Here's some fun for you

[margaretc.livejournal.com]

Things you should NOT put on open servers:
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/09/06/how_to_find_confiden.html

Comments

[goose-entity.livejournal.com]

not so much "headdesk" as "headchainsaw"!

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

Notice how everything is a pdf or powerpoint file. What kind of people deal with powerpoint all day long?

[plutherus.livejournal.com]

Heh. Looking at the one from my company, it's the powerpoint slides from a presentation at a public forum a few years ago.

The story here isn't that there are so many "confidential" things available online, but that so many documents are marked "Confidential" when in reality they're nothing of the sort.

"Copyright - Do not distribute" would have made more sense. They want the document to be publicly available, but only through them.

That, and the template they use has "confidential" already stamped on it, so nobody bothers to analyze whether it really is or not. Which, of course, dilutes the meaning of confidential so it would be more likely that real confidential info gets out there accidently, but nothing like this story would make it seem.

[manuka.livejournal.com]

From the looks of the results, network equipment sales weenies and health care droids.

[margaretc.livejournal.com]

You're making the logical fallacy of assuming that because something is true for one, it is true for all. (This is how prejudice works, by the way.)

I'm quite certain that this document was not meant to be seen by the public: http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:IDEF_YKStUgJ:www.fda.gov/ohrms/DOCKETS/dockets/05n0404/05N-0404-EC2-Attach-1.doc+confidential+%22do+not+distribute%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=16

or this one...
http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:47a7WUqSfZIJ:www.sanasecurity.com/common/files/security_alerts/Security_Advisory_rootkit_hearse.pdf+confidential+%22do+not+distribute%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=17