Silicon Valley vs. Your Privacy

TreeRat submits word of an article in the New York Times' magazine section, including mention of the proposed national database which has been talked about on Slashdot before. "The story goes into great detail with Larry Ellison, who is still pushing hard to bring 'Big Brother' to life. When asked if this database will be created, and run on Oracle, Larry's response was 'I do think it will exist, and I think it is going to be an Oracle database. ...And we're going to track everything.' There's a lot more than Ellison in this piece, though, and much of it is scary.

Comments

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We already have enough databases

[dattaway]

What about TRW and all the other information companies? Sounds like Leasure Larry just wants a snoop database for a few tax dollars.

Re:We already have enough databases

[Dock]

The judicial system does not enforce, it interprets. Perhaps you should study our government a little more before telling others to read the law. And your own interpretation of this amendment is a thousand miles off.

A database listing information about you does not belong to you, therefor no one requires a warrant to access it. You may own land but you do not own your address, the state does. You do not own your telephone number, the telephone company does. You do not own your SS number, the government does. You obviously do not own your medical, criminal or license history, if you did it would be your responsibility to protect and manage it which is obviously not the case.

I am fairly certain any national database would be more protected that you would ever be capable of, what right do you have to demand such things you can not even do yourself.

The fourth amendment was to protect a persons privacy, and most of this information is not private. That which is, is already protected by law such as medical records.

You people are getting much too smug and righteous about personal privacy now. Just because some schmuck who abuses his access to a piece of information about you does not mean you have to declare war over a minor nuisance at best. Our government does more for you in you a day than you will probably do for it and the rest of your country in a lifetime, they have a greater responsibility that you can possibly fathom and all of you need to grow up and try to contribute to our nations security instead of crying about it like spoiled children.

Re:We already have enough databases

[Happy go Lucky]

I am fairly certain any national database would be more protected that you would ever be capable of, what right do you have to demand such things you can not even do yourself.

Then why is most of the US Department of the Interior disconnected from the internet by court order? (Hint: It wasn't as secure as they thought it was.)

The fourth amendment was to protect a persons privacy, and most of this information is not private. That which is, is already protected by law such as medical records.

Actually, the Fourth is clear and privacy isn't named in it. A person's records are what the word "papers" mean. And it takes more than just a whim to legally set up a pen register or get unlisted phone information from the phone company.

Our government does more for you in you a day than you will probably do for it and the rest of your country in a lifetime, they have a greater responsibility that you can possibly fathom and all of you need to grow up and try to contribute to our nations security instead of crying about it like spoiled children.

What have you done for our nation's security? How many of the major threats have you personally dealt with? How many drunk drivers have you taken off of the roads? How many child abusers and wife beaters have you locked up? How many weapons have you taken away from high school students?

And how many times have you been shot on behalf of our society? I'm willing to bet that I'm ahead of you on all of these. And Ellison's wet dream scares the hell out of me.

Re:We already have enough databases

[Dock]

Point 1: Again, you have the same common misconceptions as everyone else. Judges do NOT enforce the law, they interpret the law. If you go to the court and are fined, the judge has no power to force you to pay it, only the police do. They interpret that you broke traffic laws and issue you a fine, they interpret that you violated a court order and issue a warrant GRANTING THE POLICE THE AUTHORITY TO have you arrested. That's why we have police, you know.

Point 2: Perhaps, perhaps not. Where you go is your choice, if you chose to go to someplace by public means then that fact is public knowledge. You are not hiding your face under a mask or driving in a car with blackened windows, you have no "expectation" of privacy, which is key with the law. What you buy, you buy from a company, that information is their property and unless they signed something saying they would not do XXX with it, or they violate some arcane government privacy law, that is also theirs to do with as they wish. Your social security information are papers, but they most certainly are not yours therefor your claim to privacy is limited. (Read: Confidential) There is no violation here, people just assume too many things about their life to be private by divine right, and it's simply not so.

Point 3: The applications for abuse of a database like this do not even BEGAIN to compare to the ability for the government to violate your rights with the new anti-terrorist laws passed recently. Which would you rather care about, some guy selling your address or criminal record to a company that wants information on you, or the FBI wire-tapping you without a warrant? How about the ability to hold you without a charge on suspiscions of terrorism? I hope you are never arrested since it's perfectly legal for them to listen to your conversations with your lawyer now.

Point 4: I'm not proposing better solutions because I'm not attacking ones brought to light by others. My point is what you take as a right to personal privacy is just not private. Your person, your place and your things are private, information, especially that which you do not OWN is not.

There are much more important things for you to worry about and yet here you are attacking something that 1. May help better secure our country 2. help you in the future by making POSSIBLY important information available to any agency that may need it in due course.

Not every person that disagrees with privacy nuts is instantly the enemy, a die-hard government supporter that would sell their mother for a dime. Most people who agree that things like this are needed are much more in tune with the reality of privacy and how our government functions as well as the bigger picture of just how much our lives have changed.

We are not giving up more freedom for security here, we are coming to the realization that certain freedoms never existed in the first place. We are finally coming down to earth and saying "This will make things better and safer for us all, some things are just worth putting up with."

And for reference, I did not call you a name, I described yours (and everyone elses) actions.

Re:We already have enough databases

[Dock]

What have you done for our nation's security? How many of the major threats have you personally dealt with? How many drunk drivers have you taken off of the roads? How many child abusers and wife beaters have you locked up? How many weapons have you taken away from high school students?

Completely and totally irrelavent. I have made no claims to have done such things, as such what you have done compared to what I have done means nothing at all. And since that reply wasn't directed at you, ... well point made, means nothing.

Re:We already have enough databases

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe these are stupid questions, as I don't live in the US, but here it goes:

Is your country not already safe? Last time I checked, there wern't any travel advisories about avoiding landmines while visiting Michigan.

Do you honestly believe that a national database/gun registration/video cameras in everybodys head will actually prevent anything?

There is nothing you can do about a guy going nuts and killing somebody. You obviously can't stop substance abuse, and no one seems prepared to stop using automobiles (your #1 killer if I am not mistaken).

Instead of spending 100+ million dollars on a database, why doesn't California do something about the poverty in their inner citys, so that in another 20 years you won't all be paying for more prisons, more guards, and more 'due process'?

My government just spent 140+ million on a satellite that will never be used. Maybe we can trade our satellite for your Oracle licenses. :)

-Happy in Canada

Databases?

[October_30th]

Aren't there already such megadatabases?

Don't all American newborns or immigrants, for instance, get entered into somekind of a citizen register? How else would the government keep track of the population and demographics?

Re:Databases?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a census done every ten years

Re:Databases?

[Wonderkid]

oNumber.net directory allows you to create, maintain and delete your entry, so while everyone else is talking, we are walking. It's not free, but we don't spam, we don't sell your data (after all, it is YOURS) and we are by charging, answerable to you. The directory is designed to be a service to you.

Re:Databases?

[Wonderkid]

Oops, I forgot to mention that oNumber.net IS built using Oracle.

KW

[felipeal]

It's not the first time I post it, but this time it makes more sense:

ORACLE = One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison

Re:KW

[Anonymous Coward]

Larry may be an asshole, but he is just the sidekick Mr. Bush is looking for to help analyze your security in a business model.

Don't worry. Its strictly professional. Your privacy will now be traded on Wall Street.

Re:KW

[Anonymous Coward]

leftists like to track people. Look at the former Soviet Union, China, Cuba, etc...

Re:KW

[AndroidCat]

Damn! Do we give away our private information retail via Windows on the .Net, or wholesale via Oracle and Big G.

What to do, what to do...

Re:KW

[Anonymous Coward]

The neo-liberal welfare system. Here's a thought. 90% of all police in the ghettos use the welfare system as a tracking device, capture device, etcetera because everyone collects welfare there even if they have a job.

Re:KW

[56ker]

ORACLE= One Rich Angel Called Larry Ellison.

This post sponsered by Oracle. ;o)

Re:I Feel Bad for Oracle

[Roto-Rooter Man]

Of course, if it weren't for Larry Ellison and his so-called "scary" ideas, they wouldn't have a [cushy, high-paying] job.

big brother, eh?

[dryueh]

Hmmm..

Reading said article requires me telling the New York Times Magazine about my 'interests' and other personal data (including household income?!?!).. Considering the relationship of this post to the Big Brother(esque) mentality, the irony becomes to thick for me to handle--thus reducing me to a pile of incoherent literary rubble on the floor.

-twitch twitch-

Re:big brother, eh?

