[drdaeman]

People should be advised to not use phone numbers at all.

There was a joke "all phone numbers leaked" list that just listed everything from 000-000-0000 to 999-999-9999. If there is no other information associated (names, pictures, emails, anything) then this leak is of almost comparable severity.

[philjohn]

We used to have these things called Phone Books, that literally, contained everyone's phone numbers.

We didn't call those leaks.

[lawtalkinghuman]

There's an important difference between people being able to do inefficient paper-based one-off `SELECT ... LIMIT 1` queries when needed and the entire world being able to find new and exciting ways to search, join and mix data at great speed—the latter tends to enable new and exciting ways for the data to be used both for commercial gain, criminal purposes, and abusive trolling. (See: the history of internet harassment for the last 20 years.)

Pointing out that we used to put all the phone numbers in a book published by the phone company and now we don't is historically true but practically unimportant, just as "hey, sorry to hear your house got broken into, but you know, people in IDYLLIC_RURAL_HAMLET don't even lock their front doors like you BIG_CITY folks do" isn't useful unless giving up living and working in BIG_CITY and moving to IDYLLIC_RURAL_HAMLET is actually a practical option, which most likely it isn't (and if that were to happen en masse, IDYLLIC_RURAL_HAMLET would suddenly find they'd also need to lock their front doors if their population increased by a factor or two).

Who could have predicted that technological change might lead to shifts in social attitudes? Or, indeed, that the rules, principles and institutions we collectively create to make society bearable have to adapt to said changes?