#PII Masking

[performix]

Performix, a leading name in Web3 development, specializes in AI-enhanced decentralized applications, secure digital ecosystems, and scalable blockchain solutions. Whether it’s Web3 security, AI-powered learning platforms, or decentralized finance, Performix delivers innovative solutions tailored to business needs. 

[surekhatechnology]

Protecting Sensitive Data with PII Masking in Liferay DXP

Discover how Liferay Portal implementation enhances personal data security for financial institutions through effective PII masking. Learn about the benefits, strategies, and best practices for protecting sensitive information while ensuring compliance with privacy regulations.

[innovativeroutinesinternational]

Safeguard Sensitive Information with PII Data Classification and Data Masking

In the current digital environment, safeguarding sensitive information has become increasingly vital. With the exponential growth of online interchanges and data exchanges, ensuring the security of personal and confidential data is essential to prevent unauthorized access and protect against potential threats. Organizations across industries prioritize PII data classification and masking to mitigate security risks, ensure regulatory compliance, and maintain customer trust. These processes empower businesses to effectively identify, categorize, and secure personally identifiable information (PII), reducing the likelihood of breaches. Companies can enhance their data privacy strategies by employing robust techniques and building robust defenses against cyber threats.

This blog explores the significance of PII data classification and masking, showcasing their role in safeguarding sensitive information while maintaining operational efficiency.

Understanding PII Data Classification

PII data classification is the foundation of a solid data protection strategy. It involves categorizing personal data based on its sensitivity, enabling organizations to apply the appropriate levels of security. By identifying what qualifies as PII—such as names, Social Security numbers, or email addresses—companies can streamline their efforts to protect such information.

Benefits of PII Data Classification

Enhanced Data Visibility: Knowing where PII resides helps organizations maintain control over their data.

Regulatory Compliance: Industries governed by regulations like GDPR, CCPA, or HIPAA require a precise classification for legal adherence.

Risk Mitigation: Proper classification ensures high-risk data receives stringent protection, reducing the impact of potential breaches.

Without classification, sensitive data can remain unnoticed, leaving it vulnerable to exposure. This step ensures that security measures are proactive and aligned with organizational goals.

What Is Data Masking and Why Is It Essential?

Data masking, often paired with PII data classification, is a technique that obscures sensitive information while preserving its usability for authorized operations. This approach replaces accurate data with fictional yet realistic substitutes, ensuring the original values remain hidden.

Why Businesses Rely on Data Masking

Data Security: Masking prevents unauthorized access to sensitive information, even in testing or development environments.

Preservation of Data Utility: Unlike encryption, which renders data unreadable, masking allows continued use of data for non-production tasks.

Compliance Support: Data masking aligns with privacy laws, safeguarding customer data without disrupting operations.

For example, a retail company might mask customer credit card numbers during application testing. The masked data ensures sensitive information is inaccessible, reducing the risk of exposure while enabling seamless application development.

PII Data Classification and Data Masking: A Powerful Combination

While each process is valuable, combining PII data classification and data masking creates a comprehensive data security framework. Together, they offer an end-to-end solution for managing sensitive data throughout its lifecycle.

Key Advantages of Using Both Techniques

Holistic Protection: Classification identifies sensitive data, while masking ensures security in various environments.

Operational Efficiency: Masked data can be used for analytics, training, or software development without compromising security.

Scalable Solutions: These techniques grow with the organization, adapting to evolving data management needs.

For instance, financial institutions often employ both methods to protect customer information while running advanced analytics. This dual approach minimizes vulnerabilities and optimizes resource use.

Best Practices for Implementing PII Data Classification and Data Masking

Assess Your Data Landscape: Conduct audits to identify all PII in your systems.

Leverage Automation: Use automated tools for consistent classification and real-time masking.

Ensure Cross-Department Collaboration: Foster communication between IT, compliance, and business teams for unified implementation.

Regularly Update Strategies: Your security measures should adapt as data and regulations evolve.

Adopting these practices ensures that your organization meets current security standards and stays ahead of emerging threats.

Conclusion

Organizations striving to protect their sensitive information must consider the importance of PII data classification and masking. Together, these techniques fortify defenses against data breaches, ensure observance of privacy regulations, and build trust among customers and stakeholders. By embracing these essential strategies, your organization can confidently navigate the challenges of modern data security while safeguarding its most valuable asset—information.

Invest in PII data classification and data masking today to stay ahead in the ever-evolving world of cybersecurity.

[pythonjobsupport]

Feature Spotlight: Data Masking for PII by Hashing

Learn about how Nexla tackles data governance by making it easy to track, mask, and slice data flows to ensure nobody has … source

[sighingsiren-tales]

Musuem of Sex, PII

The architecture was a sight for sore eyes—vastly different from our home campus, yet breathtaking in its grandeur. Every intricate detail, every towering column, seemed to whisper stories of the past.

Reiner was an easy companion, his presence as comfortable as a well-worn sweater. He never pried into topics I wished to avoid but eagerly engaged with those I offered. His humor was dry, sarcastic—blunt, even—but it never failed to draw laughter. I enjoyed his company more than I cared to admit. His energy complemented mine in a way that felt effortless, almost irreplaceable. And it didn’t hurt that he was undeniably handsome.

Tall, lightly tanned, with a strong jawline and bold eyebrows that framed his face like an artist’s masterpiece. The soft beginnings of a beard only added to his charm. But his hazel eyes—warm, understanding, kind—were the true contenders for my favorite feature. They flickered with something unreadable, something intriguing. Around his neck, his camera hung languidly, calling subtle attention to glimpses of skin peeking from beneath his shirt. Each time he lifted the device to eye level, a familiar sparkle returned to his gaze, like a flame rekindled.

Giggling as the warm French air wrapped around me, I urged him to take a picture. He hesitated, seemingly surprised, before raising his camera in one fluid motion. Click. Again and again, he captured me—spinning around a lamppost, skipping past shop windows, inhaling the scent of tiger lilies and citrus trees lining the streets. Each moment is forever preserved in his camera’s memory. And in mine.

He straightened, a Polaroid slipping from his grasp. Instinctively, I bent to pick it up, delicately holding the corner. When I looked up, my gaze landed on the blonde-haired beauty towering above me—from an angle that sent a slow realization crawling over my skin.

A teasing smile curved my lips. “Got it.”

For a fleeting second, his eyes darkened, a wild glint flashing through them before he masked it with a boyish grin. He offered his hand, helping me up with surprising ease, then plucked a stray leaf from my hair. The gesture was innocent. Sweet. Almost jarring from someone built like a titan.

He gestured for me to walk ahead, that ever-so-gentlemanly smile playing at his lips. I gave a slight curtsy before skipping forward, trying to shake off what I was sure was a failed attempt at flirting. Just as I started feeling bad for trying to corrupt the seemingly innocent, his voice cut through the moment like a blade.

Low. Mumbled. Almost too soft to catch.

“My God, you’d look so pretty on your knees.”

It wasn’t long before we reached the museum. The steps loomed, grand and intimidating, their vastness demanding reverence. Though I knew the interior would contrast the regal air of its exterior, the towering off-white pillars and marble arches, the cherub statues perched with timeless grace—all of it felt poetic. Almost too fitting.

Bounding up the steps with Reiner in tow, I steadied myself for whatever was to come. Our pre-paid tickets were barely glanced at before we were ushered inside, swallowed by the dim, intimate lighting of the exhibits. The space dripped in quiet luxury, every detail aligning seamlessly with my imagination. The parallels were infinite.

I swallowed the thought—though it wasn’t what I wished was on my tongue.

I stole glances at Reiner when I thought I could get away with it, but his hazel eyes were always a step ahead. They traced over the curves of my hips whenever I feigned distraction. His hands, strong and sure, drew my attention more than they should have. The longer I looked, the more they resembled the most exquisite necklace—one I wouldn’t mind feeling wrapped around my skin

I knew he never would, but I dreamed of having to guide those pretty fingers to close around my throat. A shiver rippled through me; the sheer pleasure of watching his reaction alone could be my undoing. The way the fabric of his shirt bunched and curled around his biceps halved my patience.

What would it feel like to be held in arms as strong as his?

I let him walk ahead at the exhibit. The mind can only focus on so much at once, and as long as he was near—liquid courage lingering on my tongue—there was no way my intrusive thoughts wouldn’t make their presence known, even if only once. Though, I was quite sure once would be enough.

You would think walking behind a man would give one all the grace needed to compose oneself.

You would think that.

The way his back tapered into his waist, the ripples of muscle beneath the warm skin of—wait. Can I see his abs through his shirt?

Abs aren’t on your back—

“Lost?”

I struggled to keep the jump internal. When did he turn around?

His smile was soft, sepia-colored drink in hand as he sipped generously. The liquid collected on his bottom lip, and without thinking, my fingers reached up, brushing away the whiskey lingering there.

His eyes widened ever so slightly, but his brows settled, gaze darkening. His lips pressed against my finger, catching my hand with his free one. He leaned down, leveling our eyes as he spoke.

“Sorry, love. When things get messy, I use my tongue.”

Come again?

He didn’t let the words settle, simply taking my hand and tugging me forward with a simple, “Come.”

As I followed in his wake, my focus narrowed to a single, consuming thought—the lingering burn where his lips had touched my skin. His fingers, interlocked with mine, set my entire arm ablaze. His hand dwarfed mine easily, and I vaguely reminded myself to ask about the scars littering his palm when I had a moment.

He pulled us into a dimly lit, theater-like room, all red velvet drapery and hushed anticipation. Briefly, I wondered if we’d get in trouble for fucking in here. Or, at the very least, showing Reiner he wasn’t the only one good with his tongue.