[dryueh]

If something/someone is providing a "free" service, why would they need to ask for anything in return? This service is, apparently, only free in the cash-money sense of the word. Free would mean free access...no forms, no data-collection, no username, etc.

So, I agree that NYTimes is not "the" big brother (how dare you apply a definite article to Big Brother!!! The Ministry of Love is going to kill you), but the fact that a free service here requires some information collection seems to follow a Big Brother mentality, doesn't it?

Christ, I keep telling myself that I'll only post to /. from work.....it's saturday for goodness sake!

Re:big brother, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes, but they are *ASKING* you to voluntarily provide the information. They have no way to verify it, or even verify your identity. The stuff this article is talking about is airlines (etc) findout our information from your credit card company, etc, without your permission (and maybe even without your knowledge)..

Voluntarily providing information, VS having one entitity share information about you with another.

Basically, give fake/false information, and maybe they wont bother asking anymore (and they wont have anything to share)..

Re:big brother, eh?

[AntiNorm]

All they ask from you is to volunteer them a bit of information about yourself in return

There are those of us who value our privacy though. But all we have to do is supply fake information.

Re:big brother, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Could someone please post a link to that site that doesn't require NY Times registration to read NY Times articles?
It's been posted on /. in the past, but I just can't seem to find it now.

Re:big brother, eh?

[skotte]

fFrom the article:

Our system ''will check your associates,'' Brett Ogilvie of Accenture told Business Week. ''It will ask if you have made international phone calls to Afghanistan, taken flying lessons or purchase Our system ''will check your associates,'' Brett Ogilvie of Accenture told Business Week. ''It will ask if you have made international phone calls to Afghanistan, taken flying lessons or purchased 1,000 pounds of fertilizer.'
d 1,000 pounds of fertilizer.'

damn thats vague!
you know, i think i'm going to call afghanistan sometime, just to say howdy, and see what trouble it gets me. fFlying lessons arent cheap, but i want to get some anyway. now if i could just fFind a ton of fFertilizer!!! (as if fFertilizer is the only thing you can build bombs out of... how daft!)

now this part of the article is truly profound. someone gets it! Accenture's profiling scheme is open to question not only because it would almost certainly violate the privacy rights of airline passengers, but also because it seems unlikely to work. Investigators will tell you that people who commit credit-card fraud often fit a consistent profile -- using the stolen card to buy gas at self-service stations, for example, and then using it to buy clothes. By contrast, terrorists don't fit a consistent profile: you're looking for a needle in a haystack, but the color and the shape of the needle keep changing.

Accenture's profiling scheme is open to question not only because it would almost certainly violate the privacy rights of airline passengers, but also because it seems unlikely to work. Investigators will tell you that people who commit credit-card fraud often fit a consistent profile -- using the stolen card to buy gas at self-service stations, for example, and then using it to buy clothes. By contrast, terrorists don't fit a consistent profile: you're looking for a needle in a haystack, but the color and the shape of the needle keep changing.

bloody brilliant! he gets it .. so why dont "they"?

Re:big brother, eh?

[jo42]

The funniest thing, Larry would realize, after seeing the stats in is database, that he is quickly becoming the white minority in the US of A. Would love to see the look on his face.

Learning to love the Surveillance State

[Seth Finkelstein]

Readers might be interested in an essay I wrote about these issues:

Are we learning to stop worrying and love the Surveillance State?

In the United States, we like to think of ourselves as the most free country on the planet. But perhaps our freedom is not a virtuous trait of our national character, as we would like to believe. Rather, maybe it's simply an effect of having many decades where there was no military threat which would prompt any type of office of "homeland security".

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

Re:Learning to love the Surveillance State

[jo42]

Is it me, or does "homeland security" sound just so communist/fascist/socialist?

Velkome to the United States of Amerika.

Re:Learning to love the Surveillance State

[egreB]

communist/fascist/socialist?

Clearly, you haven't been reading your homework on words ending in -ist (or -ism). Without getting into a political discussion, I'll try to stick to the meaning of the words. I won't even comment on your thoughts about "homeland security" and socialism/communism. You're comparing communism and socialism (since they're both rather left in a political sense), wich is understandable, but WHAT has fascism to do with any of the to others? Mention ONE thing!

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[account_deleted]

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on npr

[ekephart]

I heard about this on NPR yesterday. It definitely sounds scary and I don't support it, but unless Americans have completely forgotten some of their libertrian roots, I could see it happening. All Dubya has gotta do is get up and say, "Well with a connected database, the INS would have known that some of the 9-11 hijackers had warrants out." Nuff said.

The longer this idea takes to get into the mainstream though, the better. For once maybe our tendency to forget something (Sept. 11) when CNN stops covering it will play to our collective advantage.

Re:on npr

[Anonymous Coward]

All Dubya has gotta do is get up and say, "Well with a connected database, the INS would have known that some of the 9-11 hijackers had warrants out." Nuff said.

"Dubya" has already come out against this national id/database idea.

If you knew your facts, you would know that leftist democrats favor this idea much more than republican/libertarians. Leftists tend to trust the government much more than republicans/libertarians.

Maybe you need to do a little political philosophy research before you spout such nonsense.

But then again, this is slashdot where anything anti-republican is modded up.

Re:on npr

[Anonymous Coward]

This sounds nitpicky, but I have to say it anyway. I'm not aware of any US party I'd consider 'leftist'. Democrats are the leftmost of the major parties but that by no means they are left.

Re:on npr

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a "Leftist Democrat", green actually, and nothing could be further from the truth. If some dems are supporting the data base, I certainly wouldn't call them leftist. Being liberal means caring about the well-being and rights of individuals. The national database would not do that.

Re:on npr

[elmegil]

Leftists tend to trust the government much more than republicans/libertarians.

Tell that to Ralph Nader.

And really, I think confusing Republicans with Libertarians is about as sensible as confusing Leftists and Democrats. Demopublicans are all in one big boat with a couple fringy issues to pretend they're different.

Re:on npr

[MAXOMENOS]

If you knew your facts, you would know that leftist democrats favor this idea much more than republican/libertarians. Leftists tend to trust the government much more than republicans/libertarians.

I don't know too many persons on the Left who like this idea, either: not the environmentalists, not the socialists, and definitely not the gay rights or abortion rights crowds. And I doubt you'll find more than a handful of persons, out of the hundreds of thousands who voted Green, who support a national database. In fact, most of the Left is very suspicious of government survailance, because they remember what happened during the 1950s and 1960s with the FBI and various anti-activist Red Squads.

Despite what Rush Limbaugh might be telling people, freedom from survailance is not a simple Left-Right issue. This is more of an issue of both sides (the Left and the Right) against a frightened, probably gullible, and not terribly thoughtful Middle. Unfortunately, that Middle constitutes the bulk of the American electorate.

As for who trusts government more in general: there are people on the Left who want to outlaw guns and SUVs; there are people on the Right who want to outlaw homosexuality and abortion. In my mind, each side is as bad as the other with respect to government control.

o/t: amateur fighter pilot??

[Cally]

From the article

"Louie, an amateur fighter pilot,..."

Like... what? Does this mean he and a few pals like to take their F16s for a spin at the weekend, mebbe practice some bomb runs, perhaps take out the odd MiG when they feel like it - just for kicks?

Toc, toc, toc...

Re:o/t: amateur fighter pilot??

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently paid to fly a MiG-25 in Moscow. I guess if my ego was big enough, I could tell a reporter that I'm an "amateur fighter pilot". Maybe that's what they mean. It was an awesome flight, by the way. 8-)

Re:o/t: amateur fighter pilot??

[Skidge]

Nah, he probably just fires up the old Tandy 1000 and pops in F-15 Strike Eagle.

Re:o/t: amateur fighter pilot??

[dmv]

Ellison does have a MiG or two...

When all you have is a database...

[tuffy]

...everything begins to look like data.

Re:When all you have is a database...

[Anonymous Coward]

True, so very true...

What Big Brother Ellison doesn't seem to "get" is that people want their privacy respected...

If he wants to build his database, let him. BUT, it should be left as an exercise for the student (in this case, the incredibly naive Ellison) to determine which of the data in the database is *real*, and what isn't. AOL claims to have so many "members", as does Yahoo, Netscape Mail, etc., etc. But how _unique_ individuals are there behind all those accounts? I get phone calls nearly daily on my modem line for the individual who had the number before I got it - in December, 1999. I don't know what his new number is or if he's even alive. I submit that Ellison's database could be stuffed full of dead or erroneous information - and should be.

