The Transportation Security Administration’s No-Fly List is one of the most important ledgers in the United States, containing as it does the names of people who are perceived to be of such a threat to national security that they’re not allowed on airplanes. You’d have been forgiven then for thinking that list was a tightly-guarded state secret, but lol, nope.

A Swiss hacker known as “maia arson crimew” has got hold of a copy of the list—albeit a version from a few years ago—not by getting past fortress-like layers of cybersecurity, but by...finding a regional airline that had its data lying around in unprotected servers. They announced the discovery with the photo and screenshot above, in which the Pokémon Sprigatito is looking awfully pleased with themselves.

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    • silent_water [she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      csvs are just text files that can be interpreted with some minimal syntax. but they're still plain-text.

        • silent_water [she/her]
          ·
          2 years ago

          file extensions are a convention lol. you can just change it to whatever you like. content and interpretation are left up to the reader.

          • dat_math [they/them]
            ·
            2 years ago

            sure, but are you out there renaming your csvs to silent_waters_csv.txt?

            • silent_water [she/her]
              ·
              2 years ago

              I don't follow why the extension matters in the slightest. text files are ASCII or UTF encoded. that's it.

              • dat_math [they/them]
                ·
                2 years ago

                Agreed. I don't understand why you're so passionate about pointing out the lack of difference in the distinction