He seemed to read the thought on my face because he tugged on my hand before breaking the embrace, his newly freed arm wrapping around my waist.

I leaned back into him.

Solid as a rock.

Double entendre, if I’d ever heard one.

My God, why was this cup still full?

I downed the drink in one go, letting the heat burn through my throat and chest before settling, warm and numbing. The rush hit fast, and I let my head fall back onto Reiner’s shoulder. He stood behind me, quiet, but his fingers inched closer to my lower stomach, his palm heavy against me.

“What do you think?”

His lips were so very close to the shell of my ear.

“Mm?”

A sweet chuckle—low, indulgent, dripping with melted dark chocolate. That voice of his summoned something deep within me. My thighs clenched as I resisted the urge to push back into him. One wouldn’t want to appear desperate.

But the gag was—I was.

Absolutely desperate.

Terribly desperate, even.

I had partners before—men with blessed hearts but, alas, not blessed with… well, what Reiner was. It had been months—long, intangible months of keeping my legs closed, praying that my fingers and vibrator would be enough to satiate the demon.

Fat chance.

Reiner tilted my head slightly toward the screen with a low chuckle.

“What else would I be talking about, sweetheart?”

Did his fingers linger longer on my neck, or did I imagine it?

“Pay attention,” he husked, voice slipping over my skin like velvet.

I tried. I really did.

But every flick of the actor’s tongue on the woman’s body, every slow caress of his hands as he massaged her thighs before kissing her clit, only fueled the heat pooling low in my stomach.

And then—Reiner’s lips feathered across my shoulder.

I was pretty sure he could hear the sigh that slipped past my lips.

“I’d give anything to be between your legs like that.”

His voice was smooth, untouched by hesitation, like the line had been plucked straight from some forgotten wet dream.

His fingertips traced lazy circles over my hips, grounding and unraveling me all at once.

I cast a glance over my shoulder, slow and heavy-lidded, lashes brushing against my skin. Any longer, and the rest would be history.

The flickering screen illuminated his face, highlighting the smirk playing at his lips before his gaze dipped down to mine. He raised a brow, watching me with an expression that could have me dropping my panties without a word.

His drink swirled in one hand, the other pulling me closer.

It was as if I couldn’t be close enough to him.

My fingers curled up his back, pressing into the firm muscle before feathering their way across his nape. He shook his head quickly, jaw tightening.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

He downed his drink in one gulp.

I took a step closer.

A coy smile tugged at my lips. “And how am I looking at you?”

He chuckled, rolling his neck before standing to his full height. And good God was he tall. His scent engulfed me—vanilla, musk, whiskey, tobacco, all wrapped in the sultry warmth that was him.

I tilted my head up to meet his gaze.

His fingers ghosted over my throat, dancing over my pulse before tightening, just for a moment. They relaxed, but never released.

He pressed me against him, and I barely needed to move to understand.

It was war to keep the sounds I wanted to make internal.

“Feel that?”

What’s poking against me? That’s about all I could feel.

I nodded.

On the screen, the actor bent the pretty brunette over, but the scene was nothing more than background noise at this point.

“That’s why you should stop.”

Before common sense could intervene, the drink loosened my tongue.

“All I can feel is motivation.”

This time, a genuine look of surprise flickered across his face. He took a moment, considering his options. Considering me.

“The way I see it, there are two options.”

I exhaled. “Lay it on me.”

His gaze dropped to my lips, lingering before he spoke. The unspoken words stretched between us, charged and unrelenting.

“You can wait until we get back to the room and possibly have Eren hear… or—” He trailed off, his fingers skimming over the hills and valleys of my chest.

My eyes flicked between his lips and his own, my focus oscillating, lingering in ways that would get me fucked if I explained.

“Or?” I pushed.

And then—that smile.

The most dazzling, knee-weakening smirk in the universe.

His hands settled on my shoulders, turning me slightly toward a dimly lit corridor.

“There is your alternative.”

For a moment, confusion clouded my mind—until I caught the glow of the overhead signs, a red light spilling from the slightly ajar doors.

RESTROOMS.

Perfect.

[mlmshipbracket]

ROUND 1: POLL #11

ROUND 1 ALL POLLS [HERE]

PRPAGANDA BELOW

Kurogane/Fai D. Fluorite:

They make me feral fr !!  at first they don't trust each other cuz Kurogane can see past Fai's mask and Fai refuses to let himself feel genuine emotion but soon enough they're co-parenting the kids they're traveling with & having each others' backs in battle.  they spend six months alone together unable to speak the same language so they're now fully capable of communicating with each other nonverbally & they're also fighting alongside each other in a full on war during this time!  at one point, Fai is gravely injured & he begs Kurogane to let him die, but Kurogane refuses & instead turns him into a vampire via a wish that makes it so the only person Fai can feed off of is Kurogane.  up to this point, Fai's been calling Kurogane all these ridiculous nicknames like Kuro-chan and Kuro-pii & Kurogane hated them all, but after this Fai starts calling him Kurogane in order to put distance between them & he discovers that he hates that even more!  awhile after that, Fai's past & his intentions to betray Kurogane & the rest of their group are revealed (including the fact that Fai is technically kinda working for the man who killed Kurogane's mother & is causing all sorts of other problems for their group now) & Fai is terrified that they're all going to hate him now, but instead Kurogane cuts off his own arm in order to save Fai's life (arm chopping *is* a love language) & the two of them finally make up & Fai starts calling him by those nicknames again <3

Dream/Hob Gadling:

NO PROPAGANDA SUBMITTED

[ggfj84]

AO3 Link: Trust Fall: Chapter Four

Enter Damian and the Scions. (That sounds like a bad rock band name.)

Excerpt:

“Your five seconds are up. Tell me why I haven’t killed you yet.” “Because Alfred Pennyworth sent me!” Dick replied as bile rose his throat. Alfred might have been killed right before his eyes, and he’d done nothing to stop it. The grip and sword disappeared, allowing Dick to turn and see his opponent. He was an older teen – maybe nineteen, twenty at the most – dressed in a black, skin-tight suit with a blue V across his vest. His short black hair barely dusted his forehead and was cut close about his ears. A dark mask upon his face did nothing to hide his bitter scowl, which looked too much like his Dad’s for comfort. The teen held a katana to Dick’s chin, though it didn’t seem as much as a threat now in the man’s loose grip. “Alfred sent you?” he repeated. “Yeah, he told me to tell Nightwing, ‘Curae pii diis—” “—sunt,’” he growls, his shoulders slumping, his eyes ceiling-bound. “Tt.” “What does that mean?”

Thanks for reading! ❤️

Chapter One: Skimming the Abyss | Chapter Two: Abridged Truth | Chapter Three: What Goes Around | Chapter Four: Orientation | Chapter Five: Partners | Chapter Six: Kintala | Chapter Seven: Rule Number One | Chapter Eight: Picking Up the Pieces | Chapter Nine: Thicker Than Blood | Chapter Ten: Blood of the Covenant | Chapter Eleven: Homecoming | Chapter Twelve: Robin | Soundtrack

[antiendovents]

// vent, medical ableism

tldr; my fucking DOCTOR is pro-endo and her source is a dumbass paper that proves nothing and now my healthcare is at risk!!

just had my appointment with my gender wellness doctor. she asked how i've been and i mentioned finding a 2nd therapist for specific stuff. she asked what and i said dissociative disorders. i wanted to be vague but she pressed me to talk about it and reluctantly i talked about having alters and answered her questions bc i struggle with saying no.

i told her i was ok with doing an adverse childhood experiences scale but that i had stuff i wanted to talk about (like my hrt not being at the pharmacy for months) she said "we'll get to it".

after the assessment she asked abt it causing distress and she was talking about how in the office they use the term "plural identities" i said that was fine but that its still a disorder. she was like "disorder is negative" and compared it to how it used to be called gender identity disorder (comparing the two as if she has any place to talk on it, being cis and a singlet) but its better to use "plural identities"

i was like "thats fine as long as its still seen as a disorder and caused by trauma" and she was like "no its not always caused by trauma" and i straight up said "do you have a source for that?" and she was like "google my husbands name" and i did and THEN she moved on to my actual issues with struggling to get hrt for months.

the whole time after i had to mask how i was feeling so i could get basic healthcare. after she hung up i burst into tears. its been like 10 min and im still crying and feel sick. ive had doctors say they dont know what DID/OSDD-1 is before. ive had them say DID is a personality disorder. ive never had anything like this before and i feel unsafe. the fucking endo community IS affecting healthcare. i dont feel like i can ever talk to a doctor about this stuff again. she completely talked over me and then moved on like it was nothing

btw this is the stupid study her husband worked on. read it and its not even PROVING ANY OF WHAT SHE SAID. its just "oh well some people THINK theyre plural and of course disordered people have to be miserable so if you like ur alters they must be magically there!" and was from the plural association. its fucking disgusting this is being used as fact when theres nothing but subjective opinion.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S246874992300042X

i genuinely think im going to go to planned parenthood from now on. i cant work with her anymore. its been 2? maybe more years of working with her but im done. im sorry to ramble so much. im still having a breakdown over this.

-arachnid anon

im really sorry about that arachnid anon. That sucks and if you can we hope you manage to get a new doctor because she is clearly causing you distress. This really sucks, I feel like endos don't always realise how dangerous this stuff can be for actual systems. If doctors don't see it as a disorder then they won't treat it as such, meaning you won't get the help you need and you won't feel safe with her (as you said), which like,, isn't good. She's not a specialist meaning if anything she shouldn't really be saying stuff about DID/OSDD at all, because that's not her job or her place ((I understand you brought it up, but still. She should keep her opinions out of her damn job))

[themissingnumbers]

Can we ask who may be taking these questions perhaps? You seem pretty chill lol

"Ahhhh yeah I figured that'd be the first question asked.

fair, fair.