Re:When all you have is a database...

[srussell]

Or:

...everyone begins to look like data.

Re:I Feel Bad for Oracle

[DaedalusLogic]

Eccentric... and he looks like a James Bond villain... You suppose he has some secret submarine in the carribean loaded with hundreds of rackmounted servers running this database? I'm scared... eccentric pinhead...

You know what bugs me about Oracle though... nothing philosophical... its all the little SQL "enhancements" they provide that I find when looking at someone else's SQL query. I thought languages were supposed to be standardized. There are a few other DB's that do it too... Nothing big but it bugs me when I run into it.

Fresh Air interview with the author

[jerryasher]

The Fresh Air interview on April 11 with Journalist Jeffrey Rosen is worth a listen.

who's with me?

[morgajel]

...when I storm the oracle compound and force Ellison to quit trying to read my mind?

seriously, this guys out of control.
database containing everbit of info about you !=good.

the day they implement it, I'm moving to canada or New Zealand.
and I'm bringing all my toys as well.
if it were in my power, I'd never buy any oracle products- however, I'm realistic in the fact that I'll never be able to AFFORD them, so I'm gonna waste my time and energy on GeekPAC.

Re:who's with me?

[jo42]

Don't bother with Kanada - it's getting just as bad as in the United States of Amerika... :-(

Stay far away

[RealisticWeb.com]

I have had bad run-in's with Oracle before. I once was upgrading the db and the java-based installer wouldn't work. It was the most stupid thing. We are using the UNIX version, and they do not even offer a text based installer! After being up for almost 24 hrs with our website down the whole time, we gave up, and restored the old database. Before we upgraded and had problems thier tech support would say "we can't help because you need to upgrade" so we try to upgrade, and their response was "well it's a new product, so we can't help you becuase you are pioneering new ground". WTF! A few months later we found the answer in thier online help file. It was the NUM LOCK key. If the num lock key is on, it would not install. NO WHERE was this mentioned in the documentation, on the screen or by the tech monkey we called. I don't even know how to check for the numlock key in Java! I would think that they would have go out of thier way to make a product this bad.

My point is, why bother if there is an open souce alternative? MySQL is good enugh for NASA, it's good enugh for me! Let Oracle be the big brother, and I'll just be the Red-Headed stepchild.

Re:Stay far away

[modme]

red-hatted stepchild? :p

Re:Stay far away

[Mojo Trolljo]

I have to bite... Organizations like NASA are usually customers of many vendors. Just because they use mysql doesn't mean that they use it for their mission critical apps. I'm pretty sure they use DB2 and Oracle and probably other rdbms's for the more critical applications that run well on the higher-end unix hardware. In any case, I wonder who Ellison's PR advisors are to stay far away from them. I think this is just another ploy to get free advertisements and press space. Kinda like their "$1 Million guarantee" scam. For his sake, I hope it's working...

Re:Stay far away

[hype7]

I have had bad run-in's with Oracle before. I once was upgrading the db and the java-based installer wouldn't work. It was the most stupid thing. We are using the UNIX version, and they do not even offer a text based installer! After being up for almost 24 hrs with our website down the whole time, we gave up, and restored the old database. Before we upgraded and had problems thier tech support would say "we can't help because you need to upgrade" so we try to upgrade, and their response was "well it's a new product, so we can't help you becuase you are pioneering new ground". WTF! A few months later we found the answer in thier online help file. It was the NUM LOCK key. If the num lock key is on, it would not install. NO WHERE was this mentioned in the documentation, on the screen or by the tech monkey we called. I don't even know how to check for the numlock key in Java! I would think that they would have go out of thier way to make a product this bad.

oh well. look on the positive side. If they end up commissioning this database, they'll probably ending up losing all the info anyway

-- james

Safety and Security come first

[BenitoM]

Preventing horrific criminal acts requires some sort of profiling. This simply formalizes what we do in everyday life. Do you wait for someone to actually assault you before avoiding a suspicious character. Prudent human behavior requries that people make judgements about how someone else will behave based on so-called "lifestyle" characterstics. Common human experience gives us the ability to judge individual character based on behavior, appearance and lifestyle. A society where people can move about anonymously negates the ability to judge and exposes us all to unacceptable risks. The fact is, we either adopt something like this or we will descend into the chaos of unrestrained criminality. Larry Ellison's self-serving behavior in promoting this should not be held against the goals of systems like this. Folks, you give up this sort of information willingly to enjoy the benefits of living in this society. The problem isn't gathering information about public acts, its people who don't believe they should be accountable for these acts, and who hide behind anonymity to take advantage of us all.

Re:Safety and Security come first

[FleshWound]

Fact of the matter is, though, that the current methods of profiling criminals and preventing horrific criminal acts work, and they work well . . . but only when they have the proper funding.

The tragic events of September 11th had a lot of root causes, and we can debate about them until the cows come home (I would've said "...until Larry Ellison goes insane," but that's clearly already happened), but no one can deny that there's a pretty good chance (and by that I mean the chance was about as good as the sun rising tomorrow) that if Clinton hadn't cut the budget on the CIA, they would have known this was going to happen, and they could have taken steps to prevent it.

It's unfortunate that this happened before Bush had a chance to fix what Clinton had broken, but truth be told, re-funding the CIA was just one item on a laundry list of necessary resources that Clinton raped mercilessly, and Bush feels the need to fix them all (I can't say that I blame him). I'm sure he would have gotten around to it "eventually," but he was too busy nursing the U.S. military back to health.

In my humble opinion, if we want to stop terrorism from affecting our country, there's one simple thing we can do: stop electing Democrats into important offices. If they want to be selectmen in East Bumdoodle, Utah, let them. When they want to be the President, or a Senator, or a Congressman, we need to "just say no."

Re:Safety and Security come first

[Anonymous Coward]

Gotta feed the trolls, especially literate ones like the above...

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety-
Ben Franklin.

yeah, Benito- best troll of the year, but I am afraid that you speak for entirely too many assholes out there!

Re:Safety and Security come first

[FleshWound]

Since when is the truth considered flamebait? *sigh*

Re:Safety and Security come first

[skotte]

well, it's probably fFlamebait because you tend to spend a lot of time bashing clinton's policies. whether he cut spending or not isnt the point. i mean, if he so drastically slashed fFunding, why were there no such attacks during his reign? you see, there are many fFactors at hand. politics is only one of them. so, lambasting a candidate you dont like is indeed fFlamebait.

but i'll talk now on what i really want to comment on: you say if the CIA had proper fFunding, sep 11 wouldnt have happened. on the contrary, there is a lot of evidence which says they DID know a great deal about it, as well as numerous other criminal activities. http://www.fromthewilderness.com/ reports regularly on the shifty goings on of the central intelligence agency. (it's very leftist, but a good read)

the point is, the CIA is not automaticaly your fFriend, and it's abjectly daft to think otherwise.

Re:Safety and Security come first

[alister]

This post is a troll, guys. And he's got you. Look at the user name - Benito M? That would be Benito Mussolini, Fascist-in-Chief of Italy from the 20s to the 40s. I think, as trolls go, it's cleverly written, as the user name gives it away to TrollHunters.

Alister

Re:Safety and Security come first

[jo42]

And how will this database stop the slime ilk of Enron types that grease their pockets with large amounts of $$$$$ and sodomize the average joe out of retirement investments?

If you get a chance, get a copy of yesterdays 60 Minutes to see how Enron raped India over a power plant. Good olde boy Lay even used his influence in Washington to threaten India. Just how the fuck will this database stop shit like this, eh?

Re:Safety and Security come first

[jo42]

Bullwacky:

Sept 11, 2001, terrorists kill less than 4000 people. In the United States of America, the Tobacco Industry killed over 400,000 people in 2001. Which is the greater evil?

How will this database stop this sort of shit from going on, eh?

What sort of brother?

[Beliskner]

Apparrently Larry Ellison is trying to show he's a cute, cuddly teddy bear type big brother instead of a thieving schoolyard bully kick-your-ass-everyday type big brother with Authoritah! A supersized Oracle database running on a massive, hot Unix cluster doesn't sound like the big brother I'd like to have. Maybe this is the big brother that Larry Ellison always wanted to have? I always thought his Feng Shui and Japanese art was indicative of a more profound emptiness that a humming Unix cluster simly can't fill.

