LinkedIn breach reportedly exposes data of 92% of users, inferred salaries

https://9to5mac.com/2021/06/29/linkedin-breach/

by aburan28 • 5 years ago

140 79 5 years ago

9to5mac.com

deregulateMed2• 5 years ago

Privacy is trendy, but imagine if everyone had access to salary data.

You find your coworker makes more money, you ask for more.

Or if all medical data was public, we'd have a medical revolution in understanding.

Or if your Facebook likes were public, other competing websites could generate a network easier.

Sure there are downsides to open information, but I can't help to think that privacy benefits the few, openess benefits the masses.

(Obligatory- doesn't apply to keys or whistleblowers, but I imagine they should be taking far greater precautions than using Apple who continuously bends to China and the US government)

marcinzm4• 5 years ago

Or if all medical data was public, we'd have a medical revolution in understanding.

US medical billing data (which include who, where, what, why and when) is fairly easy to access (ie: 100+ million patients anonymized) and hasn't helped patients much from what I can tell. And many many companies have tried.

Or if your Facebook likes were public, other competing websites could generate a network easier.

And oppressive governments can hunt down dissidents, hate groups can hunt down minorities, parents can disown their gay kids earlier, etc. Once you add up all the groups that make up "the few" you get rather a lot of people.

rdtwo2• 5 years ago

It’s probably not good enough to guess patient outcomes. It’s not like you could look up a surgeon and find how often the patient has a problem and then correct that against the risk pool of the patients

Faaak• 5 years ago

Or if all medical data was public, we'd have a medical revolution in understanding.

No, your insurance premium would go up. That's it

misja111• 5 years ago

Why? It could also go down.

lotsofpulp7• 5 years ago

In the US, health insurance premiums are (by law) based on age, location, and smoking status only. Highest premiums (age 64) are capped at 3x the premium of ages 21 to 24.

kaibee• 5 years ago

Privacy is trendy, but imagine if everyone had access to salary data.

Already true in Norway. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-40669239

semi-extrinsic2• 5 years ago

Less true now than it used to be, they implemented a limitation after that article was published.

Nowadays, if you try to check someone's salary, there is a big box on the website saying "The person you want to check the salary of will be notified that you checked. Do you want to proceed?" where I believe most people go "Nope, cancel that."

dabbledash2• 5 years ago

Privacy benefits the few, openness benefits the masses = openness allows the masses to ferret out and punish deviance.

waterheater• 5 years ago

Actually, privacy benefits the minority. This distinction is critical to remember.

semi-extrinsic2• 5 years ago

At a place where I used to work, we noticed that the new project management and time tracking software, that had been rolled out to much fanfare, would let you check the salary of anyone in the company simply by editing the URL in the browser and reading the XML file it sent back. I've never seen IT fix anything that quickly.

analyst74• 5 years ago

In a utopian world where everything is public, I can see how transparency can benefit the masses.

However, realistically, the powerful will fight tooth and nail to retain secrecy, and those who open up first become vulnerable due to informational disadvantage.

enriquto2• 5 years ago

So, let's start by publishing the salaries of the rich, and then work down from that ;)

trident50002• 5 years ago

"imagine if everyone had access to salary data..."

This is exactly why employers dont want this.

baron_harkonnen• 5 years ago

You find your coworker makes more money, you ask for more.

I used to believe this when I was younger. Many, many years ago I used to work for research team a state university. In most states all public employee salaries are public data and there are watch dog groups that collect this and post it online. Right now if you have a friend (or enemy) working at a state university you can probably find their salary.

While working there, there was an IT/tech staff that was pretty incompetent who most people gave a really hard time. This person didn't have much formal education and didn't understand anything about their role, but I and some others always felt that "hey, they get paid next to nothing so don't give them such a hard time."

Then someone looked up their salary and found they made more than most of the junior faculty in that department. The result wasn't a wide spread demand for more equitable pay, but universal anger that this kind but lazy employee was making more than the majority of the department. As much as I hated it, I myself immediately lost all pity I had for this person.

End result was that nobody got paid more, and if we could have voted we probably would have argued that this person should have either been fired or paid less. Even if in theory workers should stick together, and even in an academic dept where most people understand this theory, we're still trained to turn against each other.

In my experience the best way to share salary data is anonymously. https://www.levels.fyi/ radically changed my salary requirements, and it's incredible how many young people working in tech have no clue how much they could be asking for. Whenever I end up mentoring a junior tech worker I always make sure they understand how tech compensation works and what the upper bound really is. Most react at first with anger that they get paid little, but nearly all negotiate much harder when applying for their next job.

