DOCUMENT: Celebrity

Site Exposed More Than Paris Hilton

Online security breach revealed subscriber list, credit card info

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Site Exposed More Than Paris Hilton

JUNE 13--The operators of an X-rated Paris Hilton web site exposed the credit card numbers and identities of about 750 subscribers who signed up after the site recently returned online in the face of a federal court injunction, The Smoking Gun has learned.

After a tip from a visitor who read TSG's June 11 story about the re-launching of the site, parisexposed.com, a reporter was able to easily access the subscriber list by changing a few characters in the web address for the site's sign-up page. Included in the lengthy list are a subscriber's name, e-mail address, password, phone number, mailing address, and credit card number.

On the following pages you'll find a printout of the list, which we've blurred to obscure all confidential information.

The document includes personal information on subscribers who, over the past two weeks, have paid a "re-launch special" price of $19.97 for a 30-day subscription to the site, which is stocked with explicit home videos and photos of the imprisoned heiress. After TSG sent an e-mail to parisexposed.com this morning, the list--which appears to have been available for weeks--was removed from the site six hours later.

It is unclear, of course, if anyone else noticed the security breach, which exposed confidential information on subscribers (one of whom is the son of a famous TV news personality) from across the U.S. and 27 foreign countries. (6 pages)