Personal data leaks from companies and organizations have piled up one after another, with the cumulative total reportedly topping 300 million records. This leaked data is typically bought and sold on the dark web, but so much of it is now in circulation that, according to a Tokyo Sports report picked up on 5ch, some of it isn’t even worth a fire-sale price — depending on the contents, it fetches no price at all. Reactions on the thread were mixed: some were surprised that “even the black market runs on supply and demand,” others took a jaded view that “it’s not that different from the days when phone books existed,” and still others pointed out that combining it with other leaked data like credit card numbers could still fetch a high price.
November 5, 2026, 6:00 AM
Tokyo Sports WEB
Companies and organizations keep falling victim to unauthorized access, and personal data leaks show no sign of stopping. The leaked information is often bought and sold on the dark web, but so much of it is now flooding the market that, far from being sold at fire-sale prices, some of it is going for next to nothing depending on its contents.
Just sell it on Mercari (Japan's biggest flea-market app)
4AnonymousNov 7, 2026 21:26
Iris Ohyama (the home-goods maker) leaked too
5AnonymousNov 7, 2026 21:28
The data leaked from Matsuya (the beef-bowl chain) could double as a junk-info filter
7AnonymousNov 7, 2026 21:43
We had phone books until not that long ago. It was never that big a deal to begin with
8AnonymousNov 7, 2026 21:50
Who knew that having a common surname like Sato, Suzuki, or Tanaka
came with
a security upside.
9AnonymousNov 7, 2026 21:51
If stealing personal data doesn't even pay anymore,
maybe the damage will finally start tapering off
10AnonymousNov 7, 2026 22:48
Classic Tokyo Sports (the tabloid famous for over-the-top stories)
11AnonymousNov 7, 2026 23:01
Honestly, why not just have AI generate the data, lol
12AnonymousNov 7, 2026 23:07
IDs and passwords are what scare me most
Since I basically reuse the same ones everywhere, I'm on edge about getting hit by a credential-stuffing attack
But then again, there are a mountain of services out there — the ones I use aren't the whole world
13AnonymousNov 7, 2026 23:34
This was kind of expected, in a way
14AnonymousNov 7, 2026 23:54
Guess overdoing anything isn't good, huh~
15AnonymousNov 8, 2026 01:05
If everyone just shared their personal info publicly, there'd be nothing left to fear
28AnonymousNov 8, 2026 15:19
Re: #15
Kind of like public-key cryptography, lol
16AnonymousNov 8, 2026 01:07
Wouldn't be surprised if the matching's already done and a database of Japanese citizens' personal info is already running in Communist China
17AnonymousNov 8, 2026 01:29
Worried that corporate trade secrets are being stolen too, and a few years from now some country announces they've 'achieved domestic production' — a real blow to Japan's national interest
Some small and mid-size firms have amazing tech but are on the verge of going under, and they probably don't even realize their data is being stolen
18AnonymousNov 8, 2026 02:34
Phone numbers, addresses, names — back in the 20th century all of that was sitting right there in the phone book anyway
19AnonymousNov 8, 2026 05:00
A crash from oversupply — guess even the underworld runs on market forces, lol
20AnonymousNov 8, 2026 05:07
Nah, the actual damages from scams are still going up though
21AnonymousNov 8, 2026 06:01
North Korea, China, somebody's probably crunching all this as big data, lol
25AnonymousNov 8, 2026 12:13
Re: #21
China maybe, but does North Korea even have the computing power for that?
22AnonymousNov 8, 2026 07:43
The pre-renewal driver's license data of mine that Times Car (the car-sharing service) leaked is so outdated by now that no scammer would even want it
Well, that's a relief
23AnonymousNov 8, 2026 08:38
Re: #22
It'll probably get used on online services that require a license for ID
since they're never actually going to verify it anyway
24AnonymousNov 8, 2026 10:07
They probably want to steal it and dump it fast before the price craters
26AnonymousNov 8, 2026 15:02
A strategic win for the Japanese government and the Digital Agency!
27AnonymousNov 8, 2026 15:03
The classic "no-guard" strategy (a boxing term for throwing out all defense and just slugging away)
29AnonymousNov 8, 2026 15:42
Guess you don't need security software anymore
30AnonymousNov 8, 2026 16:07
Wish you could use your My Number card (Japan's national ID number) to do LINE, email, and phone calls
31AnonymousNov 8, 2026 16:12
Totally plausible future… before long they'll probably link DNA data to it too
32AnonymousNov 8, 2026 16:16
How do you like that!
By deliberately leaving the system full of holes, they flooded the market and collapsed the black market itself.
Only our glorious nation could pull off such a galaxy-brained strategy.
33AnonymousNov 8, 2026 16:56
More companies choosing to 'give up' holding personal data — "Not holding it at all is the real fix," some shifting practices even without a leak [#EveryonesQuestions]
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/d46257b0118fc63e92594f39ab15ce93d74a7811
34AnonymousNov 8, 2026 18:53
Deflationary mindset, even here
35AnonymousNov 9, 2026 02:54
Kind of like "if everyone crosses on red together, it's fine" (a saying about safety in numbers despite breaking the rules)
36AnonymousNov 9, 2026 03:50
Future historians will call this the prelude to the AI bubble bursting
37AnonymousNov 9, 2026 09:50
Yeah, of course it turned out this way,
I knew this was coming,
so when I see leak articles now I just go "huh, okay" and move on.
38AnonymousNov 9, 2026 12:06
Re: #1
Just flood it with fake data. That'll tank the value even more.
39AnonymousNov 9, 2026 14:21
Personal data is stuck at limit-down (stock-market slang for a price that's collapsed and can't trade lower)
40AnonymousNov 9, 2026 15:05
Even junk data, once matched up with some careless company's leak that includes credit card numbers — would you believe it —
magically turns into platinum-grade info that has scam gangs celebrating
Background and Key Points of This Topic
The price of personal data on the black market is basically set by supply and demand. Standalone pieces of information like a name, phone number, or address have already flooded the market — much like old-fashioned phone books once did — making them hard to sell for much, but that doesn’t mean leak damage has actually decreased. As pointed out in the thread, sensitive data combined with things like credit card numbers or driver’s license images still fetches a high price. The price drop applies only to old, generic information; readers can easily overlook the fact that newly leaked, highly sensitive data — or data cross-matched across multiple leaks — actually goes up in value. The thread featured both an optimistic view that “the risk has eased” and a more cautious one warning that “scam tactics will just get more sophisticated,” so the simplistic idea that oversupply automatically equals safety deserves some skepticism.
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