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Using Your Privacy Against You
guttentag writes: "Christian Science Monitor Reporter Warren Richey suspects he may have stumbled onto a credit card fraud ring that uses Internet merchants to quietly funnel night-vision rifle scopes to Middle Eastern terrorists and privacy policies to cover their tracks. Even if these are isolated incidents, it's worth noting that the privacy rules intended to protect us can also work against us."
Can we please moderate the whole story?
If I had the points I'd be giving it Flamebait with all five points....
Jesus Christ. Yes, it's true that privacy helps criminals do crimes, but it's not like I'm going to install a camera in my bedroom so that the police know in case a crime happens to occur within the bounds of my room.
I know of a similar group that had the general mantra that Security compromises Freedom, and quite frankly The Party in 1984 scared me more than two liner jets flying into the World Trade Center ever did.
Point of the matter is the only way to ensure stuff doesn't get smuggled to the Enemies of State is to keep your eyes on the entire populous 24 hours a day. Unfortunately, then we forfeit our general human decency of free will.
Honestly, every person who is capable thereof has a right to commit a crime. They also have a right to face the consequences of that crime. And that is what a lot of these security-mongers don't seem to understand.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we SHOULD go out and kill people and break every law in the book. What I'm saying is that with our free will we should be perfectly well allowed to do it to our capabilities and face the consequences. Me, personally, I don't think I'd want to go to jail, so as a result I won't do any crimes that would get me there. But there are crimes I break. I smoke Marijuana, I drive above the speed limit and I serve alcohol to minors (not all at the same time, mind you...). But I'm well aware of the consequences and I feel it is my right to break those laws, just as it is the government's right to punish me for doing so.
Karma: Non-Heinous
Dude was in a foreign country. In Amman, Jordan to be exact. This is a sensationalist version of basically what amounts to standard fraud, except dude was in a middle-eastern country where a lot of people aren't friendly to the US and West in general. Granted, sucks that this occured, but is it news?
Synopsis: Journalist travels to Middle Eastern country. While there, orders stuff on his Amex. Amex receipt (I assume? Article not too clear on this) was used to purchase military equipment. Sucks, but such is life. This doesn't have anything to do with Privacy in the US, as far as I can see.
As a side note, when I was in the Middle East, (USMC--Oohrah!) we were instructed to make purchases only in their currency, so scams (which is all it really is) wouldn't happen.
Lastly, why the hell wasn't his card cancelled? Is he that stupid?
I seriously doubt this story is real at all, come to think of it.
Sent from your iPad.
Of course privacy is being used against us. It allways has and always will be. Every country has it's examples of this fact.
But would it be worth it to give up our privacy to maintain a false feeling of security? Terrorists will always be able to get their hands on weapons and other stuff to use against us. Whether it is through buying stuff with stolen creditcards or use of a malafide dealer or manufacturer. Weapons and other military stuff are being produced all over the world.
In the light of 9/11 would we have to give up our privacy? For what? The hijackers used frigging hobby knives and some of them weren't even known terrorists. The absense of privacy is not a threath to them. It is to us though...
What's more important is that our governments will not be a totalitarian one and our every move would not be under scrutiny by the government. I like my privacy although i know that my name and other information is going through hundreds of databases each day. I would never like the idea of a government knowing every little thing i say or do though. What's preventing a government of misuse of all that information?
The freedoms enjoyed by millions of people can be exploited by a few hundred, or even a few thousand malicious people. This is new to someone? Someone ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD? Wow. You must know very, very little about the histories of free countries, as well as very basic things like the wide availability of kitchen knives, which can be used to cut meat and also murder family members in their sleep.
Why do these stories suddenly become new or shocking when the word "terrorist" is connected to them? Are so many people really that ignorant about the basics of how freedoms work and the costs that come with them? This stuff is so simple that it could be taught to first graders and they would fully understand it in less than an hour.
Strangely enough, This reminds me of the war on drugs commercial where they have multitudes of teenage children proclaiming "I support terrorists" and "I killed those cops", and at the end gives a message something to the effect of "If you use drugs, Your supporting terrorism."
Now Id really like to see a new mastercard commerical along those same lines:
Hotel room in Jordan: $125 a night.
Crispy waffle breakfast: $5
Knowing your MasterCard helped Al Qaeda terrorists buy weapons: Priceless.
-Una
The privacy policy was never intended to protect us. From the article:
The privacy policy is a contract, and its purpose is to protect the merchant (which in this case, may also be the perpetrator).
With all due respect, it is rare that I ever see a privacy policy intended to protect me. Usually, privacy policies have so many loopholes, that they do not constitute a privacy policy at all. There general purpose is to protect the merchant from liability. Even if there were a privacy policy to protect the author, that policy would not have impeded the investigation.
Finally, the article wasn't even about privacy policies. The article was about credit card fraud. The privacy issues just happened to be mentioned in the third-to-last paragraph.
someone used her account information to send a $1,800 US-made night-vision scope with infrared capability to an address in the United Arab Emirates
/. even repost such an article written by people as dumb as ox? I'm sure this guy has a collection of Dummy's books on his shelf.
/. even post this article, making people thought /. is standing in ths same line with such news sites.
Let me get this straight: this author use two unique instances to conclude that 1) piracy helps terrorists, and 2) Internet merchant helps terrorists.
This is incredibly idiotic, how could
To author:get a clue! The goods was NOT magically shipped to Middle East electronically, it's sending to a real address physically. The supplier must be well aware what goods is to be shipped to what destination. Just because the paymant is done on the Internet and he concluded that Internet merchant is to be blamed?
Also I'm not convinced that piracy helps terrorists in any way in this case. If the supplier shipped suspicious goods to problematic countries without question, then they should take full responsiblity.
We have enough news sites that crowded with editors who have subliminal intelligence and clue. I'm very annoyed that