AOL Search Data Shows Users Planning to commit Murder.
*** Update**** Monday July 7th 7 PM PST
Users in the comments are pissed off at the idea that people can be arrested for planning a crime like murder, calling it minority report like. I ask you why is it that americans have no problems arresting people that are planning or researching how to conduct terrorist attacks? Yet if a person plans on killing his wife that is ok, until he actually does it? How many people do you have to plan on killing before its ok for a company like AOL to hand your records over to the government? I am not taking sides, I’m just pointing out the obvious double standard. This story will open a can of worms, and will decide just how private your data online really is.
http://research.aol.com released a list of 20 million + searches by 500,000 AOL users. Contained in this list are social security numbers, credit cards and other personal information. There are some truly scary things in this database.
There are hundreds of searches from people looking to kill themselves and even more scary are searches from users that seem to be looking to commit murder.
Check out the search history for user 17556639, most recent search is at the bottom of the list.. Does this look like the search history of a user wanting to do something bad?
17556639 how to kill your wife
17556639 how to kill your wife
17556639 wife killer
17556639 how to kill a wife
17556639 poop
17556639 dead people
17556639 pictures of dead people
17556639 killed people
17556639 dead pictures
17556639 dead pictures
17556639 dead pictures
17556639 murder photo
17556639 steak and cheese
17556639 photo of death
17556639 photo of death
17556639 death
17556639 dead people photos
17556639 photo of dead people
17556639 www.murderdpeople.com
17556639 decapatated photos
17556639 decapatated photos
17556639 car crashes3
17556639 car crashes3
17556639 car crash photo
This is the very data that google won a legal battle to keep from the government. What is going to happen to the search industry now? What are peoples privacy rights? If people are using AOL to search for ways of killing their spouse what should be done about it?
I think because of the data contained in these search results the government is going to be taking a lot closer look at the search industry and things will definitely change.
Techcrunch has more on it here talking about the stupidity and coming fallout that AOL is facing..
*******Update***** Monday July 7th 10 AM PST AOL Officially comments in the comments section below.
Andrew Weinstein - AOL Spokesperson
All –
This was a screw up, and we’re angry and upset about it. It was an innocent enough attempt to reach out to the academic community with new research tools, but it was obviously not appropriately vetted, and if it had been, it would have been stopped in an instant.
Although there was no personally-identifiable data linked to these accounts, we’re absolutely not defending this. It was a mistake, and we apologize. We’ve launched an internal investigation into what happened, and we are taking steps to ensure that this type of thing never happens again.
Here was what was mistakenly released:
* Search data for roughly 658,000 anonymized users over a three month period from March to May.
* There was no personally identifiable data provided by AOL with those records, but search queries themselves can sometims include such information.
* According to comScore Media Metrix, the AOL search network had 42.7 million unique visitors in May, so the total data set covered roughly 1.5% of May search users.
* Roughly 20 million search records over that period, so the data included roughly 1/3 of one percent of the total searches conducted through the AOL network over that period.
* The searches included as part of this data only included U.S. searches conducted within the AOL client software.
Our apologies again.
Andrew Weinstein
AOL Spokesperson
August 7, 2006 at 9:17 am
AOL Proudly Releases Massive Amounts of Private Data
Further Update: Sometime after 7 pm the download link went down as well, but there is at least one mirror site. AOL is in damage control mode - the fact that they took the data down shows that someone there had the sense to realize how destructive this…
August 7, 2006 at 9:43 am
do we have more search data on him? would be cool if we could somehow identify who it was
August 7, 2006 at 10:14 am
Can (and should) the search engines really do anything? Since it’s not a crime to search for such things.
August 7, 2006 at 10:25 am
It’s very late and my head is starting to hurt, but this post is adding a whole new angle to the story. It isn’t just about AOL doing something bad, its about people doing bad things in general and what to do about it. Should law enforcement know when someone types “how to kill my wife” into a search engine? Or “child porn”? I dunno..there are arguments on both sides but the chilling effect could be massive. Lots to think about.
August 7, 2006 at 10:35 am
Michael I agree the shit is going to hit the fan…
119 unique users in my 7/8ths complete dataset searched for terms containing “child porn”. The number of users using other search terms that mean the same thing is far higher. Advocacy groups are going to have a field day.
I predict the social networking bill that is infront of congress is going to get dragged into this. Yahoo and AOL could fall under the definition of social networking as users have a profile and yahoo even bills their search as “social search”. The question is with all the fear mongering that will come, what are lawmakers going to do and will this industry be facing regulation.
Now that this data is public, its just a matter of time until AOL is dragged to court to find out who this user is and what he has done. This will probably become a test case of some sort.
August 7, 2006 at 10:50 am
This same question gets asked with the introduction of every new piece of communications technology. Should the government be able to preemptively monitor your email and IM communications for certain keywords and phrases? Or your telephone calls and snail mail? I think the answer is no, at least not preemptively.
August 7, 2006 at 11:04 am
[...] Zwar sind die Suchprotokolle nicht mit dem zugehörigen AOL-Usernamen sondern einer anonymisierten-ID verknüpft, dennoch lässt sich so manches Suchprotokoll recht leicht dem Urheber zuordnen. Nicht selten wird von Nutzern nach dem eigenen Namen oder denen von Verwandten und bekannten gesucht. Nicht selten enthalten Suchanfragen genaue Ortsangaben. Gelegetlich enthalten Suchprotokolle aber auch durchaus Verstörendes. [...]
August 7, 2006 at 11:07 am
I’ve often wondered if people with access to google’s logs ever comb through it looking for things like this. And what would happen if they found something really scary, say.. someone polling google news for “wtc attack” hours before it happened, what would they do?
August 7, 2006 at 11:15 am
Full archive here: http://aol.br3f.net/AOL-data.tgz (~470MB)
August 7, 2006 at 11:16 am
[...] …and releases the search history of 500,000 AOL users. Here’s what user 17556639 has been looking for: 17556639 how to kill your wife 17556639 how to kill your wife 17556639 wife killer 17556639 how to kill a wife 17556639 poop 17556639 dead people 17556639 pictures of dead people [...]
August 7, 2006 at 11:43 am
[...] The data has always been there. But seeing with your own eyes what 500,000 users searched for over the past 3 months: plain scary. If you look through the AOL search logs you will find people interested in buying drugs, killing their wifes, building bombs. It’s not a crime searching for these things, but search engines are one way to predict the future. By typing words into a search engine people show their possible intends. Majority Report comes to my mind. I’m sure the FBI and other organizations are datamining search logs for years already. But this is the first time the public is able to see them and we are about to see very heated discussions. [...]
August 7, 2006 at 11:45 am
Horrendous, despicable, stupid, criminal. This is what AOL has done. Anything else?
August 7, 2006 at 11:46 am
Horrendous, despicable, stupid, criminal. This is what AOL has done. Anything else? Sorry, my first URL was wrong.
