hundreds of website data breaches, and it will tell you how many data breaches your password was compromised in. 

How many times have you been Pwned?

When I type in one of my old passwords, I see 5 different data breaches that it's appeared in. On the site's homepage, you can see if your e-mail has been part of a breach, and you get to see which data breaches got your e-mail address and its password.

There's a section of the website that details every single data breach that the website can scan information through, and there are tons.

Literally every website you could think of is on there. Here are just a few that I know I've used before: Avast (an antivirus, of all things), 500px, and online photography website, Adobe, Canva, Chegg, Dave, Domino's, DropBox, Imgur, Kickstarter, League of Legends, LinkedIn, Neopets, Plex, Smogon, Snapchat, Wattpad, and Yahoo.

What interests me is that when our information is compromised due to an oversight on the company that there is no consequence for the company that put thousands of its users at risk. Sometimes in larger data breaches, like the Equifax breach, users are compensated, but my old e-mail account was compromised because it was used on Neopets. Luckily, I didn't have any credit card information on that website, but most of its users did! 

Why are users not compensated, and why are companies not given more serious consequences for lackadaisically handling sensitive information? Is our personal information really that meaningless to the government and to these tech companies? It makes me worry about asking students to use these platforms knowing that they aren't necessarily safe. 

Comments

  1. Jaesung HurJuly 31, 2020 at 12:22 AM

    OMG! I typed two passwords I used, and one of them had 31 results! Even though many websites notify me to change a current password, I always procrastinate since I easily forget the new one and reset it again and again. Besides, I use several passwords combinations on other websites as well. I feel like every website requires users to sign up for further features, and it isn't pleasant to make a very new password all the time. I even don't remember how many websites I have signed up. Will you remove your digital footprints after this class ends?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. George KantelisJuly 31, 2020 at 9:10 PM

      I think it might take longer to remove them than it did to create them. I sometimes work at it piece by piece, but it probably isn't something that'll ever happen completely. Plus, I do see value in some of the networks that I use.

      Delete

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