Dont define the solution before defining t project

[Openadvocate]

Now, I live in a country where we do have a National database and each and everyone has their own number. I don't have a problem with that and I think that USA could get a lot of good things out of that. Of course you need to put down some ground rules about how this data can be used and which databases should be connected. Don't define the solution by the features of a existing product. As in any other project it's a bad idea to look at the solution before the problem/job has been defined. Define the project and then look for products that can help you reach your goal. If Oracle is the best choice for the project then it's great. But let's look at what we want before we look at how to solve it. You might as well say, I want to travel from Europe to USA fast and I want to drive a car all the way. Instead one should have said, I want to travel from Europe to USA fast, and now look into the best way of doing it. I am not convinced that you end up using the car. :-)

Never happen

[borgheron]

What information will be contained in this "national database"? I've worked extensively w/ several versions of Oracle and I know it's faults.

It's marketing hype guys.

GJC

Boring

[Beliskner]

Boring, old news dude. This is the centralised Daedalus system in Total Recall 2070 episode 18 that takes care of everything - air travel, citizen identity, health insurance, medical records, vehicle insurance, police records, etc. And then an AI expert (Farf's designer presumably) hacks in and makes the machine self-aware. It starts crashing planes, nobody is capable of stopping it. The megacorporations (presumably Disney-equivalents) try to make intelligent robots using human foetal brain tissue.... It just starts to get interesting, and then they axe the series. Nice one.

Big Business model for Big Brother

[Alien54]

As Ellison spoke, it occurred to me that he was proposing to reconstruct America's national security strategy along the lines of Oracle's business model. When Oracle moved its business to the Internet in 1995, Ellison complained that its customer information was scattered across hundreds of separate databases, which meant that the German office couldn't share information about customers with the French office. By consolidating 130 separate databases into a single database on the Internet, Ellison said, Oracle saved a billion dollars a year and found it easier to track, monitor and discriminate among its customers. This was what Ellison now wanted to do for America.

I asked if there would be any controls on access to the database. For example, would Ellison want people to be kept off a plane because they were late on their alimony payments?

''Oh, no, I don't think we would keep anyone off on alimony payments,'' Ellison said. ''But if the system designed to catch terrorists also catches mere bank robbers and deadbeat dads, that's O.K. I think that's a good thing. I don't think it's a bad thing.''

never mind anyone else who is politically incorrect.

Talk about trust worthy computing.

Who do you trust?

Re:Dont define the solution before defining t proj

[Anonymous Coward]

You might want to read a book called "The Naked Consumer". While it's about commercial databases, and not government ones, the author makes a pretty compelling argument that it doesn't matter what limitations are placed on data collection. Once the information exists in an organized form, it will eventually be used for purposes other than that for which it was ostensibly collected. And when policies are changed AFTER the fact, there's no way to opt out.

HOWTO fight terrorist the right way, using the net

[halftrack]

We all agree that terrorism is bad and that it should be fought. But we, the techies, hackers, geeks, doesn't agree with the governments how it should be fought. We belive that everybody has a right to privacy. So here's one solution. Let them track us and profile us. In airports and on the Internet. Just give them guidlines on how.

Imagine you enter an airport, now a computer has tagged an id to your creditcard, cellphone a.s. and tracks this id. This id would not be stored in a database but simply in an in memory map linking your id to what you've done. Then should it match a terrorist profile the computer would then try to identify you after having been cleared by a security officer reviewing the data collected. Your data would otherwise expire and be deleted after you'd left the airport. The law could require that such systems don't have hard-drives, but boots the OS from a ROM, and that there doesn't excist any method for retrieving data that isn't associated with potential threats.

This is compromise.

I was going to say...

[OblongPlatypus]

I was going to say "this is the sort of thing that makes me glad I don't live in the US". But then I realized it would be much more efficient to list the sort of things that make me wish I did live in the US:

...well, I can't think of any just now, I'll let you know when I do.

Re:I was going to say...

[QuodEratDemonstratum]

Alcohol is cheaper here than in Norway.

Re:I was going to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

What you really mean is that since I'm jealous of the United States and I live in some western europe, socialist cesspool, I need to delude myself into thinking that my country is better than the greatest country that has ever existed.

O.R.A.C.L.E.

[TheRealFixer]

"Oh yes, Mr. Bond. I do think it will exist. And I think it is going to be an O.R.A.C.L.E. database... and we're going to track everything. And then, my dear Mr. Bond, I shall rule the world!"

Re:HOWTO fight terrorist the right way, using the

[Carmody]

Yes. And if your idea got through, it might even be that way for a month. But once the infrastructure to collect the data is in place, it is the silliest of idealism to think that the "your data would be deleted after you left the airport" clause would last ten years.

Social Security numbers were NEVER supposed to be used for anything but retirement accounts - and people who claimed they would someday be used as identification were called paranoid.

You say: This is compromise. I have an idea. I want you to send me $100, you don't want to send me anything, so why not just send me $50? This is compromise, too.

Giving people the power to take away your rights is not "compromise", it is capitulation

Re:I Feel Bad for Oracle

[Malc]

I haven't used Oracle for a few years. Do they still have the wierd syntax for outer joins? That's got to be one of the most common queries I use that they [used to] do differently.

Re:Dont define the solution before defining t proj

[morgajel]

well, um, it's possible if russia lets you:)

And Franklin is always right?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Slaves may be kept as long as a Man pleases"

Ben Franklin.

Re:And Franklin is always right?

[Anonymous Coward]

"A penny saved is a penny earned"
- Ben Franklin

Re:And Franklin is always right?

[benfoldsfan]

ben is right.
we still have slaves today.
our capitalist society just isn't condutive to the flavor of slavery that existed at his time.
but i can get mexicans to mow my lawn and pick up the dog droppings for 3 bucks an hour.

Hitler Comparrisons

[Grassferry49]

This sounds to me to be a great deal like something Hitler would do. So using my high math skills I'm going to draw up the equation Hitler = Ellison Oracle = Germany during the World Wars.... Oracle employees should probably start fearing for their lifes and jobs right now.

Re:Hitler Comparrisons

[AndroidCat]

Hitler did do it. He used IBM equipment. Punch-card databses, but still.

Re:Hitler Comparrisons

[Ann O'Nymous-Coward]

What utter bullshit! They didn't HAVE computer databases during WW2. Hell, depending on your definition, they barely had computers.

Re:Hitler Comparrisons

[AndroidCat]

I said punch card database. Just because the data is on punch cards in file cabinets, doesn't mean it's not a database.

IBM had all sorts of machines for selecting, sorting cards by fields. It made for "efficent" handling of personal data. Primative by todays standards, it was wizzbang stuff back then. (And IBM did a shell game to allow IBM Germany to keep operating during the war.)

Re:Hitler Comparrisons

[Ann O'Nymous-Coward]

Ooooops! Sorry, my mistake! I saw "punch-cards" and immediately thought "punch-card-reader" and *bam*, instant flashback to the days when big iron and paper teletypes were the only game in town.
...Now 'scuse me while I twitch and brush off imaginary chads 'till the fit passes. :)

Be Well, Citizens!

[Servo5678]

Greetings, friends. What's your boggle?

I hope that when the time comes They show us how to use the three seashells.

[Note - much funnier if you've seen Demolition Man]

Two unrelated things:

[BreakWindows]

1) Oracle saved a billion dollars a year and found it easier to track, monitor and discriminate among its customers. This was what Ellison now wanted to do for America.

Fantastic. I think discrimination should be easier and more accessible, on a nation-wide government level. Is that even possible?

2) It's this fear of an all-too-powerful government rising up and snatching away our liberties.'' Since Sept. 11, Ellison argued, those qualms no longer make any sense: ''It's our lives that are at risk, not our liberties,'' he said.

Both are at risk, jackass, they aren't mutually exclusive. But, if saving lives and fighting terrorism is the goal, here's an easy way to do it. Listen up, get ready to write this down if you're a member of the government: If we want to put an end to terrorism, all we have to do is......(ready?)..stop funding terrorists. Don't give the Taliban $43mil, don't give both Israel and Palestine money and act surprised when bombs go off, don't create Contra's or an Osama Bin Laden knowing full well what they're capable of. If our governments and large corporations stop going in for funding them, it clips their wings. It won't end terrorism, but it'll make it a hell of a lot smaller. I think with $43mil and however-much-more we don't know about, a terrorist could fund their way around an Oracle DB.

Besides, what's more efficient than a database is just putting a soldier with an M-16 in every home to watch over us. Or to have a marine follow every citizen around...start a draft to even up the odds. Maybe when he said our liberties aren't at risk, "our" referred to him and his buddies? Who even knows anymore.

