Hacker Posts Stolen Data Of Six Million Chileans

An unidentified hacker posted personal information of more than six million Chileans on the Web after breaking into two popular government databases and stealing information, in what he claims was an effort to demonstrate the poor state of security in Chile.

The stolen data was located on sites run by the state-owned electoral agency, and Chile's Education Ministry.

Altogether, the hacker posted identifying data including names, telephone numbers, addresses, ID card numbers and academic records on two Web sites. The data appeared on IT site FayerWayer and community blog site ElAntro.com, a Chilean blog site dedicated to technology issues, according to the El Mercurio, the newspaper that first broke the news.

The data was displayed for several hours over the weekend on two popular Web sites before it was removed. The hacker said on the Web sites that he posted the data "for the whole world to seeand to "show how unprotected personal data is in Chilenobody bothers protecting that information."

Police commissioner Jaime Jara told the media that police were currently investigating the attack.

The attack was the second of its kind within the last two weeks. Earlier this month the Italian tax office posted tax details of every Italian on a Web site and made them available to the public. Altogether, the Italian agency listed names, addresses, dates of birth, declared income and taxes paid.

Government officials said that they published the tax details to reduce tax evasion by allowing an atmosphere of transparency with accessible circulation of information.

The information was pulled from the site in response to public outcry from Italian privacy and consumer groups, who claimed that the move was in violation of Italian privacy laws.