Slashdot Mirror

Actually GP's grammar was correct

Good aerial photos have a pixel resolution of 6 inches.

Do you mean 6 inches per pixel? This might impress you. I think it's 4cm per pixel but only available over central London for the time being.

I have little sympathy with companies sending marketing email getting branded as junk emailers they are sending Unsolicited bulk or bulk email.

This effects real people as well. Getting blacklisted is a way of life for me online because of my name. Yes Spamer really is my surname/family name. If you have any doubts try searching for me on uk directory enquires / electoral role

Its gotten me accused of being of being a joe-job for trying to do my job as the postmaster for a domain.

Its gotten my email addresses blacklisted, it's gotten me blocked from creating accounts on web-sites including utube and my local newspaper.

Professionals should start call junk email Unsolicited bulk or bulk email instead of using slang.

Hey,

Personally, I don't see what all the fuss is about. I live in the United Kingdom, and we have had something similar to this for a while, and it has caused no real problems.

Voters' registration records are publically availiable. Also, people who don't ask to be ex-directory have thier phone numbers listed in thier regional phone book.

Anyway, a company called I-CD Publishing makes the UK Info Disk. They got all the (public) phone books, and all the (public) voter's records, and correlated the two, producing a range of CDs, and I gather they offer online searches as well. Linited versions of these CDs (i.e. only 15 records returned per search) were made availiable on the front of several computer magazines and the like.

I have one of these CDs; all it does is make accessing publicly availiable information easy. If I want a phone number for someone living a long way away, I can look them up on the CD, assuming I know the area in which they live, and thier second name, and optionally thier first initial. Then I will get returned thier address, and telephone number (assuming they are not ex-directory).

This isn't a terribly abusable resource. Nobody is harassed by EVIL TELEPHONE MARKETING COMPANIES, because you can ask to be put on a global British Telecom do not call list, and then telemarketers do not call you. nobody is ATTACKED BY EVIL STALKERS because there isn't much stalking over here. If you get stalked, you call the police, and the person in question is arrested. There's no EVIL IDENTY THEFT because there isn't enough information availaibe to perform identy theft, and banks tend to like solid proof of your identity before they will give you money.

So, what's my point? Having some information publically availiable online, i.e. name / address / telephone number, does not instantly make your society degrade into anarchy. It is, however, a useful reference tool for legimate uses.

Don't get too paranoid. Anyone who has the time to search for your personal details out of the millions of other people in the country likely has enough free time to wander down to the county records office and ask for the relevent records.

Michael

There's a similar thing happend in Britain where a company has published "UK-Info Disk", they basically take all the divergent and distributed information from electoral roles, land registry, tax registration, private marketing databases, phone books and then combine and link all the information together on Ordinent Survey maps, so basically you have find out huge amounts of information from a simple postcode (zip).

There's also cracks of the program that let you back trace the database and do any number of reverse lookups (criminals find this especially useful). It seems the developers purposely put these weaknesses into the product as hidden features.

Because the data is legally obtained in the UK then sent to the Caymen Isles or processing it basically circumvents all the British Data Protection and Freedom of Information Laws.

The Info Disk company have spun off 192.com which offers similar services, ironically they advertise the "The Big Breach" book from a former MI6 officer on their front-page, a book which is somewhat forbidden in the UK... however 192.com are hardly champions of free-speech when you delve into the infringing and questionable practices they use.

Not free though, although cheap.

Hmm this is good, from thier 'privacy policy'

Most web sites recall information about visitors by using cookies, which are small data structures that identify an individual and allow password protection. When you access 192.com from a computer, I-CD may store cookies on your computer's hard drive (NB: Cookies cannot harm or interfere with your machine in ANY way). Cookies may also be stored on 192.com's servers when you access the 192.com Service by modem.. From time to time, I-CD Publishing may use your email address to share with you information about the new and innovative I-CD Publishing products and services to 192.com, which are specially developed or based on information and feedback received from our customers. Your postcode may be used to create an easy to remember personal account number to ensure availability in your area. Furthermore, I-CD Publishing may supplement the information we collect with information we obtain from third parties.

Might not want to register if you are in the UK...

and of course given a name I can find the address/phone # of most people in the UK...