GREENVILLE, North Carolina. On March 16, 2005 former East Carolina University math instructor Ken Butler made a temporary backup of his computer to his personal website, www.ropehouse.com. He didn’t delete the files until January 3, 2008 when the Liberty Coalition informed him that his backed-up files included the personal information of 736 students, including 412 social security numbers, in more than 60 files. Although he knew that his students’ information was backed up online, Mr. Butler believed that search engines would never find them, since he did not link directly to any of the files.
The posted files also include students’ grades, e-mail addresses. Much of the information in these files is protected by FERPA, and many of these students are at extreme risk of identity theft. Although the Liberty Coalition did not find names and social security numbers directly on ECU servers, it is alarming how so much sensitive student personal information escaped the stewardship of East Carolina University, and ended up on a private website.
While it is unclear how Google “found” the files, many people do not realize that many popular search engine toolbars act as mini “spiders” for Google when certain features are turned on. Essentially, the toolbars can report the URL of every link you visit back to the search engine, so simply by visiting a website, users can inadvertently alert Google (or other search engine) to its presence.
Individuals affected by this exposure should immediately visit www.ssnbreach.org and search for their names, to confirm what types of personal information were exposed.
About SSNBreach.org
Sponsored by the Washington, DC non-profit Liberty Coalition, SSNBreach.org provides hundreds of thousands of free personalized Identity Exposure Reports™ as a public service.
SSNBreach.org documents the types of information exposed, but does NOT contain sensitive data, such as Social Security Numbers, Birth Dates, Addresses, etc. Consequently, there is no way to search for your SSN or any other type of sensitive data on SSNBreach.org. Once we document the types of exposed information and the situation surrounding the exposure, we include the information in personalized Identity Exposure Reports. This information allows victims to further investigate, take action, or correct harm.