If your house plumbing is leaking there is water going out where it shouldn’t be.

Yes. Correct. Personally Identifiable Information openly exposed on the internet is information going out where it shouldn’t be.

If your house is leaking, whether there’s someone out there with a cup doesn’t change whether your house is leaking or not. It only changes whether someone took your water ie. a breach

Data leak and data breach have specific definitions:

Data Leak vs Data Breach: What Is the Difference? While many use the terms “data leak” and “data breach” interchangeably, there is a difference between the two. A data leak often comes from within the organization either by accident or intent, while a data breach occurs when confidential or otherwise protected information is accessed, stolen, or used by outsiders without authorization. https://www.fortinet.com/resources/cyberglossary/data-leak

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/business/security-101/what-is-a-data-leak

https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/your-privacy-rights/data-breaches/what-is-a-data-breach

https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/data-leakage

https://www.trendmicro.com/en/what-is/data-breach/data-leak.html

This is a data leak. We don’t know yet if it’s a data breach. We might not know until active exploitation.

Given the lack of control on this data, and that it wasn’t fixed until the researchers told them about it, do you trust IDMerit to have the scrutiny on their logging to know if it was accessed externally? I don’t.

If your house plumbing is leaking, its not a leak to you unless you see it? How do you know it hasn’t been accessed?

Thankfully we don’t need to rely on your definition of a data leak: https://www.fortinet.com/resources/cyberglossary/data-leak

A data leak happens when an internal party or source exposes sensitive data, usually unintentionally or by accident.

This is sensitive data that’s accidentally been exposed on the internet. That is a leak. You are misinformed on what a data leak is.

It’s not misleading. A database of personally identifiable information being exposed on the internet is a data leak. Personally identifiable information is legally required to be protected, while an exposed database on the internet is about as far from ‘protected’ as you can get.

The article and title make no claim to active selling or known exploitation of the data, but to write this off as nothing would be a mistake. Are you sure that only the Cybernews team found it?

The Cybernews team discovered the exposed MongoDB instance on November 11th, 2025 and immediately notified IDMerit. The company secured the database by November 12th.

We don’t know how long it was exposed for prior to it being discovered on the 11th - it might’ve been that day, it might’ve been a few months.

That’s part of the trust problem though; when I have a $10 note in my pocket, I trust that it will still be $10 when I go to pay for my coffee later that day.

If I get $10 worth of Bitcoin out of an ATM in the morning, I don’t have that same faith in the afternoon. It might be $7, it might be $3, it might be $15,000. That volatility is exactly why I can’t trust it as my standard currency.

Sure did!

https://www.cnet.com/health/sleep/owners-of-luxury-smart-beds-literally-lost-sleep-due-to-aws-outage/

Oh my god, I totally missed that. Amazing lol Thanks for that!

Would you mind elaborating on why this is your favourite? I tried to find some context for it but all I can really seem to find is the quote itself.

That’s a perfectly healthy & grounded view, my friend. :) Apologies if I came across as pushy or like something that “should” be done. It’s awesome that it doesn’t impact your daily life!

Drugs are certainly an adventure and hit everyone differently. Sometimes the adventure is life changing, be it bad or good.

Wishing you the best too! Hope it’s been, and continues to be, an awesome night. Thanks for the wholesome exchange <3

Hey, just in case you haven’t heard this before - maybe book an ADD/ADHD test if some of the indicators resonate with you.

I have a diagnosed friend who also said the same thing about stimulants not having the expected effect. It’s apparently common for drugs like cocaine and MDMA in people with ADHD.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/cocaine-and-adhd

https://theforgerecovery.com/mdma-and-adhd-understanding-the-effects-on-neurodivergent-individuals/

Or she was one of 500,000+ tech workers that lost their job between 2022-2024.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilsayegh/2024/08/19/the-great-tech-reset-unpacking-the-layoff-surge-of-2024/

“An Eagle never misses” though. Tough choice.

Nah, it’s older than that, it’s 1-2 episodes ago. The first episode of this season was in July, and the Master Debater episode was early August. The last one was about City Popup Store, Labubu, exploitation/manipulation of children via social media, and tariffs

Given the Master Debater episode and the events of this week, the next episode is probably going to be wild!

Context is important.

“I want to thank my fellow Utahns. You know, this bad stuff happens. And for 33 hours, I was praying that if this had to happen here that it wouldn’t be one of us — that somebody drove from another state, somebody came from another country. Sadly, that prayer was not answered the way I hoped for — just because I thought it would make it easier on us, if we could just say, ‘Hey, we don’t do that here,’ and indeed, Utah is a special place. We lead the nation in charitable giving. We lead the nation in service every year. But it did happen here, and it was one of us.

One of us = a Utah resident.

https://www.sltrib.com/news/2025/09/12/read-watch-what-gov-spencer-cox/

I watched the press conference (admittedly at about 1am) and I don’t remember hearing him say this. I’ll watch it again today.

The majority of his talk was around walking back violence and not responding to hate with hate. The only thing I really faulted him on was claiming that there was only one person responsible: the shooter. This completely absolves Kirk (and his ilk) of the divisiveness the fuckwit(s) caused, and the path to fascism that they’ve helped build.

Some of the things he claimed Kirk said to him are odd for a guy that believes empathy is made up, but who knows how much of this was an act for Kirk vs actual beliefs. In reality, it doesn’t matter - the resulting radicalised youth and increased divisiveness is the same either way.

Edit: Think I found it. Context is important.

“I want to thank my fellow Utahns. You know, this bad stuff happens. And for 33 hours, I was praying that if this had to happen here that it wouldn’t be one of us — that somebody drove from another state, somebody came from another country. Sadly, that prayer was not answered the way I hoped for — just because I thought it would make it easier on us, if we could just say, ‘Hey, we don’t do that here,’ and indeed, Utah is a special place. We lead the nation in charitable giving. We lead the nation in service every year. But it did happen here, and it was one of us.

https://www.sltrib.com/news/2025/09/12/read-watch-what-gov-spencer-cox/