Perhaps I have security breach fatigue, but I am somewhat fed up with the usual "emails stolen" headline. An address and a name are by definition publicly available records. You can steal them simply by walking down the street and taking down mailbox names (or requesting these records from the city hall).

Of course the fact that these names are Bell's customers gives someone one more bit of information, but again not necessarily private information. My name is on the doorbell buzzer in a densely populated area, which is also served by a single phone company. Once again, the information is kind of public by default.

Perhaps what we need is a more thorough discussion about boundaries between public and private activities. For example, shopping seems to fall into the gray zone between these ideas. I do not usually have the expectation of privacy when I shop. Should I then be surprised that my local mart shares my shopping details with third parties?

On the other end of the spectrum we hold onto truly private information like security tokens or private keys (both real and virtual) with much more zeal. Those we do not share with random strangers, much less large corporate entities. And when we do, as when I give my house keys to a cleaning company, we sign a legally binding agreement which mentions things like "bonds and insurance" against potential damages or breaches of security.

I am happy to accept either one of those realities, depending on the situation. But let's at least understand where we stand before the outrage.