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Software And The Death of Privacy
"I am not the first to point out that capitalism, having defeated communism, now seems about to do the same to democracy. The market is doing splendidly, yet we are not."
--- Ian Frazier, "On the Rez."
All week, we visit Web sites, Weblogs, mailing lists; we download software, buy books, check out movie reviews, visit news sites, order vitamins and DVDs; download MP3s; go to chat rooms; check in on ICQ, AIM. Each time, some program is tracking our every move, compiling elaborate marketing profiles, often collating the information with vast databases and selling the resulting information without our knowledge.
Privacy, as most of us have come to understand the idea, is over.
Except to the Unabomber or to a handful of Luddites living in the desert, the idea that we can keep our personal, financial and other information from corporations and governments is as outdated as the idea that the movie industry can jail all the people helping themselves to DeCSS software.
A growing array of software makes much of our individual behavior trackable - what we buy, what we read, where we visit, how we get our information. Companies that produce and deliver banner ads can track your clicks from site to site across the Web. They can cross-reference your personal ID with records listing your name, address, telephone number, e-mail, purchasing and browsing habits.
Amazon.com has pioneered recognition software programs that compile individuals' tastes and choices over time, a technology that's been adopted by supermarkets and hardware stores, who recognize us the minute they swipe our credit cards or take our telephone numbers.
ISPs (like AOL) and portals and search engines can record which chat rooms you enter, what news pages you read, what pages you've bookmarked.
Most Americans have no idea that marketers can store their user IDs in cookie files and track their movements so precisely and comprehensively. Were a government to attempt this, politicians and civil libertarians would explode in righteous fury. But when done this gradually, technologically, out of sight and in incremental, software-driven steps, it simply creates an astonishing new social reality: Those of us who go online regularly (this year, that will be more than 130 million people) no longer have a voluntarily zone of privacy.
None of us any longer has any clear idea just how much personal information about us has been gathered, or who might have acquired or stored it. Nor is it possible to imagine all the future circumstances - applying for jobs, graduate school or government grants; fending off a lawsuit, running for political office; tangling with a law enforcement agency or court - in which this information might haunt us or be wielded against us. In the name of marketing and writing cool software, we've voluntarily surrendered one of the most important human rights. (See USA Today story on DoubleClick, Web-tracking and Slashdot.)
No national politician has made the death of privacy a major political issue, nor is any congressional committee investigating it. The truth is, it's no longer an issue; privacy in the traditional sense doesn't exist anymore. In a world where we're all increasingly dependent on networked computing for work, banking, music, movies, research and personal communications, it's unlikely ever to return.
Privacy has historically been considered a fundamental element of individual liberty. Thomas Jefferson argued repeatedly that privacy from governmental or other intrusion into personal lives (he had British soldiers in mind) was a basic human right. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas wrote that "the right to be left alone is the beginning of all freedom." Said political philosopher Jean Cohen: "A constitutionally protected right to privacy is indispensable to any modern conception of freedom."
The death of privacy has been so relentless, indirect and unintended, however, as to have gone virtually unnoticed. Reporters routinely pry into the most intimate details of the lives of public figures. Computers were collecting personal data on individuals even before the Net and the Web. Spy satellites overhead collect pinpoint photographs; government technicians pull cell and wireless calls out of the air; and police forces can even trace our auto trips as we pass through digitalized toll booths.
Since the use of the Net and Web is, increasingly, no longer an option but a necessity, we surrender our privacy --- usually unknowingly. Every time we go online, some marketer learns a bit more about us or our families.
According to the Interagency Financial Institution Web Site Privacy Survey, conducted by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), all of the 50 largest financial institutions online collect three or more pieces of personal or demographic information about users. The FDIC says that only eight of the 50 largest institutions meet minimal privacy data standards. That is, they fail to explain what data is being collected, allow consumers to opt out, permit access to the information, provide secure storage for the data, and provide customers a way to contact the company regarding privacy issues.
Last week, American Demographics magazine reported that new "data-mining" tools being deployed in food markets are promising to track frequent-shopper behavior both in and out of the store. The magazine reported that 46% of Americans now "swipe and save", that is, they use frequent shopper cards and programs. These digital cards are used to store customer gender, identify and age, and preferences in everything from hygiene products to junk food. They are then sold or traded for information from databases gathered by other businesses. In this way, companies can gather increasingly detailed portraits of almost everyone who uses a bank, credit or other money card, all now digitalized.
In his book "Code; and Other Laws of Cyberspace," Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig argues that the Internet will be regulated shortly, but not in the way we've feared. "Left to itself, cyberspace will become a perfect tool of control, not by the government, but by software programmers helping to track our every move."
Important aspects of privacy will be erased, he warns. Password - driven software will one day demand payment for every individual reader action, from copying a paragraph to reading something more than once. Free browsing, sharing and quoting from online works will be eliminated. This will also, Lessig warns, inhibit free speech. Once Net users realize that companies like America Online can trace their movements and tailor on-screen advertising to match their habits, people will increasingly be conscious of what they say and where they say it.
If so, the future Lessig foresees will catch most Netizens (including this one) off-guard, especially the belief that copyright and intellectual property can't really be preserved as the Net and the Web grow. We haven't come to grips with the idea that the technologies most of us see as liberating are destroying our privacy.
With the collapse of Communism, which featured powerful stage agencies like the KGB and the Stasi which gathered vast amounts of personal data on citizens, the idea of brutally repressive political systems already seems remote. For better or worse, national politicians in the United States bitterly compete with one another to see who can define government in the cheapest and narrowest way. Marketers are taking advantage of this comparatively benign political period to take until-recently unimaginable liberties with our personal freedoms. So far, the corporations collecting this information have seemed relatively discreet, especially compared to brutal governments. If you pay careful attention to the Spam you get online, it's sometimes possible to see who's collecting just what kind of information about you.
And increasingly, even these image-conscious companies show their teeth. Free music sites are being shut down; a Norwegian teenager gets hauled off to the police station for allegedly violating restrictions on DVD programming code.
As for governments, the geeks and nerds who've grown up on the Net have encountered almost comically clueless ones. When it comes to repression - as in the Communications Decency Acts and Congressional votes requiring the Ten Commandments in schools - our government has been about as knowing and menacing as the Three Stooges. It's easy to understand why people struggle to take it seriously. But that hasn't always been the case. Personal privacy is a monumental safeguard against abuse of governmental authority. The distance between corporate and government computers is a very short one.
For a malevolent government - the kind Jefferson worried about, and the reason the Bill of Rights was crafted in the first place - it would be radically simple to figure out who the "troublemakers" are, what forbidden books they bought, or what politically unacceptable movies they viewed (they wouldn't have to go much further than AOL/Time-Warner). Access to this kind of information ought not be passed around among corporations. If citizens wish to give up their privacy, they obviously have the right to do so. But they ought to be given a choice. Shockingly, it's already too late for that.
This issue now permeates almost every level of American society. In the name or preventing violence, schools use computer software programs to gather information on potentially "violent" students, kids that teachers find disturbing or alarming. No one knows where this data goes - presumably to law enforcement authorities, where it remains in secret digital files for life.
The tragedy of technology is that we refuse, as a society, to consider its implications, from fertility drugs and genetic research to artificial intelligence to supercomputing.
While our political, educational and media institutions focus obsessively on exaggerated or meaningless issues like the spread of sexual imagery, or invoke the undocumented specter of media violence, larger and more fundamental issues like the loss of privacy go largely undiscussed.
Thus hard-won values slip away without much national discussion or debate. This genie is probably never going back into the bottle. Given the epidemic spread of data-tracking software, it's hard to imagine we'll ever have "the right to be left alone" again.
dear mr. katz i am your biggest fan, and i think you need to write more incisive articles about the software and the death of pouring hot grits down your pants. thank you.
JonKatz is back again with another stupid article. He never fails!
As it stands, it appears that our privacy may be changing forms. But can we really hold on to our existing concept of privacy for much longer? With nano-technologies, direct human-computer interfaces, and so forth on the horizon, we had better reconsider what we deem to be privacy.
signal11 jonkatz roblimo
check out www.techsightings.com
you have to register to submit comments
why?
Go peddle your fascist evil somewhere else than slashdot! Capitalism works fine when you leave people alone to make transactions freely.
Love that Jefferson BS.
"Privacy has historically been considered a fundamental element of individual liberty. Thomas Jefferson argued repeatedly that privacy from governmental or other intrusion into personal lives (he had British soldiers in mind) was a basic human right."
Did Jefferson's slaves have privacy? The US was created a tyranny and it will perfect tyranny.
Its by Katz and therefore its bound to be chock full of "techno-savvy geeks" and "disenfranchied information have-nots"
> With the collapse of Communism,
China, and Cuba aren't Communistic? hmmm
> the idea of brutally repressive political systems already seems remote.
ya right...
Okay ...I've had enough. I am going to click on the submit button then go to my preferences and click the little box that blocks all Katz stories.
Jon...you seem to be fairly bright and I'm sure your probably a overall decent guy. But when it comes to slashdot stories you are nothing but an ambulance chaser. I absolutly *love* to read and I swear to God I try to read your stuff with an open mind...but I can't get 3-4 paragraphs down before I just space out... totally space out.
Complete apathy for the words in front of me. Total indifference.
I'm sorry Jon, but you are a dry, boring, opportunistic ambulance chaser with nothing to say.
Adios
"The simple fact is that there are all sorts of ways to avoid the tracking activities that commercial web sites foist on their 'visitors'"
Read-only cookie file helps. One of my favorite things to do is whenever I am offered the chance to enter my demographics, I take it with gusto and enter *completely* erroneous information.
Depending on the site, I am usually a 72-yr married woman of random ethnicity, live in a trailer with a home office, and make >$100K. If they ever try to market "my" age group with this kind of info, I doubt its effectiveness. I suppose the worst that could happen is I would see Metamucil banners.
Anyway, my point is that the only thing profilers hate more than NO information is WRONG information, and I try to give as much disinfo as I can, hopefully with no perm residue.
I think it would be cool to have a little console window for your web browser where you could get messages about what information your browser is sending to the web server. For instance you could configure the console to report anytime a cookie is written to or read from. Then you'd be able to click on a link to that cookie and bring it up for viewing. You know what I mean? We need some tools to see what's going on underneath the pretty exterior.
What Jon seems to be dancing around, is the fact that corporations are rapidly replacing government power with their own.
Your typical corporation has about the same level of power as a government of comparable size, hence you see small corps with about the power of city governments in their range. You also see larger corporations and groups of large corporations challenging the power and sovereignty of national governments.
Therefore: governments need to begin reclaiming power from these corporations while it is still possible (assuming it is not too late already). This will require major reform and the recognition of the essentially governmental nature of public corporations.
Oh man, you are going to attract many negative mod points with this one. Good trolling!
Add to /etc/hosts: 127.0.0.1 ad ad.doubleclick.net
Hey, John-boy, Esperian can try to collect all the data they want, but their mailing lists are only 50% to no more than 66% accurate. Purchase them all the time, so I know.
The privacy killer is the use of the Social Security number for health care, drivers licenses, and credit info. With that, privacy disappears. So when a State wants it on your drivers license, raise holy hell, and demand that health care providers use another number.
But that would mean criticizing govt, something Mr. Katzenjammer is incapable of doing.
This coming demise of market prices invalidates all the economic theory that justifies free-market capitalism. Cyberserfdom anyone?
I think this is an excellent article. For a while I have been making the transition from spending time defending my privacy to spending time figuring out how I will live without privacy. I have come up with two positive responses.