August 7, 2006 at 1:25 pm
if you don’t do anything wrong, then you have nothing to be afraid of - even if people can view your search history.
besides, don’t you think that the government can track a large amout internet usage already.
August 7, 2006 at 1:27 pm
[...] Absolutely mindblowing. Link to original posting « AOL Declares Holiday for Search Spammers [...]
August 7, 2006 at 1:44 pm
[...] People’s names, identifiable locations, sensitive subjects, etc – it all gets concerning when you can cluster search terms to a specific user via the unique user id. It’s even alleged on the blogosphere that there are signs of someone plotting murder from their search terms. [...]
August 7, 2006 at 1:57 pm
[...] Remember the big hubbub of the Government trying to get search data from Google and Microsoft last year? Well, apparently no one at AOL does, they just released search data from 500,000 users, they removed the AOL username, but just changed it to a random id number, so all the data is still collected by user, and apparently, it includes lots of stuff that lots of people would be embarrassed by, or jailed over. According to this blog, it includes user searches for terms like “how to kill your wife”, “how to kill a wife”, “wife killer”, “pictures of dead people”, “decapitated photos” and many more. I wonder what that guy is up to? Hopefully, someone can check him out. [...]
August 7, 2006 at 1:58 pm
[...] While browsing the data, I/others found quite some interesting stuff, like people wanting to commit murder, but I also want to point out the following user-trace (note the timestamps of the last two lines): [...]
August 7, 2006 at 2:10 pm
[...] 17556639 how to kill your wife 17556639 how to kill your wife 17556639 wife killer 17556639 how to kill a wifeHere [...]
August 7, 2006 at 2:12 pm
[...] Von Stressbacke, 7. August 2006, 16:12 Uhr [...]
August 7, 2006 at 2:29 pm
If you were an author of thriller/horror fiction, you might commonly enter “how to kill my wife” into Google…
Search is an extension of our inner thoughts. Doesn’t mean we’re going to do anything about it (recent case in Sweden aside).
Perhaps Google will be the real-world incarnation of the Minority Report law-enforcement model? I hope not.
August 7, 2006 at 2:51 pm
[...] While I understand many of the benefits of Web 2.0, the downsides have always bothered me. Few people realize that everything they do online is public knowledge. Techcrunch is up in arms about AOL’s recent release of data (Google cache). User 17556639 may well find himself in trouble pretty soon. [...]
August 7, 2006 at 2:52 pm
[...] I didn’t look at the whole list (which is 439Mb) but this excerpt is the funny part. Funny for me, not for the wife of AOL user 17556639. [...]
August 7, 2006 at 3:00 pm
There’s a difference between “law enforcement trolls all the searches and looks for people looking for how to kill”, and “law enforcement has arrested a suspected killer, gets a warrant, and gets to see what he was searching for, to see if he was researching the exact methods that were used to kill the victim”.
August 7, 2006 at 3:00 pm
[...] In particular, if you 1 user has repetedly been searching for ways to off his wife. Very interesting. Carnage Report | Leave a Reply [...]
August 7, 2006 at 3:01 pm
[...] Clearly, no Institutional Review Board would ever allow such a collection. Users had a reasonable expectation that their searches would not be recorded and openly distributed. Moreover, the ability to link searches of a given user makes this a potentially very revealing data set. See, for example, the user looking to kill his wife. I don’t think that the anonymization of user names is enough to make this usable. [...]
August 7, 2006 at 3:01 pm
Searching for ‘child porn’ doesn’t necessarily mean that you are a criminal. For instance, I imagine many law enforcement personnel search for this term to find sites that ARE run by criminals.
Still, I’d bet some of those searches are done by real criminals and pedophiles. Scary stuff.
August 7, 2006 at 3:02 pm
Anyone who uses the Internet to search for ways to kill someone needs to make DAMN sure nothing happens to that person while they live…
There is no privacy on the internet, any more than in one’s garbage… And people ought not to expect it…
August 7, 2006 at 3:03 pm
Truly shocking search data there…
August 7, 2006 at 3:05 pm
[...] The Paradigm Shift noticed one user in particular, with the ID number 17556639 that was constantly doing searches like “how to kill your wife.” That user appeared to be looking for anything they could find like decapitation and car crash photos. If that is just one user it makes you wonder what you’ll find going through the other 499,999 that are in the list! [...]
August 7, 2006 at 3:07 pm
One reason that this data leak is dangerous is that people do make all kinds of assumptions.
That’s not a nice-looking search history, but it is possible somebody was just researching death on the internet for media or academic purposes. There was a big story last November about someone who searched for murder techniques before killing his wife - I imagine there was a spike of ‘death’ related searches when people were researching that story.
Even if somebody was obsessed with death, it’s a big leap to say he looks like he’s about to murder someone. You don’t picket the crime shelves at bookstores, do you? Or stop people going to see (nearly all) films because of their death content, do you?
August 7, 2006 at 3:09 pm
I don’t see how you can dare to conjecture what this person’s searches mean in regard to his/ her intent. For all you know this person is in a forensic sciences program and is doing research. This is a gross invasion of privacy, it is foolish to jump to conclusions based on what people decide to look at on the Internet. Morbund interest is hardly intent to kill. You should not be held accountable for things you search for on the Internet, considering something and doing something are completely different. I’d rather live in a society that was less safe then one where everyone was watched all the time, and judged for our searches on the web.
August 7, 2006 at 3:10 pm
“hould law enforcement know when someone types “how to kill my wife” into a search engine? Or “child porn”? I dunno..there are arguments on both sides but the chilling effect could be massive. Lots to think about.”
The answer is a strong NO. If you can report these things or if the Gov can monitor these things its only a matter of time until the are checking on everything, and then search terms that dont mean breaking a law will be investigated. Its not a crime to research something, and nobody said he will ever act on it even if there was considerable evidence he might commit a crime it doesnt mean he will.
August 7, 2006 at 3:10 pm
[...] Now check this Minority Report-esq find by Markus of Plentyoffish… check out the search queries of User 17556639 and postulate what this user is trying to find out more about. Looks like AOL opened up the can of worms that was bound to be opened and we’ll have to see how this all shakes out. [...]
August 7, 2006 at 3:16 pm
i like how he or she decided to search for “steak and cheese” and “poop” in the middle of his or her research…
August 7, 2006 at 3:18 pm
Why are you guys relying on non-public entities (i.e. corporations) to keep your data private? Haven’t you learned anything in the last 20 years? You give your phone number away once and you end up with telemarketers calling. Give your address away once and you end up with tons of credit card spam letters.
So why are you putting the onus on corporate search engines to keep your searches private? They could be selling them to other corporations for all you know. There’s nothing criminal about what they’ve done. It’s criminally stupid for you all to have trusted them in the first place.