Here- wait gimme a second-"

The monitor; the main one used to display the desktop- It flickers off flashing between white and black for a few moments, like the cable fell loose. It suddenly flashes green and then flicks to camera footage- the quality isn't too unlike the other monitors... are they using a drone?

it takes a second or two to focus, and when it does-

You're able to make out the figure on the other end.

They shrug, you could almost hear a smile in their voice when they respond

"Who's to say?"

They chuckle, closing their hands shut, you can barely see slight movement near their wrist, crawling up onto their knuckles. They rest their hands on their stomach not too long after, as if they were waiting for it to finish.

"Ha. But really, you can take a guess at this point. I'm not gonna pull cryptic bullshit like most other fucks. We're chatting one on one eh? Might as well get acquainted proper."

They hang for a second, seeming to be thinking of what exactly to say next. How hard is it to answer who they are?

"Alright, listen, don't technically gott'a name to give, but I tend to go by Green." They gesture to themselves up and down, if you squint hard enough you can see a scrambling movement on one of their hands as they do so, and they stop almost immediately, holding their hand up to their face and muttering something that the drone couldn't pick up, however it does pick up the slightest

"piii"

It seems to climb onto the mask not too long after what you can only presume is its complaint, after, it doesn't take too long for Green return their attention back to you.

"Sorry 'bout that-" They chuckle "-Don't wanna fling my little guy around. Oh- I should introduce him too." They scoop the little green strand off their mask, and you can hear just slightly a few more "pii! pii pii!!!!"s as they do. They then hold their hand up real close to the camera for you to see him in his full glory

"This,"

"Is PiiPii"

The creature seems a little miffed by this exchange, you can only assume it sees you as a threat by the way it puffs out the glands on its head, and the fact that its little tail seems to be rattling. It's likely due to the design on the drone, so you can't blame it. It makes the slightest hissing noise, and Green pulls it back.

"Sorry 'bout 'im, 'think he's a little hangry right now. Happens to the best of us y'know?" They very gently caress the caterpie's head with their forefinger, you can hear just the slightest of chirps emanating from the small thing before they move their hand to let it climb into their hair.

They turn their attention back to you once again.

"Alright, introductions outta the way, any more questions, 'sisstant? or should I say 'sisstantsss?"

PREV | NEXT

[lunarsilkscreen]

Breaking the Dark Web

After reading my opic on VPNs(virtual Private networks) and why they're not really private; I was asked if the same was true about TOR (The Onion Router; or the deep web browser).

In short; Yea.

The TOR protocol is effectively a bi-directional VPN. The entire point of the protocol is excepted security online, in full public view.

This is the important part; as long as the things you're doing online is visible in any regard; and that's kind of how the Internet works; whatever you do is inherently visible to all.

Encryption, Masking, and Obfuscation are told and tactics used in order to remove data in hopes that it cannot be tracked.

But if you're using effective communication; you can be tracked. And if can't be tracked; odds are the communication isn't effective enough.

Though; over the years different approaches that include "Communicating in Popular Culture Reference", "Call Signs," and "Masked Communication" has been implemented; it requires both parties to have some sort of direct contact, or share other offline information.

The data they share online is useless to anybody except the two messaging. And the two parties messaging aren't anonymous to each other. Just to prying eyes.

You, personally connecting to a website, of any kind, and providing PII(personally identifiable information) of any kind; EVEN A FAKE MAILING ADDRESS THAT YOU GET STUFF DELIVERED TO, can be tracked directly back to yourself.

Gotta be smarter than that...

Not just that; if you have a bug in your computer--like in the VPN scenario, then doesn't matter how anonymous your communications are. They see what you're doing full view.

On top of that; just because the other partyv is anonymous to you, doesn't mean *you're* anonymous to the other party.

Example; all users of a particular system are vetted and documented offline. Any new user connecting to the system sets off an alarm to the admins who then have to decide to let you use their system.

Which includes; finding where your messages are coming from, how they're going to get paid by you, theoretical location of assets (like your crypto wallet,) and a decision on whether or not you're a cop or other investigator who could bring their operation down.

If you're doing something *that* illegal; there's a whole operation working behind the scenes.

Now. Onto how TOR (not the fiction publisher) works;

Theoretically, your data is encrypted; along with the destination address and sent to the first portal. That portal then sends the data and destination to a second portal, who then sends it to a third portal who can then decrypt the destination address and send your data.

And the whole process works in reverse as well.

And. Well; there's at least three parties involved that you need to *trust* are doing exactly what they say they're doing. And that's only the first step.

Each protocol can be modified at each individual portal to still appear as if it's doing the thing asked of it; while also... Just not doing that at all and/or making a record of every data transaction sent through its gates.

Then the data that you sent; Must be completely stripped of ALL meta-data. Which modern devices tend to put on created images and audio by default.

Yep. Your pictures from your phone? They have location data, the time the photo was taken, information about the device it was taken on, and that's all without AI being able to compare with multiple other photos to get approximate location data.

Including windowless building construction blueprints.

Again, your data mustn't have any other PII in it, so if you order something illegal; well you have them a shipping address or payment info of some kind.

"But what if we're just reading stuff or watching DarkTube?"

I mean... Then that information is now on your device. You computer has to download it in order for you to read it. And even if it's encrypted all the way back to your machine; that doesn't negate the possibility of poor encryption, or your own device being bugged.

It's visible that some data went from the TOR protocol to your device. The question is "What's that information?"

And so the next question you need to ask yourself; do you have any enemies that may want to blackmail you? Do authorities or any other institutions have reason to inspect your data? Have you ever been late paying your Comcast bill?

Ye. Comcast counts as a source that can read your data as if it was bugged. That's how *gateways* work...

You know what they say about playing stupid games...

[innovativeroutinesinternational]

Strengthening Data Security with PII Data Classification and Masking

In the digital age, protecting personal and sensitive information has become a top priority for businesses and organizations. As data breaches and cyber threats continue to rise, securing Personally Identifiable Information (PII) has become more complex and crucial. Effective security strategies require implementing both PII data classification and data masking to safeguard sensitive information and ensure compliance with privacy regulations. By understanding the role of these two key concepts, businesses can better protect their data and minimize risks.

Understanding PII Data Classification

PII data classification is the process of identifying, organizing, and categorizing personally identifiable information based on its sensitivity and the level of protection it requires. PII refers to any information that can be used to identify an individual, such as names, social security numbers, email addresses, phone numbers, and credit card details. Proper classification helps organizations determine how to handle and protect different types of PII to minimize the risk of exposure and ensure compliance with privacy laws such as GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA.

By classifying PII data into various categories, organizations can prioritize their security measures according to the level of sensitivity. For instance, highly sensitive information such as financial or medical records might require stricter security protocols than general contact details. When paired with data masking, PII data classification provides a solid foundation for protecting personal data from unauthorized access.

The Importance of Data Masking

While PII data classification helps to categorize data, data masking plays a critical role in protecting that data by concealing it. Data masking is a technique that transforms sensitive information into a format that is still usable for testing or analytical purposes but without exposing the actual data. This process replaces real PII data with fictitious values, ensuring that sensitive information is not accessible to unauthorized individuals, even during non-production use cases like testing or training.

For example, a company conducting software testing may need to use customer data to evaluate system functionality. Instead of using real customer information, they can apply data masking to create a dummy dataset that mimics the structure of real data but without exposing any actual PII. This ensures that sensitive information is never at risk of being compromised during the development process.

Key Benefits of PII Data Classification and Data Masking

Enhanced Data SecurityOne of the primary advantages of using PII data classification in conjunction with data masking is the enhancement of overall data security. Classification helps organizations understand where sensitive information resides and what level of protection it needs. By masking this data, companies can ensure that even if an unauthorized user accesses the system, the masked information will be meaningless, protecting the original data from exposure.

Regulatory CompliancePrivacy regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) require organizations to implement strong security measures to protect PII. Failure to comply with these regulations can result in hefty fines and damage to a company's reputation. By implementing PII data classification and data masking, organizations can ensure that their data security practices align with regulatory requirements, helping them avoid legal and financial penalties.

Minimization of Data Breach RisksData breaches can have devastating consequences, leading to financial loss, legal liabilities, and reputational damage. The combination of PII data classification and data masking minimizes the risk of breaches by ensuring that only authorized personnel have access to sensitive data, and any exposed data is masked, rendering it useless to attackers. Even in the event of a breach, masked data significantly reduces the likelihood of misuse.

Streamlined Data ManagementWith PII data classification, businesses can better manage their data assets by understanding which data needs the most protection. This streamlined approach allows for more efficient allocation of resources, ensuring that security measures are focused on the most critical data. Data masking complements this by allowing businesses to use secure, masked data for non-production purposes such as development, testing, or analytics, without compromising security.

Protection Against Insider ThreatsInsider threats, whether intentional or accidental, pose a significant risk to data security. Employees with access to sensitive data may inadvertently expose it to unauthorized parties. By using PII data classification to identify sensitive data and applying data masking, organizations can limit access to actual PII, even to those within the company who may need the data for job-related tasks. This reduces the risk of insider threats by ensuring that sensitive information is only accessible when absolutely necessary.

Improved Trust with CustomersIn an era where customers are increasingly concerned about the security of their personal information, implementing strong data protection measures is critical for building trust. When customers know that their data is being handled securely—through practices like PII data classification and data masking—they are more likely to trust the organization with their information. This increased trust can lead to stronger customer relationships and long-term business success.

