Proof of Concept: Unauthorized Matching of Public and Private Email Addresses

Do you use a throwaway or public email address on the web, and save your private email address for friends and business associates? Most of us do.

Keeps out the riff-raff. Gives you a certain amount of privacy, too.

So imagine how you’d feel if you signed up for a contest with your throwaway address, and suddenly started getting messages from the contest holder at your private address.

Some Miller Brewing customers say that’s exactly what’s happened to them. And Spam King sleuth, Brian McWilliams, says Equifax performed the data mining operation that made it possible. Further, McWilliams offers compelling evidence that the Equifax grey-ops email-matching project is driven by a guy who’s well-known to spam hunters: Scott Hirsch.

Techdirt’s Mike Masnick reminds, “This is the same Equifax who recently said it was un-American for you to know what Equifax knew about you.”

Hard to believe, isn’t it? Miller and Equifax have shocked some folks. Maybe we should thank them for the wake-up call.

There is no real privacy for those who participate in a modern open society, and there never was. In the US, the tracking began a short time after your Social Security Number was issued. Old School groups like Equifax, Experian, TransUnion, Acxiom and others sliced and diced information as you grew, from myriad sources, frequently yielding nuggets better left buried.

The advent of the Internet made tracking, buying, selling, leaking and stealing the data that is “you” infinitely easier. You’ve likely left footprints all over the web: IP address, cookies, user name, email addresses, real name, address, phone.

And New School data trappers have run the gamut of respectability: Alexa, Doubleclick, Gator, Claria, Cydoor and many, many more.

All it takes is a bit of time meshing the Old School data with the New School. Out pops everything there is to know about you, from Social Security Number, voting habits, religious preferences, credit history, and banking details to all your user names and email addresses.

By comparison, the Equifax-Miller Brewing stunt is a parlour trick.

Are you paranoid yet? Read the articles in Backgrounder that follows.

Then get back to us.

Email Battles Backgrounder:

• Blind Judge Drops Bar For Email Privacy; Email Battles; 18 August 2005.
• Company ordered chip implants get under workers’ skins; NewsBytes; Email Battles; 13 February 2006.
• Congressional Hearing Exposes Goolag; Cult of the Dead Cow Flies Again; Email Battles; 15 February 2006.
• Email Privacy Whacked By EU Vote; Email Battles; 13 October 2005.
• Email Wipes Out Computer Associates Chief; Email Battles; 24 September 2004.
• Google This: You Don’t Need Search Engines To Protect Your Privacy; Email Battles; 26 January 2006.
• Law Fashions: Do Not Email… Your Kids; Email Battles; 27 June 2005.
• Personal Data Morphs Into Misnomer; Email Battles; 04 May 2005.
• Protect Your Privacy? What Privacy?; Email Battles; 13 September 2005.
• Spyware In E-mail Greeting Card. Wow.; Email Battles; 29 August 2005.
• Think Twice Before Emailing To Bought Lists; Email Battles; 18 October 2004.
• US Applauds Chinese Email Snooping; Email Battles; 6 July 2006.
• Why Email Wire Tapping Is Good; Email Battles; 06 July 2004.
• Windows Phishing Filter Cost Too High; Email Battles; 09 September 2005.