Thread by @polotek

This is a decent article that discusses not just Clubhouse's recent data leak, but the increasing prevalence of data leaks in tech products. threatpost.com/clubhouse-user…

This tweet from the above article kind of sums up the problem. It's not these companies are incompetent at security (though they might be). It's that they still don't agree that this data that they collect from us *should* be protected.

https://twitter.com/NicholasVinocur/status/1381488706268332035?s=20

Here's what was leaked from CH:
"Names, user IDs, photo URL, number of followers, Twitter and Instagram handles, dates that accounts were created and even the profile information of who invited them to the app"

This list doesn't include some of the more traditional pieces of "personal information". Things like email address, phone number, etc. Things that are specific to the individual and allow them to be targeted for spam, identity theft, fraud, etc.

That is still how many tech companies think if personal information and what's not okay to have "leak". But we know that the scope of online threats is growing faster than that. You don't need those things anymore in order to be successful at spam, identity theft, and fraud.

Instead, it's these social platforms themselves create the tools that people use to harm us. The platforms themselves enable the harm to happen even *without* that personal information. They own the data and the tools all in one place.