First, why is privacy important? So that we can conceal who we are and what we do. Why is losing privacy so threatening? Because it holds out the possibility that who we are and what we do, all of it and in minute and grotesque detail, will become generally known. Contemporary culture has ridiculously stifling standards as to what is publicly acceptable. Instead of spending (in my opinion, wasted) effort trying to keep who we are and what we do secret, we should instead invest in changing culture so that who we are and what we do is accepted. If the loss of privacy spurs action of this type, then it may actually be a step forward, rather than a step back.
Second, much of the danger comes with incomplete disclosure, unfree information. If information is going to be available, it should be available to all. We should be able to know everything that is available about ourselves. We should be able to know everything that is available about our neighbors and friends. Knowledge is power and that power should not be restricted to the government, the corporations, and the rich. If it is going to be a world without effective privacy, then it should be a world of full disclosure, where power is balanced between entities (organizations and individuals), not where power is asymmetrically distributed in favor of a few.
Any other ideas about living in a post-privacy world?
Hello, who am I, what is my name, where am I what kiosk or library or university what city etc etc. The point is you can keep this information secret if you really work hard at it. But that is the problem most people don't have the time, resources to do it.
One possibility Katz is overlooking is the use of such easily available information to hide other information. For example: suppose I'm a member of some dreaded and feared group (pick your own group, heck there's a lot of them), and I want to keep that secret. In today's world of easily available information about everyone, if I try to hide everything about myself and my daily activites that act of hiding will itself stand out. By trying to "hide", an individual makes himself more visible. The exact opposite of what a hunted minority would desire.
Instead, by actively NOT hiding the majority of day to day transactions, and only hiding those which would help indicate my "hunted minority" status, a FALSE record of normality is created. Any government official reviewing the records would find that I'm not trying to hide anything and I'm a bit quirky here and there (just like everyone else), but well within the status quo. The message given is "nothing to see here, move along to someone else".
Meanwhile, I'm using things like cookie blockers, Freedom.net, etc. for those things that would indicate my "hunted minority" status. (Yes, this is subject to human error, but what isn't?)
The point is that like most things, this situation of supposed loss of privacy has two sides to it. A clever person can use it to his/her advantage if they need to.
> MAKE YOURSELF HEARD
:)
Watch out, this slogan is already taken
But how in the world would you ever access the wealth of information to use in your proof??
Governments definitely a threat.
Glad you figured that out. How many polished in WWI? How about Nazi Germany, 13 million in the Holocaust? Russia slaughtered 40 million just after WW2 when it was at peace with its neighbors, and killed more Jews than Hitler. China managed to kill upwards of 60 million of its citizens, and now wants Taiwan. Not to mention Rwanda, Kosovo, Indonesia and other assorted evil governments.
Now, your health care records include your religion. Would you like that linked to your SS number? If it was, would you sleep better? I wouldn't.
If you really want to unnerve the cashier, and if you plan ahead, you can enter their home phone number. They get sort of annoyed. Especially if you buy 10 pron mags, 15 gallons lighter fluid, 20 boxes of baggies, and other "sensitive" groceries that law enforcement agencies may be curious about (or their bosses may be curious about!)
Well, it certainly is not as easy as doing nothing, but none of suggestions about how to surf (use proxies and remailers) and what not to do (click on ads, etc.) is hard. All it takes is a little effort.
It is really a different philosophy. Is it the role of government and society to make it "easy"? Or is it the role to ensure that I am punished when I do harm to you, or vice versa? I prefer the latter. Back to the topic at hand, what is an appropriate level of intervention?
My personal preference would be to have an explicit law that personal information is personal property. The only real difference to how it is now is that it would give legal recourse to individuals (and groups of individuals) to how that information is used. If I want to give up my medical history for $0.25 off a box of corn flakes, then it is my choice. If PrivacyViolation, Inc. grabs my medical history without my permission, then I can file theft charges or go to court. A couple of class-action suits and something akin to P3P will be readily adopted - and adhered to.
What will life be like under the Department of Privacy Enhancement (DoPE)? First, it will take a phalanx of lawyers, administrators, and a few forests to fill out the federally mandated forms and follow the regulations. Second, any complaints will require an individual to negotiate a system that Kafka would have nightmares about. And third, the regulations will be written to favor the big companies at the expense of both the individual and smaller companies. Of course, we will have to expand the Small Business Administration bureaucracy for the purpose of helping negotiate the privacy bureaucracy.
Once again, advocacy of increased government involvement will backfire and then we can all sit around, scratching our asses, and wondering why it did not work.
life is an sexually transmitted, terminal disease
I used to post that tagline to my USENET postings way back in 1991. Funny that it took so long for anybody else to start using it as a tagline again.
Thank you, Captain Obvious! (Score:1) by ebbv on Wednesday February 02, @10:26AM EST (#39) >> I think we need to form a petition to >>discontinue Jon Katz' articles on /. I second the motion. Seriously, the next SlashDot poll should be, "Keep Jon Katz, or NOT." --Doofus
>> I think we need to form a petition to >>discontinue Jon Katz' articles on /.
I second the motion. Seriously, the next SlashDot poll should be, "Keep Jon Katz, or NOT." --Doofus
For an informative look at technology and privacy try reading "The Transparent Society" by David Brin. He presents an interesting view and argues the pros and cons of the different sides of the privacy issue effectively. I found the book to be very balanced, with Dr. Brin making an honest effort to evaluate the possible consequenses of each scenario.
I don't know what the fuss is about. As many other posters have shown, you can easily fake out these systems. Besides, your local store in a small town used to know you, too. Big brother is a long way off. The volume of information alone makes it practically impossible to track anything other than trends. It's not like some idiot is sitting at a terminal watching you buy things. Big, impassive computers make decisions on where you might like to eat lunch based on what you've done in the past. That sounds like an improvement to me. Actually, I'd rather like not having to input information as often as I do now. I have six or seven active accounts with different usernames and password requirements. That is annoying.
Well? I don't know I forgot you tell me.
Well? I don't know I forgot you tell me.
Well? I don't know I forgot you tell me.
Well? I don't know I forgot you tell me.
Well? I don't know I forgot you tell me.
Well? I don't know I forgot you tell me.
Of course, Katz and his fellow Luddite hordes don't like the efficient movement of capital, so they oppose tracking, profiling, and targeted ads.
There are plenty of tools available to protect your "privacy." For example, anonymizer.com, ziplip.com, remailers, mixmasters, zero-knowledge, PGP, safe hex, cancel your credit card, cancel your SSN, hide your money under the mattress, play like a good boy, don't get caught, live in Montana in a cabin in the woods as a squatter (no title or city hall record, that way).
Shit, when will this boob shut up?
-Online Jerk Infringing on Rights to Free Speech.
(OJIRFS)
I'm probably pretty techno-ignorant too but I'll give this a shot. Pardon some simplistic brevity but you can do more research on your own if you're interested. First, let me briefly and oversimplistically explain cookies. When a web site wants to track your usage the data they use to track you is stored on YOUR computer and not theirs. This is what cookies are. To subvert this process you use a program such as atguard (for windows) or junkbuster (for linux) that stands between your browser and their server and manages the content of the cookies, or whether they are even used on a site-by-site basis. Second, don't use a pentium III. It contains a serial number that can be used to track you. Third. Read books and relevant magazine articles and keep yourself informed. Jon, you're right about the level of understanding of "ordinary" people but many of us feel they have only themselves to blame. And what's so hard about just telling them "Use atguard to control your cookie file" ? It might take them a while, perhaps 45 minutes or a few days to understand it, and they may even get a headache in the process, but isn't that better than ignorant hysteria ?
Again, Katz displays his blatant lack of understanding of Rights theory. Apparently, he hails from the school that worships historical figures, rather than the school of critical thought.
/. can.
The best example of Katz's foolishness is his use of the quotation: "the right to be left alone is the beginning of all freedom." He uncritically assumes what he sets out to prove, using the prestige of a Talking Head as a substitute for reason. Typical.
Rights theorists have always rejected the notion of positive rights. There is no right to be heard, there is no right to be safe, the is no right to be healthy, etcetera etcetera etcetera. Katz would like "privacy" to be a strong negative Right (e.g., the right to self defense, right to own property). Unfortunately, this position is untenable.
Positive rights, when assigned, always infringe on the actions of others. The right to be heard (a favorite of Jon's) means coercion of the audience. The right to be safe means cameras and cops in your underwear drawer, since you never know who the criminal might be. The right to be healthy means that the healthy will be forced to pay for the health of others, taking their money and restricting their actions.
So, too, with the right to be left alone. You can certainly act to conceal your actions, behind doors, anonymous servers, remailers, etc. And I can do nothing about that. However, if I can see you, I can track you, and write down where you go, what you do, etc. Is this criminal? Hardly. Once you claim a right to be left alone, you have infringed my liberty to be left alone (i.e., to write down what I see you doing). Will you put cameras in my underwear drawer, Mr. Katz?
Positive rights always cancel the equal rights of others. Negative rights, like self-defense rights, cannot. By claiming my life as mine, I have not inhibited your equal right to your own defense. We can exist peacefully together, neither a threat to the other.
This is already too far afield. All I want to emphasize is that Katz is using (with alarming regularity, for a person who ought to know better) patently inadequate moral philosophy. Just look at his hopes to censor the online jerks, in order to prevent them censoring the online feebs.
He may not be able to recognize the contradictions in his reasoning, but I hope the wider audience at
Face it, Jon-boy, if you can hide your actions, you have privacy. But you can't expect to walk down the street with a propeller beanie and demand that people not take note of it. At that point, you're infringing my "right" to be left alone.
Is too busy tilting at windmills. Well, not even tilting so much as busily whining (and at such vicious length, too!). Face it Katz, you live in the Real World, not your anti-corporate, anti-jerk, anti-tracking Digitopia. The geeks you hail are helping to build it (the Real one) and shape the culture. Don't like it? Look at them. Maybe you've misunderstood the emerging pop culture of the internet.
Let's all stop whining. Please, read the appropriate FAQs and anonymize yourself. Oops, Jon Kats hates anonymity. Sooo much hypocrisy, so little time. Oh, well. If you ever visit the Real World, drop me a line so I can be on vacation.
-A Coward, Anon.
PS- It is my considered medical opinion that 70mg of Kaopectate would clean up that keyboard diarrhea that you suffer, Mr. Katz. Take two and call me in the morning.
Funny. Katz got a score of 1. Not even an interesting 1 at that.
As far as cookies go, if you don't want to accumulate them you can clean out your cookies file/directory to only include cookies you want, and then make it read only. End result: your cookies are kept only as long as they are in RAM.
When purchasing goods online, use more than one credit card account. Use different addresses (e.g. a P.O. Box and your street address) if possible.
Good luck on that one. Most of the time when you enter a credit card number, you need to give the billing address where the statements are mailed. You can use multiple cards, but unless they're going to diferent addresses (a pain in the arse), it's not gonna do you much good.
I for one hope that freedom and privacy is an essential freedom will come from both the spontaneous actions of individuals and faceless bureaucrats charged with implementing the political demands of the majority. Really without a convergence of both kinds of action the situation is going to be fairly bleak. "Vigilantes" help the problem, they bring some real results and their work dramatizes the struggle and reminds people who're too distant from the center of the melee what's going on. However, their adversaries are much larger than they. And they have an enormously invisible adversary called ideology. To theorize that the "market" will automatically answer the need felt by people to protect their privacy is nice, but the are situations where the market is slow even ..strangely unable?.. to react.
