this post was submitted on 09 May 2024
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[–] [email protected] 162 points 3 months ago (7 children)

These companies should be forced to pay big money to each and every person affected by these breaches. Not like $120. Like $10,000 per. Teach them real lessons

[–] [email protected] 59 points 3 months ago (2 children)

But instead they will be fined, and they will pay that fine to the government.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 3 months ago (1 children)

They just pay up and do it again. It's a business expense, not a punishment.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago

and then, us as the consumer will pay for the fine as well

[–] [email protected] 26 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I agree. Even at $120 each. 120 times tens of millions is serious fucking cash. We need to have a couple of big companies go bankrupt over this shit. Then maybe they will start taking it seriously. Perhaps at that point maintaining personal data on people will be seen as a liability rather than an asset. And that's what we really need.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Yep data protection should be life or death. Either that or make the executives personally responsible ie the fines come out of their pockets

[–] explodicle 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Why stop there? Abolish the corporate veil. Those motherfuckers can buy liability insurance.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Disagree. Breaking the corporate veil would have a whole lot of unintended consequences and would basically kill investment as a concept. I agree we need to do more about corporations that violate the law with impunity and get wrist slaps. I don't think that's it.

[–] explodicle 2 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Why do you think it would kill investment despite liability insurance?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Yup. We need more of the corporate death penalty. And when corporations are so big that 'killing' them would harm the economy, I argue we're back to too big to fail. Maybe the answer is giant fines, and if the company can't pay, wipe out the largest shareholders and then resell the stock over time. Make people's personal information a giant hot potato that nobody wants to be holding.

[–] Grandwolf319 24 points 3 months ago

Even $120 would be amazing. I just got an email that said too bad. I just bought a monitor cause that’s where they sold it. Idk why they have to save my info. I just want to pay for the product. If it was up to me, they would delete all my info immediately. They only need to record when the serial number was sold anyway.

Oh if only I was European.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (5 children)

The breach here is pretty minor, in my book. Name, address, specifics of computer purchased. The name and address is pretty much available and linked already. The computer isn't, but doesn't seem that abusable. Maybe it could help someone locate more-expensive, newer computers for theft, but I don't see a whole lot of potential room for abuse.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I do see potential room for abuse. Let say someone has the list and contact the members of the list saying that they are from Dell and it is about the computer they purchased. They have all details, spec, address, etc so it believable. Then they tell them to buy some “antivirus” or install some “hot fix” etc. Scammers are already doing this, but it is less convincing.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Exactly, a lot data exfil'd is used to enrich other sources. All data loss should be treated as a catastrophic failure of security controls. Corporate victims should pay for their customers potential loss of identity and privacy as a preemptive action, even if the data in of itself may be considered low risk. If compliance with this is difficult then executives should be forced under law to post all of their personal info into Wikipedia with audio samples of their voice, full genome mapping and mugshots. Fuck these companies and their profits over people attitude.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Now my friends know I bought an Alienware device. I'm never going to live this down.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

A gamer cannot sink lower. Build your own if you care!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago

It's only minor if the data points in this breach are used by themselves.
Once you aggregate this with other data breaches, you could end up with a much bigger capability to target anyone in this breach.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

Don’t care, punish them all the same.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

afaict only if a specific hardware vulnerability was found and they cross-linked it with an online account or other network info to try and exploit it.

Or, I guess you could just assume Windows and go with one of the many zero-days that happen there. The trick is still crosslinking them tho. Presumably google has the wifi info.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Instantly makes ~~ransomware~~ [edit 2: my brain was being dumb, I didn't mean literally ransomware, I meant hackers blackmailing companies with the threat of releasing/selling stolen data] far more profitable.

Edit: And heavily discourages self-reporting. There’s a Schneier quote I like: “You can't defend. You can't prevent. The only thing you can do is detect and respond.”

[–] explodicle 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

If the data is breached, won't we find out anyways once they start selling it?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Absolutely. But the penalty does modify the cost-benefit analysis. If a hacker demands $5m or else they will release stolen data, you might be more inclined to YOLO the 5 mil on the 1% chance they're an honest hacker if the penalty for the breach is $50bn.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

Exactly... Meanwhile some poor soul goes to jail because he is too broke to pay for some parking fines

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

In the case of this breach, I'd be happy with a $10 payout, the consequences for me are actually pretty low here. That being said, I think we'd be lucky if Dell had to pay more than $0.50 per person, and that money will probably go to a lawyer's fees, not me.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Got this:

Hello, Dell Technologies takes the privacy and confidentiality of your information seriously. We are currently investigating an incident involving a Dell portal, which contains a database with limited types of customer information related to purchases from Dell. We believe there is not a significant risk to our customers given the type of information involved.

What data was accessed? At this time, our investigation indicates limited types of customer information was accessed, including:

  • Name
  • Physical address
  • Dell hardware and order information, including service tag, item description, date of order and related warranty information
[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago

~~Hello, Dell Technologies takes the privacy and confidentiality of your information seriously. We are currently investigating an incident involving a Dell portal, which contains a database with limited types of customer information related to purchases from Dell. We believe there is not a significant risk to our customers given the type of information involved.~~ Sending you this single message satisfies our legal disclosure requirement. Beyond that, we have no actual intention of fixing this, providing you with a meaningful compensation for the breech or really doing anything different at all truthfully. Fuck you.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

So people know how expensive a computer is at the address. What could go wrong

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Right, because international hackers are going to mobilize boots on the ground across the world to steal your fucking Optiplex.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I think it's more likely that an attacker would make a fake collections call if you bought something really expensive, especially if they can prove you bought on credit or something. A little ChatGPT and you'd have a targeted script to use.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The leak didn't include phone numbers or emails but I'm sure there will be attempts at spear phishing businesses since they can figure out the business name from the physical address.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 2 points 3 months ago

It's trivial to get phone numbers given an address in most cases.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Can’t have my ssn stolen if it has already hit the dark web.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 months ago

Dude, you’re getting a delinquency letter.

But, like, we paid our fine. Sorry 🤙

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago

Expect a ton of Indian people calling pretending to be Dell Support.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

They emailed me earlier about it... Good thing I've only ever bought a monitor from them.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

Sames. They make sweet monitors.

[–] Grandwolf319 2 points 3 months ago

Even then, why do they need to store my personal information? After delivery, my info should be wiped besides the date of purchase for said serial number.

[–] Eeyore_Syndrome 11 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Somebody needs to make a "Dell Dude meme" about this.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

"Dude, you're getting your identity stolen!"

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

What fuckin data is dell even getting and how?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I got their notice email, apparently I bought a laptop charger from them years ago, and after all this time they were still keeping my name, email and physical address, which now leaked. So that's how.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

That's insane to me

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Holy fuck. Is that like all their customers?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago
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