August 7, 2006 at 3:21 pm
I am pleased to see that not everyone is jumping to the opinion that user 17556639 is a bad person planning on committing murder. There could be a number of explanations for the user’s search. We should not lose our privacy on the Internet, otherwise we could find ourselves living in an Orwellian world monitored by thought police ready to arrest us for thought crimes (if you haven’t already, read ‘Nineteen Eighty-four’).
August 7, 2006 at 3:26 pm
There was a Twilight Zone episode about a man who could hear the thoughts of others and who overheard the thoughts of a bank guard planning to rob the bank. He finally got the police to investigate but they turned up nothing. Later, the guard (an older gentleman) admitted that every day for many years he HAD been planning to rob the bank but it was an idle fantasy he never intended to act on. Beware seeing menace in the query habits of others. Some people just like to read about murders and dead bodies while noshing on cheese steaks.
August 7, 2006 at 3:29 pm
Hmm… why is everyone assuming that user was a male?
Maybe it’s a woman wanting to kill the bloke’s she’s sleeping around with’s wife!?!
Look between the lines rather jumping to conclusions.
This is exactly the reason why search data should be kept private.
It would be like scanning video store rental lists, and snooping on those that rent slasher flicks more than others…
August 7, 2006 at 3:32 pm
Didn’t any of you see minority report?
Do you really want to be found guilty of something
you haven’t done because someone else believes they can read your inentions?
Also.. this idea that if you aren’t doing anything wrong then why worry about
someone invading your privacy makes me want to vomit. My business is my business
until such time as I break the law.
August 7, 2006 at 3:33 pm
not sure why anything would or should change. i mean, this data may put to rest that the notion that the internet is just a place for Republican politicians to check out gay porn, but that doesn’t mean the government should have any more access to those crooked-ass politicians’ data. 4th amendment and all that. nothing different than people going into a bookstore and reading from books.
August 7, 2006 at 3:33 pm
What if it is the gov doing a spoof just to get this thing back on the radar…
August 7, 2006 at 3:45 pm
I’m a writer and research extremely weird topics, including torture. I spend lots of time at the Crime Library. Should I go to jail, or even be investigated, for my interests? This is nothing but Big Brother lurking. Cops suspect you of murder, or planning a murder. Let the goddamn cops do their job the right way, not looking at search engines with their hands on their asses.
August 7, 2006 at 3:47 pm
eh, teaches them to still be using aol
August 7, 2006 at 3:47 pm
fucking minority report, man…
August 7, 2006 at 3:49 pm
[...] Plentyoffish.wordpress.com has already begun to analyze the search data and is posting the results of his analysis. Some of the queries are downright disturbing. Specific posts include “Aol data shows users planning to commit murder”, “AOL data showing Myspace growing SEO spam” “Myspace killing dating sites“ [...]
August 7, 2006 at 3:51 pm
Well look at the fucking shit people are searching for! Dataminging and government surveillance are a good thing. Child porn stings rock. One by one, we’ll catch all of you sick fuckers. Lets look forward to more sex offender lynchings also. Fuck the privacy of any piece of shit that searches for stuff like that.
Whats more is that all you pathetic fearmongers and big bother conspiracy theorists are so way fucking off. Its all just a big distraction. My father, a vet from veitblackops, always told me…”no matter where you are, always remember somebody is looking at what you’ve been doing.” mainly in the early 70’s. Privacy has been gone for a long time, they are just starting to reel in the lines.
August 7, 2006 at 3:54 pm
This is ridiculous FUD. This guy could be an author trying to get ideas for a book. Maybe he’s a COP trying to find out how a married woman might have been killed by her husband. Maybe it’s a college student studying law writing a paper about murder.
It’s all out of context and you (most of you) are evil for not even realizing how destructive you are becoming over this topic. How can you even think to push an investigation or want to find out who this person is when you have no context. You could be ruining someone’s life.
Releasing personal information to anyone for any reason (even the government) without permission or warrant due to *real evidence* which this is not, is wrong. This country (USA) is going to facist hell at the speed of light.
August 7, 2006 at 3:55 pm
You know I read the post someone made about if you are not doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about. I will tell you what. Just for you let us take away your right to privacy here so the whole world cans see your searches. Do you ever search for your SSN#, phone number and/or name on line to see if it was posted without your consent? Do you ever worry your day care provider might be a child molester so you search for child molestation and the care takers name or their business name? Do you ever want to find ways to explain sex to your teen age daughter? Gee I wonder what those search terms might look like? Are you famous? Imagine if you type in the name of restaurant you want to go to and the word paparazzi to see if they are known to hang there. Let’s hope they do not see that? Oh, do you have a rare disease or maybe you are pregnant and are looking for clinic in your area so you type in your zip code? In a rural areas that might leave oh 1-30 people it could be? Oh, maybe you think your son is gay? I wonder what you would search for then? Do you have any fetishes or other unusual hobby that might be embarrassing for people to know about but is not illegal. Remember that rural issue again? Getting it yet, because I could go on and on. This is an personal invasion at its most basic level. Not only does it expose personal details of peoples lives, but it is open to wild misinterpretations. Take the wife killing search. Has anyone thought they were simply looking for news they had heard of on the topic, looking for a good book they had heard about with that topic whose title they could not remember, were a wife worried their husband was thinking about this, or maybe that it was exactly what they were looking for but it was only a private fantasy that let them cool off one day after an angry argument? Without context any term can seem scandalous or even criminal. Finally, there is the greater issue. When you start taking away more and more privacy. Each time you chip away at the greater fundamental concept that you deserve this right at all. Each time the barriers are weakened and easier to ignore. If the process goes unchecked eventually the concept will mean nothing at all. Hey try this, ask an adult what they think about metal detectors, random locker searches, drug sniffing dogs, drug tests and pats downs in schools. Now ask a child from a school that has done these things all their lives. You will see what this decay does to what they consider ok and normal. It is not rocket science to see this is a path we do not need to be heading down.
August 7, 2006 at 3:58 pm
google trends results for “kill wife”
http://www.google.com/trends?q=kill+wife&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all
August 7, 2006 at 3:59 pm
You are EXACTLY right Robert. The US government has somehow twisted everything the founding fathers believed in, and now we need to search for malevolent ideas.
And worst of all, the American people have fallen for it.
August 7, 2006 at 4:00 pm
Hmm, the simple fact here is that people are innocent until proven guilty, merely searching for something like this does NOT make you a criminal…
The privacy issues are staggering.
August 7, 2006 at 4:05 pm
[...] The Paradigm Shift » Blog Archive » AOL Search Data Shows Users Planning to commit Murder. So sometime last week AOL decided to release the seach history of all of their members…according to some estimates it’s more than 20 million searches by 500,000 users. Someone has gone through the database and located one particularly scary set of searches by one user. [...]
