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The information was taken from Seisint, which LexisNexis recently acquired.

Former Seisint customer's data may have been revealed; LexisNexis' regular customers are not part of this group.

The Government and the DHS already uses a system like this. It was developed by a former client of mine Lexis Nexis called Risk Management Solutions.

This is used by various employers and government agencies (local, state and federal). This knowledge system could pull up reports indicating various aspects of your life including where you have lived, who your neighbors are/were, driving record, criminal records, Judgements/Liens/Bankruptcies, property ownership and much much more.

The system is limited in its search capability based on who the customer is (i.e. employers or potential employers) cannot access criminal records, driving records and such.

Additionally Lexis Nexis recently purchased a company called Seisint that gives them an even bigger stake in the profiling and data mining business as it relates to Risk Management.

A few weeks ago I attended the Fifth HOPE conferenece in New York City. While I was there, I saw Steven Rambam, a private investigator and former federal agent, give a presentation entitled "Privacy: It Ain't What It Used to Be." A better title would have been "Privacy is Already Dead."

He started out by asking if anybody in the room (about 200+ tin-foil-hat wearing hackers) had ever heard of Seisent. Not a single hand went up, and he seemed to be genuinely suprised and disturbed by this.

He made a very good point repeatedly throughout his presentation: we shouldn't be worried because Government has this data on us; no, we should be terrified because private corporations that don't even answer to the government have this data. And it's not just limited to name, address and telephone number: criminal records, addresses of residence, education, employers, telephone calls, magazine subscriptions, travel records, television viewing habits (if you have cable), internet downloads, gun ownership and voting records. Yes voting records - they know if you voted and what party you registered under.

Suffice to say, these guys should be the household name, not the RIAA. Why does the media focus on the MPAA et al and their paltry lawsuits and not these guys?!?

So I changed my sig to read "What is Seisint?" and I tell everyone I know about them.

Some have responded to me with ambivalence. "What's the big deal?" "Meh, they have the data, there's nothing we can do about it." I'm not sure how to respond to people like that except with "the dumber you are the happier you are" or something.

What could they do with that data? Use your imagination, stupid.

Rambam finished by giving a live demonstration of a smaller database of individual information that he owns (derived mostly public records). He demonstrated how quickly you could compile information on any random person with just their SSN - as it turned out, the "victim" he took from the audience was already a real victim of identity theft. The query took less that 10 seconds. It was pretty amazing / disturbing.

During the Q&A portion of the presentation, several audience members asked what they could do to "get out" of the database. Rambam replied that there was nothing we could do: the data was now the property of this one private company - even the data that was collected from State governments (Aside from being one of the egregiou privacy invasions in human history, it was also one of the most gernerous corporate subsidizations ever).

Rambam did say one thing we could do: "Vote, vote, vote." Private corporations have too many protections and powers compared to individuals, and Government is the only way to change that.

The final questioner for the session had a very +5 Insightful comment on what everyone in the audience should do just in case the voting didn't work out:

"Buy, and learn how to use, a rifle."

The audience response to this comment was, of course, thunderous applause.

Now come on. You know very well that there's a huge difference between what is happening in America today and what the Soviets did. I don't know about you, but I do not have any fear of being woken up in the middle of the night, thrown into a van, and being shipped off to some Siberian gulag just because I surfed the wrong website last night.

The Soviets lived in constant fear of Big Brother because unlike our government, who I'll admit has a penchant for snooping, they chose to act on the information they gathered to actively suppress any non-state sponsored viewpoints. And, unlike our government, the Russian people could not approach their Soviet leaders for the same fear of reprisal.

I've said it a million times before here -- if you don't like the way things are going, do one of two things -- vote, or run for office. But putting on the tin foil hats for things that are easily obtainable by the governemtn through other sources, just reeks of knee jerk reactions.

This is the business that Seisint is in (from their web site):

Underlying Seisint's data products is a multi-billion record repository of information on US individuals and businesses. With our unique combination of data, association algorithms and technologies, Seisint(R) offers the best-performing solutions in the marketplace.

Seisint's products include:

Accurint is Seisint's family of information products sold commercially to organizations with legitimate business uses throughout the United States. Accurint has the most in-depth information on U.S. individuals and businesses. The associative links, historical residential information, and other information, such as an individual's possible relatives and associates, are deeper and more comprehensive than other commercially available database systems presently on the market.

Using proprietary algorithms, compilation techniques, and retrieval technology to access data stores containing billions of records, Accurint's ability to deliver high-quality matches and find rates is unparalleled. Given a few pieces of information (e.g. a phonetically spelled name, the city of a previous address), Accurint can rapidly retrieve a complete and accurate picture of an individual or business.

Accurint is powered by Seisint's Data Supercomputer technology, enabling complex searches to be performed at a fraction of the cost of other solutions.

The information is collected by states and forwarded to a database in Florida, where a private company, Seisint Inc., builds and manages the database.

Now that we know that Seisint is compiling a database of all relevant information on *everyone* living in Utah, how long do we think it'll be before one of the many hackers/crackers (possibly sponsored by organized crime, then again equally likely to be doing it just for the kudos) breaks through their corporate security (cough smoke-and-mirrors, if they're like most other companies) and steals the identity of an entire state at once?

Of course " Utah was one of 13 states that hopped on board the pilot program last June -- funded with $12 million in federal grants. But since then, several states have pulled out of the project, citing privacy and financial concerns."

So we're not even talking about just one single state !

C'mon people - fame and fortune, kudos from the slashdot crowd, and your very own entry in the Guinness Book of Records.

I can just see it now Worlds Largest Simultaneous Identity Theft

Guess who is developing this system ?
Seisint
guess who is the number 12 campaign contributer to the republicans ? who just got awarded
1.6million (with more to follow)

Seisint

enjoy because its not like anyone will do anything about it, oh except vote them in again

Guess who is developing this system ?

Seisint

guess who is the number 12 campaign contributer to the republicans ? who just got awarded 1.6million (with more to follow)

Seisint

im not American but it looks like your goverment is doomed to failure with all this corruption, and people wonder why the dollar aint worth shit

enjoy cos you aint gonna do anything about it, oh except get poor while Bush and his buddies ensure they will never have to work again in their lives EVER

i want to feel sorry but i can't

A company called Seisint has created a product called Accurint that was used by the government to catch the DC snipers .

Their price list alone is reminiscent of Gattaca which offers the ability to retrieve for most any U.S. citizen their:

6 Neighbors at 10 Different Addresses
Possible Relatives
Possible Drivers Licenses
Criminal (Felony) - 10 Year

It's bad enough if our government uses it to catch terrorists, what happens when AOL uses it to target their mass marketing?!?

A company called Seisint has created a product called Accurint that was used by the government to catch the DC snipers .

Their price list alone is reminiscent of Gattaca which offers the ability to retrieve for most any U.S. citizen their:

6 Neighbors at 10 Different Addresses
Possible Relatives
Possible Drivers Licenses
Criminal (Felony) - 10 Year

It's bad enough if our government uses it to catch terrorists, what happens when AOL uses it to target their mass marketing?!?

H.