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Simple answer to the privacy solution: Don't put any information on Facebook that you don't want used by marketers/against you/exposed to the world. No matter WHAT the Facebook privacy policy says, putting your picture/address/phone number/vacation schedule online is a bad move. Why? Because once the information is out there, it is out of your control. Even if Facebook offers a guaranteed privacy policy that your information will NEVER be shared with ANYONE, what about hackers? What about internal Facebook employees that sell your data on the black market? What about "former" Facebook friends that now decide to do something nasty with your data, e.g. sign you up as a donor/interested party in the Church of Scientology? Think I'm just another "tinfoil-hat wearing paranoiac?" Read Database Nation sometime. A little data goes a long way. http://www.databasenation.com/home.htm The bottom line is that Facebook users need to be smarter about what they put online. Anyone who would put their vacation schedule online, a.k.a. "when I won't be home" is asking to be robbed. By the way, the same applies to Twitter. There was a site set up to illustrate how dumb Twitter users are in announcing where they are every minute of the day http://pleaserobme.com/ Smarten up Facebook denizens. The power to protect your privacy is in YOUR hands. Don't let this issue become another "we need the government to step in" situation. The smart man digs his well BEFORE he is thirsty. Think ahead.

I read this book when Simson Garfinkel wrote it eight years ago, as Database Nation

Yes I can look up many of Google's founder's "private" information via their own search engine. But while I may do so, I can have legitimate and illegitimate reasons for doing so. Legitimate reasons include trying to get a phone number for an old friend (in a world where Google's founder is a friend of mine); illegitimate reasons include gratuitously drawing the attention of thousands of people to information that reasonably should be considered private, whether it happens to be publically available or not.

Would that justify someone posting the information in my local newspaper, simply because it's out there and possible to find?

Half the reason why we have so many laws is that some people appear to be incapable of acting like adults.

One of the differences between Europe (especially Germany) is that their views on such things as privacy have been formed in the context of direct recent (in terms of living memory of the politically active population of the past 50 years) experience of totalitarian government and/or occupation.

This is true, but with a small caveat. If you read this book (highly recommended), you'll note that US researchers were the first to blow the whistle, in the '60s if I remember well, about the risks of database tracking individuals and collecting way too much info about citizens.

The US governement did nothing about this, but Western European (Eastern Europe is something else) governments did, and created several tough laws designed to protect privacy. Whether this was due to the history of Europe, and, as you mention, to the memories of the Nazi regime is open for debate.

This being said, these European privacy laws are being undermined by the US government as we speak. The first step was, of course, to require European airlines to communicate information about their passengers to US authorities.

Of course privacy is being used against us. It allways has and always will be. Every country has it's examples of this fact.

But would it be worth it to give up our privacy to maintain a false feeling of security? Terrorists will always be able to get their hands on weapons and other stuff to use against us. Whether it is through buying stuff with stolen creditcards or use of a malafide dealer or manufacturer. Weapons and other military stuff are being produced all over the world.

In the light of 9/11 would we have to give up our privacy? For what? The hijackers used frigging hobby knives and some of them weren't even known terrorists. The absense of privacy is not a threath to them. It is to us though...

What's more important is that our governments will not be a totalitarian one and our every move would not be under scrutiny by the government. I like my privacy although i know that my name and other information is going through hundreds of databases each day. I would never like the idea of a government knowing every little thing i say or do though. What's preventing a government of misuse of all that information?

It is the databases behind those cameras...

Someday, if not today - behind every camera will be software and a database that can pick out faces, and store those faces in a database. Should one of those faces belong to a criminal, that individual could be flagged, and tracked, from camera to camera - wherever he or she goes.

You may say to yourself "Well, hey, that sounds like a good thing" - and you would be DEAD WRONG. Why?

Imagine that individual had did a crime - something heinous, something petty - but they did their time, paid their debt to society, and are truely sorry for it. Maybe they even make amends, in whatever way is possible, to the victims of their crime. However, in federal databases, they are marked as a former criminal - no mention in the databases of their current activities or amends - no flags to show how they feel. Only that they once did a crime, and thus should be tracked, and watched - and made paranoid. Why not simply have a cop follow them around instead? They paid their debt, but they should never be trusted again? What is the purpose of prison and sentencing then? If it isn't reform, why let someone out who shoplifted? Hell, why keep them alive at all?

