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Re-Identification Risks and Myths, Superusers and Super Stories (Part II: Superusers and Super Stories)

Posted on September 6, 2012July 2, 2025 by Dissent

Here’s a snippet from Part II of Daniel Barth-Jones thoughtful commentary on re-identification studies (Part I can be found here):

In part 2 of this essay, I address the broader issues of how privacy law scholars and policy-makers should evaluate various scenarios being presented as motivators for the need for potential privacy regulations. Fortunately, Professor Ohm in earlier work has written another very compelling and astute paper from which we can draw some useful guidance for such approaches.  In his paper, Ohm cautions public policy makers to beware of the “Myth of the Superuser”. Ohm’s point with regard to this mythical “Superuser” is not that such Superusers – just substitute “Data Intruders” for our interests here – do not exist. Ohm isn’t even trying to imply that the considerable skills needed to facilitate their attacks are mythical. Rather, Ohm is making the point that by inappropriately conflating the rare and anecdotal accomplishments of notorious hackers with the actions of typical users we unwittingly form highly distorted views of the normative behavior which is under consideration for regulatory control. This misdirected focus leads to poorly constructed public policy and unintended consequences.

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