A man buys a “new” hard drive from eBay, only to find it contains personal data of members of the Arkansas Democratic Party.
Drive with US Political Party Data Sold on eBay.
Imagine Bill Ries-Knight’s surprise when he purchased a supposedly new hard drive on eBay only to discover it contained information from the Arkansas Democratic Party.
As it that weren’t bad enough, Ries-Knight, who lives in Stockton, Calif., said none of the information was encrypted and only a small amount of it was password protected.
In a telephone interview, Ries-Knight, a computer technician, said that while he didn’t look at all the files on the drive, he did determine that the data included the private cell phone numbers of Democratic members of Arkansas’ congressional delegation as well as of financial contributors to the party, including U.S. Sens. Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, as well as U.S. Reps. Marion Berry, Mike Ross and Vic Snyder.
Ries-Knight provided Computerworld with screen shots of the hard drive as well as other information documenting his claims.
After he discovered the information on the hard drive, he conducted his own investigation and determined that it came from a defunct computer once owned by Bruce Sinclair, the director of Arkansas’ Democratic Party. Ries-Knight then called Sinclair to make sure his computer had not been stolen. It had not, Ries-Knight was told.