August 7, 2006 at 4:06 pm
In analyzing the comments on this blog, I hereby suspect that many people who have posted comments are considering doing very horrible things to their wives. Just look at all the terrible things they have written! Surely their ISPs have logs of this, and this warrants furthur investigation. Maybe I can look for patterns of other webblogs on which they have posted such atrocities. If enough evidence comes up in their ISP logs, I will feel morally obligated to warn their wives of this serious matter, so that they may have the opportunity to seek safety, or decide for themselves if their husband truly loves them, or if something more sinister is going on.
After all, if they’re really innocent, they have nothing to worry about, so why not check them out? I could warn the wives of all husbands posting such horrible things in the comments of this webblog that their husband recently has posted the following phrase: “…” (not repeated here, as I am morally pure and cannot even speak of the unmentionable phrases written here–besides, someone might take it out of context and think *I* was the one thinking it).
If nothing sinister is going on, then no one should object to this right? Those who object likely do so because they do not want to be found out. I should investigate them as well.
August 7, 2006 at 4:09 pm
All this happening on the verge of AOL canning it’s ISP service and going to a “content portal”. Nobody is going to use any of your free services AOL, because your trustworthiness if terrible.
If you give away your subscribers information, you damn well will give away your users who don’t pay!
August 7, 2006 at 4:10 pm
A lot of people has a sense of false security that their trace on the internet is anonymized. But isnt it. If the government can access logs from multiple search engines and cross index them, information will become even obvious. Now the data file is out on the internet, given enough people (the net), some more interesting findings will be discovered.
August 7, 2006 at 4:15 pm
This stinks
August 7, 2006 at 4:20 pm
Maybe I’m just too naive
but maybe that searches belong to Dan Brown who is planning his brand new bestseller. Does this make him a criminal? Every coin has two sides, and I think the presumption of innocency is one of the building stones of justice in a democratic land.
August 7, 2006 at 4:21 pm
Hello guys, I don’t see what the fuss’ all about.
Now, can anyone of you point me to places where I can find dead wife pictures?
August 7, 2006 at 4:25 pm
minor of file here
grubygrub.pininxweb.com/aol/
August 7, 2006 at 4:38 pm
How do you know that some of these people aren’t looking this stuff up for a school project or something like that?
August 7, 2006 at 4:47 pm
I think the creepiest part is that he searched for “poop” in the middle of this.
BUT, if someone posted a want ad looking for someone who “knew a thing or two about acing your wife” — don’ t you think that might warrant inquiry by the police? How is this any different?
August 7, 2006 at 4:47 pm
You have to make a lot of assumptions to believe that a series of searches reveal a person’s intent. Remember, “innocent until proven guilty”.
August 7, 2006 at 4:52 pm
What about the SSN and credit card numbers?
August 7, 2006 at 4:59 pm
Ok, but Steak And Cheese?
August 7, 2006 at 5:01 pm
Definitely sick but funny as well, note how the searcher after searching for all the death and murder related stuff actually got hungry and searched for “steak and cheese” —- lunchbreak before continuing haha
August 7, 2006 at 5:11 pm
I love the way that these dicks figure they know what people are really thinking because of what they type into a search engine window. The REALLY scary thing is not what these idiots searched for, but the fact that the government will try to put limits on the Internet and our rights because of retarded things like this web page.
August 7, 2006 at 5:12 pm
All –
This was a screw up, and we’re angry and upset about it. It was an innocent enough attempt to reach out to the academic community with new research tools, but it was obviously not appropriately vetted, and if it had been, it would have been stopped in an instant.
Although there was no personally-identifiable data linked to these accounts, we’re absolutely not defending this. It was a mistake, and we apologize. We’ve launched an internal investigation into what happened, and we are taking steps to ensure that this type of thing never happens again.
Here was what was mistakenly released:
* Search data for roughly 658,000 anonymized users over a three month period from March to May.
* There was no personally identifiable data provided by AOL with those records, but search queries themselves can sometimes include such information.
* According to comScore Media Metrix, the AOL search network had 42.7 million unique visitors in May, so the total data set covered roughly 1.5% of May search users.
* Roughly 20 million search records over that period, so the data included roughly 1/3 of one percent of the total searches conducted through the AOL network over that period.
* The searches included as part of this data only included U.S. searches conducted within the AOL client software.
Our apologies again.
Andrew Weinstein
AOL Spokesperson
August 7, 2006 at 5:14 pm
The absolute idiots on this message board that think someone typing in those things should be no hunted down and exposed should be hunted down, exposed and deported to China.
That could very easily be law enforcement looking for troublemakers by performing those searches or someone researching for writing a crime book, just morbid curiosity/goofing off or countless other reasons besides someone looking into committing a crime.
FUCK YOU, THOUGHT POLICE. DIE.
Read books like ‘1984′, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and LEARN from them.
I’m disgusted with you nazi morons…
August 7, 2006 at 5:15 pm
YES I agree it is truley shocking search data.BUT it is also none of MY business.It is only ANYONES business if this person is charged or suspected of an ACTUAL crime!!!!
August 7, 2006 at 5:24 pm
“Steak and cheese” is a site like rotten.com…
He probably saw an image with the steakandcheese.com watermark and was checking out the site.
… no lunch break…
August 7, 2006 at 5:25 pm
I’m with FOTA. I mean, for real. I know everytime I search for ANYTHING, it is being compiled and tagged. It is just the way things are done. Period. If we don’t like it, we can change it. But who is changing it other than the government and corporations making the rules in their favor?
August 7, 2006 at 5:32 pm
This is as bad as the guy who murdered that Oklahoma girl and blogged about his plans to eat her. Sad really sad.
August 7, 2006 at 5:35 pm
Troll. This might have been more meaningful if not for the gratuitous link back to your own site. Nothing to see here, move along. :p
August 7, 2006 at 5:35 pm
In case those poor hoodwinked Republicans haven’t noticed, the government _is_ monitoring internet usage. As well as your cell phone and land line usage. And they claim its all perfectly legal in the war against terror. Anyone complaining is labeled “pro-terrorist”. Anyone suing over this has their suits dismissed by some or another conservative judge.
Either get used to it, or get out and vote for someone who won’t stand for this kind of 4th amendment abuse.
Logically, though, the data is there. No one has any privacy, not even within their own homes. If you do evil stuff, you probably will get caught eventually.
For an interesting reference, read The Light Of Other Days, by Arthur Clarke and Steven Baxter.
August 7, 2006 at 5:42 pm
How can we assume that he was trying to kill his wife. We dont know the context of his search. Without that we cannot make any assumptions.
For example “what if he was a writer researching his new book - a murder mystery?”
This argument could be applied to any of these search incidents without presumption of motive.
August 7, 2006 at 5:46 pm
Department of Pre-Crime ala Minority Report.
