The machines track the information, dump it into computers at the USGS and in Berkeley and the news is disseminated to the public.
They hadn't seen any leaked data, but Forbes can now confirm there is a salary of £19,500, an address and other employee details belonging to a "York, Beatrice" amongst the reams of information dumped online by the Guardians of Peace since the attacks on Sony started in late November.
Perhaps some consumers felt overwhelmed by having so much information dumped on them all at once.
In addition to all that embarrassing user information, the data dump also includes a collection of intra-office emails, which reveal the daily lives of the adultery profiteers at Avid Life Media (ALM), Ashley Madison's parent company.
The company had previously denied allegations of a "fembot army", but according to information in the data dump, it actually ran tens of thousands of fake female accounts to send millions of messages to users.
OpLastResort has defaced government sites and threatened to release sensitive information, but had not leaked any information until the recent data dump, according to Gizmodo.
The dreaded information dump isn't always a bad thing.
Haven't we seen massive information dumps from WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden come and go without shifting the status quo?
Based on the writings of Yehuda Avner, who served under several Israeli prime ministers, this documentary serves as an information dump.
While the novel is too long, and marred by annoying information dumps, the sheer brio of invention and intellectual energy propel the reader towards a satisfying climax.
Daniel, who is now president of the Cyber Threat Alliance information sharing group, applauded the Australian efforts to get in front of any information dump.
