People whose private information appears in a web response have a stake in knowing promptly. They also have a stake in preventing that information from becoming easier to find. The Cloudflare incident disclosed on February 23, 2017 put those obligations in tension: the company reported private data in responses and said some had been stored by search engines. [cf]

Cloudflare explained that it delayed public announcement while working to remove exposed material from search caches. Its stated concern was that disclosure could help others look for sensitive information. That rationale deserves examination as an account of protective intent, not acceptance as proof that the chosen timing was best or that all people at risk had been adequately served. [cf]

Bitsight supplied a limit to that rationale on February 24. The security vendor warned that unknown caching services and historical archives might retain copies. It did not demonstrate that a particular archive still held a particular person’s information. But its warning leaves an ethical difficulty: if complete removal cannot be established, cleanup alone cannot supply an unambiguous moment when notice becomes safe. [bitsight]

For interfaith and secular discussion, we propose a short decision record: identify whose agency depends on notice, explain the specific risk of additional exposure, and state which uncertainties remain. Give responsibility for revisiting the decision to a named role. This is an editorial standard of care, not a religious consensus or legal rule. Respect for dignity requires considering both the people waiting for information and the people a careless announcement might expose again. [cf][bitsight]

Source documents

  1. Last Friday,https://blog.cloudflare.com/incident-report-on-memory-leak-caused-by-cloudflare-parser-bug/
  2. Cloudbleed: Breakdown of Cloudflare's Memory Leakhttps://www.bitsight.com/blog/cloudbleed-breakdown-of-cloudflares-memory-leak