Or, imagine this scenario:

There is a database containing all of these faces of criminals - the matching software is looking through the cameras, looking at past faces, and current faces, trying to find a match - and one is spotted - your face! But you haven't done anything! But now your face is in the system, and the system is tracking you. Why did the match occur? Well, maybe the software was simplified using an eigenface system or something, and your face closely matches the reference key for a particular eigenface, and that key also matches that for a known criminal face - maybe something happened in your past long ago when you were a kid, and they took your picture, then let you go to your parents - but a record exists, and it was added to the database as a possible hit - there are tons of scenarios to draw upon - but when the cops come up, drag you out of the crowd for matching a face that the computer says is you, wastes a hell of a lot of time (hey, you might even be put in a holding cell for a day or two while things are straightened out) - there is the possibility.

Then, of course, there is the fact that the cameras do nothing to stop crime, they merely record the crime as is progresses, and do nothing to deter the crime after the fact (ie, I bet you'll feel real secure in a camera recording you being stabbed to death by a psycho serial killer wearing a ski mask)...

Think this is babble? Read Database Nation, and open your eyes...

For EVERYONE:

Database Nation

What isn't usually stated well is why FR systems tend to be a poor choice. Such systems are brought out, touted as the "solution to the problem". They are anything but...

These systems do not match a face to a person, but rather they match a face to information about a person.

Information stored in a database.
Information that can be altered.
Information that can be wrong.

This is the problem with all of these systems that match biometric data to information in a database (whether it be a signature or a face). Because these systems match certain characteristics (biometrics) of a person, with possibly erroneous information in the database, such systems can ultimately be used to persecute innocent people.

This persecution may be innocent due to bad data (a case of "garbage in, garbage out"), or malicious, due to purposefully changed data. Those using the system may or may not be aware of such changes, and because of the attitude of "it is in the computer, and the computer can't be wrong, right?", they don't tend to question the issue.

Such "mis-identifications" occur regularly with credit reports and credit bureau databases, and these don't even utilize biometrics! What will happen when they do?

Want to know more? Check out the book Database Nation...

...why this is a bad thing.

If you still don't understand, and you really want to know why, I implore upon you to read Database Nation, for the truth, fallacies, meanings, and danger that surround the whole information/data analysis, collection, and distribution systems in use.

This camera system doesn't match a face to another face - instead it matches data to other data. If the data can be changed, or used - it can be altered to "finger" anyone - and how do you prove which is the truth and which is the forgery? People are trusting now that "the computer is always right" - ever looked at your credit report? Pray that your name isn't "John Smith" or similar! Been denied credit lately?

Read the book - it goes over all this and a lot more. FR tech and credit reporting is only the tip of the iceberg, unfortunately. It is only going to get worse, unless you really understand what can be done with this information, and then act to protect that information.

...then I strongly encourage you to read the book Database Nation.

Just don't buy it at Borders...

First of all everyone interested in this thread should check out the book Database Nation, which discusses DNA testing at some length among other things. Second, where this is going is DNA samples will routinely be taken from all newborns in the hospital at birth. So the DNA database will include everyone, not just criminal subjects. Be very afraid.

• Brand loyalty (yummy carrot, here's a few pennies, now love us!)
• Data mining (they all include clauses allowing them to share the data with marketing "partners" (ie people who pay them money)

No, you can't sue spammers/telemarketers on the same grounds as ddosing kiddies. I can understand the analogy tough. In both cases, you are flooded with "packets" from various sources. Remember tough, in the case of a ddos, there is a single person pulling the trigger with intent to harm, while telemarketers act independently of each others (and there is no intent to harm, but maybe that's a point to argue about ;).

The law against unsolicited commercial faxes passed because it wastes paper you have to actually pay for yourself, so it creates costs for you. Since an incoming phonecall or letter doesn't cost you anything the general consensus seems to be that it's ok (I don't agree with that, my time is worth something too).

Now, here in Europe I have to pay by the minute for my internet connection, I think I could use a similar reasoning against spam-mail.

I am just about to finish reading Database Nation by Simson Garfinkel, and I think the author makes some very good points about possible solutions. There is a very good case to be made for strong governement regulation, strict laws and heavy penalties here. Industry self-regulation simply doesn't work.

The more important issue behind the annoyance of receiving unsollicited mail, however, is companies aggregating large amounts of data about people and selling them. This should be forbidden if there is no prior approval by the concerned person.

Here's the URL http://www.databasenation.com/

It has a complete version of Chapter 6 online as well.