Re:Two unrelated things:

[Anonymous Coward]

But isn't it a lot more fun if we DO fund all of these organisations and pit them all against each other? That way we have a reason to introduce Orwellian legislation, systems and control so that the general population become our sheep.

Re:Two unrelated things:

[Anonymous Coward]

mm..hmm...thats true too. i assume geeks will be running most of the infrastructure and they wont be monitoring themselves or have enough access to be able to circumvent most of it for themselves.
herding the general population like sheep has its merits of course.

But this database will provide neither

[ryman]

For all its good intentions (I hope...), this sort of database would have likely stopped none of the tragedies of Sept. 11th. This sort of system would be helpful only in the most ideal of worlds, which we all know ours is not. Abuses of this information would be inevitable. And I don't want to even think of the security nightmares resulting from an information cache of this extent being under the direction of our federal beauracracy.

Re:I Feel Bad for Oracle

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh you mean like:
Sequences?
PL-SQL?
Java stored procs?

Yeah, really weird conspiratory-emrace-and-extend type stuff. Whatever.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, this stuff is actually very useful to anyone doing a enterprise level development.

Oracle got where it is today because their database product is the best there is for its intended userbase. It didn't have to use its monopolistic powers to bully its competition like some other companies I won't mention.

If your use of databases is limited to your 1337 php to mysql running your website then yes, Oracle may not look like anything you'd want to bother with.

Congresswoman: Bush knew in advance of 9/11

[Anonymous Coward]

Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) is calling for an investigation into whether President Bush and other government officials had advance notice of terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 but did nothing to prevent them. She added that "persons close to this administration are poised to make huge profits off America's new war."

In a recent interview with a Berkeley, Calif., radio station, McKinney said: "We know there were numerous warnings of the events to come on September 11th. . . . What did this administration know and when did it know it, about the events of September 11th? Who else knew, and why did they not warn the innocent people of New York who were needlessly murdered? . . . What do they have to hide?"

And you tought comunism was evel?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well you got some hard lessons to learn about what can happen to a people that has to much pride and to much faith in it's leaders.
Do something now!

just 2ct from somewhere in europe
(yes i know it's getting worse here too)

The best solution

[Cowculator]

I propose that we go ahead with a national database, make it open to the public, and have it all administered by Oracle. Only I don't mean Larry Ellison's Oracle.

That's right, all queries will have to be answered by the Usenet Oracle. We can't ensure that the information in this "database" will all be accurate, but at least we'll be able to share a hearty laugh as we vote any congressmen who try to implement this idea out of office...

Why not put Ellison...

[ngtni]

...on Big Brother 3. At least we'd get rid of him for a few months.

Re:HOWTO fight terrorist the right way, using the

[Anonymous Coward]

> We all agree that terrorism is bad and that it should be fought.

I don't.
Terrorism is just a tool to achieve political goals.
If you call it bad, you are probably at the receiving end.
The trick is, when you're terrorizing others, you never call it terrorism. "Defending our overseas commercial interests" sounds so sophisticated and nice.

Is it just me....

[allism]

Or did the "Oh, I don't think we would keep anyone off on alimony payments" strike anyone else as improper? Shouldn't it be "I don't think the government would keep anyone off"? Does it bother anyone else that Ellison is assuming the role of the government here, rather than just being a provider of a resource to the government? Somehow I don't think he's using 'we' as 'we the American people'.

I could be wrong, though, and Ellison could be incredibly considerate of our right to privacy and he could be NOT elevating himself to the level of Big Brother. As soon as I can pick myself up off the floor from laughing at the thought of Ellison lowering himself to the status of a mere citizen, I'll have to give it some more consideration.

Re:HOWTO fight terrorist the right way, using the

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course there must be a way for the society (and service providers like the police and health care community) to identify its members.

Why?

If you can answer that, then answer this: why do we need a single unique identifier that can be used as a universal database key? Because we have that, a thousand disparate databases can easily be combined, and everything you do that goes on record anywhere can be retrieved with a query. It's like having some guy with a notepad following everybody around, writing down everything you do and saying "don't mind me, I'm just here to provide you better service."

parasites!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well said. The parasitic dwelling on 9-11 makes me sick. It was an exploit. What was necessary to prevent it? More airline security, possibly airline marshals, etc. PERIOD. Stick the patch on the airlines and be done.

But somehow, we are to believe that a huge database monitoring our every activity, kept in utter secrecy by people whose true intents are classified represents safety we need....Seriously, think of this at a smaller scale:

Some punk hacks into a web server for you ISP, and writes stuff on the index page, and messes some peoples stuff it. It was mean and tragic, especially sinse he came in through an easily observable security hole, which is easily fixed. What does root do? fix the security hole and be done with it the tradegy? Nope. Instead he claims that he needs to go through every ftp file, every email everyone has written or recieved, and every log of internet traffic the USERS on the server, (even though the vandal was not an authorized user) and that its for their own safety, lest the server get hacked again. I would terminate my account right there...most people would. But when its our governments, not our sysadmins, its okay...Its for our "safety", you see.

Larry

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Oracle daily, I am an OCP, an Oracle share holder, and I drink the coolaid...

But...

I have to repeat this (unable to give proper credit though...)

What is the difference between Larry Ellison and God?

God dosen't think that he is Larry Ellison.

Re:Larry

[arunkv]

I have to repeat this (unable to give proper credit though...)
What is the difference between Larry Ellison and God?
God dosen't think that he is Larry Ellison.
That's from Larry's biography: The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison by Mike Wilson. The sub-title is God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison.

Re:Larry

[Dr. Cody]

Look at number five!
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/cm/bro wse-com munities/-/211611/books/ref=cm_pc_dp_listing/104-4 121337-5925532

Re:I Feel Bad for Oracle

[eric2hill]

The "wierd" syntax for Outer joins is SQL 89 syntax. SQL 92 syntax is the more "modern" way of doing it.

SQL89: SELECT ... WHERE TBL1.KEY=TBL2.KEY(+)

SQL92: SELECT ... RIGHT OUTER JOIN TBL1.KEY ON TBL2.KEY

Oracle 9 supports both syntaxes now.

Exporting costs

[pben]

Busness in the 21st century is interesting. They have switched the cost of enforing copyrights to the goverment e.g. DCMA. Now the govermant is going to create the bigest and best marking database that will probably fail. But of couse once it is created it will be to valuable to destroy. The goverment will sell the data to get back their sunk costs and repay those that got them into office.

Exporting costs to goverment were the copyright holder or marketer can do what he does best and the goverment can do what they do best. Why recreate a police force, census, or intelligence agency when the goverment already has them. Isn't that what globalization about, doing what you do best and buying services of what you are not as good at.

It is a new mellennium.

Re:Exporting costs

[Swarfega]

Curse my lack of mod points!

random login generator

[majcher]

As usual, you can generate a random New York Times login every time with the registration generator I threw together. Share and enjoy.

Re:random login generator

[rossz]

Great script. I hope the ny times enjoys my personal information. I never realized I lived in South Africa.

I book marked it for future use. Thanks.

btw, does your script handle passing the ny times link to it? It would be great to reference nytimes stuff directly through your script when making postings here on /. While you're at it, include an option to just generate the info randomly and immediately send the reader to the ny times url.

Re:random login generator

[dee_dee_rmn]

Nice stuff.

Now, really cool thing would be if all of /. crowd logs in making sure that all 4 boxes are checked in a popup window before clicking 'submit'

Re:random login generator

[ascheuch]

Is it possible to randomize the gender?
It seems to me that every time I refresh, it is always female. Is that some kind of subliminal message?

1960's fear's 1970's awareness meets 1990's bugs

[Felinoid]

1960's Larg mainframe computers like IBM mainframes come into exsistence.. soon well have computers that can store records of every person in the world for easy retreaval by any government burocrat...

1970's Home computers like the Apple // come into exsistence...
Soon we'll be able to hack into those larg databases and change them... The ground work for the revolution...

1990's Windows defects tolerated by government and business agentcys make hacking databases even easier...
While end users fuss and more knowladgeable use Mac, Linux, BSD and in the enterprise Solarus..

2000's The database comes into existence..
Orical.. on Windows XP.
Soon after Freshmeat apps show up to erase your criminal record and give yourself dimplomatic status..
The revolution is won..

Scary

[Anonymous Coward]

"Aren't there already such megadatabases? ... How else would the government keep track of the population...?", he says, assuming it's necessary to "keep track" of the population. It's scary that people make assumptions like this.

