Data mining threat exposed

Fang-Face writes “There’s a very brief note at American Libraries Online that very nicely illustrates how easy it would be for Big Brother to mine data on private citizens. Somebody hacked into the UC Berkley library computer and may have stolen personal information about some 17,000 users who had accessed the system from as far back as 1991.“

November 28, 2003 by Uncategorized 5

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5 Responses

  1. Anonymous Patron says:
    November 28, 2003 at 11:35 pm

    libraries need to understand IT
    I’m truly amazed there are still people who don’t understand the need to actively protect personal data. The lax security is probably due to the academic environment, but I’m sure that Berkeley’s computer science department would have clued in the library if they had been asked.

    Reply
  2. Anonymous says:
    November 28, 2003 at 11:47 pm

    2 Things
    Not many details to go on…
    I don’t recognize the OPAC Front End, is that how they got in? Anyone know who writes the code? is it all part of Melvyl? If so then it’s ExLibris.

    2. “Melvyl® is a registered trademark of The Regents of the University of California.” That strikes me as odd.

    Reply
  3. rteeter says:
    December 2, 2003 at 8:55 pm

    Re:2 Things
    The Ex Libris system has only been in place for a few months (at least for the public Web catalog). Before that, Melvyl was a home-grown system.

    Reply
  4. rteeter says:
    December 3, 2003 at 2:10 am

    Re:2 Things
    I believe UC Berkeley’s own system (Gladis/Pathfinder) is also a home-grown system. Don’t know if it’s part of Melvyl (which serves all nine campuses of the University of California) or not.

    Reply
  5. Predictor says:
    December 28, 2003 at 9:56 pm

    “Data mining”?
    I don’t disagree that such access to private information poses a threat to individual privacy, but it simply is not “data mining”. Data mining is the analysis of data, using statistical and machine learning methods. One has nothing to do with the other.

    -Predictor
    http://will.dwinnell.com

    Reply

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