_
August 7, 2006 at 5:52 pm
I found some stuff like “nsa job offering”, probably someone’s cover will be blown
August 7, 2006 at 6:06 pm
haha - a funny (hopefully fake) article I found that links to this one…
http://thesarc.blogspot.com/2006/08/aol-user-says-just-kidding-about.html
August 7, 2006 at 6:13 pm
[...] Remember back in January when Google got all that praise for resisting the federal government’s effort to collect a big batch of search queries for a separate case? Google got all sorts of praise for supposedly protecting the privacy of its users, even as many other companies turned over the data. Among those who turned over the data without question was AOL. Apparently, they’ve figured that, if the government has such data, why shouldn’t everyone else? Perhaps they just figured that the government was likely to leak the data anyway. No matter what the reasoning, they’ve decided to simply hand it out themselves for "research" purposes to anyone who might want it. SiliconBeat points us to someone who noticed the release of search logs from 500,000 unlucky AOL users. While the data had been made somewhat anonymous by replacing usernames with numbers, in plenty of cases the data is clear enough to work out who the user is. It seems that the outrage over this has convinced AOL to pull down the data, but plenty of copies are already out there. It’s really quite stunning, given the debate just months ago about the importance of Google protecting this data, that anyone at AOL would think it was a good idea to basically release the same exact type of data into the public, exposing the private searches of thousands. More… Here’s the original (I think this is the original article): http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~dangelo…ch-query-logs/ Here’s one AOL user that seems like he might be interested in murdering his wife. The Paradigm Shift Blog Archive AOL Search Data Shows Users Planning to commit Murder. If you want the list, here: AOL search data (that site can be found on digg and all of the other sites that had this story) [...]
August 7, 2006 at 6:14 pm
Notice that the would be killer is also a typical AOL idiot — he searched for a domain.
August 7, 2006 at 6:18 pm
[...] OPW — Aug 7 — Markus Frind, CEO of PlentyofFish.com, from his blog ‘The Paradigm Shift‘… [...]
August 7, 2006 at 6:35 pm
[...] Contained in this list were social security numbers, credit cards and other personal information. The list also revealed some frightening findings. [...]
August 7, 2006 at 6:36 pm
[...] Well, even when AOL tries to save face and look like its doing the right thing, they screw up. Shortly after freeing up their services, they posted 650,000 AOL users’ search results (over 20 million results/2 Gigs worth!). According to TechCrunch the data included all searches from each user over a three month period, whether they clicked on a result, addresses, social security numbers, names, essentially anything that you could possibly see yourself typing into search box. The Paradigm Shift got a hold of the data and posted some pretty screwed up searches as well. [...]
August 7, 2006 at 6:44 pm
Well the worlds full of strange people! No child porn shouldn’t beany where anytime on the net or any where else. 2nd offing your wife sites i can say shouldn’t be , either. But there is a retro -spec. with offing the wife. See there are lawyers out there, cia , fbi, even just a normal person who may have seen something happen and was just trying to get the information out . ican understand but most likely this information would be kept in a need 2 know site!
August 7, 2006 at 6:46 pm
… and sometimes a person wants to know how a person has past on , so they can try to not make it happen to them! ahhhh!
August 7, 2006 at 7:07 pm
I agree with robert
August 7, 2006 at 7:17 pm
Well it will be interesting to see if the rolls at aol decrease in number after/if this hits mainstream news…On the other hand these ARE aol member we are talking about right ;-0)
August 7, 2006 at 7:23 pm
What if the person is searching to write an article? what if that has nothing to do with his wife; what if he wasn’t married (it would be funny wouldn’t it?)
why don’t we look at it the other way around; know how to protect yourself by knowing how you might be harmed!
August 7, 2006 at 7:24 pm
[...] Translation: We meant to do this, but at the time we didn’t consider how the public would perceive it. The backlash stings, I tell you. If our left hand knew what the right hand was doing, we would have never done this. [...]
August 7, 2006 at 7:26 pm
Your silly conclusion illustrates why we should be more open and less willing to give up our personal liberties to the government for the sake of security. Searching for “dead people” or “how to kill my wife” is absolutely no indication that this user has homicidal tendencies. There’s no evidence that this person has a wife, or is even a man for that matter. It could easily be some 13 year old or group of 13 year olds (just guessing from the spelling and other searches) looking for crushed skulls on ogrish.com.
August 7, 2006 at 7:34 pm
Let the guy, who had defected a fascist country (Russia) for US to say a word… OK?
Tom Friedman said lately (I think it was in Charlie Rose interview):”We are one more 9/11 away from fascism…”
I disagree.
This juicy episode shows that we are already THERE! Congratulations!
What we see here is a INTENTIONAL LEAK! Nobody can convince me in the opposite. This whole situation has been made up. I’m not a paranoic, but this is just a SECOND step (the first one was courting Google for the same information). I know fascism and fascists very well, this is how they operate.
I would suggest the guys who speculate here about ‘intentions’ of other people based on this information TO STOP AT ONCE! NOW! This is you, who consume the information obtained by illegal means right now. This is you, who violate the rights of those people!
This is the main trap of fascism! Fascists make EVERYBODY to behave as criminals and in this way make all people criminals (consult memoirs of concentration camps guards! read what they say!).
Congratulations once again!
August 7, 2006 at 7:39 pm
Most likely the person that the excerpt pertains to has issues; however, there are other possibilities. For example, if I were writing a book and needed a plot — and the plot was the murder of a spouse — then I certainly would need to research such things.
I guess what I’m trying to point out is the danger in taking things out of context. There are plenty of authors that would take exception to people reading their minds, their search criteria, etc, and then burning them at the stake. (Isn’t that what we used to do?)
Also, consider the ramifications of intellectual property theft. Someone searches on their name, or some other personally identifiable information, and then uses search to aid in their work. Mining could conceivably give competitors insight into what companies are working on.
A person searching on information to commit a crime does not have to use the web…they can simply go to the library. Since the majority of us are just trying to live our lives, does it make sense to allow our every move to be tracked, processed, and analyzed for malicious behavior? Who sets the standard for what is right to “think” about and what is wrong to “think” about? What is wrong to search on…and what is right to search on?
August 7, 2006 at 7:43 pm
Maybe user 17556639 was looking for: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058212/
August 7, 2006 at 7:46 pm
[...] Check out the search history for user 17556639, most recent search is at the bottom of the list.. Does this look like the search history of a user wanting to do something bad? From the Paradigm Shift: 17556639 how to kill your wife 17556639 how to kill your wife 17556639 wife killer 17556639 how to kill a wife 17556639 poop 17556639 dead people 17556639 pictures of dead people 17556639 killed people 17556639 dead pictures 17556639 dead pictures 17556639 dead pictures 17556639 murder photo 17556639 steak and cheese 17556639 photo of death 17556639 photo of death 17556639 death 17556639 dead people photos 17556639 photo of dead people 17556639 www.murderdpeople.com 17556639 decapatated photos 17556639 decapatated photos 17556639 car crashes3 17556639 car crashes3 17556639 car crash photo [...]