Someone hereabouts noted there was a potential market for a brandname computer --not an aftermarket fix for the specially motivated-- sold with a security conscious browser +webproxy combination, like Netscape with a good jspref file plus Junkbuster, with a nice blocklist and deadends for doubleclick and focalink and Microsoft and the rest of the ratfuckers. Certainly there are a large number of consumers who'd respond to the selling point of "secure and private browsing" were it to be offered. So where is it? Where is any PC being sold on the consumer market with "security and privacy" as a feature/benefit? And why haven't we seen this? Why would manufacturers slight their own interests by neglecting a profit opportunity? Someone else on slashdot recently alluded to the fable of the scorpion, the frog, and the river, and I think basically that's appropriate in this case as well. Large economic entities are fully capable of letting their own marketing proganda, or political affinities overtake and skew their calculations of their interests.
Companies of the size of a national pc distributor will certainly pitch certain machine/software configurations to consumers as "gameworthy" but they have not pitched one as "secure". No, this is the sort of thing they will not discuss. It makes the whole PC bonanza and all their other offerings look bad somehow--suspect somehow. Even though there is a consumer demand and response for this kind of attribute, it would be prejudicial to the "CandyLand" world view these companies project: Happy lucky consumers, come buy, come buy! the Internet is your playground and all gritty details have been taken care of, you have only to buy our Plasticene dayglo offerings to make this Exciting Wonderland yours forever! Use your card--it's like you won it as a lottery prize!
And that is why there is still the need for Lessig's faceless bureaucrats to erect a Cordon Sanitaire around the online individual's privacy. Privacy in any event is not a right that pertains to this person over here and that one over there, but not these other people who don't have a clue how their privacy and security are being compromised. Like property it's a right universal and inalienable for each person. It is a universal right and merits blanket protection. Marketeers can hardly be motivated be effectively protect everyone's privacy when they can barely be bothered to offer effective privacy solutions for even that small market segment that's totally paranoid on the subject. After all, they tend to see the consumer's data the way doubleclick sees it, as something to wring a profit out of. They are eager to buy this data on their customers and everyone else just as doubleclick is eager to sell it--this blinds them to the opportunity to make the profit "going the other way", by helping to protect the consumer's privacy. Nothing stops them from doing both, actually, but the ideological frame they look at the world through side-by-side with doubleclick. Regulation is therefore needed and should take its cue from the vigilantes about where the problem is coming from and what to do about it. The vigilantes make for a much more exciting story, no questions there, but the bureaucrats might actually succeed in protecting us.
Christ, Katz, quit your bitching and turn off cookies.
Someday they will begin to ask you why you are avoiding being recorded in The Database. Troublemaker.
" A entirely new wave of agent-based applications is about to hit the marketplace and all of the schemes and plans that the advertisers have constructed around Web browsers is about to get tossed out the window." Yeah, and someday my prince will come.
They may look like people to you. But many of them have forgotten most of what it means to be human.
A substitution cipher can be broken by a child of ten.
Esther Dyson isn't the most popular person among a lot groups on the net but she does have a lot to say on this topic. Her big idea about privacy on the net is to turn it into a commodity, something that has value to you and to corporations. The only way I see that we can keep our information private is to make it more valuable to a company not to sell our data that to sell it. Companies that are responsible with our data should be rewarded for it, those that flagrantly sell us out to other companies should be punished by fines ( government intervention!) or by losing sales. Contrary to what a lot of people believe, corporations don't have any agenda when collecting our data than making money. If they can make money by customizing our "experience," they'll do it. If they can make money by selling our data, they'll do that too. The only thing that will stop the collection/selling of data we don't want them to have is to make it financially bad for them to do so.
I haven't seen any companies willing to publish what they do with our data, perhaps that should be the law? Any ideas?
I recently tried this law out after I had recieved some junk mail. From the address of the database company I looked up their phone number and called them to request them to restrict my information. When I talked to them they told me that they did not have any procedures for handling my request. The company had been selling people's addresses for at least ten years and I was the first adressee ever to have contacted them.
Seems like most people either don't care or they don't seem to know about these things.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Premature, for sound-bite effect.
Privacy CAN exist on the Internet, as it stands. It's very, very easy.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
While you do this, and I do this, and perhaps even some of our friends do it, most people don't.
To most people, privacy beyond simple things like "not peeking in my curtains at night" is just not that important. They'd rather have the savings and the convenience. And "they" outnumber "us" to such a degree that "our" activities are basically lost in the noise. We have no effect on marketing and data collection at all.
How do I know this? Simple - if there were enough of us to make a difference, the marketers wouldn't be relying on it.
We can protect ourselves, but we can't protect the culture we live in. The culture we live in tomorrow is going to be irrevocably shaped by the presence a clicktrail through one's entire life. Yes, I can turn off cookies, fake up web identities, lie on surveys, and publicly mock advertisements. But that's not enough. For example: the Discovery Channel has six or eight splinter channels available only on digital cable. They are, in my opinion, the only channels worth owning a TV for. But here's the rub - the digital cable box sends a report on everything I do back to AT&T/TCI. They know what shows I watch, how late I stay up at night, probably even what ads cause me to change the channel. The only way I can keep them from knowing is to cancel my digital subscription and go back to analog, in which case I lose those channels. So my choice is this: submit to being monitored, or don't get the spiffy channels. And no amount of arguing or making up of false identities can change that.
How many more of those decisions will we have to make in the next twenty years?
The simple fact is that it doesn't matter whether we can come up with technical workarounds to tracking technology. Most people can't, and wouldn't care enough to try even if we were to show them how. And as far as the people who are doing the tracking are concerned, "most people" are all the people that matter.
-Mars
Every TV show I watch is recorded and sent back to AT&T.
The company I work for knows when I come in and when I leave.
My bank knows where I go when I leave town.
The phone company knows who my friends are and where they live.
If I had a cellphone, like everyone else in this city seems to, the phone company would know where I was at all times.
If I used a cable-modem, they would know which websites I visited and when.
Privacy isn't dead?
-Mars
Knowledgeable people shouldn't have to take steps to protect privacy that is constitutionally guaranteed them
:-)
They're also constitutionally guaranteed to be able to walk across the street, but that doesn't mean you don't watch out for trucks. Besides, in most cases you're talking about people who willingly give up information. I allow the NY Times to know who I am because I want to read the paper. So give a bogus name and address if you want! It doesn't usually matter.
And people who are not knowledgeable, which is still most Americans when it comes to the Net, have no way of protecting themselves
That's where the lawsuits against these companies like DoubleClick come into play. Otherwise you might as well lobby for a Ministry of Privacy which, of course, would know everything about everyone.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
The problem is: how many net users fall under the definition of "knowledgeable"?
We Slashdot users have a sort of tunnel vision in this subject, because most of us know what cookies are for, how can they be used, etc., so we tend to see this as less of a problem than what it actually is. But go out and ask the average citizen who just installed AOL and "just wants to use this net stuff". Their browsers have cookies activated, and they don't even know it. Nor they care. And they are currently the majority of the users.
And the same could be applied to many other technologies that one couldn't even imagine (not just cookies), over which we have much less control. For example, cell phones. (Disgression: some years ago the chechenian leader Dudayev (sp?) was killed by a russian missile while talking on a cell phone with Moscow authorities to discuss a possible peace treaty. When it happened, most media published that Dudayev had been traced "thanks to his cell phone"... and yet nobody made a big deal about it. Every newspaper seemed to treat the fact that They can trace you thanks to a cell phone as something completely natural. If that's what you can expect from the media that is supposedly responsable of educating the public...)
Isn't that rather inconsiderate towards the person running the FTP server? They would like to know your address so that they can contact you if you're hogging bandwidth or otherwise messing up the server for other users. You could create a new address just for this purpose, of course. But realistically, how many FTP sites are collecting addresses for spam or marketing anyway?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Yes, privacy is dying, yadda yadda. I can just flip on 60 minutes or surf to doubleclick.net for the 411 on that. How about contributing something meaningful - like how to protect it.
Jon Katz: Stating the Obvious (again).
Ah yes, Signal ll. It's called following up. Sort of my job..It's not a pattern to my writings. It's the point of my writings.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
So my writing is no good, but you don't read it? Love to get you on the stand with that admission. Sorry you feel that way, but your tone of above-it-all-boredom seems pretty tiresome to me.
But I'm glad to see you concede that you don't read what I write, even though you seem to feel pretty free to characterize it.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
I don't quite get the point of a post like this. If you aren't interested in the subject, why not just skip it? Or if you disagree with the point, why not just say why? I have trouble imagining why anybody would take the time to write a post like this, but then, I guess I won't ever figure that. Also, I don't know what you're talking about..What media outlets?
jonkatz@slashdot.org
Perhaps a start is to not do business online with companies that don't have clearly stated privacy policies...
jonkatz@slashdot.org
Think about this..This is all correct. But is it really easy for most people?
jonkatz@slashdot.org
If it's simple for you to protect your privacy, good luck to you. I'd love to hear how you are so sure you've done it. But for most people, it's not so simple, and they don't even know their privacy is gone. It's striking how many ofyou have lost consciousness of the level of technological understanding ordinary people have..or don't have. Perhaps because I'm one of the techno-ignorant, it seems more disturbing to me.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
He's handsome, wise and a legendary programmer (though secretly)
jonkatz@slashdot.org
I find this distinction pretty much of a stretch. People are what they read, buy and see. I can't see sloughing off the loss of privacy as insignificant because it only..for now..relates to products. Besides, history is unpredictable. Nobody knows how this information ultimately will be used..It's a huge loss for society.. And you can see from many of the sadly arrogant comments here that people are willing to give privacy up without much of a tussle. In fact, they have.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
AC, you're trying to hard to be snide that it's easy to miss your good point. Governments are definitely a threat, though at the moment corporations are invading privacy much more intensely. But sure, obviously that's where all this goes one day, potentially. As I said in the column, the line between companies and governments getting this info is pretty thin...
jonkatz@slashdot.org
But half the country DOES use the Internet, and by next spring, according to the Computer Industry
Almanac, more than 133 million people will have access to the Net. I find the idea strange that privacy isn't important, if only half the country loses it. And those not online can still be tracked, just in different ways.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
One of the favorite criticisms on
jonkatz@slashdot.org
Interesting that Greg wants to join the ranks of the "antiKatz" (what an interesting term) because he disagrees with a column I've written. Can't we just disagree? Ideas are intensely personalized here..I don't think it's healthy.
This isn't a fear tactic. This is a real issue, whether one agrees with me or not. Privacy has always been considered a fundamental human freedom and a lot of people - by no means just me -- are worried about it's erosion. I feel corporations are getting too big and are too poorly unmonitored. If that belief sparks an "antiKatz" I'll be happy to go down...
jonkatz@slashdot.org
The fact that companies don't get info on us 100 per cent correctly is besides the point. For one thing, they're getting better all the time. Does their info have to be 100 per cent correct before it becomes a problem?
Knowledgeable people shouldn't have to take steps to protect privacy that is constitutionally guaranteed them...And people who are not knowledgeable, which is still most Americans when it comes to the Net, have no way of protecting themselves. I think we can do a lot about it, BTW.But that's not for me to dictate.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
The idea expressed above, that we can all protect our privacy if only we wish it to be so, is definitely junior high level..But I love the name Captain Obvious. It works.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
- Your primary computer isn't a Macintosh
- Your primary computer isn't a Sun or SGI workstation.
- Your primary computer doesn't have a DEC ALPHA.
- Your primary computer an x86-based PC.
- You don't run Windows NT on it.
- You don't run BeOS on it.
- You don't run Linux or BSD on it.
- You don't run anything other than Windows 95/98 on it.
- You don't want to run Internet Connection sharing.
- You don't want Virtual Private Networking.
- You don't play any IPX games online.
- In fact the only protocol you run is TCP/IP.
- You don't use AOL (like most net-connected Americans do).
- You are particularly bothered by viruses (no PC-Cillin for you).
