"No credit-card numbers were in the stolen data, just names, addresses, [social-security numbers]; all the info needed for a thief to open new accounts using your identity," Ouch, that hurts! - Nenad Nikolic via Alert Thingy

Argh, it kills me how frequently this sort of thing happens and yet there's no legal requirement (or enforcement teeth) to force use of encryption, nor to limit SSN data to a need-to-know basis. Victims can really be hosed in these situations while the org gets at most a brief wristslap and reputation hit for that newscycle. - Casey

Btw, for those of you exposed by this incident, you can go a step stronger than a credit alert and put a credit freeze in place. You will need to file a police report, but the credit freeze can stay in place (at your discretion) for up to 7 years and would require a call to you verifying any application for credit before it can be granted. Slight nuisance factor possible in terms of you might not be able to stroll into mobile/Apple store and get instant gratification signing up for new account, but - Casey

at least it's stronger protection and peace of mind. There's a helpful privacy rights clearinghouse / advocacy group that has advice here: http://www.privacyrights.org/f... My old links for the FTC guide 404. Good luck, I've been in your shoes and it's a pain in the arse. - Casey

If this affected you then you should have been contacted by Google already about taking steps to protect yourself. - Adewale Oshineye

Google did not contact me. Have any former employees been contacted? - Chris White

Not so coincidentally, I wrote up a guide to protecting and checking on your credit record here: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/... - Matt Cutts

Apparently all affected employees and ex-employees have been contacted. - Adewale Oshineye

Viacom did it! - Andy Murdoch

Chris: asking around, I know a few affected current and ex-employees that still have not been contacted yet. - Simon

I love Fishing! - Igor The Troll

Twitter Whale in Fail Heaven! lol - Igor The Troll

This is so sad! @Scobelizer would never harpoon FailWhale. They are simbiotic! One may not be able to exist without the other. Ahab would no longer have his purpose! - Fail Whale Groupie

He's going to crush those poor little birds! Tweetsplat! - Liz

This is Going to become the most popular thread on FF. We even have the Fail Whale Groupie! LOL - Igor The Troll

Hilarious. Being pulled down into doom by devil birds? - Josh Lowensohn

I just checked my domain stats and this baby is very popular! Go Twitter Fail Whale! lol - Igor The Troll

Twitter Whale Fail Alert Defcon 3 - Igor The Troll

Twitter still FuckedUp! Can someone just Shoot the Whale... - Igor The Troll