August 7, 2006 at 7:48 pm
[...] http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2006/08/07/aol-search-data-shows-users-planning-to-commit-murder/ [...]
August 7, 2006 at 7:53 pm
ABSOLUTELY wrong of AOL to do this. That data should not be considered their property. It belongs, in bits and pieces, to the users that created it. They should not be selling or giving away that info. As for the privacy issues, they are numerous. Should the government, or anyone else, be able to see that I might be searching for Hezbollah? Perhaps I am doing a book report or want to investigate the crisis for myself. Why should I EVER have to justify my actions to some group or government agency because they think I might be a terrorist. Since I can not trust everything my current government tells me, or allows to be made public, I resort to my own investigations. AOL had no right doing what they did. This will only lead to users mistrust and therefore deceit upon setting up accounts. It was stupid and destructive to the American freedoms that our country is based upon.
August 7, 2006 at 7:54 pm
[...] Andrew Weinstein, een woordvoerder van AOL, vertelt in de comments (inclusief verontschuldigingen) van de plentyoffisch blog wat er precies vrijgegeven werd: [...]
August 7, 2006 at 7:59 pm
[...] s OPW — Aug 7 — Markus Frind, CEO of PlentyofFish.com, from his blog ‘The Paradigm Shift‘… [...]
August 7, 2006 at 7:59 pm
How long before the gov’t starts tracking all this data? It sounds like the minority report.
August 7, 2006 at 7:59 pm
[...] Read this article: http://research.aol.com released a list of 20 million + searches by 500,000 AOL users. Contained in this list are social security numbers, credit cards and other personal information. There are some truly scary things in this database. [...]
August 7, 2006 at 8:05 pm
The Lowlifes who want to kill their spouse, make a bomb, look at nekkid children, steal someone’s identity, and do any one of the hundreds of things that can now be accomplished in anonymity thanks to the Internet, should be at the same risk of detection as the ordinary scumbag had to undergo before Al Gore invented it, the Internet, that is. I think that search engine logs, of the same type that AOL recently used to step on it’s collective genitalia should be made available to the public as a matter of course. This fact should be advertised. P. S. A’ s should be made about it, both TV and radio. This would have the effect of driving the incipient scumbag back into his hole, deprived of the method of easily obtaining the information necessary to carry out his sculduggery. Therefore, criminal behavior would be limited, a little. Of course, there will still be stupidos who put their entire life history into a Google search. But nothing can be done about them. Fortunately, people who are that dumb usually don’t have anything worth stealing anyway.
August 7, 2006 at 8:11 pm
[...] I was over at Rose’s blog reading about AOL’s latest fiasco and I followed one of her links to this AOL Customer Service experience. [...]
August 7, 2006 at 8:33 pm
It would NOT be “cool” to identify the guy searching for how to kill his wife. This would destroy his life! Make access to the data as hard as possible. Do not share them on P2P, shut down the mirrors. Think.
August 7, 2006 at 8:38 pm
How much more can you milk a short story? Man, imagine someone having plans on writing a novel and looking for ideas, plots, and images in order to create a realistic story.
You’re wildly speculating, but hey, everything for a few hits.
August 7, 2006 at 8:42 pm
[...] I would be remiss if I didn’t comment (along with the rest of universe) on AOL’s apparently accidental release of 20 million+ searches by 500,000 AOL users. Markus over at The Paradigm Shift has some horrifying data on homicidal and suicidal intentions mixed in with all the research and buying intentions: This is the very data that google won a legal battle to keep from the government. What is going to happen to the search industry now? What are peoples privacy rights? If people are using AOL to search for ways of killing their spouse what should be done about it? [...]
August 7, 2006 at 8:43 pm
The Bush administration has proposed and is trying to force all ISPs to keep two years of data tracking all Americans’ searches and surfing.
Many in this discussion point out the dangers of taking search terms out of context. The government has shown it intends to do analysis of search terms and surfing tracks in a big way (if it is not already doing it).
I am sad for my country. Over two hundred years: thousands of brave men and women giving their lives for tbe freedom of us all, a painfully slow but glorious evolution towards equal and individual rights for all …
and within a few years, the combination of new technology and an authoritarian administration destroy it.
August 7, 2006 at 8:45 pm
[...] The Plenty of Fish weblog reveals some very concerning searches conducted by one AOL user. (Plenty of Fish is actually a dating site, so I have no idea why this guy is writing about it.) Makes you wonder what impression others could draw from your own searches if exposed in a similar way. Especially as a fiction writer and a naturally inquisitive person I’m certain I’ve searched some dubious terms over the years. Still, it’s hard to see the alternate potential explanations when you’ve got someone looking up, “killing your wife” and “steak and cheese” (Steak and Cheese is presumably a repository of images of corpses and the like, although I have no interest in validating the claims). Posted in Technology, Miscellaneous by Cineris at 1:45 pm Leave Your Comment [...]
August 7, 2006 at 8:51 pm
My Favortie part of his search history is the random cheese steak query in the middle of the all the death photos. Murderers gotta eat too! LOL
August 7, 2006 at 9:05 pm
I’d like to see a side by side comparison of AOL users searching for murder versus Google users searching for murder.
August 7, 2006 at 9:07 pm
The thing is, you can already see some of the htings people search for on google by watching apache logs. You can see the search words that brought people to your website from google there. Its kind of distrubing what you see in there once in a while. People really do search for things like “rape fuck sex” and “little girl fuck rape.”
August 7, 2006 at 9:10 pm
Not just checking search engine queries - I would like the government to have the capability of monitoring everyone’s thoughts, so that if anyone forms the intent to commit a crime, or has any immoral thoughts, they can be locked up before they do any harm.
August 7, 2006 at 9:10 pm
oh, and just to show what i’m talking about, here is the first thing grep snagged off of my logs.
68.46.29.15 - - [14/Mar/2004:19:38:27 -0800] “GET /Services.php HTTP/1.1″ 200 3510 “http://www.google.com/search?q=PHP+Sucks&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&start=10&sa=N” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)”
It also shows the IP of the machine reqeusting it, looks like this guy wants to know why we all thing PHP sucks. That person could ultimatly be tracked down if i had the time and will.
August 7, 2006 at 9:17 pm
2303405 has some interesting issues, too. :^)
August 7, 2006 at 9:18 pm
>if you don’t do anything wrong, then you have nothing to be afraid of - even if people can view your search history.
If this weren’t so scary, it would be funny. This entire concept was created by the government as a way to use guilt to get people to say things that are not in thier own best interests.
It is not what you have done “wrong,” it what the government says you have done wrong, or thinks you have done, or thinks you might do wrong in the future, or… Laws are intentionally written with a great deal of ambiguity, so no one person can say exactly what a law means. And, based on subjective interpretation, the resources of the government can align against you to “prove” that you did something “wrong” - not something you think was “wrong,” something they THINK was “wrong.”
