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back to article Uber: Sorry we're really awesome and all that (oh yeah, and for leaking your personal info)

Taxi cab app maker Uber left its list of customers' lost belongings wide open to the internet – exposing phone numbers and other personal info in the process. The privacy snafu, revealed and corrected this week, marks the latest controversy for the San Francisco-headquartered upstart. Vice reports the internal Uber document …

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  1. dan1980

    ". . . reconnect with belongings left behind after a trip."

    Oh dear. Looks like someone in PR is drinking way too much of their 'sharing economy' Kool-Aid.

    The phrase they are looking for is: "recover their belongings". "Regain" or "retrieve" would work equally well.

    12 0 Reply
    1. tin 2
      Reply Icon

      you'd better "reach out" to them to let them know

      2 0 Reply
  2. Robert Helpmann??
    Childcatcher

    Spear Phishing Opportunity!

    Scores of items reported missing by Uber passengers... were listed alongside the names and phone numbers of the customers and their drivers...

    “Uber’s Lost Items feature has helped thousands of riders reconnect with belongings left behind after a trip."

    "Dear Sir/Ma'am,

    We have recovered your lost $item in one of our cabs. However, the owner of the vehicle is on vacation in another country. To have your $item sent to your location, please send $6.43 for shipping and handling to the following account..."

    5 0 Reply
    1. Trigonoceps occipitalis
      Reply Icon

      Re: Spear Phishing Opportunity!

      Unless we are really, really busy in which case it will be $15.95.

      1 0 Reply
  3. John Tserkezis

    "We are looking into exactly how that happened so that it does not happen again."

    Not keeping it stored as an Excel spreadsheet on a web-accessable folder, and also not on your employee's USB thumb drives would be start.

    10 0 Reply
    1. solo
      Reply Icon

      False Pride

      The real issue, I feel these days is, all the innovative start-ups based on IT infra think they are 'IT start-ups' and feel obliged to keep all their internal infrastructure on the edge (connected to the web).

      I'd not be surprised if the person maintaining this sheet would also be the handler of the (lost & found) inventory.

      1 0 Reply
      1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: False Pride

        The real issue, I feel these days is, all the innovative start-ups based on IT infra think they are 'IT start-ups' and feel obliged to keep all their internal infrastructure on the edge (connected to the web).

        And think that because they have some programmers who know a bit about one area of IT ("I can make an iOS app!"), they don't need actual system administrators, a CIO, data-handling policies, etc.

        0 0 Reply
  4. Mark 85
    Facepalm

    The stupidity is never surprising.

    What is surprising is the amount of it.

    2 0 Reply
    1. dan1980
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      Re: The stupidity is never surprising.

      No, not even that. Or do you not get out much mate?

      : )

      3 0 Reply
  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why would they webpost this even by mistake?

    Don't you have to register an email address / phone number just to use this service...? Use those options instead Uber, no?

    Lost items are one true advantage these cab sharing-economy services have, because most of the time there's no way to track down stuff left behind in taxis...

    1 0 Reply

  6. This post has been deleted by its author

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "compiled into an Excel spreadsheet that was accidentally shared "

    It looks they don't use their "hyperconvergent cloud based technology" for everything... and hire the usual clueless user who needs to copy data into a spreadsheet to use them...

    0 0 Reply
  8. Sgt_Oddball

    Shirley you can't be serious?

    It'd take me 5 mins to knock a new table up and an hour or so to put together a Web page as part of the internal system for this sort of thing. Its childs play and smacks of amateur hour levels of stupidity.

    And the wife wonders why there's not a barge pole big enough for me to touch them with.

    0 0 Reply

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