News AOL apologises for released search data

We do have the users' search and click history. The data is available as a searchable database. If you type in porn just see how much of it is actually searches for child porn; it's quite disturbing. You can also see which url the user then clicked from their search results and hence what they were looking for. Just typing in one of these user's id number also reveals their whole history of searches which can be damn interesting. Check it out:

www.aolsearchdatabase.com/

Another interesting thing is just how many people use their search bar as an address bar. They type in the whole address to a website, search for it, then click the link that comes up to finally get to that site. I know my dad does that but still. I guess this is AOL afterall.

 

anytime soon this forum will apear on AOL and on Google each time someone searches lolita and child porn.

 

those searches aren't normal?

 

User 311045 seems to have figured out a way to get revenge on an Ex if you look

how to get revenge on a ex
how to get revenge on a ex girlfriend
how to get revenge on a friend who f---ed you over
replacement bumper for scion xb

sorry for the double post

 

Haha, brilliant! I wonder who would need to look on the net to learn how to do that.

 

aren't there tons of ADULT porn vids and sites that use the word "lolita" to imply their 35 year old porn stars are 18-19 year old [college] school girls? In the various porn-link-site-merrygorounds I've happened into now and again (you know, link sites that link to link sites that just go in terrible circles to pop ups and more links to link sites), I think the word "lolita" comes up a lot and from the images associated with links, I've assumed it's all generally meant to mean "young" as in "barely legal" while depicting women who are clearly several years older than legal.

while actual kiddy porn is wrong...I don't see a problem with anybody liking Jenna Jameson to wear pig-tails and a plaid skirt.

Additionally, what if somebody's doing some sort of legitimate research (PhD thesis for, say Child Psychology or some sociological phenomenon regarding the freedom of the internets) and that led them to look up certain search terms? I bet that fellow would certainly be rightly upset about being reported to the FBI.

 

while this is true if you if you look at the total sum of peoples research, usually the word psychology would pop up in there somewhere. something that would show up to show what this person really is doing. again its not one search that shows what someone is up to but all their searches.

like if some one were looking up explosives and where to buy them. this could be seen as some one trying to blow up a building or such. but if the person is a licensed pyrotechnision, then this would give an explanation. like the people that were clearly witting novels while searching for murder techniques.
but i think the movie Minority Report definitely showed what assumptions can do even when you think you know all.

 

If you ran a porn site or one of those link sites wouldn't you want your site to be seen by the maximum number of poeple including pedos? That's why you see that kind of term on legal porns sites. Same sort of thing for sites promising things like naked celebrities.

 

That is quite a mistake isn't it... anyone could see its something people would get upset about. idiots tbh. glad i'm not with aol

 

This just becomes a complex problem then...because finding criminals based on their search terms would not only require a list of the search terms EVERY PERSON used, but also a detailed analysis of all of their search terms (and not just certain key criminal words) along with an analyisis of each person outside their search engine activities. ONLY then would you be able to determine if this person is a writer of criminal type stories (amateur or professional)? a reporter researching criminal activities for a story? a criminal psychologist of some sort? a child psychologist? a student in some sociological field researching some criminal activity with respect to it's effects on the victim, or the mindset of the criminal? a weaponry collector? a fireworks/pyrotechnics hobbyist? Somebody just looking for details on a recent news article about some crime? Somebody fascinated by certain types of crime who likes reading about it, but would never go out and commit it? The list goes on and on.

Imagine the resources this analysis would require! Obviously, AOL isn't going to have the manpower to do that...so in this terrible no-privacy world, they're just going to send lists of search terms to the FBI for every user who ever searched for something objectionable to somebody else. Imagine the incredible resource cost it would take for the FBI to analyze all that data -- on everybody who has ever searched for "bomb" "lolita" "anarchy" "murder"...etc, they'd be analyzing their whole list of search terms, plus their outside lives in detail. Or, they'd just bring everybody to court and sort it out there before trying to piece the puzzle together themselves. Easily, half the kids in my highschool would be investigated (as the anarchists cookbook was a common discussion topic back then). And somebody would justify it saying "this could help us stop the next Columbine!" So in the end, every taxpayer would end up with themselves or somebody in their family closely scritinized...and they'd be paying for it and all the associated bureaucracy. Do you want to pay the government $20,000 for your own criminal analysis? Would that make you and your children feel safer?

Plus, I doubt you'd find all that many criminals in that way:

-- Everytime they catch a pedophile on the news, he either produced all his materials himself or traded it with other pedophiles in private chatrooms -- I'd imagine the guy searching AOL for masturbatory material probably only thinks "lolita" means "18 year old hotty"...or maybe he's just the typical BBQ-stained-sweatpants-wearing AOL subscriber I picture, and he fat-fingered the word "burrito" with a couple l's. Anyway, I'd be more worried about the guy producing child porn for the internet, than the guy who looks at it (honestly, both are bad, I get that...but one is a truly criminal activity, and the other is merely a psychological problem that may or may not be a warning sign should the guy not be able to confine himself to the internet).
--A terrorist looking to make bombs? All he really needs is ONE BOMB so I doubt such things will show up in his search list very often at all. And anyway, somebody looking to blow up a building would seriously have better resources than AOL and Google if there was going to be any level of success.

 

EQC -- I was going to reply something ... but you pretty much summed it all up.

Thanks for saving me the typing work

Couldn't agree more.

- cheers -