It appears that FOXNews.com may be left with a red face today, after allowing a massive data leak on its own website and that of a major publishing group.

The problem came to light Sunday on the Something Awful website. A user named "Morphie" posted a comment entitled "Fox News Headline Images (some funny, some not)." The images in question had been found on FOXNews.com, and it turned out that the website had left its images directory unprotected, meaning that any Internet user could see every file listed in that particular directory.

It was soon discovered that the site's admin directory was also publicly accessible. And that's when the situation went from an amusing faux pas to a serious data breach. At 3:23 AM, another user on Something Awful posted the login information for a Ziff-Davis server, which he had found in one of the files in the FOXNews directories. This was a major catch: Ziff-Davis is a big publishing company and the owner of ZDNet. The information soon circulated through the social-networking world at Reddit and the IT community at Slashdot.

Unfortunately for Ziff-Davis, that particular server contained phone numbers, email addresses, and street addresses for many of its users. Wikinews estimates that as many as 1.5 million users may be at risk, with several gigabytes of data at least temporarily accessible. This number cannot be independently verified, however, since the security hole has since been fixed.

What is particularly interesting about this leak is that it was very basic and easily preventable. Even small websites are advised to avoid publicly accessible directories, and many network administrators would immediately turn them off. Security expert David Utter called it "surprising" that Fox would leave such an integral part of its website unprotected, going so far as to accuse the webmasters of outright "sloppiness."

Not surprisingly, the network itself is downplaying the incident. Contacted by NewsQuake, Jeff Misenti, General Manager and VP of Fox News Digital, addressed it this way: "It was a server communications error which was fixed immediately and steps were taken to make sure it doesn't happen again."

Late last night, Jeanne Palfrey (below), dubbed the "D.C. Madam" by the media, released 13 years worth of phone records associated with her escort business. Shortly after the records became publicly available on her website, Sen. David Vitter (R-Louisiana) released a statement apologizing for "a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible." Needless to say, Vitter's phone number was among the thousands of entries associated with Palfrey's business.

This is hardly Vitter's first brush with scandal. In 2002, he was accused of having an affair with a prostitute, a charge he vehemently denied, suggesting that the radio host, who he had defeated in a congressional race, was out for "revenge." Later that year Vitter backed away from a run for governor, citing strains on his marriage, and entered marriage counseling. The current revelation, however, could have repercussions for Rudy Giuliani's presidential bid, given that Vitter is serving as the southern regional chair of Giuliani's campaign team.

Vitter isn't the first government official to have been "outed" as a former customer of the D.C. Madam. In April of this year, ABC News (working off a partial list of the phone records) discovered that Randall L. Tobias, the Deputy Secretary of State, was a frequent patron of the escort service. Tobias, a strong supporter of "abstinence-only" programs, denied that any sex ever took place. He resigned one day after confirming his involvement with the escort service.

And who else has made use of Palfrey's services? The vast majority of the phone records are associated with either cell phones, hotels, or unlisted numbers. However, our own informal search of a relatively small sample of the phone records last evening was still able to return names matching a wide range of officials--including a NASA program director and a writer from the arch-conservative American Spectator. Another trio of entries originating from Dale City, Virginia, on December 2, 2004, seems to point to an assistant district attorney for Washington, D.C. (Dale City is a suburb just outside the capital.)

For her part, Jeanne Palfrey has denied that her business ever engaged in any illegal prostitution, a charge she is currently fighting in court. Palfrey did also threaten to release the records earlier this year, and it was only five days ago when an injunction barring her from releasing the information was lifted.

With 13 years of telephone records purported to weigh in at over 40 pounds, it will be an arduous task to track down the escort service's significant customers. Indeed, Palfrey herself notes on her website that deciphering the raw data "will take a small army of people skilled in computer and phone technology, investigation as well as factual knowledge regarding the significance OR non-significance of identified persons."

At the same time, with all this information now freely available to anyone with a high-speed Internet connection, it shouldn't be long before more officials like Randall Tobias and David Vitter are publicly scolded for deeds they would much rather have kept private.