This particular FOI request
needed more chokey-points.
Prison authorities in Ohio, US, mistakenly provided the social security numbers of thousands of inmates to a man convicted of identity theft. The Mansfield News Journal says it was directly contacted by Lonny Bristow, who said he was sent the social security numbers of more than 2,000 prisoners when he made a public records …
Not all identity theft is about applying for credit in someone's name. If you were an illegal immigrant who wanted to use someone else's social security number to get a job, you couldn't do better than a prison inmate's number - you don't have to worry about him getting a job and raising red flags when there are W2s for full time jobs in two different states.
"I knew I had to turn it into the media, I actually am truly done with the criminal life. Life's too short. I could've used those Social Security numbers to open a credit card account but I didn't."
nice to see that telling the media is no 1, not telling them they sent you the wrong info!
Yeah, because based on this guy's past, the authorities wouldn't have made him a scapegoat and used that to sweep the whole affair under the rug.
In a completely fair world, it's reasonable to expect the accidental receiver of a leak to contact the sender before going completely public, and work out some kind of productive narrative that improves security in the future; in this case the balance of power is completely unfair.