The essential realization here is that the government is not benign, it is not here to help anyone but themselves and the government has never and will never be in the business of “helping” people. They are in the business of arresting, convicting, imprisoning and putting people to death. Cops and other government officials don’t get good performance evaluations, raises or promotions for making things safer, they get them for arresting people, whether a crime has been committed or not. Law enforcement and regulatory agencies are not proactive - they are not intersted in stopping things before they happen - they are entirely reactive. They wait until crimes have happened, or until they believe they happen, and then arrest/fine/control people. If there aren’t enough real crimes/regulatory violations/etc., they have to make them up to in thier own minds, (for example, Michael Jackson) in order to assure themselves a “good” career path and steady employment.
August 7, 2006 at 9:19 pm
Why was he searching for “steak and cheese”? Did all those pictures make him hungry or something?
August 7, 2006 at 9:31 pm
See the 1965 movie “How to Murder Your Wife” (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058212/), With Jack Lemmon and Virna Lisi. A cartoonist ends up on trial for murder because of a series of comic strips depicting the murder of his fictional character’s wife, and the fact that his own wife has disappeared.
Maybe this was just some would-be mystery/thriller novelist doing research?
What bothers me is the “steak and cheese” thrown in there. I’d have second thoughts about accepting a dinner invitation…
August 7, 2006 at 9:34 pm
Let’s step back a minute.
Presumeably, this whole collection is actually interesting and informative data
about peoples’ patterns of interest. Yes, the privacy violation of including any personally identifying searches is terrible, but that’s water under the bridge now.
Here’s a question. Are we, collectively, afraid of finding out what human beings are really like? What our statistical behaviour actually suggests, as opposed to what sanitized morality-focused religious “education” would have us believe about peoples’ nature?
The “shocked and appalled” tone of the responses certainly suggests that we are afraid of finding out the truth about ourselves. Some of the negative reaction is, justifiably, about the dumb release of identifying information,
but what of the rest of the negative reaction? Surely it would be fascinating to do some statistical socio-psychological research on this data, and other data like it, and find out answers to questions like “what are people interested in,
in general, and relatively how much are they interested in various topics, and various connections between topics. This would tell us a lot about the behaviour of the human animal. Are we ready to know these answers?
August 7, 2006 at 9:53 pm
There is actually a movie called “How to Murder your Wife”, before we jump to the most obvious conclusion.
The most obvious conclusion IS probably the right one, but I just searched for HTMYW the other day and don’t particularly want a knock on the door just because I enjoy Jack Lemmon comedies.
August 7, 2006 at 9:56 pm
“AOL Search Data Shows Users Planning to commit Murder.”
Ehm, no. While those searches appear weird, you don’t really know what that person’s thinking. It might just as well someone getting information on what is available on the Net on that topic. Or, now that those terms are out there, someone else trying to figure out what that user got as search results, retyping the terms.
August 7, 2006 at 10:30 pm
Hey, I got an idea! A Internet Explorer/Firefox plugin that publishes your internet searches to a website with your random user id. This is first recommeded for the people that say they ‘aren’t scumbag’ and ‘have done no wrong’
I have seen the enemy and he is us!
At what level does/should this monitoring occur. Should it target child molesters, murders, drug dealer? I can tell you this, if it works, that list will only grow… Political dissenters, small time tax evaders, inventors, homosexuals, jews? The problem with keeping these logs is that I nor You can predict the future. What is considered legal today may be the focus of tomorrows witch hunt. These logs should under no circumstances be kept.
Hypocrite? Me, no. I administer and run a few of my own websites. I do keep seach terms to see what is popular on my site, but I do not keep the time or referring ip address.
August 7, 2006 at 10:31 pm
The kid can’t even spell, sounds like a big turmoil over a childish search. Pathetic to release it, yes, even more pathetic to put that particular search as an example of anything worthwile.
August 7, 2006 at 10:33 pm
While the search terms are cumualitvely very creepy and potentially damning, this might also be a writer or researcher.
August 7, 2006 at 10:38 pm
Leaving aside the search terms themselves, it seems a very strange oversight that AOL could release this information without considering the consequences.
Their research site is timing out for me now. I guess the took it down, but once something’s on the Internet it doesn’t go away easilly. They’re too late if they want to try and prevent people from seeing these now.
August 7, 2006 at 10:42 pm
I think nearly all of us have, at one time or another, entered query terms like “lolitas” and
“child porn”. Not because we’re looking for the stuff, but because we’re wondering exactly
what the extent of the problem is. It’s fully expected that after a sensationalistic news
report about the horrors of porn on the net, that many, many users are going to go
look for themselves.
It is impossible to distinguish the millions of “innocent” searches for these terms from
the very, very rare cases where actual criminals are on the prowl.
It’s important to distinguish crimes from thought crimes.
August 7, 2006 at 11:02 pm
AOL’s privacy scam - A major turning point in the history of the digital age…
Why this inconceivable gigantic privacy abuse from AOL could be the definite Big Bang of the digital information age? Because it’s the biggest privacy nightmare which movies, books and futurologists were talking about. And it happened in the most famo…
August 7, 2006 at 11:10 pm
[...] read more | digg story [...]
August 7, 2006 at 11:22 pm
It was me. So what’s the big deal. She’s been wishing me dead for at least as long as I’ve been searching for ways to kill her. Let’s call it even.
August 7, 2006 at 11:30 pm
AOL is establishment and should not be trusted — especially these days.
August 8, 2006 at 12:17 am
Shocking stuff indeed! What is the World coming to?
August 8, 2006 at 12:20 am
[...] Now AOL users will have to worry about that information falling into the wrong hands. I would not be surprised at all if some idendity theft cases arise from this data. Also, what happens if a user was searching for terms that relate to drugs, child pornography, or even murder? Will they be getting a call from the Cops? Could this release of search data could create a “Minority Report”-like situation where people are arrested for crimes they were planning to commit? [...]
August 8, 2006 at 12:20 am
[...] Out of curiosity, I downloaded one search file, wow, somebody is a big fan of “Candice Michelle” (She is Godaddy.com Girl). From 1st March to 19th March, most of this seaches are going to porn sites or porn related search and wow he/she is one big searcher. He searched more then 5000 times . But I will end my curiosity here. But I am sure people would have more time and energy then I have to go through the log files. One other blogger mentions how he found an ID that searched for ‘murder’ related content. [...]
August 8, 2006 at 12:21 am
[...] Other bloggers were less bold-and-all-caps than Michael and Jason. Matt Marshall at Silicon Beat said he and the team were “cringing” and wonders if anyone else thinks “they’ve gone over the line with this.” (I’ll go ahead and answer for you: yes, lots of others do.) But mostly, people were just having fun analyzing the data. Lots of AOL users, evidently, want to “commit murder,” says Paradigm Shift. There’s a man in Fayetteville, NC who wants a girl who will pay for sex, says Jason Stamper. Someone wants to find a gay escort in Bombay, says Yeah, About That. [...]
