Hackers Post 1M Danish Government Business Records to Net
One million records from a business database maintained by the Danish government were posted to the Internet Sunday by an unknown hacker. In a message posted to The Pirate Bay website, the hacker declared the records were being exposed on the Internet as a protest against the government using public funds to process the records in question, then charging the public to access them.
The Danish records were available via a Bittorrent file and posted to the pirate website. The records were not remarkable when it comes to content, rather they contain snapshots of Danish companies, according to the hacker. The database can be browsed at the government's Central Business Register website, but is "not available in bulk unless you purchase a license."
The hacker said that the records were "obtained during the summer of 2011 by systematically harvesting data from the public parts of the [government] website." According to a translation of the website provided by the Danish government, the register contains primary data on all public and private businesses in Denmark, regardless of economic and organizational structure.
