It's not often you get to have a good old belly laugh in this job. Not unless you find the likes of front bus ends and clocks speeds particularly hilarious, in which case I'd recommend psychiatric help, or working for one of our competitors. But the recent AOL debacle raised a few titters around the office and even teased a smile out of the most stony-faced, seen-it-all, heard-it-all hacks on the team.

Apart from adding fuel to another data breach roundup story (of which we could probably do one a quarter on Ernst & Young alone) the AOL data breach, or rather information disclosure mistake, revealed the internet's dirty, sordid underbelly in all its seedy glory.

Better than fiction, this was: judging by this particular set of search terms, one female AOL user in New Hampshire seems to have been involved in a bad relationship and so decided to find solace in the arms of another woman… and God:

• revenge tactics
• the woman's book of revenge
• dirty tricks for chicks
• how to humiliate someone
• how to get revenge on an old lover
• i hate my ex boyfriend
• how to really make someone hurt for the pain they caused to someone else
• advice from women who have seeked revenge on old lovers
• makehimsuffer.com
• how to say goodbye hurtfully
• free articles on gay life that can be mailed to me
• free christian things
• free gay magazines
• free angry stuff to send to an ex lover
• how to permanently delete information from your hard drive
• makehimpay.net
• women's harley davidson boots
• the worst thing to send someone via email
• thong dancewear
• locatecell.com
• what can i do to an old lover for revenge
• mean revenge tactics
• death records in hampstead new hampshire

Another has road safety "issues" and might have problems finding suitable mates:

• cocaine in urine
• asian mail order brides
• states reciprocity with florida
• florida dui laws
• extradtion from new york to florida
• mail order brides from largos
• will one be extradited for a dui
• cooking jobs in french quarter new orleans
• will i be extradited from ny to fl on a dui charge

Privacy activists had complained that although usernames were omitted, the data could have ID’d some of the users in question. I can quite believe that, unless there are a lot of horse-fancying motorbike enthusiasts living in Pennsylvania... well, on second thoughts, maybe that was bad example:

• homes for sale in pa
• where to get certified nurse plate license
• homes for sale in morgantown pa
• legends night club reading pa
• beasteality
• inceststories.free-beastiality.name
• hourse f***ing free
• progressive motorcycle insurance
• circumsize pictures
• all inclusive trip to las vegas
• mustang svo 2.3 fuel pressure
• mustang cobra chrome roll bar
• beastiality
• harley performance cafe
• mustang sally gentlemans club

I'm sure there was a serious point in here about privacy and the amount of our information search vendors should be able to keep and use for their own purposes, but I'm afraid I couldn't see it for the tears of laughter.