Implementing PII Data Classification and Data Masking

For businesses looking to enhance their data security, implementing PII data classification and data masking is a strategic move. To do this effectively, organizations should start by conducting a comprehensive audit of their data. This includes identifying all sources of PII, determining where it is stored, and assessing the current security measures in place.

Once the data has been classified according to its sensitivity, businesses can apply data masking techniques to protect the most critical information. It’s important to choose data masking solutions that integrate seamlessly with existing systems and workflows, ensuring minimal disruption to business operations. Automated tools can also help organizations maintain compliance by continuously monitoring data and applying the appropriate masking techniques where necessary.

Conclusion

In today's data-driven world, protecting personal information is essential for businesses to maintain trust and stay compliant with privacy regulations. By leveraging PII data classification and data masking, organizations can ensure that their sensitive data remains secure, even in the face of growing cyber threats. These techniques not only strengthen data protection but also reduce the risk of breaches, enhance compliance, and improve overall data management.

Incorporating PII data classification and data masking into your cybersecurity strategy is a proactive way to safeguard your organization’s data and reputation. With the right approach, you can confidently protect sensitive information while maintaining compliance with the latest data protection standards.

[fanimeleaks]

The FanimeCon Scandal: Embezzlement, Staff Personal Data Publicly Exposed, Risk of Suspension/Revocation of Non-Profit

Global TLDR: FanimeCon’s (then) CFO embezzled over half a million USD who is also the CFO of a con called OkashiCon (and partnering with San Japan for 2024). FanimeCon’s secretary publicly shared FanimeCon Attendee information for 2018-2020 showing it is generally inflated by 5-10% of their reported estimate (if ever reported at all, in the past 10 years, only 2018 and 2019 was reported with estimated numbers); also shows how much money they profited from pre-reg for 2020 and yet to refund (likely also related to the embezzlement). Also, FanimeCon’s secretary publicly shared FanimeCon Staff masked PII information that can be cross correlated with other sources (like the guidebook) to unmask. FanimeCon non-profit is delinquent and on the verge of suspension or revocation of its non-profit status by the State Of California.

Overview

During our research on Fanime as to the claims #FailedByFanime has made; we discovered a bunch of things that were publicly accessible (like court dockets, nonprofit tax filings and state filings) and some that were publicly shared and accessible by anyone (without any login, password) that likely should not have been public.

Disclaimer: To clarify, the information we uncovered was not because their websites were compromised. Instead, a Fanime board member likely inadvertently shared documents on a hosting site configured for public access, allowing search engines to cache and indexes the data. Additionally, we are not affiliated with FailedByFanime or FanimeCon (staff, volunteer, vendor, etc) (I hope that second part is assumed given what we are disclosing) and are acting as an independent press doing investigative journalism.

In short, all we can say is that there was a lot of information we uncovered just by searching and we are presenting the information we discovered. Writing these findings with summarized information is over 13 pages in a word processor (sorry for being extremely long, we hope the section TLDR and global TLDR helps). We are kind of feeling like this when discovering the data.

We will be sourcing our findings as much as possible, but due to the nature of some findings being concerning, we will limit some of details from the sources to demonstrate the evidence of its presence, but restrict the details in those sources.

Note: The following is a long form consolidated version of the posts we shared on social media. We started to release our findings on May 1, 2024. Since our discoveries, some of the sources that we discovered was a leak were privatized, but we had planned for it and discussed how in our postmortem.

Embezzlement with its (then) CFO

TLDR: (Then) CFO embezzled over 656,000 USD. FanimeCon board knew about it as late as August 2, 2022. The public only formally knew on April 5, 2024 via a lawsuit by teams of investigators like us (we discovered the document on April 20, 2024).

During our investigations through the court system, we discovered that FanimeCon’s parent non-profit organization, The Foundation For Anime And Niche Subcultures is suing its (then) CFO for embezzlement after the (then) CFO filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. In the court docket submitted on April 5, 2024, the (then) CFO abused its position and embezzled over $656,000 USD and used it for:

> Disney time share, air conditioning repairs, refrigerator replacement, T-Mobile hot spot, and various purchases from Amazon […] food, gasoline, a payment to an individual named Corrine (presumably Debtor’s now ex-wife) and other services

Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68414078/foundation-for-anime-and-niche-subcultures-v-howlett/ 

Also in the docket, the lawsuit noted that the organization knew about the embezzlement by its CFO as late as August 2, 2022. 

Cross referencing with the State Of California Secretary Of State also shows that the organization replaced its (then) CFO with another person submitted on August 30, 2022

Source: https://bizfileonline.sos.ca.gov/api/report/GetImageByNum/013148222136241041083026018189085019109167067138

On Thursday, June 6, 2024 a new docket was posted related to the case with Foundation For Anime And Niche Subcultures (FANS for short) submitted a joint motion to dismiss without prejudice (subject to reopening). In the document it is noted the following

The Parties hereby notify the Court that they have entered into a negotiated settlement Agreement dated April 5, 2024 (the “Settlement Agreement”) executed by them in connection with the claims in this adversary proceeding. Accordingly, the Parties desire to dismiss all claims and counterclaims that have been raised in the above-captioned matter without prejudice subject to reopening.

In addition "Each party will bear their own attorneys’ fees, costs, and expenses."

While the information currently closes he matters of the court case in relation to the embezzlement, it does bring many more questions than we have answers for. Questions like: why the matter had to result in going to court to waste additional money for lawyers and legal proceedings when the matter of the issue had been pressing for more than a year at this point to correct the issue civilly without the need to be presented in court. Why is the motion to dismiss by the advocacy (Foundation for Anime and Niche Subcultures) in just 2 months with nothing more than a response by the defendant (then CFO); with the timing seeming suspicious given additional information we will present in later sections of our finding. How much of the claimed embezzled money will be repaid. These are just a small portion of the list of questions we still have.

Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20240609091336/https://assets2.pacermonitor.com/filings/Foundation_for_Anime_and_Niche_v_Howlett/Foundation_for_Anime_and_Niche_v_Howlett__txwbke-24-01015__0012.0.pdf

Analysis 

TLDR: FanimeCon board knew of the embezzlement but has kept quiet to its staff and the public till the lawsuit.

What makes it interesting is that board members in the non-profit organization knew of the embezzlement for a least a year and a half before the information was made public, leaving the public and (very likely) almost of of the staff for the convention clueless of the situation (other than speculation through the public tax filings).

If you want to read more into the embezzlement and lawsuit, see the CourtListener docket referenced (court dockets are available in the public records, though requires a fee to access those records, but CourtListener is part of the “Free Law Project” and purchased dockets by others can be shared for anyone to access for free, of which some are).

Side Note: We discovered the lawsuit on April 20, 2024 as we were scanning for other information we are going to present in the later sections. 

Researching the (then) CFO Finds Another Con They Are Tied To

TLDR: (Then) CFO is also CFO of OkashiCon in Texas. (Then) CFO’s (ex-?) wife was president in 2018 and 2020. Looking at the referenced Chapter 7 bankruptcy (United States Bankruptcy Court, W.D. Texas Docket number 23-10370) listed that the (then) CFO has over a million USD in liabilities (meaning that they owe more than over a million USD) and listed The Foundation For Anime And Niche Subcultures as one of its liabilities. Based on our analysis, as part of the bankruptcy, the (then) CFO is attempting to discharge the money he (still, whatever how much less than what the organization claims in the lawsuit) owes to the organization.

Source: We will not directly list the name of the (then) CFO, but if you look at the lawsuit on some court docket monitoring sites, they reference the parent docket with the details. 

Looking at the organization’s LinkedIn Profile, we did see the (then) CFO LinkedIn profile listed in the organization. Looking at their public profile, they were also the CFO of another similar organization called “Texas Anime Conventions” (a 501-c-3 nonprofit and its FEIN is 82-2719592). 

Screenshot of their LinkedIn profile with only the certain item we are digging in:

Source: We will not directly list the name of the (then) CFO, but if you look at the defendant name in the lawsuit and check on LinkedIn for the Foundation For Anime And Niche Subcultures organization group. We will submit a screenshot of the relevant information. For OkashiCon nonprofit lookup, direct linking to IRS tax exempt page is not possible, but searching the FEIN “82-2719592” at https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/ will give you the relevant information.

Looking at the public nonprofit information on the IRS shows the president in 2018 and 2020 as someone with the same last name. Digging around we determined through court dockets that it was Fanime’s (then) CFO’s wife and currently pending a divorce stalled by the bankruptcy. While we cannot confirm if they either are associated with OkashiCon or its nonprofit, we have learned that OkashiCon has partnered with San Japan for 2024.

For a visual chart, here is a quick chart of these findings:

Discoveries Of Sensitive Document Publicly Shared by its Secretary

TLDR: FanimeCon’s secretary left some GitHub repositories public and out in the wild. Contains some interesting things we will discuss.

During our investigation of the organization starting through its non-profit tax filings (available for public viewing by law) and looking at The Foundation For Anime And Niche Subcultures (FANS for short) organization LinkedIn company/organization profile, we saw that the organization’s secretary listed a their GitHub profile on their personal profile. 

Looking at their GitHub profile showed two Git repositories FanimeCon-Attendee and FanimeCon-Volunteer; all in the public view (anyone can see the repository in the clear without any kind of account, password, restrictions) and available to be indexed by search engines; not to also mention since it is a public GitHub repository, it is publicly forkable and all changes in the repository are log as Git/GitHub commits. Looking at the GitHub repositories, we discovered some items that were factually interesting as we will discuss later. 