So, the answer to lack of privacy is to run one of the least stable operating systems (Gads, not even WindowsNT!) on the planet, using only one protocol, no connection sharing, and not use America's most popular (not that I care about not being able to use them, my company's a competitor...) ISP. Ohhhhkay.Pining for the days when The Glorious MEEPT!!! graced SlapDash with his wisdom.
My web browsers do not accept cookies, and Cookie Monster helps me with that. Personally, I have no traceable web presence. However, there are always sites that require a username/e-mail address.
I remember the good old days when cookies were a good thing, except the mass hysteria about letting a web page write to your hard drive (like Netscape can't do that already).
But I'll point out that there are some sites that use cookies for no reason other than conveniance. On my page for example, I use cookies. I'm going to re-code it so that it doesn't *require* them to (bad implementation of a good idea), but the cookie my page sets is one of conveniance.
When you hit my page for the first time, you'll see a poem. I used to have Invictus, but now it's The Raven.
After you read the poem (or scroll to the bottom), you click on the link to the main page. The link has an HREF="/", which is where you already are, but since the server sets a cookie, you get the main page of my site instead of the poem, and never see the poem again, unless you don't come back for 30 days, delete the cookie, or I change the poem.
Here's what my cookie looks like:
cdslash.tdhosting.com FALSE FALSE 951471364 Raven 1Pretty harmless, I think. I set a cookie Raven=1 if you've seen the poem already, and you never have to see it again (which, I think, is a good approach to splash pages). I'm going to re-code it so that any cookie-denying browsers have my cookie policy explained to them, and a link to the main page shown, but until then, my cookies aren't a privacy issue, they're a bad-requirement issue.
The ironic thing is that if I wanted to do it without cookies, I'd have to implement a tracking database somehow, which would be even worse. *sigh* Oh well. I'll just have to fix it up I guess.
~Sentry21~
Did Amazon pioneer the process of providing recommendations based on past purchase and ratings? I first encountered this idea quite about 5 or 6 years ago when the AI lab at MIT (I think it was MIT) had an email based music recommendation system where you rated albums and it provided recommendations for you. This seems a very similar idea to the one Amazon use.
after an incident w/ a rental apt where, naturally, the owners can snoop around your privates - I had to buy a house, you can have all the privacy you want, pull the shades, don't create any unusual outside spectacles and your all set. The 'online' world may be different but you just have to be careful what you do online just like you would in a public park or mall, email is like having a conversation in a pub that can be overheard, unless you use the Cone of Silence
Agent 32
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
ehehe.. ok, then i suggest
;)
FUCK THA MAN
instead.
Technology is a tool. And its becoming an ever increasingly powerful tool. Yes, the corporations are using it to their ends, often times illegal and constricting. But we have been able to use it to ours as well.
DeCSS - Sure, there was a biased and illegal interpretation of law to suit the MPAA. But did that mean an end to its dissemination? No, in fact, it had quite the opposite effect. This was due to the net and the power of one in this medium.
Technology will always be used for a variety of purposes, only some of which will be good, only some of which you will enjoy or approve of. But technology will always be in your hands as well. If there was ever a time when a single person, or a small active group could have a wide impact and audience, IT IS NOW. And this will only increase.
MAKE YOURSELF HEARD
The key to this new power and influence IS the individual. Dont wait for a non profit organization with your beliefs to crop up, fighting for freedom or against corporate or government ills. Start a list serv, make a site, sign petitions, search the web for resources that you could contribute to.
If you want to see change happen, the web is the best place to start. It is your information resource, and your medium to communicate with millions on a level basis.
Wake up people, not only has government and corporate power increased. Yours has too.
Use it.
Personally, I like the idea someone here had of filling these databases with bogus info. Swap store-discount cards with others; anything that asks for personal info, give 'em garbage.
Yes, I'm a midget, transexual, she-male, who enjoys rugby and Chanel #5
I don't recomend doing this on your taxes though.
You may think the internet is the end of privacy, but I know for sure that people hand over much information (without even knowing) to marketing companies.
Let me think:
1. What can credit-card companies do with all the payslips: they know where you do your shopping!
2. You've got a discount card of your local supermarket? I do. The supermarket probably knows my shopping behaviour better than I do.
3. Even received the envelop with a questionair? You did return it? Yet another entry in the database.
4. Returned that fill-in form for warranty on a product? Yep, here we go again.
5. Ever done some work for charity? President of your local sport club? It's noted somewhere...
6. This list is enless.
There is a statistic for the Netherlands (where I live) that says that a name appears in 400 databases on avarage. Those who didn't realize that this is happening must have been blind that last 2 decades. The only thing the internet added to this is the even finer granularity.
Marco (with yet another public entry that can be traced).
"A growing array of software makes much of our individual behavior trackable - what we buy, what we read, where we visit, how we get our information."
One of the saving graces of our current system is that that corporations aren't really interested in *you*, though. When they track this info, they aren't interested in you, the person, only in how much food you eat, TV you watch, clothes you buy, etc... So far as they're concerned, you are just a unit of consumption -- your ideology and beliefs are irrelevant, except when they can be used to sell you Stuff (TM).
It's still an invasion of privacy, and still scary -- no one likes to live in a glass house. Anyway, Katz makes the point that government is losing power to the corporation -- but this doesn't have to change the fundamental nature of our government, just make it smaller.
Let's see... Every day I delete my entire .netscape directory from my home directory. This does a number of things for me: it clears my history, removes my cache, and deletes all of my unwanted cookies. The most anyone will ever be able to track of my movements on the web are a day's worth of browsing.
I seldom fill out forms on the internet which include my name, address, phone, email.
You can still have as much privacy on the internet as you are willing to have. Most people actually prefer the convenience of cookies to protecting their privacy.
And actually, collecting data about web surfers is a far cry from an actual invasion of privacy. The only data the "offending" parties can get is data the you GIVE them. If you worry about privacy, just don't submit any personal data over the net. The most anyone can get from you is generic data that won't point it's finger back to you (without a warrant, that is.)
Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
I've been thinking about reviewing Database Nation for Slashdot, along with Whit Diffie and Susan Landau's Privacy on the Line, which I consider mandatory reading. If someone else reviews them here before me, that would be fine.
One important book which was ahead of its time is Oscar Gandy's The Panoptic Sort (Westview Press 1993). This is also well worth reading as a socio/political overview of these issues. The Panopticon, as you'll recall, was Jeremy Bentham's notion of a circular prison with a central guard tower from which all activity in every cell could be watched constantly.
Gandy writes:
The panoptic sort is the name I have assigned to the complex technology that involves the collection, processing, and sharing of information about individuals and groups that is generated through their daily lives as citizens, employees, and consumers and is used to coordinate and control their access to the goods and services that define life in the modern capitalist economy.
The panoptic sort is a system of disciplinary surveillance that is widespread but continues to expand its reach. The operation of the panoptic system is guided by a generalized concern with rationalization of social, economic, and political systems. The panoptic sort is a difference machine that sorts individuals into categories and classes on the basis of routine measurements. It is a discriminatory technology that allocates options and opportunities on the basis of those measures and the administrative models that they inform . . . The panoptic sort is a system of actions that governs other actions. The panoptic sort is a system of power.
This is only the general thesis of the book; Gandy goes well beyond the usual ivory-tower theorizing to talk about practicalities in government and commercial use of databases and other technology. It's a useful companion to the books by Garkinfel and Diffie and Landau, who unfortunately seem unaware of Gandy's pioneering analysis.
-------
Bill Gates Is My Evil Twin.
I had never heard this quote before, and I'm glad John posted it. What I would like to focus on now is much later in the article, where he says "The distance between corporate and government computers is a very short one.
Exactly right. This is one of the key issues we need to understand and be up in arms about. As corporate America seeks to gain an increasingly tight stranglehold around the influences which move government America (witness the unbelievably large contributions to election coffers on both sides of the political fence via "soft money", the unwillingness of the federal judiciary to open up their records (which would assist in insuring that a specific judge a "conflict of interest" by ruling in cases where he/she owns stocks, etc. ). Folks, that's all three branches of the government which can be corrupted by the money available to big business. IMHO we haven't faced an us (individuals from all walks of life) vs. them (big companies, extremely rich, powerful people (whose wealth is in those big companies) battle like this since the extremely violentm early part of the 20th century.
Wake up folks!! This is a war for freedom(s) that we can't afford to lose.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
the US government has more info on you referenced by the little 9 digit number of joy that you tote long from job to job. recited with every tax return, this familiar number is linked to mailing address, physical address (of home and work), marital staus and possible children, auto registration (there is a load of info here too), power usage at home, phone records, financial information linked from banking institutions using this number as a customer refernce ... the list goes on.
... hell show me the car ads, and if records show I just got a new car last year, then show me the GAP ads.
... hehe, well Yukon Territory is still pretty damn open, property in Central Mexico or Romania is dirt cheap. But if you are looking for those days in this grand land of ours, well ... that died with the fuckin buffalo herds, slaughtered for fun while riding the train a few years back.
... think a little more, and dont be down on what's going on with technology. Embrace technology as a tool, use it, and let the masses integrate it into their lives with the dependancy of a lungcancer victim and an iron lung. YOU have the CHOICE.
Now if I decide to buy a twelve pack of MGD instead of a couple bottles of Grolsch, and "THEY" decide to track it, then fine, fill up that server database HD space with a few more bits on me. I really have nothing to hide as a consumer, And frankly I welcome the day that I dont need to watch a tampon commercial if I am the one watching the Xfiles
But if I as an individual decide I need to have privacy, I wont be logged into AOL, banking online with WellsFargo, getting toilet paper with the SafewayClub card, buying gas at Shell with the Shell MilagePlus Credit Card, or even getting power from a groundline. As an individual I live differently, I have a few POBoxes with different names, use snail mail (because email NEVER has been secure) get power from generators, always pay with cash, barter alot for cash, and eat a shit-load of homegrown tomatos.
Privacy is still exactly where it was 10 years ago, its just that the tracking is more obvious, and more people are becoming aware of it. As far as "EVER GOING BACK TO THE GOOD OLD DAYS" attitude
Get a clue, dont fool yourself
rm -rf microsoft*
rm -rf ms/*
...long before software began to hasten its death.
The death of privacy has been so relentless, indirect and unintended, however, as to have gone virtually unnoticed. Reporters routinely pry into the most intimate details of the lives of public figures.
That's right. And reporters were prying into those most intimate details long before there were computers or the web or to make their job easier.
Economic reality, not software, has made possible the death or privacy. If something - say f'rinstance the intimate details of peoples' lives - become valuable, people, governments, and corporations will try to obtain it, and then use or sell it. In the past, one had to be famous before details of ones private life became valuable. But the privacy-killing forces were still at work. They've just grown to the point where they affect damn near anyone who buys or sells anything.
This may be true in the US, but in some other countries privacy is still respected (like countries in the European Union.)
There are several fundemental differences in the cultural environment between the US and Europe that contributed to the demise of privacy:
* US = extreme paranoia by the government that extremist states will attack (Iraq, Cuba, etc.) This has contributed to the lack of strong encryption here
* US = no clearly defined constitutional right to privacy
Unless these are changed I feel that the US may become the most restrictive country in the world.
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
This is all good advice in general, but a lot of it is irrelevant to the ways that modern corporations keep tabs on us. Encrypting all of your data -- via PGP, IPsec, SSH, or what-have-you -- is a smart thing to do but doesn't really interfere with the traffic that marketers watch. It doesn't alter your demographic profile or your click-through trail.
Moreover, marketers are already using other tricks to find out who you are. DoubleClick tracks you with a cookie every time you load one of their images. You don't even need to click through the ads for them to know who you are.