Remember, your government, if you live in a democratic nation, is there to serve you. If this requires detailed, complete tracking of the population, then so be it. But keep asking the question "is this necessary?", and not "isn't it already happening?"

Just think of the spammers!

[AndroidCat]

Man, a government verified database of existing people with email addresses and everything!

This is not spam, by existing you agreed to receive this email...

Actually

[hobuddy]

> If there were a big government database, then a
> simple "SELECT * FROM WHERE Citizen=foo" would be,
> in my mind, a violation of the 4th amendment.

In my mind, it would be nothing more than a violation of SQL syntax.

Re:Actually

[sheldon]

I would think the SQL would require a few joins against the EVIL_TABLE_IN_THE_FBI_DATABASE and the EVIL_TABLE_IN_THE_NSA_DATABASE to get all your pertinent information.

Re:Actually

[PhipleTroenix]

The whole point of the article is that there will be no FBI or NSA database, only "The Database".

I feel safe now...

[Anonymous Coward]

knowing that is an Oracle, it performance won't keep up and it'll get corrupted often.

Now if it were a DB/2 database I'd be worried.

(I couldn't resist :) )

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:I Feel Bad for Oracle

[Nermal]

SQL89: SELECT ... WHERE TBL1.KEY=TBL2.KEY(+)

SQL92: SELECT ... RIGHT OUTER JOIN TBL1.KEY ON TBL2.KEY

----------------
I'm curious about something, then. The only SQL DBs that I have a lot of experience with are MySQL and MS Access. Both of them support a syntax like this:

SELECT ... FROM TBL1 RIGHT [OUTER] JOIN TBL2 ON TBL1.key = TBL2.key

What standard is that?

--Brad

Ellison's nemesis; thankfully, the Constitution.

[sallen]

While it's not perfect, I think one reason the founding fathers insured we had a Constitution was to protect us from ideas like those forthcoming from Mr. Ellison. They made it trump all, less than easy to change, and instituted a federal court system and Supreme Court that can't be easily replaced to allow the whims of a single person or even masses overnight.

Mr. Ellison is listened to because he as a lot of money, mainly. IMHO, however, the man wears blinders, isn't concerned about minor things like the Constitution, and doesn't seem to bother to take into consideration existing problems with that's out there when wanting to roll over everything. I have no opinion as to whether it's his nature or his money that gives him this nature, or if he's spent too much time in his oriental surroundings, I'll leave that for others to decide.

But some things are troubling. He points out the huge databases that already exist. What he fails to also acknowledge are the problems. Forget about the 'mall experience'; but when, for example, credit data is incorrect in a database, it can take years to straighten out. It took Congress to act to even get the companies maintaining them to act even in a less than timely manner. Identity theft is greatly on the rise; again becuase of the existing databases and through theft of information, people can 'take over' another person's identity. It takes, IIRC, years for people to get that straightened out. That generally doesn't, though it can and HAS, get people tossed in jail. Mr. Ellison wants a single federal database of everyone with it's likely error rate to equal or exceed the individual databases that already exist? Now instead of a credit problem, people could be subject to being tossed in jail as suspected terrorists.

Actually, as far as protection of data or at least access, I'd give the FBI higher marks historically than the private sector. My only experience dates back many years at the advent of the NCIC, but the FBI had some very strict (and followed up on) procedures on connecting to it, who had access, logging data, etc). At that point, it was mainly a repository for things like stolen boats, airplanes, etc. Criminal history databases didn't exists, and I don't think warrants and other data was kept on there, certainly not centrally from states. But they had good controls becuase it WAS limited in who accessed it and what went on it. Even then, there were errors and problems with some who'd access the data. Mr. Ellison's gandiose plans would obviously make control of both access, updating information, and accuracy a nightmare. Identify theft wouldn't necessarily be any harder, as there'd still be corrupt people to sell false ID's just like the terrorists who purchased false drivers licenese data; it might only cost them more. Had it existed prior to 9/11, it wouldn't have prevented anything; since most were here legally, it seems. Would they have been prevented to board a flight becuase they had a speeding ticket in some other state? Probably not. Though if so, then a LOT of people are going to be missing flights.

Also, as one amasses huge amounts of data, the accuracy goes down and there's nobody to really analyze it. It all becomes automated. If that leads to profiling the entire country, it becomes another nightmare. And based on what? and by whom? The courts have shot down some profiling methodolgy, and undoubtedly would others. Even with existing data we had, the INS seems a mess, unable to control data and process what it already has. So adding millions and millions more pieces of data is going to improve that?

I think the BIG downfall and the area that needs to be upgraded are the areas that the gov't thought they were going to do with techonology or were afraid to do for public opinion. AS others thought the USA still had 'war fright' and wouldn't potentially react as it did to 9/11 or for that matter the Gulf War, they found out wrong. But the other area that was shackled upwards of 30+? years ago was the intelligence community, CIA for example. They got bad press, people compained we actually had 'spies', technology was improving, and even gov't types revolted aginst them. Were there problems? Sure. Mr. Hoover destroyed the perceived integrity of the FBI for years. But the gov't also pretty much wiped out foreign intelligence too. We ended up with satellites and pictures of everyplace on earth, probably damn good pics, but we didn't have agents to hear what those were saying or plotting that we had pictures of from miles up in space. If we dont' go back to the practice of infiltrating foreign groups that are a threat to us, we'll probably only learn of acts after they occur instead of preventing some of them. I think we're probably doing a lot more than previously, but maybe that's where we should be putting our resources and support. I don't blame the CIA for 9/11, but I have a hunch, strictly an opinion, some of those in gov't who highly criticized those agencies for 9/11 are the same ones who voted to tightly restrict them many years ago.

Before we listen to someone like Mr. Ellison and destroy much of what the founding father's wrote, let's take the things that we already have and 'fix' the problems that exist, and go back to obtining accurate intelligence, having the right people to analyze it, and keeping those that are going to be the terrorists and keep them out before they even have a chance to end up in any 'national database' that Mr. Ellison so highly values. (along with the revenue. The article did mention he'd give the gov't the software. It also said they'd pay for upgrades and maintenance in the future. I guess that'd give Mr. Ellison even more money and connections in case any data was ever wrong in HIS profile. Though that doesn't solve the years other people would have fixing problems with errors on them in his database as they couldn't call their lawyers at 3am or their local congreeman or senator or president to get an appointment 10 minutes later.)

Where does the slippery slope lead to?

[mccotter]

I was discussing the right to privacy vs. the need for security with my friend the other day. He was OK with giving up some amount of privacy for a greater sense of security, which seemed shocking to me.

I told him that it was a slippery slope once you start giving up your rights.

He wanted to know where the slippery slope would lead to. What do you slashdotters think? What's at the bottom of the Big Brother rainbow?

Re:Where does the slippery slope lead to?

[Anonymous Coward]

-humankind being reduced to living robots.

-unckecked capitalism allowing ownership of every molecular interaction in your entire being.

-the end of authentic culture and cultural evolution.

-the loss of the ability to abstract original ideas.

-the end of the individual

-the complete loss of the ability to exist, characterized by the loss of unaccountability, that is, the inability to have even the option to choose between "right" or "wrong"

It's fair to say that this list could go on for a few gigabytes of text... but this is enough to think about for now

Hitler was first

[Anonymous Coward]

Hitler's success in tracking down Jews and sending them to the gas chambers to die also started by assigning everybody a number first and creating a fairly primitive centralized database. Our government is already well into implementation of such a system by abusing the well intended social security system and is failing to create laws that prevent landlords and industries from continuing to commit such an abuse.
If not everyone one of us actively speaks out and acts NOW against the abuse of social security numbers and further centralization it will be too late very soon.
The first step is a simple rule that you want to follow for security reasons as well: Do never give your social security number to any landlord, utility company, administrators, organizations, schools, potential criminals, etc.

Evidently with you bin Laden already won

[j_w_d]

The damage to this nation from the kind of thought you express here goes far beyond what you seem to think. Terrorists are trivial risks. Driving a car on any road on the US is infinitely more of a risk than encountering a terrorist. Never the less through the simple minded ideas of "acceptable risk" you assert your terror. Bin Laden has conquered your thought. The loss this causes is incalculable. It means women can't wear bobby pins on planes anymore, that your grandmother can't knit on a plane because her knitting needles might be used as weapons.