When we shared the summarized information in tweet/post form about the discoveries on social media, the secretary privatized the repositories within hours of us sharing the information, backing our findings as factually interesting. (which we predicted this will happen and already knew of remediation steps to back our findings). Sometime on May 25, 2024, the secretary further attempted to hide from these discoveries by changing their username to another handle. While we won’t disclose their new handle unless they continue to accidentally share PII data of its staff, we do know its new handle and it is tracked easily.

Source Referenced (via the wayback machine): https://web.archive.org/web/20240324031421/https://github.com/Sukurudo/ 

FanimeCon-Attendee GitHub Repository

TLDR: GitHub repo contains registrations for attendee, press, professional industry, exhibitors guests, Musicfest for FanimeCon 2018-2020. Attendance numbers and profits can be summarized.

In the repository we discovered CSV files of registrations for FanimeCon 2018, FanimeCon 2019, and FanimeCon 2020 (of which was canceled but we will discuss why this one is especially important in a dedicated section).

The files in the repository contained transactions defined as type of registration (attendee GENERAL, exhibitors EXHIB, exhibitors who paid additional badges on top of their standard allotment EXHIB$, guest GST, MusicFest MFEST, press PRESS, Professional PROREG, general complimentary badges COMP, some type of subcategory of complimentary badges COMPOS, press PRESS, canceled registrations CANCEL, and REVOKE), type of badges (the same as type of registration with exception of general registrations as it sub-categorized by weekend, half weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday badges), how much they paid, when the registration was submitted, how they registered (online WEB, manual data UPLOAD, via PHONE, at the event ONSITE, MAIL, via EMAIL, or via a KIOSK), if they checked in to get their badge, the organization if it is not a general attendee (like professional, press, exhibitor, etc), city, state, zip, country, general age range, gender, and email domain they used.

With any spreadsheet application, we were able to generalize the transactions made for FanimeCon 2018, FanimeCon 2019, and FanimeCon 2020 and provide a summarized information of the following. 

Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20240308162714/https://github.com/Sukurudo/FanimeCon-Attendee, we will note the specific sources in each dedicated sub-topic

Subnote: You may be wondering why we are sharing this information as it is not fully related to the other topics. Well, we are presenting the information for a few reasons; to set the basis on demonstrating the information we have discovered was not maliciously made up and present all of the facts as possible, demonstrate the board is not forthcoming with even basic information (we will discuss it later on in the analysis), and correlate the information with the embezzlement.

FanimeCon 2018 Registrations And Gross Profit Calculations

Source (via the Wayback Machine): https://web.archive.org/web/20240317231613/https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Sukurudo/FanimeCon-Attendee/master/Data/FAN_REG-2018.csv 

TLDR: Registrations was closer to ~31,556 (warm body count) and if you count those who checked in, it would be closer to ~30,735 (warm body count); which is 7-10% under their estimation of 34,000 attendees. Gross profit was around ~$2,050,000 from badge sales alone.

Source (via the Wayback Machine): https://web.archive.org/web/20240317231613/https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Sukurudo/FanimeCon-Attendee/master/Data/FAN_REG-2018.csv

Generalized, there were 28,857 general, 615 standard exhibitors, 31 extra paid exhibitors, 31 guests, 48 MusicFest, 307 professional, 583 complimentary, and 133 press registrations. A total of 951 staff members were registered. 21 registrations marked as canceled. Additionally, there were 4 strange categorized transactions with mixed information.

If we calculate the sum of registration and staff badges, excluding canceled registrations, the total attendee count is approximately 31,556 (warm body count). This is 2,444 (~7.2%) less than their estimated attendee numbers of ~34,000 (as reported). 

As for those who registered and checked in, 67 exhibitors, 75 press members, and ~679 general attendees who had pre-registered failed to check in and collect their badges. If you tally the number of exhibitors, press members, and general attendees who did not check in, the attendee count for Fanime 2018, based on the actual presence, would be ~30,735 (warm body count); 3265 (~9.6%) less than their estimation of ~34,000. (Note: We are not subtracting the numbers for non-checked-in guests, MusicFest registrations, ~190 professional registrations & 583 comped registrations from the total from 2018 numbers, since these registrations are assumed to be processed differently and may not appear as checked-in on that list.)

Note: If you want to also know, for FanimeCon 2018 convention, there were 11 attendees marked as revoked (details unknown on why it was revoked). Also, some might argue that the list doesn't account for staff members who aren't part of Fanime Staff, such as those working for SJCC. However, we believe it does, as Fanime 2018 attendee CSV list encompasses 28 registrations for "Food Vendor SJCC" exhibitor badges.

Most of the professional registrations that checked in were mainly gaming and tech companies (and only a mere 2 were remotely related to the anime industry). I can extrapolate more if needed but it is already long enough to add more sub-categories.

As for GROSS Revenue, for general registrations in 2018, around 21,203 registered full weekend, 240 registered half-weekend Sunday-Monday ($75), 609 registered Friday only ($55), 4061 registered Saturday only ($60), 2,272 registered Sunday only ($60), and 276 registered Monday only ($50). Depending on the time an attendee registered full weekend for FanimeCon 2018: 7,814 registered at $65, 3,746 registered at $75, 9,643 registered at $85. (Note: 198 transactions are excluded from the gross profit calculation due to irregularities).

(Additional Notes: 40 who pre-reg at $65, 15 who pre-reg at $75, 37 who pre-reg at $85, 2 Sunday only, lost their badge and had to re-print for an additional 50% of their purchased price.)

Among the exhibitors, 32 registrations included a payment of an additional $85 for an extra badge, above and beyond the standard allotment of exhibitor badges per space.

After excluding outliers & excluding revenue from vendor space sales except for the 32 additional exhibitor badges, FanimeCon 2018 generated a GROSS profit of ~$2,050,000 from badge sales alone, although the NET profit will be lower after operational costs are considered.

FanimeCon 2019 Registrations And Gross Profit Calculations

Source (via the Wayback Machine): https://web.archive.org/web/20240317231706/https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Sukurudo/FanimeCon-Attendee/master/Data/FAN_REG-2019.csv

TLDR: Registrations was closer to ~32,316 (warm body count) and if you count those who checked in, it would be closer to ~31,499 (warm body count); which is 4-7% under their estimation of 34,000 attendees. Gross profit was around ~$2,090,000 from badge sales alone.

Generalized, there were 29,535 general, 648 standard exhibitors, 11 extra paid exhibitors, 34 guests, 35 MusicFest, 261 professional, 730 complimentary, and 127 press registrations. A total of 925 staff members were registered. 49 registrations marked as canceled.

If we calculate the sum of registration and staff badges, excluding canceled registrations, the total attendee count is approximately 32,316 (warm body count). This is 1,684 (~4.9%) less than their estimated attendee numbers of ~34,000 (as reported). 

As for those who registered and checked in, 1 exhibitor, 6 press members, and ~810 general attendees who had pre-registered failed to check in and collect their badges. If you tally the number of exhibitors, press members, and general attendees who did not check in, the attendee count for FanimeCon 2019, based on the actual presence, would be ~31,499 (warm body count); 2,501 (~7.4%) less than their estimation of ~34,000. (Note: We are not subtracting the numbers for non-checked-in guests, MusicFest registrations & 730 comped registrations from the total from 2019 numbers, since these registrations are assumed to be processed differently and may not appear as checked-in on that list.)

Note: If you want to also know, for FanimeCon 2019 convention, there were 8 attendees marked as revoked (details unknown on why it was revoked).

As for GROSS Revenue, for general registrations for FanimeCon 2019, around 21,871 registered full weekend, 277 registered half-weekend Sunday-Monday ($75), 691 registered Friday only ($55), 3,843 registered Saturday only ($60), 2,440 registered Sunday only ($60), and 413 registered Monday only ($50). Depending on the time an attendee registered full weekend for FanimeCon 2019: 8,800 registered at $65, 3,124 registered at $75, 9,741 registered at $85. (Note: 206 transactions are excluded from the gross profit calculation due to irregularities).

(Additional Notes: 38 who pre-reg at $65, 17 who pre-reg at $75, 46 who pre-reg at $85, 1 half-weekend, 1 Saturday morning, lost their badge and had to re-print for an additional 50% of their purchased price.)

Among the exhibitors, 21 registrations included a payment of an additional $85 for an extra badge, above and beyond the standard allotment of exhibitor badges per space.

After excluding outliers & excluding revenue from vendor space sales except for the 32 additional exhibitor badges, FanimeCon 2019 generated a GROSS profit of ~$2,090,000 from badge sales alone, although the NET profit is be lower after operational costs are considered.

FanimeCon 2020 Registrations, Gross Profit Calculations (And Failing To Refund)

Source (via Wayback Machine): https://web.archive.org/web/20240317231724/https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Sukurudo/FanimeCon-Attendee/master/Data/FAN_REG-2020.csv

TLDR: 9,428 pre-registrations with gross profit of $723,350 USD, did not refund but postponed to next year(s), finally offered refund 2 years later but is failing to fulfill those refund requests.

One of the files in the (publicly) shared GitHub repository was a document including details such as attendee numbers for FanimeCon 2020. As the event did not happen, there is not as much information to extract; but there are some things we can still pull.

For FanimeCon 2020, there were 9,428 pre-registrations (& 187 registrations marked as canceled in the list) prior to announcement. 7,808 pre-reg at $75, 1,596 pre-reg at $85, 22 pre-reg at $95. Total pre-reg gross profit $723,350 prior to postponement announcement.

As for the cancellation of the FanimeCon 2020 convention, the convention did not offer to refund the pre-registration, instead initially transferring the registration to 2021 (and then to 2022) event. During FanimeCon 2022, the convention finally offers those who pre-registered for those years to request a refund or deferral; of those who submitted a refund request, most have yet to get a refund. During the closing ceremonies of FanimeCon 2023, when asked about the status of the refunds, the response was more rebuttal with people claiming that it was (attendee) fault “as they have one person handling refunds and they probably lost track of the refunds”.