A modified list, focusing on how to stay anonymous to corporate interests:
It's not actually that easy. It is often difficult to get information that you need by registering a user account on a vendor's web site, or creating a big pile of cookies, or running some JavaScript applet, or doing something else to give up your identity. Tools like Cookie Monster and JunkBusters make it easier. But it's not easy.
Privacy protection laws essentially involve a trade-off: in order to protect our privacy from corporations, we have to reduce the privacy that corporations have from government.
The US is, to put it mildly, ambivalent about this. Which is more dangerous, corporations who invade your privacy or a government which does?
When my local supermarket was signing people up I told them flatly that I would not give them that information. They wanted name, address, phone number. They let me sign up as Alfred E. Newman. But I use my credit card to pay, so already they can link me to my purchases.
Just to mess with them, I purchase one 'non-sequitor' each month. I know that they look at trends, but when instead of chips and beer and red meat, they see a vegetarian tofu meal, I just hope that it makes them think.
Let's face it. It is impossible to hide.
Just a dude. Stuck in IT.
The lack of privacy is not so much a problem as is it's nasty brother; identity theft.
If you ever wanted to make somones life living hell, steal their identity, raun up a bunch of bills and then watch them squirm the rest of their life.
This has happened to people all over the United States and they are having a terrible time try to put their lives back together...
The only difference between then and today is that today's know-it-alls haven't (yet) become gossips.
When I can go to amazon.com and buy a list of roblimo's book purchases, then it's time to worry. Of course, by then it may be too late to worry...
Duct tape + WD40 => DevOps
Years ago 60 Minutes did a story about privacy.
They got a man and wife to give all their cancelled checks for one year to a private investigator.
The PI loved it, he wished he could get that detailed information on all cases.
Does your bank return cancelled checks?
Privacy centers around two issues. Truely private information and information we might want to keep private but which is actually in the public domain.
Like it or not, information that we enter into a website or reveal to the power company, phone company, grocery store or other organization is not private.
Individuals rarely have a sense of the bargain involved in information interchange. When I give a bookstore my address to ship books to me, the bargain is that they will have my home address, and they will use it to ship me the books. Likewise, when you use your credit card, you are implying that you expect your purchases to be tracked, at least for billing, if nothing else.
In this age of diminished privacy it is important to draw a distinction between information which is and should be truely private and other information such as mouse clicks, home address, posts on slashdot, or taste in music, which may not be private if you allow outside agents access to it.
The privacy debate may just end up another tower of babel, if individuals don't police their own information.
John
You Let This Happen
All this data didn't just appear. Those companies got your email address somehow didn't they? You had to fill out a form somewhere, you had to click the "Submit" button or what have you. If you keep cookies turned on, and javascript chuggin in the background, that's your own fault. And as far as "less informed" users go, their ignorance is what these information-gathering companies thrive on. If they don't know better, then that is their fault. Everyone acts like this data about them just "materializes" somewhere. You clicked on the ads, and you filled out the forms. I don't get spam, you know why? Because I don't give my email address anywhere I don't think is 100% safe. But Joe-Shmoe user don't care, he'll give his to anyone with a form and a 'Click Here' button. That's his ignorance. That's his fault. Blame the companies, blame the internet, blame the media.
If you don't want the supermarkets to get all this information on you, don't sign up for the "value" cards. They want to know this information, just as companies like DoubleClik do. It helps them out, it makes them money. And I can just see someone trying to explain to a company such as DoubleClik about how they should respect users, and not calculate all this information about them. And I can guarantee they'll laugh you right out the door. And they're laughing now: all the way to the bank.
I know this isn't going to be the most well-recieved opinion, but its true. Data doesn't appear, you are responsible for you. Your privacy starts in one place, and that's right where your standing. If you don't want them to know, turn the crap off, and don't fill out anything. Then you have nothing to worry about. If your ignorance causes you to be on a list somewhere about where you went last week and what prono you like, then educate yourself, and whine later.
thanks
Evan Erwin
Systems Administrator
The Citizens Bank of East Tennessee
Freedom
-- Nothing is as subjective as reality --
Corporations may mostly be treated as themselves people, but I have to agree with most of the logic that dictates that result -- there are practical and sensible reasons why corporations should have things like standing to sue and pay taxes and the like, and there is actually plenty of English precedent stemming from partnership law in doing so -- indeed, after all, in a sense, the first European settlers of the Americas were corporations). While corporations are especially moneyed, they don't in fact vote, and if the rest of voting America lets themselves get ridden roughshod, that's something within their power to change. Privacy violations are wrong whether committed by individuals or groups of individuals.
And at least corporations are composed of actual people. As for the personification of natural features, who is to say whether it would actually level the playing field away from corporations? Who is to say whether the marsh would or would not rather be developed into a condominium? Surely the marsh can't speak for itself, and why should we favor the opinion of the environmentalists over the developers? Why should we assume that the marsh would favor preservation instead of development? Perhaps the marsh sees development in the same way a human child sees accademic development; surely we shouldn't let children remain ignorant, so why not marshes? Maybe they don't like being so smelly.
My belabored point there is that changing the principles of standing according to Douglas's proposal wouldn't actually benefit the legal system any. We'd just be back to square one where we try to figure out which of two competing human interests should be favored.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
I don't expect Katz to get things like this correct, but the quote that he mistakenly attributes to Justice Douglas ought to be correctly attributed to Justice Brandeis (in Olmstead v. US):
The protection guaranteed by the Amendments is much broader in scope. The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man's spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone -- the most prehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the Government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Yes, Douglas used Olmstead to support his landmark Griswold v. Connecticut decision, but to allow that fact to transfer the authorship of this quote would be the same as allowing me to usurp Neil Armstrong's "giant leap for mankind" quote by quoting him when I myself step onto the moon decades later (what an interesting prospect!).
As for Douglas, while I appreciate many of his authored or concurring decisions, there were times when he behaved either repugnantly (Hirabayashi v. US: Japanese-American internment camps are A-OK!) or terminably sillily (Sierra Club v. Morton: Rivers and streams and mountains ought to have standing conferred onto them so that they themselves can sue people in court -- the ultimate (and misguided) form of personification).
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
No, it *was* stupid. Some moderator saw h*t gr*its and without thinking, slapped it down a point. Must have been a member of MOD == Masters of Duh.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
John Walker's UnicardUnicard: Ubiquitous Computation, Global Connectivity, and the End of Privacy discusses how a variety of technological trends are converging to make possible a world in which privacy no longer exists. It argues that in most cases privacy is not taken away from individuals by governments and corporations, but is rather willingly relinquished in exchange for convenience and/or perceived security, and that the apparent benefits of these new technologies will be so compelling that resisting their adoption, or demanding that they are implemented in an inherently secure manner, will be a difficult challenge.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
That wasn't a troll, it was a simple statement of fact. I saw the expression on the Andover.net executives as the Slashdot AC's were being discussed at a 'Linux Publicity' session at The Bazaar. They were basically gritting their teeth in support of CT&&Hemos. Kind of like "Why, oh why oh why do we let CT&&Hemos put up with these assholes?"
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Could you recommend a search site or two? I'd like to see if my name's online...
As to invisible friends - I started doing this a few years ago. Robert Dexx showed up and started doing all my net stuff for me.
As to my store club cards - I've got the cards, but I don't fill out the applications (this can be done if you tell the cashier that you don't have a card, but would really, really like one and could she activate it now so that you can get the points from your current purchase and don't worry you'll fill out the form and take it over to customer service right away.)
-Dexx
"And ten billion sushi dinners cried out for vengeance." -Good Omens
Feel the fear and do it anyway.
Now when can we see a joyous article about the death of Jon Katz' net access? If I wanted to read drivel like this I would go stop by the local Junior High School.
Privacy is only as dead as you let it be. If you want to keep your life private, make use of IP masquerading. If you are cautious, you can severely limit the amount of data you give away (that's right, you're giving it away, they aren't sneaking into your house and going into your wallet..)
I think we need to form a petition to discontinue Jon Katz' articles on
Am I mistaken or have I seen Senor Katz' articles on Salon in the past? He fits in well there, with the exception of Andrew Leonard, there are nigh-unto zilch in quality articles there.
I wouldn't be so vicious about this but I don't think he (Katz) even tries to write quality articles. If he does, more's the pity.
...dave
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
Well, what can one do about this?
I see chaos as the answer. Not anarchistic chaos but creative chaos. If they all want to know, to what websites we're surfing, what interests us customers and the like, hell, tell them!
Okee, this rather sounds like a troll, so let me explain. Of course you don't only tell them where you really surf and what you do on the internet but give them as much data as you can. It doesn't matter if the data actually is plausible or not. Just feed them with data.
For example: Cookies are great for that. Why not load it into your favourite texteditor and mess around with all those information? See it as like sending postcards from places you've never been.
This is what the principia discordia talks about (I'm not sure, but how can one be sure about discordian principles anyway). Generate as much information until noone can tell whether a fact is true or false.
The principia discordia can be found here:
http://www.discordia.ch/principia/
--- If OS were buildings, then the first woodpecker to come around would erase 95 % of civilization.
209.207.224.40 - - [2/Feb/2000:13:33:59 -0500] "GET /pr0n/favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 217
I can track that IP address, and know who bookmarked the pr0n.
Mr. Pierce said it wasn't easy, I think that his point is that it's possible. If there's demand, the market will make privacy easier. I think that there's demand and investors seem to agree. A good thing, IMO, because I strongly doubt that regulators would also agree.
:)
Professor David Post wrote "What Larry Doesn't Get: A Libertarian Response to Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace" just recently. It's quite a good read*.
While it hasn't gotten nearly the net.hype Professor Lessig's work did (Post is not from Hahvahd, after all, I think he's from Temple) but I think it's well-done. (I'd be interested in any Lessig rebuttals to that Post rebuttal, though.)
JMR
* I assume that my mention of the dreaded "L. word" will cause downward moderation, and I also don't care.
Try e-gold - (contact me). I'm NOT e-
There is some good news to tack onto this article.5 /privacy-wars-raging
http://prodigy-news.excite.com/news/zd/000131/0
The geist of the article is that the states are fighting where the federal government has rolled over and exposed itself. Laws are being devised and passed in VT, CA, and NY (why only these three?) to protect the citizens from having their information shared between companies. As far as the article goes, this relates to affiliate companies. This not information selling, but information sharing.
You have to realize that this is a battle that has begun and it can be won by us, the lowly tax-paying, VOTING citizen. The article mentions that a VT congressman is being pressured by the banks to not pass the law. If the law passes and they don't have the information they want, then they will have to raise their rates and fees. And do not forget the flipside is that these businesses are the ones that are filling your congressman's purse. Does his purse need to be that full? If no, vote against him!
Most of you reading this are of voting age, and sorrily I have come to realize that it isn't you don't vote for the right person, but sometimes it is necessary to vote against the wrong person. (Sometimes you get lucky and there is someone you want in office.) The elections are coming up. Do a little homework, surf the net and read the paper, and find out who is concerned with protecting your privacy, or who is more concerned with selling you out. This is not going to happen at the national level where it should be. If it happens at the state level though, it will prompt those higher up Sens and Reps to wake up and do something for the whole country. Remember that your vote does make a difference when the person represents you to the state. And the politicians need to feel the pressure of their constituents, not the companies.
I don't care how you do it, but go out and do it. Write a letter in five minutes, find his or her address on the net in two minutes, and mail it for all of 33 cents. Or call...takes five minutes. Or email, takes two minutes. How much is your privacy worth to you in dollars and minutes?
(Note to IL readers. Gov. Ryan has been featured many times for being a sneaky sh%t while Sec't of State. How much of your info at the DMV is only there? Do you really want this guy as Gov?)
