Exposing users’ data: The tough love approach to security

So our colleagues at Compter Sweden are calling a “freelance security consultant” somehow finds user names and passwords for 100 government e-mail accounts from around the world. If you find this stuff online you can compromise those accounts.

Instead of trying to help those whose data had been breached, the consultant, Dan Egerstad, felt it was better to put them online. “When something like this happens you usually contact people and ask them to fix it. But in this case it felt too big for that, calling to other countries,” Egerstad said.

Yeah, that would really eat up your phone bill. How about this: You had the e-mail accounts. Why not just write them? Embarassing people is not a great way to prevent future security breaches. It just makes you look like a jerk.