Cabcharge trip logs exposed by security-free database probe

Researchers from Risk Based Security have Shodanned up a Cabcharge database that was running without security. The taxi fee monopoly has lurched into damage control, telling the Sydney Morning Herald it's contacting the 3,400 Cabcharge Fastcard holders whose details were left lying around in public. RBS's post says the …

[glen waverley]

Not only threat of identity theft...

... name, pickup, dropoff location ...

That could also lead to personal safety risks, depending on how precise that info is. Hopefully it is just the usual lazy-arse data such as "office" or "suburb"* that shows on receipt, rather than eg GPS data. And as Chirgo hints, might be historical as well as current data.

Even name of employer (as cardholder) instead of name of passenger could be useful info to tie to addresses..

* The words office or suburb, not the actual name of the office or suburb. I think these are buttons on the cabcharge box in the vehicle.

[cbommm]

It would be fun to identify all the trips where the cab driver took the long route.

[Winkypop]

Easy

ALL OF THEM!

[Magani]

Douglas was prescient

Cabcharge: "A bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes."

Substitute 'greedy and monopolistic' for 'mindless', and it's pretty close.