Exclusive | Turkish Police Data Dump 2016

The researchers from Bilkent University performed an automated analysis of the leaked records for nearly 50 million citizens and found:

held a news conference in parliament, dismissing the severity of the leak. He reassured the public that the leak did not originate from the central civil registration system (MERNIS) or the General Census Directorate. In Helsinki, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu sought to calm the nation, stating, "I would like to reassure all Turkish citizens that all necessary measures are being taken," while asserting that personal data is as important as his own. Meanwhile, Communications Minister Binali Yıldırım tried to kill the story by labeling it a “very old story,” claiming a similar allegation had been made back in 2010. turkish police data dump 2016 exclusive

The "exclusive" release was immediately overshadowed by controversy, security warnings, and attempts by the Turkish government to censor the data. 3.1 Malware Warning Forensic linguists we spoke to believe this was

Hidden in the system logs was a file named whitelist_shell.php . Forensic linguists we spoke to believe this was a backdoor left by a system administrator who had been purged in the pre-coup arrests. The WLS allowed the uploader to bypass the firewall entirely. If true, this was an inside job dressed as an external hack. if you fight your citizens

Believed to be an older voter registration database from roughly 2008–2009.

White’s reputation preceded him; he had previously helped distribute high-profile leaks, including breaches of the Fraternal Order of Police and the Italian spyware vendor HackingTeam . On the eve of the release, White taunted the Turkish government via social media: “Hey Turkey, I have something to show you tomorrow. See, if you fight your citizens, they will bite back. #standby”.