It means that some undereducated fool at a security check point will tell you "its for your own safety," when anyone that can think KNOWS that no US flight, and probably none anywhere will ever again be taken over by terrorists in the foreseeable futre because the 9-11 terrorists proved themselves liars. No passenger can ever again accept the risk of believing a terrorist's assertion that they won't be hurt. This "security" is not for your own good; it was not for your own good; it will never be for your own good. Building a reliable mass transit would be for your own good.

While you are thinking about this try running a simultaneous search on google for "Bush" and "bin Laden." After you read a few of THOSE hits, the fact that an ORACLE data base could monitor every emergency room bed in New York state "on the eve of " 9-11 might really get your paranoia going. Look into the stock transactions for American and United in the month immediately before 9-11 and try to correlate those moves with any news about the companies. Someone made several fortunes shorting them, but not all of the profits have been collected yet.

Let's be Realistic

[Sentry21]

A national ID card and centralized database won't lose you any of your privacy. All it will do is take away the illusion of privacy. You think the government can't track you now? Show ID at the airport, use a bank card or CC when you land to get some cash, activate your cellphone while you're in the taxi, and they can track you if they want to. They can do all this stuff already.

All an ID card will do is make it slightly easier for them to do it, and much harder for terrorists to use forged documentation to travel, make it easier to prove you are who you say you are.

Many European countries have national ID cards, but The Man isn't keeping them down. UK has cameras all over the place, but they're still not being taught Newspeak. The problem is not in the cards, it's in how they're used. If you don't trust your government, elect a new one. If that's not feasible, move to another country. Yeah Ellison's a nutjob, but so what? Leave the country and don't go back.

--Dan

Re:Let's be Realistic

[Anonymous Coward]

The UK and other EU countries have the Data Protection Act, which prevents companies from selling your data without your permission. Do you honestly believe that marketing firms and spammers will not be allowed to access all that valuable marketing data in such a database here in the US?

Re:Let's be Realistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Not Finland. Even though it has a Data Protection Act, it's Population Register Center sells/supplies name/address/demographic information to direct marketers and individuals unless you opt out.

I used to respect this man...

[Millennium]

...but if 9/11 has convinced him to trade his life for the freedom that makes it worth living, then he is nothing but a coward.

I pity the company he controls, for being under the thumb of someone like him. I can only hope they find a way to boot him out before he drags them down (or worse, succeeds in his mad scheme). If I have anything to say about it, he'll never see a dollar of mine; I'd sooner give it to Microsoft now.

wondering about Ellison

[JimBobJoe]

Since Sept. 11, Ellison argued, those qualms no longer make any sense: ''It's our lives that are at risk, not our liberties,'' he said.

''Like, that's really disturbing. Like, don't mess with my mall experience. O.K., so people have to die over here without this, but that's not going to affect my experience going to the mall.'' He exhaled, and in his regular billionaire voice asked, ''I mean, what the hell is going on?''

It's funny to me that the second richest man in the world, who has everything, seems so sincerely scared of being killed. I mean, do you think he's saying these things as part of his salesmen's pitch (which is entirely possible...he could be a closet privacy activist but such a good salesman that we would never know) or is the fear of being killed randomly part of his psyche?

I suspect he is also really obsessive about the food he eats, exercising, doing yoga, et cetera. All the money in the world can't buy him another body, or a better body, and he probably knows that in the back of his mind. Hence we have a person who is likely very afraid of dying.

Not to mention the ego trip of being omniscient. Because if Oracle databases know everything, then at some level, he knows everything.

''I really don't understand. Central databases already exist. Privacy is already gone.''

For him. There's no doubt it's gone for him...it would be hard living his life and maintaining any sense of privacy. The rich and famous are the least sensitive to data privacy issues, because frankly, they don't understand them. How can they have a good grasp of what privacy is, when they don't live private lives. Actors should though--they aren't getting paid all that moolah because they are working really hard--they are getting paid all that moolah because they are selling the rights of their "image." That brings along a certain amount of disadvantages, like no privacy, but you are getting paid for it. Ellison likely never got paid for it.

Re:HOWTO fight terrorist the right way, using the

[blibbleblobble]

We all agree that terrorism is bad and that it should be fought...

No. We don't. Sorry to expose myself to US mindsets here, but (Terrorist == Soldier) and the only difference is whether the reporting media are on the same side as the combattant, or on the opposing side.

So please, before you condemn the people you consider to be terrorists, bear in mind that most of the world considers Bush/Blair/Sharon to be murderers and terrorists, and that your needling of Israel to kill yet more civillians sickens us.

IMPLICIT INTEGER A-Z

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, a FORTRAN geek sig !

Ellison a wannabe Hitler?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't we all know Larry Ellison's comments and opinions on certain racial groups and his political views... Now I am getting the whole picture -- that is extremely scary and we should all take it very very serious.
I wouldn't be surprised if he had found some law makers who share his views and under the label "security" buy into that.
The whole thing just smells too much like preparation for something else... If I was Jewish or on the other end of the political spectrum I would be seriously alarmed.

Why fight?

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. I don't believe all terrorists are bad.

10 years ago, drug dealers

5 years ago, porn on the net

today, "terrorists"

When are the dumb sheep going to wake up and smell the 'GOP' agenda of the month going on here.

Here's another way to stop terrorism...

[Anonymous Coward]

Change your foreign policy from one which tramples the third world, other's religions, freedom of choice, etc etc etc. It's simple, it's just that the people in power want to bring about the culmination of a new world order. All of these things uses 'your safety' to do it because that is what talks here and now to your hierarchy of needs. (Maslov's pyramid?) Gun crime? Ban guns. Terrorism? Suspend rights and freedoms. It goes on and on. People need to wake up.

The fFirst one is fFree (or, software as a drug)

[skotte]

The fFirst one is fFree (or, software as a drug):

in answer to your observation, no, i dont think there would be too much trouble in getting public admittance. afterall, it's fFree right? and that's always good . . .

fFrom the article:

...Ellison offered to donate the software for a single national database free of charge to the United States government. (The company, Ellison added, would charge for upgrades and maintenance.)

Well, you've got to hand it to him...

[Bake]

at least he's being frank about his intentions. I figure the only difference between him and Bill Gates is that Larry Ellison isn't exactly keeping his intentions secret.

Personally I think that is a good sign.

Larry...

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried to contact Larry Ellison about his fairy tale idea of running a National Database to track and record everything about everybody, but the Oracle site requires that I enable JavaScript which I refuse to do. After all, whose to say that Larry wouldn't download a Trojan horse into my computer to START his national tracking scheme a little early.

Don't trust Oracle or Ellison. They want to know all our secrets. I'm just glad that I've never bought anything from a company that feels that the average american MUST be quilty of something.

Who knows what vicious little surprises are hidden in their products.

Worse than you think

[evilmrhenry]

This seems like the beginnings of the end times in the Bible.

It would be very easy to build a system required in order to buy or sell, as profesied.

'We're going to build a bioterrorism shield, so eventually everyone is going to have to participate '

Steve Cooperman, Oracle's new director of homeland security

Ellison does not seem to even understand the objections against the system.

'There are, at the moment, legal restrictions prohibiting the sharing of data by government agencies. The most important restriction was passed in 1974, to prevent President Nixon from ordering dragnet surveillance of Vietnam protesters and searching for their youthful marijuana arrests. I asked Ellison whether these legal restrictions should be relaxed. "Oh, absolutely," he said. "I mean absolutely. The prohibitions are absurd. It's this fear of an all-too-powerful government rising up and snatching away our liberties."'

'"Well, my God, there are hundreds of places we have to look to see if you're a security risk." He [Ellison] dismissed the risks of privacy violations: "I really don't understand. Central databases already exist. Privacy is already gone."'

Ellison wants this to be mandatory for aliens, but optional for citizens. However, this will most likely last until one minute after a US citizen commits an act of terrorism.
Also of interest is the 'thumbprint or iris scan' that could be interpreted as the mark on the right hand or forehead.

'Ellison proposes to link the central government database to a system of digital identification cards that would be optional for citizens but mandatory for aliens. He wants each card holder to provide a thumbprint or iris scan that would be stored in the central database.'

(I am rather sleepy right now, so this may not be quite coherent.)

I really hope I am wrong about this.

Creating a single point of failure like this ...

[chris_sawtell]

is just so obviously and utterly stupid. It will attract terrorist bombs just like bees to a honey-pot.
It's seems so incredible to me that this idea should even be be suggested.
I can't help but wonder why the TLA outfits are not making descreet enquiries as to the position of the author's loyalties.
God bless America, because you will need every blessing you can grab now for use later when you are living under the upcoming Pax Americana, which will, I fear, re-define the meaning of the words "Police State".