Information is essential to increasing worker pay, but personal information can only result in pettiness and strife in my experience.

enriquto2• 5 years ago

we probably would have argued that this person should have either been fired or paid less.

Does not sound like a healthy conclusion to me. Actually, a pretty shitty one. Not only they were bullied by most of their work colleagues, but they would conspire to lower their salary. The problem is not that salaries are public but that your work environment was really toxic. I hope they found a better place.

mosburger• 5 years ago

At my current employer, everyone's salaries (and the number of options they've been awarded) are in a Google spreadsheet that's viewable by everyone in the company. It's actually kinda cool to have such transparency and has forced standardization of things, and I have to imagine it has reduced biases and made things fairer.

seattle_spring• 5 years ago

Every company I've seen that has one of those pays jokingly low salaries compared to competitive companies. Rather than it being used as a tool to ensure fairness, it seems more used as a shield against negotiation. "We can't pay you <competitive salary>, that'd be $50k more than someone more senior than you! You wouldn't want to be unfairly paid more than your colleague, would you!?"

underseacables• 5 years ago

Just reminded me that I still have a linked in profile. I never use the service, so I’m going to delete this profile.

dlsa2• 5 years ago

Data within deleted accounts has a tendency to just disappear from access rather than actually get destroyed because companies like to be "helpful" in case you change your mind.

Consider scrambling the data in the account first. Wait a few weeks then delete the profile. Consider also setting a canary email address before you delete the account so that when the final account data later resurfaces you at least know.

stblack• 5 years ago

This is the best advice!

"Deleting" an account has to be a systematic user-side process. We don't talk enough about that.

trident50002• 5 years ago

Need a right to be forgotten 2.0 legislation in the US.

civilized2• 5 years ago

I try to look on the bright side these days. Can't wait to find out all the weird stuff LinkedIn knows or has completely wild-ass guessed about me!

And by the way, recently YouTube has been serving me exclusively Spanish-language ads. I am probably 0% Hispanic ethnically and have no knowledge of Spanish. Would be cool to get a data leak that shows what's up with that!

nostoc• 5 years ago

Looks like this data has been collected through the official API, so you could just query yourself in there.

civilized2• 5 years ago

I'm too lazy, that's why I appreciate these hackers who go to all the trouble on my behalf for free!

tylerfontaine• 5 years ago

recently YouTube has been serving me exclusively Spanish-language ads

This has been happening to me, but on Twitter! I know a very basic amount of Spanish, but am a non-hispanic dude in semi-rural Texas.

JKCalhoun3• 5 years ago

semi-rural Texas

Pattern matched.

StevenRayOrr• 5 years ago

I started having a similar issue with Spotify a couple years ago. Eventually I discovered that someone else was using my (free) account to listen to bunch of Spanish-language music that I'd never heard of. I don't think my Spotify recommendations ever recovered.

JKCalhoun3• 5 years ago

LOL, w-a-y b-a-c-k when it was only your name and address that was sold to marketers and the spam was snail mail, friends and I would sing up for things, order catalogs etc. using a different name each time. Then when the junk mail came you knew who sold you out.

dlsa2• 5 years ago

Meanwhile, in Norway...

Norway: The country where no salaries are secret https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-40669239

Removing anonymity of searching made a significant difference as did letting you know who looked you up. This is a form of social pressure that seems to balance out their need for transparency versus the "peeping tom" aspect of open salary data.

There are some less than good social impacts but I'd say on balance the overall result is positive.

I actually think any job ad without a salary indication should be seen with suspicion and mistrust. Its basically false or deceptive advertising. Its like going to a shop to buy some fruit but them being sheepish about the price. Negotiations then ensue and you give them an offer and they say "that isn’t realistic". But you easily counter with "well you should have listed the price". The ensuing negotiation includes sich phrases as "you should know the market" and all sorts of "competitive market" slogans.

In the end they simply want to clamp the price down and take advantage of ignorance rather than any kind of ethical stance. We tolerate this unethical behavior because "that's how it is".

mywittyname• 5 years ago

You all don't have an issue with sites reselling the salary data in an anonymized fashion to those "Peeping Tom" types?

TrackerFF2• 5 years ago

Yes and no - up until a few years ago, this kind of snooping was anonymous, but that changed, and right now you can see who's been looking/snooping through your profile. Some people figured that they can charged a couple of bucks to do that for you, but I wouldn't say that it is any large or serious business.

axc10• 5 years ago

The level of population control in some of these smaller European countries like Norway and The Netherlands is insane.