Sig-"Out beyond fields of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there." Jelaluddin Rumi
When you woke up this morning everything you had was gone. By half past ten your head was going ding-dong. Ringing like a bell from your head down to your toes, like a voice telling you there was something you should know. Last night you were flying but today you're so low - ain't it times like these that make you wonder if you'll ever know the meaning of things as they appear to the others; wives, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers. Don't you wish you didn't function, wish you didn't think beyond the next paycheck and the next little drink? Well you do so make up your mind to go on, `cos when you woke up this morning everything you had was gone.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
Wow! moderation sucks! after the first rush, nothing, even totally inane things like I wrote above, gets ignored. I have no idea what I was smoking when I wrote that.
<BR><BR>
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
As usual, Jon almost got it. But not quite.
It is true that you are being tracked, even by companies which say they have privacy restrictions on your data. A recent study in California found that the overwhelming majority of medical web sites have privacy statements saying that they won't keep info on you, but they do track you and collect your name, email, phone, and anything else they can get, and pass it on to third parties.
It is a real problem, but Jon is not describing it correctly. Let someone else post these things, ok? Don't go for that last shred of egoboo, let the real facts speak for themselves and let us draw the obvious conclusions.
Will in Seattle
Yes; that's one reason we have an advanced civilization and they had a primitive one.
What we do need is reciprocal transparency - we need to know what corporations, governments, and the Men In Black are up to.
Sure, and I need a warp-speed runabout that fits in a parking space, a couple of babes Jello-wrestling for my affections, and the missing lines of Coleridge's "Kubla Khan". That doesn't mean that I base my plans around the expectation of getting them.
Get out there and videotape someone important.
Enjoy the resulting harassment, problems at work, tax audits, etc. resulting from the inevitable government abuse of the information-gathering capabilities you endorse.
And for a more interesting view on privacy, check out David Brin's The Transparent Society - worth a million Katz articles.
Only if you're one of the many on Slashdot (not quite including myself) who considers Katz articles to be worthless if not downright detrimental.
As was pointed out at great length and detail in previous /. threads, Brin displayed profound clue deprivation concerning counter-surveillance tech and the unwillingness of governments to abide by the laws they make for the rest of us.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
People want the freedom to engage in any peaceful (definition: not infringing upon the rights of others) activities, privacy, and security. There is nothing at all contradictory about this; for obvious reasons, non-peaceful activities are inherently non-private, as the victim (or his friends) will find out about them from their direct impact.
This somebody moderated up as "insightful"?
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
The aim of these privacy busting programs is to facilitate sharing of information. It happens that I like cinnamon, and I routinely order it online from a company that imports a very good product from Vietnam. It does not harm me at all that the data involved with my orders are collected and collated with other data. Eventually, someone may discover that because I like other things, I am probably interested in cinnamon, and if some company has a better price for the same quality, or better quality, period, I will benefit from knowing about it.
What is worrisome is the collatoral ability to create an individual profile from the available data can result in someone finding out not only my shopping habits, but my bank balance and whether or not I like to look at pictures of naked teenagers peeing on each other.
This is a tired, tired, old rant and it isn't even that old. The simple fact is that there are all sorts of ways to avoid the tracking activities that commercial web sites foist on their "visitors". A entirely new wave of agent-based applications is about to hit the marketplace and all of the schemes and plans that the advertisers have constructed around Web browsers is about to get tossed out the window.
Anyone that thinks the net has stopped evolving and the Web browser is the pinnacle of the information food chain is sorely mistaken. The economics of the entire Internet are about to be upset radically by software that puts end users back in control of the information flow on the net. Until now, they've only had meager tools like Web browsers to work with. Once everyones' desktop includes some peer to peer software, strong agent capabilities, and richer media formats, the whole click and surf metaphor will be dead. And it'll take all the spammers, advertisers, profilers, and cookie vendors along with it.
Just wait and see. And in the meantime, please stop playing this broken "privacy-is-dead" record. It's simply feel-good fear mongering on your part, since it isn't really true.
Shut up and eat your vegetables!!!
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Do you really think that all these companies are dumb enough to spend millions on advertizing that doesn't influence buying? Forget it. The ad companies even have a target demographic for people who think they're too smart for advertizing to affect them.
We are programed by our genes and by our environment, nothing else. Every bit of information that goes into your mind programs it a little bit. You have the opportunity to choose your programming; choose carefully.
Suggested further reading: Adbusters.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
--
This is not my sandwich.
I always knew people were watching me but I didn't think it was this bad!
Summary of The Communist Manifesto
:-(
1.Abolition of private property (You don't own your land UNLESS you have Allodial title)
2. Heavy progressive income tax. (30% isn't heavy?!)
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. (Estate tax)
4. Confiscation of property of all emigratns and rebels.
5. Central bank. (Federal Reserve)
6. Government control of Communication and Transportation (FTC, and Driver's License)
7. Government ownership of factories and agriculture. (Governments grant business license's)
8. Government control of labor.
9. Corporate farms, regional planning.
10. Government control of education (Public schools.)
Hmm, seems like our democratic US is already on the way there
Sad isn't it.
Nothing changes in this country (US) until something catastrophic happens. Until a celebrity or elected official clearly gets harmed in a human-interest sort of way, not one thing will be done to change this.
Hey, leave comments about my mother out of this!
The current twisted way of thinking about computer/OS design and of ACL-based security (UNIX, Windows) simply makes people think it is impossible to have real security and privacy.
This is why I believe people should go and read about EROS (www.eros-os.org), an OS that can SOLVE this problem, if ONLY enough of the well-known GPL effort goes into its implementation. It is not YAO (Yet another OS), it is 'The' OS design. Putting EROS aside and ignoring its design is giving up on ever having real security. EROS has a secure design that achieves the once considered impossible - it can mathamatically prove security (of the software system), which I find quite amazing.
What EROS needs right now is for GPL programmers to go and start hacking.
Save the privacy, save security, develop EROS!
The Risks Digest frequently covers issues related to this. The latest issue contains a brief comment on Simson Garfinkel's new book, Database Nation: The Death of Privacy in the 21st Century published by O'Reilly & Associates. The PRIVACY Forum is also an excellent resource on issues of privacy and technology.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
I saw a news story over the weekend that here in Canada the government sells our census data with the names removed. Companies love detailed information with income brackets and personal tastes, all compiled by location.
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
I quite often have to fill in online forms when I want to download components, manuals, source code, and so on.
I always dutifully fill these forms out. To tell you the truth: I don't have a problem with this kind of forms, and I always try to comply with the rules:
Name: azuirozehjkl
First Name: aomjiazeruio
Address1: azozeruiozeuiro 32b
Address2: auirozeuirozeuioazer
City: ezuioreioapzeuir
Zip: 732837
Country: Greece
Phone: 7890798078978
Fax: 8977899078789
email: c_u_nt@hotmail.com
I've been doing this for 2 years now, and it has always worked. The rules are:
* What you give up as "name" and "first name", that is, what you want to be called by this company, when they refer to you, should be alfanumeric.
* "Address1" and "Address2" should be alphanumeric ane should be the place where you want them to send ordinary mail for you.
* "Zip" usually zip is validated against the idea that it should be numeric.
* "Country" should be a country, and part of the list of countries as registered by the UN General Assembly. There are only around 200 valid countries. You must enter in this field what country you feel associated with, in a way that you feel you can truthfully disclose to third parties. For example, I am Belgian, but I quite often feel truthfully associated to Greece, the Bermudas, Ireland, Zimbabwe, Kazachstan, and a few other countries. Therefore, I reveal my association to one of these countries to the company requesting "Country". Note that there is usually no "Country Association Code or Category" to be filled out. Usually companies do not require you to qualify this association.
* "Fax" and "Phone" usually must be numeric, but of no particular length.
* "Email" must contain the character @ and . I can guarantee to you that c_u_nt@hotmail.com is usually considered valid, and I testify under oath that it is indeed the address to which I want the company to send messages to me.
I testify under oath that I have truthfully and faithfully filled out the online form above to the best of my understanding.
If we are ever unfortunate enough to fall under such a tyranny, the rulers would be able to do their work with or without computerized data bases. Just read your history books.
Sure, companies have made an attempt to track us, but it is quite obvious that they haven't gotten things 100% correct, or else they'd know not to target me with ads about stuff I don't want. ^_^
Incidentally, that is why I always deny a cookie when I don't know what it is for, especially when it is obviously coming from the Add Banner Script.
There are steps a knowledgeble person can take to prevent too much information, besides what we wish to give, out. Also, Doubleclick looks like it might be about to face several lawsuits for invasion of privacy.
Our privacy is still protected, if we are willing to stand up and fight for it.
This "woe is us, we can't do jack about it" from Katz is exactly the wrong attitude to have. We need to actively fight it by doing everything in our power to shield ourselves. Not whining about it.
"You ever have that feeling where you're not sure if you're dreaming or awake?"
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
Would there be a way that a large bunch of people could set up automatic ways of dumping so much noise into the marketing databases that it would make keeping such databases worthless?
Of course, the really potentially damaging databases are the ones which the government keeps on you (and seems to be willing to make available to anybody that asks). I guess the only recourse for that is legal.
I am temped to join the ranks of the antikatz. He has written insightful articles in the past, but his current editorials are schlock.
I am becoming quite sick of the theme, "we are all underdogs who are helpless against evil corporations who want to deprive us of our american rights."
We are not the underdogs, and we are not helpless. Katz has used mp3 and deCSS as examples to argue that large corporations are going to squash individuals. I interpret these events as demonstraiting that individuals are more powerful than ever. Corporations know this and are so scared that they are making examples of people.
I'm not surprised that corporations are using this fear tactic, but I'm quite dissapointed to see Katz exploiting it in another bleading heart, flag waving editorial.
I'm especially sick of his flag waving. I'm not even american.
Appologies--my original post contained no ettiquette. It might have degraded to flaming had it been recieved by someone with thinner skin. Jon, I must credit you on being a gentleman even to someone who disagrees with you. I should have done that to begin with. Privacy is important. But I don't think it is endangered. You were quite correct in your observation that technology provides ways for us to be monitored. However, you said nothing about the technologies that can protect privacy. That made the editorial feel somewhat one-sided.
Corporations are using tracking software as a feedback mechanism to asses advertising effectivness in a retail control system. This gives them powers that were formerly held by governments(through propaganda) over the people of the world regardless of the country they inhabit.
One might say that in the past countries went to war with one another for economic and material gains(food, wealth, land) but in todays world why not choose a multinational corporation to attack. A war between countries seems like an outdated concept. Especially seeing as global corporations are often richer than many countries in the world.
I wonder what role governments will play in these battles, I guess it will depend on strongly on where we spend our money. If we give 20% to government through taxation and at most 20% to any large multinational things might be ok. But once the amount of our personal income going to a single multinational exceeds that going to our government we could be in trouble.(The exact numbers are probably off a bit due to government and company overhead but you get the idea).
While I have a fair amount of leanings towards civil libritarianism, everyone overlooks the one truly beneficial advantage to being profiled. When companies have a good profile of me and media from the T.V. to the web can adapt accordingly, I'll stop getting ads that are completely inappropriate to me. I'm a single male geek, I don't care about tampon commercials, Cadillacs, geriatrics, or a host of other annoying commericals. Instead, lay those Porsche (okay fine, I won't get those ads until my income goes up another $10K, but I'm getting there), Man Show, tech and other commericials at me and I might actually be entertained. Heck, I might even buy something, THROUGH MY OWN FREE WILL.
Targeting ads at me doesn't force me to buy some. I and I alone am responsible for my purchase habits, not some mega-database. People need to take personal responsibility for their lives instead of blaming everything on the nearest mega-corp.
In fact, this may even make our world more efficient as advertisers only have to pay for ads that have relavance to their viewers. In turn, they'll keep some of the cash, but some will filter down through decreased prices as competition will doubtless force. And what they keep I can still partake in through salary (if I work for one of the mega-corps operating thusly) or stock dividends if I choose to invest.