August 8, 2006 at 1:10 am
Quite a bad thing to happen really! I wouldn’t be supprised if there aren’t law suits over this. I’d be taking action against my ISP if they did this with my info.
Too bad that the database is spreading all over the internet like wild fire!
Not had a chance to check it out get but will have a good look tomorrow.
August 8, 2006 at 1:32 am
[...] The plentyoffish blog presents one of the more frightening search histories released and admittedly it does seem like someone should be checking out user 17556639, but do we really have any idea why user 17556639 typed those words into a search engine? Maybe the user actually suspects someone else of the potential crime and is looking for information to confirm suspicions. Maybe the given AOL user had just gotten into a fight with his wife and those searches were away to let off steam. For all any of us know some of those searches are the name of some song by an obscure band. I agree the searches looking pretty incriminating, but it’s impossible to know for certain why those search queries made their way into AOL. [...]
August 8, 2006 at 1:35 am
Something people should be aware of:
http://tor.eff.org/
August 8, 2006 at 1:48 am
How long until some governemnt agency subpoenas AOL to find out who the child porn guy is, or who wanted to murder the wife? And if they can do it to AOL they just got reasons to do it to Google.
Let’s just suppose for a moment it was a science fiction writer doing research, or a phychology student researching something, or even more humorus NBC looking to set up and catch child touchers for the program.
AOL continues its path of utter destruction. I didn’t like them then, didn’t think they had an idea about the merger or worse would destroy the media they merged with (Let’s be thnkful they didn’t) and think their current plan is too stupid for words — now let’s just hope they go away soon.
August 8, 2006 at 2:15 am
[...] Some of the facts emerging about the AOL search query data they released is disturbing, and could have immense repercussions for all search engines. Andrew Weinstein of plentyoffish.com uncovered that one AOL searcher who searched for terms such as “how to kill your wife”, “wife killer”, and “how to kill a wife” among other disturbing searches. [...]
August 8, 2006 at 2:59 am
Those search words are shocking at first, however…Couldn’t it just as easily have been someone doing research for writing a cheesy thriller novel rather than someone who actually wants to kill his wife? Maybe that’s a fat chance, but still…
August 8, 2006 at 3:09 am
Markus,
I don’t think anyone has been arrested for JUST researching how to conduct terrorist attacks. Anyone can go search google for plans to build all kinds of bombs and they wont get arrested for doing so, and shouldn’t. Seeking knowledge is not a crime.
(Second attempt. I think the spam filter here is blocking my posts or something.)
August 8, 2006 at 3:11 am
[...] Markus Frind of Plenty of Fish has said that the personal search data includes some potentially disturbing info, such as a repeated search by one user for information on how to kill your wife. But how do we know that this person was actually looking to kill his wife? Maybe he’s writing a screenplay. He also apparently searched for “steak and cheese” and “poop,” or at least the same user ID did. What does that indicate about the user’s overall mental state? Probably nothing — although I’ve often thought that people who eat steak and cheese are inherently unbalanced and should be locked up for the good of society. [...]
August 8, 2006 at 3:13 am
[...] Plentyoffish.wordpress.com has already begun to analyze the search data and is posting the results of his analysis. Some of the queries are downright disturbing. Specific posts include “Aol data shows users planning to commit murder”, “AOL data showing Myspace growing SEO spam” “Myspace killing dating sites“ [...]
August 8, 2006 at 3:29 am
funny - my site used to rank #1 on Yahoo and I believe #4 on google for the search phrase “pictures of dead people”. I made an off-hand reference to a t-shirt I made using WWI photos that featured a picture of a dead french soldier who was executed for spying. I was getting hundreds of hits a month for that specific phrase coming from those search engines. I ended up referring them all to another site that actually had more graphic photos than what I had on my shirts….
August 8, 2006 at 3:34 am
if you belive you are not guilty ,.. just wait, the’ll make a new law agianst whatever it is your not guilty of sooner or later.
August 8, 2006 at 3:54 am
Markus,
No one gets arrested for JUST doing research. Even if that research is on how to build bombs or kill someone. Seeking knowledge is not a crime.
August 8, 2006 at 4:14 am
[...] #17556639: The guy who either killed or is seriously thinking of killing his wife and thinking about cheese steak. From The Paradigm Shift [...]
August 8, 2006 at 5:02 am
Well, for those of you who don’t feel like grepping through 2 gigs of files, here’s a site that makes things easier. http://www.aolsearchdatabase.com
August 8, 2006 at 5:06 am
Markus, nobody gets arrested in america for researching how to kill someone or how to blow something up, aka commit a terrorist attack. But people do get arrested when they hire a hit-man to take out their wife or plot with someone else to commit a terrorist attack. I don’t see a double standard, rather a struggle to maintain privacy.
August 8, 2006 at 5:06 am
My question is - what if someone is doing a research paper on “the mentality of a person who wants to kill their wife” or “why perverts post child porn” and they get busted for it. THEY DID NOTHING WRONG. Right? No, Not Right!
August 8, 2006 at 5:26 am
Move on, Folks! Nothing to see here here but a flock of paranoid overcaffeinated nutballs, each of whom thinks (s)he can read the minds of each and every one of us who surf the Internet. Keep moving, please.
August 8, 2006 at 5:49 am
Steak and Cheese is a gore site. The user clearly was looking for gore pictures, that means pictures of extreme violence, like accidents, deaths, etc.
That’s disgusting to most people, but not that unusual. It also does not allow by itself to draw any conclusions about this person. At best, the person has just found out about how sick the internet can be for the first time, and is just curious. At worst, the person really enjoys this kind of stuff.
I have actually used a gore site at one point myself—when looking for a video that is evidence of an US war crime in Iraq. The video was made from a helicopter gunship, and shows (in nightvision) how the US kills wounded enemies.
Anybody who thinks that the search terms above are evidence of a crime intent needs to take a good look at their own naivety.
August 8, 2006 at 7:06 am
[...] Punkt 1) muss jeder mit sich selbst ausmachen. Punkt 2) aber ist einfach nur grober Unsinn. Das zeigen die Verluste von Kundendaten bei hochangesehenen Banken in letzten Jahr ebenso deutlich wie der jüngste Fall bei AOL, wo einfach mal (zwar teils anonymisiert, aber doch noch offensichtlich genug) Daten der letzten drei Monate über die Suchanfragen bei AOL.com frei zum Download im Internet bekam. Und natürlich gibt’s die Daten auf zahlreichen Mirror-Sites immer noch. Ausführliche Informationen zu dem Thema hat Markus Frind in seinem Blog-Beitrag “AOL Search Data Shows Users Planning to commit Murder” geliefert (englisch). [...]
August 8, 2006 at 8:28 am
regarding 17556639, he could be writing a book for all you know.