Re:I want to contribute to the DB!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is LE....

i'm also a well known bi-sexual (or more unisexual ala' the Hobbits in "Bored of the Rings"), and have a GREAT BIG ROUND BED in my 'Frisco pad...

SO, send me a photo and maybe we box the compass some time?

"Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose...."

Re:HOWTO fight terrorist the right way, using the

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I don't mind better service. Where I live, we have a national health database that can be accessed by the doctors. It's a marvellous system. I can go to any doctor anywhere in the country and using my unique social security number as the key, he/she gets an immediate access to my medical history.

So does the neighborhood pharmacist. And the teenage clerk who works for him.
So does your potential future employer. And their insurance company.

Remember the Warthog that flew into a mountain ?

[Anonymous Coward]

National Guard are "amateur", as in non-professional, pilots. The scenarios they are afraid of are those like the armed Air Force A-10 that crashed in 1997 in Colorado.

http://www.cnn.com/US/9710/24/a10.crash/

Re:HOWTO fight terrorist the right way, using the

[hype7]

I love watching articles like this on /. All the little script k1dd135 who've read their George Orwell homework.

I'm not sure how many more people have to die because of some perceived danger in catching evil people. You realise that there were US agencies with warrants out on the guys that crashed those planes into the WTC? They'd have been picked up at the airport!

It's time to take a responsible stance. Denying the technology to save lives because it might be dangerous is akin to saying ban cars because people die in them. Like everything, it can be used for the purpose that was intended.

BTW (fair question) what harm has come from the US having social security numbers?

-- james

Re:I Feel Bad for Oracle

[eric2hill]

Sorry about the syntax - you're right. It is RIGHT [OUTER] JOIN TBL2 ON TBL2.KEY=TBL1.KEY. I'm brain fried. That is the SQL 92 syntax.

Larry Ellison vs. Privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

If anyone knows, is Larry Ellison a Scientologist? This National Database sounds like their sort of s h i t.

Re:Larry Ellison vs. Privacy

[DaedalusLogic]

You know who is sealous about record keeping? The Church of Latter Day Saints otherwise known as Mormons. They have a belief about proving lineage that I don't understand fully even though I have a cousin who is a member of the church. They have a massive genealogical library that is protected in the style of a fallout bunker.

Scientologists simply rely on the SQL server Hubbard built into all of their heads at one of their OT levels... lol... and hey... if that's what works for ya more power to you... but any philosophy that condones the mistreatment or suppression of humans is wrong... Which is the most valid argument against their organization.

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Got LDAP?

[Xoth]

I think people overlook the general fault in using a database. LDAP is the solution. Larry is a fool if thinks his DBMS frankenstein can provide the speed and profiling necessary to properly track American citizens around the world. Obviously Big Brother would be better served by an LDAP directory and not an DBMS like Oracle. 'nuff said.

Re:HOWTO fight terrorist the right way, using the

[Carmody]

All the little script k1dd135 who've read their George Orwell homework.

I am a 38 year old professor of mathematics who has read much, from many areas of the political spectrum. I would love to be a k1ddi3 again, but those days are long gone, and I am proud if I write a script to set freecell goals. (which I have.) It does not speak well of your own maturity or intelligence when you assume that people who disagree with you must not have put a lot of thought into a given issue.

BTW (fair question) what harm has come from the US having social security numbers?

That is a very fair question. Notice that I do not assume you are a "script kiddie" because you don't know a lot about a given issue. I don't claim to be an expert, but here is some from the top of my head. (If this thread were still live, I'm sure other people, more up on this than I am, would be able to add to my list)

1) Identity Theft. By expanding the Social Security number to an "ID" card, we are in a situation where, in order to transact business, most Americans wind up giving this number out. (Try getting electric service without it in some states) Then, if the number is taken, the thief can get a copy of your birth certificate, and start opening bank accounts and credit cards. This happens often, and is happening more and more frequently.

2) Government Harassment. (Our government has a history of using the FBI and the IRS to harass people who believe differently than they do. Read a book about the latter part of Martin Luther King's life for one example, and there are many others.) If the social security number was used as promised, then all the government could do with it would be to deny you your legitimate retirement benefits. Now, with it being used as an ID number, it can be used to track you. What's the harm? What if you are not a criminal, but a person using his/her constitutional rights to attend meetings that the government doesn't like, or to attend protests. You don't think the government would abuse this power? There was a protest in Minneapolis when George W. came to town. It was a peaceful protest. But when the News Cameras were setting up, your government decided they didn't want the protestors around... so they were all taken away and arrested for brandishing weapons. The "weapons" were pretzel sticks, and the police apologized as they were taking the protestors away.

3) Principle. I know that this probably doesn't carry a lot of weight with you, because you would prefer the illusion of safety over anything else. But when the social security cards were issued, the people, the people whom congress is supposed to represent, said, "No. We don't want this system, because we don't want national ID cards." The government doesn't get to say, "We will do what we want and then ask you 'what's the harm?' " That is not how it works. So a compromise was reached. The social security cards were issued ON THE CONDITION that they would NEVER be used as ID cards. That was the agreement. And the government broke it.

4) High Stakes Errors. A lot of information about me is now stored under my social security number. If there is a mistake at this point, the consequences could be very bad for me. If you have a number close to mine, and you default on a loan, that blemish could be entered under my number, and I wouldn't know about it until years later when I was trying to buy a house.

But social security numbers wasn't the point of my posting.

The point of my posting was that if the government says, "We will take away the following bit of your privacy but ONLY IN THIS ONE case, for ONLY THIS ONE PURPOSE and we will DELETE THE DATA" and you allow the structure to be set up; it is foolish and naive to believe that the government will keep its word. And I used the social security card as an example.

USA: Reinventing Nazi Germany and USSR?

[northwind]

Is the USA on a dangerous path to become a STASI 451 degree hot nightmare? Apparently if you read the article. Statements like "... in order for the system to obtain answers to those questions, the nation's privacy laws will need to be relaxed.." and "... the government then plans to assign each passenger [citicen?] a ''threat index''" are directly taken out of the communist regimes "good book"

In essense the the first statement reads: All citizens of the country are equal - some more than others. We guarantie freedom (void where prohibited; some restictions apply).

The other statement reads: You are now and always were guilty until you have proven your innocense or until El Supremo says so, whatever comes last.

Is this what America has degraded itself to? A security slobbering weakling hiding behind the CIAs' incompetance and paranoid need look at every single citicen in this country as a potential threat to national security. I thought this was the time to make a stand for freedom and defend the world and the nation by attacking the perpetraitors. I thought we had left Stalins :"If you haven't done anything, then you will not mind that we take a closer look at you".

One should always be able to recognize the signs of dictatorial leaderships: "One can not make an omelet without breaking eggs", "We are all in the same boat (only I get to steer)", "We must all make sacrifises for the common good" - does it ring a bell here?

Relaxed privacy - The motto of the "Third Reich"

Mormon family records

[BoneFlower]

The Mormon Church keeps genealogical information because they feel baptism is necesary for final redemption. They believe that if someone is not baptized prior to death, someone can stand in for them, but they need information as to who is around. They also make this information free to anyone to research family history. The information they collect is only from freely available public sources and from members. It is freely available to the public to research their family line. They let anyone into their family history centers to do genealogical research, an admitted satanist, an exommunicated church member, all can go so long as they are polite and don't push their religious views, and the mormons return the favor and don't push theirs.

Re:Mormon family records

[DaedalusLogic]

Excellent info... if I could I'd mod you up for the good info! Nice example they set isn't it? It really makes me mad that I hear some christian denominations don't consider them christian.

Oracle Abbreviation is really...

[Anonymous Coward]

One Righteous Angel Called Larry Ellison

This post sponsored by Oracle Too!

Re:I Feel Bad for Oracle

[Anonymous Coward]

"To think that money I might have a part in sending them could go directly to a wholescale trampling of the 4th amendment is utterly disheartnening, and I wont allow it."

Funny(Score:5?), the company I used to work for turned down a buyout offer in the several hundred million dollar league because they though Oracle's methods sucked. This was two years ago, in Europe.

Sens morale? The company that bought us is now banktrupt...

Re:I Feel Bad for Oracle

[rigau]

the guy who owns the satelite company, i think itis called red star, in the movie charlies angels is totaly modeled after elison.