Source (names redacted for privacy of unrelated parties):

Additional Source: Cross verified with FailedByFanime (former FanimeCon staffs who resigned due to board inability to address issues) https://twitter.com/failedbyfanime/status/1782952605435474260

Analysis Of 2020 Pre-Registrations

TLDR: Pre-Registration revenue that should have been refunded is likely gone.

Given the discovery of the currently ongoing lawsuit between FanimeCon’s non-profit organization and its (then) CFO embezzling ~$656,000, about 90.7% of the revenue that should have been used for FanimeCon 2020 (that should have been refunded to its customers).

Now, considering the reports of the "missing" registration list and the mishandled refund requests during the closing ceremonies in 2022, and the discovery of the embezzlement from the (then) CFO of over a half a million dollars (see “Embezzlement with its (then) CFO for details”), we have with two likelihood:

At the very best, the money that should have been refunded or deferred in 2022 is used as a non-interest bearing loan. Calculating for inflation, $75 pre-reg would value over $90 now, $85 pre-reg would value over $100 now, $95 pre-reg would value over $110 now. 

Though it is most likely that the value of pre-registration for FanimeCon 2020 that was supposed to be deferred and refunded is gone...stolen (a write off for attendees who pre-registered), never going to get back anymore.

FanimeCon-Volunteer GitHub Repository

TLDR: Masked staff information is shared publicly. See next section (Analysis) on why is it bad with analysis

In the repository we discovered CSV files of the staff roster spanning from FanimeCon 2012 to 2019. The list included PII information like

Staff Badge ID (which does not change year to year)

Birthdates (Year, Month, Day)

Age

City/State/Country of residence that convention year

Division they work in for the convention (Examples include: Programming, Guest Relations, Extravaganza)

Department they work in for the convention (likely a subcategory of the division) (Examples include: Chair Team, Artist Alley, Cosplay)

Year they were staff for the convention

Source Referenced (via the Wayback Machine): https://web.archive.org/web/20240308164013/https://github.com/Sukurudo/FanimeCon-Volunteers

Screenshot to demonstrate the existence of the document from the repository but heavily redacted with many sections obscured to limit exposure of personal information:

Note: We are keeping details of this document from being linked due to the sensitive nature of this section. 

Analysis

TLDR: Even though names are not disclosed and just badge ID, it is not too hard to match names to the badge ID with a couple of other sources and pattern matching.

Although the names are not directly linked to the publicly shared information (so it is kind of masked…. Barely), the data could be utilized with other social engineering tactics to associate the names with FanimeCon staff badge IDs, thereby posing a significant privacy risk. 

One way in which data can be de-masked is by pinpointing individuals within solo department teams based on the guidebooks FanimeCon distributes. These names can then be cross-referenced with leaked data CSV to uncover identities (Similar with small departments with a little work). Another way to unmask the data is by using a combination of social and data engineering techniques, identifying individuals who have changed departments over the years at FanimeCon, referencing in the guidebook, and correlating this information with badge IDs in the leaked data. Using a mixture of these two methods could likely gather a reasonable to moderate number of personal information.

Even if one is unable to correlate the names to the badge ID for getting PII data, there was something that could be extrapolated from the publicly shared document. 

For instance, among the entire FanimeCon chair team, according to the staff CSV data publicly shared (though likely should not be) in 2019, only one member resided in Northern California (we will not disclose where they were, but they were generally situated on one general area), with another chair team member having moved out of NorCal between 2018 and 2019. Meaning that they had to travel great distances to hold their staff meetings/recruitments and spend a lot of money on travels.

We are enclosing a (heavily masked) screenshot of the data that was public to demonstrate the seriousness and existence of the document while preventing the PII data that can be extrapolated from the screenshot. 

Note: We do not want to attack current and previous lower staff. We want to expose the secrecy of the boards through investigative journalism and research from publicly accessible data and sites.

Pending Suspension/Revocation In California

TLDR: The non-profit status is delinquent until close of business (COB) of Tuesday, June 25, 2024 to correct it or be suspended or revoked.

This one is more stated for information and there is not much more to dig into. 

On April 26, 2024 FanimeCon’s parent non-profit, Foundation For Anime And Niche Subculture (FANS) was served with a “Delinquency Notice And Warning Of Assessment of Penalties And Late Fees, And Suspension Or Revocation Of Registered Status” from the State Of California Department Of Justice. 

This stemmed from the failure to conduct an independent audit, required when there is a GROSS (just profit alone before subtracting operating costs) over 2 million USD since 2019.

The organization has (as of right now) at most 60 days since the date of the letter to complete and submit the completion of the outside audio; meaning they have till close of business (COB) of Tuesday, June 25, 2024 to complete and send the document showing they completed the independent audit or be suspended or being removed as a non-profit in the State Of California.

Source: 

https://rct.doj.ca.gov/Verification/Web/ (and enter the FEIN: 814054929 to search, permalinks don’t work there so manual entering is needed…. Though the document download link works)

Side Note: Strange IRS Filings

TLDR: IRS non-profit filings are strange given that, based on the IRS website list the last non-profit tax document was for 2020 (and submitted in 2021) but Propublica archive lists a 2021 tax document (submitted in 2022).

We will be short on this as we have seen some strange irregularities. If you look at the IRS non-profit tax filings (open to the public for inspection) the last non-profit tax filing lists the last filing was “Tax Year 2021 Form 990” for September 1, 2020 to August 31, 2021 (their fiscal year starts in September and this is not out of the ordinary); through if you look at Propublica’s non-profit explorer, they have list a form 990 for September 1, 2021 to August 31, 2022. 

We are unsure why the form 990 for September 1, 2021 to August 31, 2022 is missing on the IRS website, so we don’t have more to say without more information other than a footnote in the findings.

Source IRS Tax-Exempt Search: IRS website does not allow for permalinking for their tax exempt search so we will guide you how to pull it up. Go to https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/, Set “Search By” (middle top dropdown box) to “Employer Identification Number”, and to the right of it “Search Term” enter “81-4054929” and click search. Included is a screenshot for reference

Source Propublica Nonprofit Explorer: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/814054929

Postmortem

TLDR: FanimeCon’s board has a lot of mismanagement and corruption from the top and needs a complete overhaul. Embezzlement and PII data exposed out in the wild with secrecy of what is happening from the top of a non-profit and hostility towards staff and attendees. 

A lot of the issues Fanime is facing have a lot of similarities with another company is facing (in both the relevance of the timing and the issues). While investigating the con’s practices from publicly accessible data, another company has came under fire for hostile workplace, bad leadership, mismanaged funds, retaliation, delayed responses and that company is EK (video explaining the situation https://youtu.be/8A7cykj0pCg) 

As for the issue with fraud with its CFO, while the CEO and FanimeCon's Board will likely claim that they are not responsible for the actions of its CFO actions, they are (most likely) equally responsible for the people they hired (quoting the video I referenced in the previous paragraph). The boards of Fanime helped create this condition for embezzlement through systematic levels of deception, not refunding attendee badges for 2020 event, not overseeing its budget, failing to have an outside audit (reason for it has a delinquent tax status in CA). The fact that no one other than Fanime’s board directly (other than speculation) knew about the fraud for more than 1 (to 2) years with its (then) CFO till we made it public gives examples how it failed its dereliction of duty engrained in its motto: For fans, by fans

The fact that they replaced its (then) CFO with a new CFO in August 2022 without disclosing a reason to its staff other than the board & was only made public by people (like FanimeLeaks) discovering court dockets about the embezzlement in April 2024 brought distrust. 

Also in documentation of the change in CFO with CA Secretary Of State, FanimeCon’s secretary was referenced as an officer in the change, that same secretary publicly exposed PII information of its staff from FanimeCon 2012-2019 on GitHub.

The fact that FanimeCon’s secretary's GitHub repo we presented in our findings was privatized hours after we disclosed our findings of them failing to protect the PII data of its staff reassures us that the information is factually interesting to our investigation. Making it private after disclosing our findings publicly demonstrates a systematic level of failures to keep their organization in compliance with requirements like financial audits. 

Not to also mention since it was public, it was forkable and the way Git/GitHub logs changes validates the user behind each changes points (Git) “blame” (more info: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-blame) at the user/person committing every change. 

It also backs the data we discovered as worth value and another example of failing its motto duty: For fans, by fans 

And how does it failed its dereliction of duty; the people who run the event are augmented on a different level than the people they serve and don’t communicate with them; or in other words, the “by fans” (board) are not the same people as the “for fans” (attendee).

Fanime’s board has a known history of unprofessionalism to borderline hostility, for example: previous posts that the CEO of Fanime posted on their forums in regards to attendance numbers (we are not going to base the comments for the reason they still estimate 2017-2019 attendance, but the comment seems….unprofessional).

Source back in 2011 who was a division head (the division with the 3rd most staff under their division) who is now the President of Foundation For Anime And Niche Subcultures:

The precedence of comments like these shows similarities to the incident of a (ex-)staff member who resigned and was threatened by the board by making their recounts of incidents of a s staff member stalking them public. These comments that are demonstrated publicly is on par with the (slight rumor yet confirmed by lower department staff levels for FanimeCon) retaliatory actions Fanime’s board countered against the entire gaming hall staff resigning by pushing to replace it with a ball pit (the only reason the replacement idea was scrapped was due to the outcry to the still existing staff).

Most closest source we can use:

In addition, there has been reports of a (still) staffing FanimeCon staff harassing mods of the primary FanimeCon unofficial facebook group calling them “FanimeCon Unofficial b\[***\]h”. One example of multiple incidents that has been reported of open hostility.