Granted, I'm not that happy having the government have that type of information, but that's a whole different rant.
--Jason
I like lots of people. That doesn't mean I go carting them around the galaxy with me. --Dr. Who
Yes, anyone profiling my web use will see that I spend most
of my time reading Slashdot, LinuxToday, and browsing a
few game sites for hints to get through Ultima9.
So if some snoopy corporation sees this, and then tries to sell
me RPG's that run on Linux, I'll be quite happy!
> As to my store club cards - I've got the cards,
> but I don't fill out the applications
I don't even bother...
lately when I goto the store (Star Market usullay)
when the cashier asks if I have a card...I say
no...
then she picks up her own card and scans it!
Has happend several times from several cashiers.
I don't know if they are suposed to do it but...
they do.
I get the savings...they don't get my name.
oh...and I pay in cash.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Astute /. readers have read all this already. Although Katz focuses mainly on the marketing/ commercial aspects, Bruce Schneier, the cryptography expert already cover this in his answers to Ask /.:
wayneradI appreciate your setting the attestation straight, but I would call the "ultimate (and misguided) form of personification" the 19th century decision to give corporations the status of persons under the law. I saw the attempt to personify other non-humans as an effort to level the playing field. I believe it was Douglas who criticized the personification of corporations as without reason, logic, or precedent. In this issue of privacy as well as many others, we see the protection of the rights of the most powerful citizens (i.e. the corporations) running roughshod over the rights of anyone else.
While teaching the first year intro to CS course at UBC, I'd always give one lecture on security, privacy and related topics. Near the beginning of the lecture I'd ask for a show of hands of who would like to have an identification number that would be unique to them. Naturally everyone thought this was a bad idea. I'd go on from there for about 10 or 15 minutes and then start talking about all the marvelous new technology out there, eventually talking about getting a telephone number that they could keep, that would automatically route phone or even email messages to them. A poll of the class had almost everyone stating that this would be a fantastic feature of the communication system. Of course, the next step was to compare that unique phone number with the identification number we talked about at the beginning of the class. I leave that as an exercise for the reader.
(3) No freedom whatsoever, total privacy, and total security. (Anyone caught doing something wrong is punished)
It seems that you either left out combo #4 or (more likely) do not understand the implications of this scenario. How can one have complete privacy yet no freedom AND total security? No freedom and total security sounds reasonable (as a possible situation, not as something I, for one, would ever desire), but if you have total privacy, how could you possibly not have any freedom? How would **they** know when you were doing something wrong, assuming it was peaceful and not encroaching on others? If you had the privacy to buy banned books, how would they know you were reading them? If you had the privacy to write and save code that swindles others electronically, then how would they ever catch you, thus preserving those other people's security?
Maybe total security is incompatible with total freedom and total privacy, but I think the point is that in a world devoid of absolutes (such as the one the rest of us live in) it is possible to have a blend that ensures a lot of important personal freedoms, a lot of personal privacy, and some measure of security. But I'm probably just an idealist.
The movie bladerunner comes to my mind. A future where the governments have become powerless. And the big corporations have all the power. (also Gibson and the computer games Syndicate/Syndicate wars display this future)
The privacy issue may very well be the first step towards total domination by global corporations. The DVD issue also gives me a feeling that MPAA can control the media output more than the average citizen without money can.
On a sidenote: Humanity never cease to amaze me, if people dont like JonKatz articles why do they read them, why do they put their time in logging in and wasting everyones time with pathetical flames. I guess there are many script kiddies and teenagers out there.
The transition from loss of privacy to impacting your life is a process:
1) Someone must gather information about you. The fourth amendment used to have some meaning here, but fear of crime, drugs, terrorism, Russians, not collecting taxes, etc. has given the government much more power to investigate, track, search, and seize. Also, passive surveillance in the name of safety, productivity, and marketing has become part of the landscape, online or not. We must assert the right to not be recorded or reviewed by *anyone* without our *uncoerced* permission or a warrant.
2) This information must have the potential of affecting how you live your life. Your phone number and email address don't really count. Your buying habits, credit history, social security number, salary, medical history, and day-to-day movements certainly do. We must assert our right to withhold information that is not required to do the business at hand.
3) Someone with the power to use the information to impact your life must obtain it. What is most infuriating is the literally hundreds of dollars paid for information about me, that is never paid to me, and worse, is paid to those who I entrust to keep it private (the state DMV, my bank, my credit card provider, etc.) We must assert our right to dictate how information about us is stored and distributed.
4) There must be an opportunity for the information-holder to wield their power. The ability of an employer to review credit history or medical history is rife with potential abuses, and irrelevant to a fair hiring decision. Similarly, if I'm not relying on them for financing, why should a car dealer or realtor or furniture sales clerk have access to my credit history? We must assert our right to decide who has access to our information.
5) The information must be wielded. The horror stories of identity theft, credit bureau errors, and discrimination demonstrate that great damage can be done to our lives for little reason, and without our even understanding why. We must also assert our right to challenge the information and the decisions that result.
Unfortunately, we are usually too unaware and apathetic to keep these rights from being abused.
Fortunately, some law does exist for each of these rights, but is spottily enforced, and often inadequate.
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
Some folks find Katz interesting, but I never have. It's not that I mostly disagree with his theses; it's the fuzzy thinking I don't care for. I appreciate a well-reasoned, connected argument that has at least a little evidence to back it up.
But, I'm sorry to say, his pieces have lost the meager entertainment value I found in them. It's no fun anymore to sift through the logorrhea to find yet another howler. It's no fun because Katz is boring. He only has a few ponies in his stable, and he trots them out every time: the evils of corporatism, geek oppression, "the tragedy of technology", censorship. The purported topic is irrelevant; whatever it is, he just hitches it up to his flea-bitten team & trots away. Go ahead, look up his stuff from one (or two or three) years ago; he's being saying the same stuff, in the same way, for a long time. I get the point already.
It amazes me that people would complain at a mere 1700 words.
It worries me that people believe 700 words (for example) is always enough to clearly state a complex thought.
Personally, I find that much of what I read is too shallow, too causually treated, missing details and subtleties I consider important. I feel that short articles almost always worsen this problem.
As for articles that are too long, well, I do not need to read all of them. Skimming is an important part of literacy.
It has been my observation that when asked to make something shorter, most people do not really try to revise it; they just find things to rip out until they are below the length limit.
I do often feel that Katz needs to put his articles through more re-read, get a second opinion, edit, cycles, but I do not think a draconian length limit will improve this.
I am not sure I agree with all of the above; I for one would like to see some goverment support for privacy.
However, the above post is very well reasoned, with well chosen quotes. Excellent.
It has been moderated up to 1. However, this is only becuase jim robinson was logged in when he posted.
The moderators have either not read it, or are overlooking its value
Previously, people have complained that early posts are much more likely to be moderated up (as they are read by more moderators), thus favoring reload junkies who post without taking the time to read and think about the article.
I am suggesting that all moderators read with 'Newest first' enabled. This way, early comments are not favored because they are now at the bottom, and fewer moderators will get to them. Later comments are also not favored because there are usually more comments still to come.
This has probably been suggested before, but I feel it is important enough to be said again.
Ever call in to someplace for tech support? Then you've been talking to one of those machines.
The scary systems are ones that people don't know about. They send chills down my spine.
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
My local phone company, which is also my ISP maintains local, provincial and country wide search directories. Not as current as dialing for directory assistance, but usually a month or so behind.
I won't mention which phone company - because that too is too much info, but see if your phone company does this. ;-)
Cheers!
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
The supermarket I frequent does much the same thing. Discounts on products for "card" holders only - but when I say I don't have a card (and don't want one!) they ask if I want to donate my points to the food bank!
Win-win! I get the discount, and the food bank can exchange the points to re-stock their shelves!
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
I fight back! I don't recieve targeted junk dead-tree mail because I don't own any "club" cards, Air Miles(tm), discount cards or such. I don't fill in store surveys or questionaires no matter the incentive!
My web browsers do not accept cookies, and Cookie Monster helps me with that. Personally, I have no traceable web presence. However, there are always sites that require a username/e-mail address.
For those the answer is simple - I lie! For other sites that require a valid e-mail account, I have throw-away e-mail accounts on Hotmail, Hushmail or Yahoo.
And I check! Regularly, I go to search sites and look myself up. If I find myself, I contact the place where my info originated and ask them to remove it! - this only happened to me once!
When all else fails, I make someone up! My imaginary invisible friend has a web presence! Look him up sometime!
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
OK, Jon. We all know you have an axe to grind against religion. Must you insert it into everything you write?
These sort of limits on print pontificating may be dismissed in the elecronic media. But we need to remember why they're there. It's not about page space. If 1700 word opinion collumns were more informative and enjoyable, the papers would simply devote twice as many pages - letters to the editor and opinion collumns are amoung the most heavily read portions of any paper. The limits on length are about clarity of thought and effectiveness of communication. My first draft of an opinion collumn is always too long. So I go through and I clarify. I decide which examples are for show, not for education. I consider shorter ways of describing situations, which usually turn out to be more understandable as well. I eliminate every "of course" and "naturally" that my ego-centric writer's voice throws in to make itself feel more right. The shorter version is almost always better, and in those rare cases where I feel that I cannot shorten the piece to the extent required without sacrificing meaning, I often discover that I really have two different collumns I want to write.
It is obvious in Jon Katz's collumns (and in other opinion pieces which have appeared on /.) that this editing process does not take place. And it is unlikely to happen unless it is required. If /. wants to get clear, understandable collumns that will elicit constructive discussion from any caliber of writer, they need to set limits. Length limits of even a thousand words would improve the level of communication taking place.
-Kahuna Burger
PS, this is a recommendation for the submission of stories, not the comments. Comments take on more of a conversational tone and will lose much of their spontaneous value if people are re-writing for an afternoon before pressing "submit". But the main page fare, especially if it is not particularly timely, deserves more work.
...will work for Chick tracts...
The folks in the /. community know these impacts because the majority of our lives surround technology in one way or another and we protect ourselves to a degree. But to the average Joe on the street, they really have no idea. And Jon hits on the fact that it is already too late to correct the direction we are heading. I wouldn't want to slow down technilogical advances in any way, however I am disheartened with the lack of ethics and uses of some of our technilogical advances. so I guess we take the good with the bad. Sort of like the firearms analogy; The gun doesn't kill a person, the person firing the gun does. So are guns bad? Is technology advancement?
Never knock on Death's door:
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
IPChains is not just for firewalls. You can take your own machine, and configure your output chain to deny all packets destined for somewhere you don't want to get any information from you. Perhaps it's time we start putting a standard /etc/blackout (and /etc/blackin for our input chain) into our distributions in addition to properly configuring our cookie handling and whatnot.
Its pretty funny that over half of the American population does not use the internet... but somehow it is a necessity. Even by Katz's estimate only 130 million Americans will use the 'net this year --- still less then half of America's 272,639,608 people (CIA World Factbook). For the majority of Americans, and the vast majority of human beings, the internet is NOT a necessity.
We can only hope that some day this technology can be used justly, for the benefit of ALL people --- not just the rich among us. Justice should be as much of a concern as privacy, if not more.
So how exactly do ISP's, portals, and search engines in general find out what pages I bookmark? That sounds like a neat trick.
-- My comment is above.
This calls for a campaign to corrupt the databases by entering spurious data. If enough people do this (and it won't take a significant percentage) the whole enterprise is doomed.