They always try to project a progressive and relaxed image, but you better do not try to deviate from the norm. The norm is: Work for a low salary, buy a tiny overpriced house from the ruling classes, eat sandwiches with peanut butter and celebrate Queen's day.

Surveillance levels are high but covert, extrajudicial punishment is enshrined in the law.

boxed• 5 years ago

What?

Also only Americans eat peanut butter in significant quantity no?

CSMastermind• 5 years ago

I'm certainly not well versed in the literature but I do remember reading a study that showed Norway's open salary data led to people being less happy overall no matter how well compensated they were relative to their peers.

Balancing transparency with an individual's right to privacy is a tricky subject.

Jenk• 5 years ago

Conversely I've read many articles from organisations that have switched to an open book salary policy leading to an increase in employee happiness.

TrackerFF2• 5 years ago

It gives you a rough estimate of income, but should not really be trusted if your goal is to negotiate your salary because you've been checking out your co-workers income.

The salary shown in our skattelisten (tax list) is what's called the general income. That is: All taxable income, minus deductions. This means that the income you see in our tax list is going to be lower, than what it is in reality.

It could also appear much higher, if you've sold something which counts as taxable income, done consulting/side gigs, etc.

enominezerum• 5 years ago

Yea, got hit up by a recruiter for a full-time position in the US. I always respond "what is expected salary". I get back "we are a small company and not comfortable discussing that due to our current financial status."

I didn't reply back. But, the recruiter told me much more than she think she did with that statement.

bttrfl• 5 years ago

Were those phone numbers collected using "We need your phone number to increase your security" (or similar) or just added by users to their linkedin profiles?

JKCalhoun3• 5 years ago

"We need your phone number to increase your security"

Lies and liability.

idorosen• 5 years ago

duplicate: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27675648 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27674393

Ashanmaril2• 5 years ago

Is LinkedIn actually an important thing to have?

I made one years ago and used to occasionally go in and update it, but with my most recent job I didn't even take the time to add it. The past few years I've really re-evaluated what should be public, easily-accessible information for anyone who knows my name.

And all I get from having an account is recruiter spam, and emails for connection requests that are oddly written in first-person and have the person's name as the sender which seems weird.

binarymax• 5 years ago

You get out what you put in. If you have a languishing account and don’t use it then you’ll get what you describe. If you are active then it gives you opportunities to network and meet people with similar interests.

thewhitetulip• 5 years ago

I got a job at a very good company through LinkedIn

A guy had posted about opening in the company. I sent profile, he referred me and I joined a few months ago.

It was a blind referral. I didn't know the guy or that they had an opening!

MattGaiser• 5 years ago

I find it quite valuable to get information about companies.

booleandilemma• 5 years ago

I did get a job through LinkedIn once, so I think so.

It’s certainly more valuable than Facebook.

cmckn2• 5 years ago

I got my current job because a recruiter found me on LinkedIn. I participated in a “hiring day” that greatly increased my odds of getting an offer. Doubled my salary and it was an invaluable step for my career. I spent maybe 15 minutes setting up the profile after a few years of rolling my eyes at the platform. It’s worth it; much easier to get an interview than sending an application into the void.

Ashanmaril2• 5 years ago

That's good to know. And it seems like there's a good handful of other people with similar experiences (though that could be bias of the type of people who would be in a thread about linkedin)

Maybe I won't discount it. The dark patterns of the site are just such a turn-off, it really doesn't make a great case for itself in the UX.

jhrozek• 5 years ago

What's a hiring day? A quick search found nothing.. Is it a LI initiative?

topkai22• 5 years ago

Even if you aren’t looking for a job it can be useful to control your public profile as you meet interact with new people. As I work across groups, I definitely see people who I’m meeting for the first time check out my LinkedIn profile. It’s hardly every time, but enough that I’m glad I’m controlling the messaging.

legulere• 5 years ago

Any website already up to check if you were in that breach?

AlwaysRock• 5 years ago

You should shut down your linkedin if you are not actively looking for a job. It's a public resume which is a security concern at best.

EricE• 5 years ago

"There is no cloud, just someone else's computer"

Probably my favorite sticker/meme.

tymekpavel• 5 years ago

“Breached” seems like a strong word: “ LinkedIn tells Bloomberg in a statement that it looked into the matter and found that the data was web scraped public information from its site and other platforms.”

So they scraped a bunch of websites including LinkedIn and created a joint dataset?

LinkedIn breach reportedly exposes data of 92% of users, inferred salaries

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