(See higher resolution image at https://i.postimg.cc/3Nn2JBDN/2024-06-01-23-15-39.png)

The issues with the Fanime’s board we found in discovery plus the way they communicate (as seen in the forms) demonstrates the mentality of a high school club and while (as operated) it started as a small social club, it has never grown out of that mentality to a responsible convention.

There are likely a lot more issues that we did not discuss, but these are just the discoveries we found through searching and analyzing data that was made public. We tried to limit the use of what people said in our findings and reference court documents and data that can be traced back to heads of the FanimeCon and its non-profit organization. (Honestly, if we went down the rabbit hole and go by what people are saying, this document will never end and writing this is already way too long)

Appendix A: Why Did We Research FanimeCon

After the claims #FailedByFanime has publicly made, we want to act as a neutral party on both sides of the claim. Having never been a staff member of the event, we operate without knowledge of how the organization works behind the scenes, and in turn, without any potential restrictions or NDA from the organization. In this situation, we are an independent press doing investigative journalism.

Most of the time, we are just a bunch of f**king weebs that try to research a bunch of silly facts from anime. But hearing staff retaliation by heads of a con, we want to dig in to pull fact from fiction (or what we can pull out from official sources).

Appendix B: Why Are We Publicly Disclosing These Discoveries

After finding the issues behind the scenes and how far reaching the issues were, we wanted to go straight with the information and warn the public convention community of the issues. 

Seeing how the organization handles people coming out (as shown in examples with CosplayCleric’s video explaining how the organization threatened them with a Cease and Desist to prevent them from coming out).

We did not want to report the issue and have it just swept under the rug, fail to disclose to its staff and threatened with a Cease and Desist given the severity of people information being public for anyone to see in the clear.

Based on the practices we have seen, we expect that, if we emailed them about their data security failure, they would not only just hide the info, gaslight us that it was not a security issue, threaten us for finding the information, gag us with cease and desist if we disclosed to anyone else, and threaten us with a lawsuit for discovering something that was open and publicly available, open for anyone to see. We have seen this even with some government agencies with reporters discovering security issues before (Example: https://www.npr.org/2021/10/14/1046124278/missouri-newspaper-security-flaws-hacking-investigation-gov-mike-parson) and, given the past history of FanimeCon’s hostility, we would not be surprised if they resort to it and we have already seen examples in group forums where staff members have been harassing group mods in unofficial Facebook groups. Given we are operating as an investigative journalism, we are operating as a press and not a security engineer given we have not accessed any part of their website to discover any of the main sources (other than supplementary comments from the board they have publicly posted on their forums) and access public sources (of none of which was behind any level of access control, login, password, token, etc) like court dockets (which is open for public access), GitHub public repository (meaning the repo was set to public so anyone can see the data initially… for 4 years).

If this operated like a standard company that stored people’s private information was accidentally made public or even just stolen, the company would at least disclose the security issue to affected people and (typically) offer some kind of 2 year credit monitoring; but how we see FanimeCon would do (based on examples before) is sweep the issue under the rug and hide the discovery from anyone, hence why we need to make the discoveries public instead of reporting back first.

While the GitHub sources we referenced via the Wayback Machine will demonstrate the existence of the documents and repositories, backing our claims and findings; the details are not easily accessible via the links, which is a good thing as the document contains PII information we don’t want to share.

As for writing this condensed version of our findings, we have yet to see FanimeCon and Foundation For Anime And Niche Subcultures (FANS for short) disclose or even just acknowledge any of the findings to its staff or the public (embezzlement, data publicly shared, delinquency). We can assume they know the issues we discovered, or how else would they have quickly privatized the GitHub repositories we disclosed our findings on social media. While we waited for them to disclose or even just acknowledge the information till after their 2024 convention, we have still not heard of anything from the board. Given how we have seen in previous reports who came out stating that FanimeCon and Foundation For Anime And Niche Subcultures likes to threaten people who come out with information with cease and desist, we are not willing to contact and wait for them to start threatening people with litigations and needing us to solicit a lawyer to assist as we don’t have any association with FanimeCon or Foundation For Anime And Niche Subculture to start and serve some levels of litigation, even through all of the sources we found were in the public through court dockets and publicly accessible sites. 

Appendix C: Why Are We Limiting Sources On Some Items

Due to the nature and severity of some documents discovered containing personal identifiable data, we are not disclosing some of the sources that show the raw data, but we can show limited information to demonstrate the existence of the source, but redact major components to still protect major components of the information. With the attendee list, most of the information cannot be correlated back to the people with the exception of business (and most businesses have a location already publicly known), but staff information contains serious levels of personally identifiable information of individuals that we don’t want to disclose.

Appendix D: Should You Go Or Not?

That is up to you and we are here just to provide all of the facts in discoveries. We are acting neutral on that and whether to call for a boycott or not (that is up to you). 

We are just here to warn that their financial stability is risky and its scandal may be outer reaching than just FanimeCon alone (example as we have explained, Okashicon and its partnership with San Japan for 2024), actual attendance number for the estimated numbers they have disclosed in the past 10 years (only 2 attendance numbers were publicized) being lower than their estimated numbers by a moderate percentage, and personal information of its staff has been out in the open.

[xaltius]

From ETL to AI Agents: How AI Is Transforming Data Engineering

For decades, the core of data engineering revolved around ETL (Extract, Transform, Load). Data engineers were the master builders of complex pipelines, meticulously crafting code and configurations to pull data from disparate sources, clean and reshape it, and load it into data warehouses or lakes for analysis. This was a critical, yet often manual and maintenance-heavy, endeavor.

But as of 2025, the data landscape is exploding in complexity, volume, and velocity. Traditional ETL, while still foundational, is no longer enough. Enter Artificial Intelligence, particularly the burgeoning field of AI Agents. These are not just algorithms that automate tasks; they are autonomous programs that can understand context, reason, make decisions, and execute complex operations without constant human intervention, fundamentally transforming the very essence of data engineering.

The Era of Manual ETL: Necessary, but Challenging

Traditional data engineering faced several inherent challenges:

Manual Overhead: Building and maintaining pipelines for every new data source or transformation was a laborious, code-intensive process.

Scalability Issues: Adapting pipelines to handle ever-increasing data volumes and velocities often meant significant re-engineering.

Error Proneness: Manual coding and rule-based systems were susceptible to human error, leading to data quality issues.

Rigidity: Responding to schema changes or new business requirements meant significant rework, slowing down time-to-insight.

Bottlenecks: Data engineers often became bottlenecks, with other data professionals waiting for their support to access or prepare data.

The AI Revolution: Beyond Automated ETL to Autonomous Data

AI's role in data engineering is evolving rapidly. It's no longer just about using AI for data analysis; it's about leveraging AI as an agent to actively manage and optimize the data infrastructure itself. These AI agents are imbued with capabilities that elevate data engineering from a purely operational function to a strategic, self-optimizing discipline.

How AI Agents are Reshaping Data Engineering Operations:

Intelligent ETL/ELT Orchestration & Optimization: AI agents can dynamically analyze data workloads, predict peak times, and adjust resource allocation in real-time. They can optimize query execution plans, identify inefficient transformations, and even rewrite parts of a pipeline to improve performance. This leads to truly self-optimizing data flows, ensuring efficiency and reducing cloud costs.

Automated Data Quality & Cleansing: One of the most tedious tasks is data quality. AI agents continuously monitor incoming data streams, automatically detecting anomalies, inconsistencies, missing values, and data drift. They can suggest, and in many cases, automatically apply cleansing rules, resolve data conflicts, and flag critical issues for human review, significantly enhancing data reliability.

Smart Schema Evolution & Management: Data schemas are rarely static. AI agents can intelligently detect schema changes in source systems, analyze their impact on downstream pipelines, and automatically propose or even implement schema adjustments in data lakes and warehouses. This proactive adaptation minimizes disruptions and ensures data compatibility across the ecosystem.

Enhanced Data Governance & Security: AI agents can act as vigilant guardians of your data. They monitor data access patterns, identify unusual or unauthorized data usage, and automatically enforce granular access controls and compliance policies (e.g., masking sensitive PII in real-time). This significantly bolsters data security and simplifies regulatory adherence.

MLOps Integration & Feature Engineering Automation: For data engineers supporting Machine Learning Operations (MLOps), AI agents are a game-changer. They can monitor the health of data pipelines feeding ML models, detect data drift (where incoming data deviates from training data), and automatically trigger model retraining or alert data scientists. Furthermore, AI can assist in automated feature engineering, exploring and suggesting new features from raw data that could improve model performance.

Proactive Anomaly Detection & Self-Healing Pipelines: Imagine a pipeline that can fix itself. AI agents can analyze logs, performance metrics, and historical patterns to predict potential pipeline failures or performance degradation before they occur. In many instances, they can even initiate self-healing mechanisms, rerouting data, restarting failed components, or escalating issues with detailed diagnostics to human engineers.

The Benefits: A New Era of Data Agility

This transformation delivers tangible benefits:

Unprecedented Efficiency & Speed: Faster data delivery to analysts and business users, enabling quicker insights and more agile decision-making.

Higher Data Quality & Reliability: Automated, continuous monitoring and remediation lead to more trustworthy data.

Greater Agility & Adaptability: Data infrastructure becomes resilient and responsive to evolving business needs and data sources.

Significant Cost Reduction: Optimized resource usage and reduced manual intervention translate to lower operational expenditures.

Empowered Data Professionals: Data engineers are freed from repetitive, low-value tasks, allowing them to focus on complex architectural challenges, strategic planning, and innovation.