InstaPundit! Ahead of the Curve Since 30 Minutes Ago
Actually, the issue of online privacy is more prevalent than ever. Corporations like DoubleClick, Microsoft, and Real Networks have given people an idea of what information can be compiled about them, whether it be via software or webpages, etc etc. Hell, businesses are joining different industry-formed privacy groups (i.e. TrustE) and prominently displaying privacy policies because they're scared of possible legislation from Capitol Hill. There are many different resources that people can use to help keep their Internet activities private, such as HushMail, PGP, SkuzNET, the Anonymizer, the Junkbusters Proxy, numerous remailers across the world, various FAQs, etc. The problem is that the average netizen doesn't know that the technology is available, or doesn't know how to utilize it. However, I think that if the issue of online privacy keeps going down its current path, that scenario may change.
Remember, you are only as private as you allow yourself to be.
--
The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
more Katz jibberish.
Please Jon, tell us again about how much of a superstar you are and how ALL the media outlets wake you up for your fascinating insight, like with one of your other useless pieces.
Meanwhile, while they are waking you up, you are putting everyone else to sleep.
I read the topics because I find the comments more entertaining than what you write.
I actually don't read too much of what you write. I read the witty replies and then go back and reference your tripe.
I don't actually remember the article to which you are referring because frankly, you are not that memorable, but the comments were. I only wnet back to check out that article after I read someones very entertaining comment.
All I remember was that ABC, and all these other news people were waking you up to get your comment about something (or so you say).
Lastly, have a nice day.
I have read one of your articles from start to finish. A long time ago. After that, I realized, there are only about a thousand other things I could be doing with my life, like shoving bamboo rods up my nostrils (it would be more pleasurable)
I read all of the comments, and if someone says something cute, I peruse your artivle to find the offending line. I don't waste my time reading your pretend brilliance. I just like seing pseudo-intellectuals getting exposed as so.
These people are not the only people in this world who we need to worry about. For instance I attend a state funded university, which, unknown to us, was selling the personal data they had on us, which is quite a lot. Until recently, and maybe still, telemarkerters would buy lists of data off of the DMV. What these two examples point out is that no matter how closely we guard our data people will still get it.
This means that if we want to protect our privacy then we need to take action. Contact our legistlatures and demand that they pass laws protecting our privacy, let others know how their privacy is being sold off. Thomas Jefferson and his contemporaries started a war to protect our freedoms, and it we must keep fighting to keep them.
-Hephaestus_Lee
"[Y]our wise men don't know how it feels to be thick as a brick." -- Ian Anderson
Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas once wrote that the right
to be left alone is the beginning of all freedom. That's bad news,
because privacy as we've come to understand the idea is over, and
tracking software -- now widely deployed on the Web and in businesses
from banking to supermarkets -- helped to kill it.
"I am not the first to point out that capitalism, having defeated
communism, now seems about to do the same to democracy. The market is
doing splendidly, yet we are not."
I prefer this quote:
"They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let
alone -- the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most
valued by civilized men."
Justice Louis Brandeis
Olmstead v. United States (1928)
But for one in the
on the net (http://www.wulaw.wustl.edu/WULQ/76-1/761-22.html
"In 1977, the Supreme Court first recognized a constitutional right to
informational privacy in Whalen v. Roe.[96] The Whalen Court upheld a
New York law under which the State recorded the names and addresses of
all patients obtaining prescriptions for certain dangerous drugs in a
centralized computer file.[97] Whalen recognized two aspects of a right
to privacy:[98] the right to avoid disclosure of personal matters;[99]
and the right to personal privacy in decisionmaking.[100] While the
Whalen Court did not find a constitutional invasion of privacy, Justice
Brennan's concurring opinion opened the door to future claims against
information gathering technologies like Intellidata.[101] Further,
Whalen's patient information discussion is analogous to Intellidata
because both involve the use of computerized databases to retrieve
and store personal information."
I think it's clear that while we have a right to privacy from the
government, and we have the right to withhold information on personal
matters, we don't have a right to force a company to not work with
data mining applications. We have the choice to a) not do business with
them, or b) avoid leaving them with data they can use.
Each time, some program is tracking our every move, compiling
elaborate marketing profiles, often collating the information with vast
databases and selling the resulting information without our knowledge.
Unless you use a proxy like Internet Junkbuster, or take active steps
to deny the use of cookies for tracking you *as an individual.*
According to the Interagency Financial Institution Web Site Privacy
Survey, conducted by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC),
all of the 50 largest financial institutions online collect three or
more pieces of personal or demographic information about users. The
FDIC says that only eight of the 50 largest institutions meet minimal
privacy data standards. That is, they fail to explain what data is being
collected, allow consumers to opt out, permit access to the information,
provide secure storage for the data, and provide customers a way to
contact the company regarding privacy issues.
Let's see: 1) name, 2) contact phone, 3) mail address. That's three
pieces of information right there, and they need all of those if you
want to do business in any reasonable matter. I can't imagine too many
people object to having their name associated with their account, and
you can always get a second phone line hooked into an answering machine
if you don't want calls from the Bank. The the mail, there is always
the P.O. Box, favored by so many privacy-conscious individuals
My point is that you control what information you give out to companies.
If you don't want VISA to know that you tend to spend $40.27 a week at the
super-market, learn to withdraw cash from an isolated ATM on a regular
basis and pay with that. Don't fill out a real name on an online form,
and set up a dummy e-mail account on yahoo or deja or any of the other
thousand locations available.
We have a right to privacy from the government -- they can't just
randomly open up our mail or tap our phones without a warrant.
Our protection from companies is in our hands, and it's best to leave it
there. Don't people realize that putting the power of privacy into a law
makes the government that much more powerful? Relying on the government
to "keep us safe" is the lazy way out, and it leads to dangerous waters:
the belief that government can "fix" all our worries.
Now, some groups argue that the private company has the right to use
their data in any way they see fit. I don't quite agree with that,
but I think we have the power to prevent it ourselves. We shouldn't
ask the government to handle it. After hearing about doubleclick's
work we installed Internet Junkbuster, we didn't go off and write to
our congressman.
So, pay cash instead of using plastic. Get a P.O. Box and a private
line. Avoid giving out personal information online, or falsify that
information (if it's legal to do so). Use anonymous e-mail accounts
and anonymous proxy servers that you trust. It's all in your hands --
don't trust the government to do a better job then you can. They'll use
it against you in the future. =)
Jim
The interesting thing is that almost everyone agrees that that the "death" of piracy is "wrong", and "bad" and somehow we must use more tech to change that. I GIVE UP!!! who cares if a zillion marketers have hundreds of my profiles and target me to death....NOW THE BABY BELLS ARE BRANDING THEMSELVES THROUGH PHONE LINES, WANNA TALK ABOUT ANNOYING!!! yet, all these organizations know **NOTHING** about **ME**, the actual person, and guess what, tommorow i'll want a different kinda soap, or i'll stop using soap all together, and they'll *still* be trying to sell me soap. the point is, *YOU* ARE NOT ONLY YOUR *NAME*, or your habits, OR EVEN YOUR *BODIES*.....*we* are a lot more than that. i feel like TOBY in roots, YOU CAN ENSLAVE MY BODY, BUT YOU CAN NEVER ENSLAVE ME!!! SO to the marketers: TAKE MY FUCKIN PROFILES AND SHOVE THEM UP YOUR AHOLES YOU GREEDY FUCKS. All this helps me sleep at night.
Ye gods! Another apocalyptic revelation from Jon! Good thing I still have my Y2K survivalist stuff.
Seriously, Jon provides compelling reading and a fine style. What worries me is that if he ever does find a topic worthy of his alarmism, I'll have already tuned him out.
I have little sympathy for people who set their browsers to accept all cookies, think nothing of entering personal information at every web form that asks for it, and then turn around and bemoan the horrible companies that have "stolen" their privacy. What do they expect will happen? You do not need to be a rocket scientist to realize that if you enter personal information into a web browser, someone might keep track of it. It is time for these people to stop whining and take responsibility for their own actions. If you don't want a company to know who you are, DON'T TELL THEM. -Eugene
You can either have
(1) Freedom to do whatever you want, subject to the visibility and scrutiny of others (no privacy)
(2) Freedom to do whatever you want in complete privacy, with the risk of people using the combination to commit crime and take advatange of you
or
(3) No freedom whatsoever, total privacy, and total security. (Anyone caught doing something wrong is punished)
For those of you who say learn the technology tell me you already knew about the Reliant Digital Intercept System being sold to law enforement agencies by Comverse Infosys. This thing has the ability to monitor multiple simultaneous voice conversations and automatically flag and record only "interesting" calls, based on voice recognition and pattern matching. Pretty scary!
Just my $.02...
(Note: There are no x's in my email address.)
i worked at a large company that tracked consumer sales of everything. I swear, in less than a minute soneone could look up what brand of tampons you bought, at which store, at the exact time down to the minute, how you paid (cash , credit card, etc...) , what else you bought, etc...
my point is that it would be extremely easy for a govt official to walk in and ask us to track any given individual - and being a big corporation who does not want to resist the flow, they would easially go for it. of course, one thing I can say - systems like this are also very stupid. There is so many people being tracked, and so much data, that it is extremely easy for people to lie about names, addresses, epsecially ssn numbers - and never even be noticed.
the net: a signed applet/control that wipes your cookie file of all doubleclick/related cookies without your consent. massively distributed on the net. automatically updated. everyone wins. and the cryptographically-authenticated signer is sued. but hey. the supermarket: let people submit their barcodes to a central repository and then print out a random 10 that they can stick over their real one for use in stores. advertise through m$'s linkexchange.
I think this article brought up several interesting points. In an increasingly information-driven world, consumer information, pyschometrics and other human-related fields of data analysis will become standard. What concerns me about this situation is the amount of information - personal information that is being entered into computer systems. It seems like soon networked computer systems will contain more information about people than people will about eachother. Think about the consequences of an intelligent computer being able to harness this information and use it accordingly. Even my female collie can see the danger in this.
Ok...I know this is offtopic, but I was wondering about the thoughts of other Slashdotters on female collies.
C.Villopillil
no sig
Most of these users have little or no idea that they are constantly being tracked and audited for their usage patterns and choices. In my office, one user mentioned that they'd heard about some company called 'Double-sumthin' that was collecting user information through web-ads. When I gave this person a layman's explanation of what was happening, they were utterly indignant and several people in surrounding cubicles stuck their noses. All of them were upset, and immediatly asked me to turn off these 'cookies' on their machines, and I've already heard from another department's MIS staff that there have been complaints from users. However, these people are not about to reduce their ease-of-use online to deny marketing weasels their statistics. If we really want to limit the ability to track usage and patterns on a user-by-user level, we need to eliminate the ability to do so at a network wide level. Intel's GUID implementation is a dangerous tool, if not a downright immoral one. Double-Click's recent admission that they have been stockpiling user data just underscores the need for an accepted 'minimal level of anonymity'.
Not just for those of us who know enough of what goes on 'under-the-hood' but for anyone who mistakenly believes that they are free to use the internet without undue invasion of their privacy.
Well, that's a rant...
"If I wanted your input on my pet project, I'd stick my hand up your ass and use you like a sock-puppet." - Muse
Historically, privacy is a pretty recent invention- I'd say an aberration. Nobody had privacy living in a small tribe or village. So now corporations can track my web usage, see what I like, and spam me - so what? From the tone of this article, anyone would think the end of the world was nigh. We don't need privacy, which is just as well since it's becoming more or less impossible. What we do need is reciprocal transparency - we need to know what corporations, governments, and the Men In Black are up to. We need more Freedom of Information laws, not more privacy laws. Get out there and videotape someone important. And for a more interesting view on privacy, check out David Brin's The Transparent Society - worth a million Katz articles.
the solution is simple - if you want privacy *learn* about the technology The right to privacy should not have any prerequisites.