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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.
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It's not the first time I post it, but this time it makes more sense:
ORACLE = One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison
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-
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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...
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
...everything begins to look like data.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
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.
The Fresh Air interview on April 11 with Journalist Jeffrey Rosen is worth a listen.
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?
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
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.
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.
Look a monkey!
"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!"
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
God is real unless declared integer
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.
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.
As usual, you can generate a random New York Times login every time with the registration generator I threw together. Share and enjoy.
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.)
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.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
...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.
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.