The Evolving Role of the Data Engineer

This shift doesn't diminish the role of the data engineer; it elevates it. The focus moves from purely building pipes to designing, overseeing, and fine-tuning intelligent data ecosystems. Future-ready data engineers will need:

An understanding of AI/ML fundamentals and MLOps.

Skills in evaluating, integrating, and even "prompting" AI agents.

A strong grasp of data governance and ethical AI principles.

An architectural mindset, thinking about scalable, autonomous data platforms.

Enhanced collaboration skills to work seamlessly with AI agents and data scientists.

The transition from traditional ETL to AI-powered data management is one of the most exciting shifts in the technology landscape. AI agents are not replacing data engineers; they are augmenting their capabilities, making data engineering more intelligent, efficient, and strategic. For organizations and professionals alike, embracing this AI-driven evolution is key to unlocking the full potential of data in the years to come.

[sighingsiren-tales]

Doberman Energy PII

Y'all really liked this one, hope i did part 2 justice.

~

His weight is still heavy against you—more grounding than suffocating now. Like he knows, if he lets go, the moment might shatter and blow away with the ash of everything else he’s lost.

Your fingers are still tangled in his hair. Not holding him down, not anymore. Just there. Threaded. Anchored.

“You always do that,” he mutters against your skin, voice hoarse and low, rasped like worn leather. “Dig under my ribs. Like you’re trying to find something worth saving.”

You swallow. “And have I found it yet?”

He lifts his head just enough to meet your eyes. Something ancient flickers there. Not cruel. Not angry. Wounded. Like a wolf with a scar it forgot to guard.

“How should I know,” he says honestly, then after a beat: “But you keep bleeding for it.”

The quiet that follows isn’t empty—it thrums with everything you haven’t said. Everything he can’t.

How do you begin to unwrap this moment? How can you bring yourself to unravel it knowing that when you do, your mask will unravel along with it. Galliard is quiet, searching your face before he nuzzles into the small space in your neck.

The way he sighs, like the world was taken off his shoulders warms you from the inside out. The words slip out before reality and logic can catch up.

“I love you, Porco,” you whisper, so softly it barely survives the air between you. He jerks up, staring at you like you’ve just committed a cardinal sin. 

Or a miracle.

“You shouldn’t,” he breathes, hazel eyes searching your own for any deeper meaning. “You shouldn’t.”

And yet… he doesn’t move. Doesn’t leave. Doesn’t even blink.

“You scare me,” you admit, barely more than a breath. “Not because you’ll hurt me. But because… I think I’d let you, happily”

He lets out a breath, rough as gravel. “Then you’re the stupidest person I’ve ever met.”

You smile. “I’ve been called worse.”

A beat.

Then two.

You beam up at him, fingers playing with the soft hairs at the nape of his neck. He shivers.

And then he snaps.

Porco kisses you like he's trying to drown in it—desperate and devouring, tongue sliding against yours, hands suddenly everywhere. His body curls over yours like a wave breaking against the shore, the storm he’s kept sealed behind his teeth crashing open.

“You think you know what love is?” he growls, mouth dragging down your throat, biting—claiming. “You think I can just let you say that and not show you what it means to be mine?”

His hands are rough as they slide beneath your shirt, pulling it up and over, tossing it aside without ceremony. He stares down at you, chest heaving, eyes molten.

“You love me?” he asks, almost cruel with how softly he says it now, like the words are too sharp to hold barehanded.

You nod, breath catching.

“Then you don’t get to run from this,” he says, voice thick. “You belong to me”

His finger dips between your lips. Which set though? Whose to say.

“You can take it?” he asks, voice low and wrapped in teasing velvet, like sin dipped in honey.

You nod—breathless, reckless, already undone by the way he looks at you.

He smirks, slow and feral, all sharp teeth and dark promises. “Good.”

Then he descends like a man who’s gone too long without water, and you’re the only thing that can quench him. His mouth is back on you—slower now, reverent and ravenous. He kisses down your body like each inch is a revelation he’s only just allowed himself to believe. His tongue drags down the curve of your neck, over your collarbone, pausing to suck a mark into the soft swell between your breasts. He groans when you arch into him.

“You always taste like this?” he murmurs, lips brushing your skin. “Like fucking heaven?”

You don’t answer. You can’t. Not when his hands slide down your waist, thumbs drawing slow, hypnotic circles into your hips as he trails his mouth lower. His teeth graze your ribs, your stomach—he bites, just enough to leave something behind.

And when he reaches your thighs, he parts them like scripture.

“You don’t get to mention Reiner again,” he growls against the inside of your leg, the heat of his breath making you shiver. “Not when I’m the one who has you trembling.”

His name spills from you—Porco—a gasp, a prayer, and it wrecks him.

Suddenly your wrists are pinned above your head, his grip iron, his breath ragged. His eyes flick up, wild and wanting. “You know what that does to me?” he growls, sinking lower. “Hearing my name on your tongue like that?”

Then he’s there, mouth between your thighs, tongue slow at first—cruel, taunting, like he’s savoring every second of your unraveling. He licks a long, deliberate stripe before flattening his tongue and devouring you.

You cry out, your hips jerking, and he groans into you like he’s the one losing control.

“Say it again,” he murmurs, voice low, the vibration of it sending a jolt straight through you.

“What?” Your voice is barely a whisper, caught between pleasure and disbelief that he’s this—intense, this his.

“That you love me,” he says into you, and it’s not a demand—it’s a need. He doesn’t want it. He requires it; Needs it like air in his lungs.

Your hand tangles in his hair, your back arching as his fingers join his mouth, curling just right. “I love you,” you gasp, hips stuttering.

He groans like you just gave him your soul.

And then—he doubles down. Faster, deeper, rougher. No more teasing. No more play.

This is possession. Worship. War.

And you, the altar.

Porco rises up, dragging his body over yours, lining himself up without ceremony but not without worship. He cups your face like it’s the only thing anchoring him to this earth.

And when he sinks into you, it’s not just sex.

It’s surrender.

It’s war.

It’s everything he’s never been allowed to want—all at once.

You cry out his name again, and he drops his forehead to yours, breath shuddering.

“I’m not going to be gentle,” he warns, even as he presses deeper, deeper.

“I don’t need you to be,” you whisper, wrapping your legs around him.

He thrusts into you with a feral sound, hips snapping forward like he’s chasing something just out of reach. But it’s not out of reach. It’s you. It’s always been you.

And the way he moves—fast, deep, claiming—leaves no room for doubt.

You are his.

Every breath.

Every scar.

Every broken, burning piece.

And in that moment, as the tent fills with the sounds of tangled bodies and whispered names, there’s no past. No war. No wounds.

Just Porco Galliard, and the girl who crawled under his ribs and refused to let go.

[neilsblog]

Protecting Privacy with Data Masking: A Modern Approach to Data Security

In an era where data is the backbone of business operations and innovation, the need to safeguard sensitive and private information has become paramount. Organizations today handle massive volumes of data that often include personally identifiable information (PII), financial records, healthcare data, and other confidential assets. Unauthorized access or exposure of such data can result in…

[timothyvalihora]

Best Practices to Protect Personal Data in 2024

In today’s digital landscape, protecting personally identifiable information (PII) demands attention. Individuals and businesses face a growing number of data breaches and cyberattacks, as well as strict data privacy laws. To keep PII secure, you must apply clear, effective cybersecurity strategies, including the following.

Start by focusing on data minimization. Only collect the PII essential to your operations, and avoid storing or asking for data you don’t need. For example, “refrain from requesting an individual's Social Security number if it is unnecessary.” Keeping less data on hand reduces the risk of exposure during a cyber incident.

One other consideration, it's only "PII" if you have more than 1 tidbit…for example, if you know my DOB yet NOT my mothers maiden name or my current address? Suddenly, "PII" is less threatening. Mr. Valihora can coach an organization on how to identify "PII" - in terms of how it's stored, and also develop a "Data Masking" strategy in order that not enough pieces of the puzzle - are available for potential data breaches or threats etc.

Tim Valihora is an expert on: Cloud PAK for Data (CP4D) v3.x, v4.x, v5.1 IBM InfoSphere Information Server (over 200 successful installs of IIS.) Information Governance Catalog Information Governance Dashboard FastTrack(tm) Information Analyzer SAP PACK for DS/QS DS "Ready To Launch" (RTL) DS SAP PACK for SAP Business Warehouse IBM IIS "Rest API" IBM IIS "DSODB" IBM Business Process Manager (BPM) MettleCI DataStage DevOps Red Hat Open Shift Control Plane Watson Knowledge Catalog Enterprise Search Data Quality Data Masking PACK for DataStage + QualityStage OPTIM Data Masking CASS - Postal Address Certification SERP - Postal Address Certification QualityStage (QS) Matching strategies + Data Standardization / Cleansing DataStage GRID Toolkit (GTK) installs

Mr. Valihora has more than 200 successful IBM IIS installs in his career and worked with 120 satisfied IBM IIS clients.

Encrypt all sensitive PII, whether it moves through systems or stays stored. Encryption blocks unauthorized access to the data without the decryption key. Use strong encryption protocols like AES-256 to keep PII private.

Apply firm access controls to limit who can interact with PII. Grant access only to those who need it. Use role-based access controls (RBAC) and multi-factor authentication (MFA) to ensure that only authorized personnel have access to or control over sensitive data. In addition, keep audit logs to track any access or changes, and hold individuals accountable.

Finally, carry out regular risk assessments and data audits. These reviews help you identify weak spots and confirm that your data practices align with current privacy regulations. By assessing risk, you can detect areas where PII may be at risk and apply proper safeguards.

Tim Valihora currently resides in Vero Bech, FL - and also enjoys golf, darts, tennis and guitar playing - during work outages!