Using Consumer Data to Hunt Terrorists

A reader writes: "Our biggest privacy issues might not be Internet auditors after all. The federal government may be using consumer data to hunt for terrorists, including private information with the cooperation of companies or individual employees. Apparently an IT/marketing employee turned over buying records from a national grocery store chain to investigators and the company hid that violation from its customers. The story mentions, toward the end, the Gilmore lawsuit that was discussed on /. but goes way beyond that issue. http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0230/baard.php "

Comments

Inch by inch...

[Analog Penguin]

...our rights erode away. When will enough people pick up on what's going on to actually SAY or DO something about it? Maybe you can call this a small step from yesterday (I don't), but when are we going to stop and look at how many "small steps" we've taken??

The dilbert prophecies....

[pwagland]

This dilbert just seems so prophetic....

*sigh* life imitates art again :-)

Re:The dilbert prophecies....

[Telecommando]

Saturday night I went shopping at a local grocery store that uses those cards. After the checker scanned all my items she asked if I had a "Super Saver Card." I told her "No" and she started in on her spiel about how I'll get all kinds of coupons and special offers and how I can get up to 20% off on selected items whenever I use the card.

Then to demonstrate she ran the store's card through the scanner. The register beeped and printed a line on the reciept. "See", she said, "It's just that easy!"
"So how much did I save?" I asked.
She checked the receipt, "Um, well, nothing this time. But you could save up to 20 % on selected items!"
"No thanks", I said.

Re:A Colossal Breach of Trust and Waste of Time

[ThePilgrim]

Go back several years in the UK, and buying fertaliser while being Irish could get your name on the UK Intelligence files.

Note to none terrorists: Nitrate Ferterliser can be used as an explosive.

How ever explosives can be made from:

Fireworks, custerd powder, curry powder, talc ...

Timers can be baught under the generic terms clocks, and watches.

Power sauces for the electric bits, tecnically called 'battries' can be baught from 'Hardware' Stores, as can projectiles sutch as nails and glass as well as plastic coated extruded copper, called 'wire' that can be used to carry an electric current.

Detailed construction plans can be got from the Internet, which as all right thinking people know should be shut down imidiatly as it is used soley by terrorists to communicate.

Terrorists also use mobile phone networks to communicate so we should shut thoes down.

They also use snail mail to post boms and demands, as well as communicate with each other so we need to block them.

This just leves carrier pidgions. So I have decided that as a preemptive strike against terrorists we should shoot all the pidgions.

Thank you and good night!

Straw into Gold?

[InfoGeek]

LMAO. Please. I'm supposed to be worried by this? Loyalty card programs have been around a while and have become infamous for generating huge heaps of useless data. Two years ago Safeway in Great Britain dropped its program because "We were collecting an awful lot of data that didn't mean anything".(WSJ, 6/19/02).

Now some marketing drone has foisted what is quite likely an equally worthless heap of data onto the Feds. Am I supposed to be worried that they'll be any better at data mining? I'm more worried about what they'll miss while they're wasting my tax dollars writing code to find out who bought falafel with their Pampers.

Don't call EFF. Call John Stossel and Citizens Against Government Waste (http://www.cagw.org)

Re:Straw into Gold?

[Tackhead]

> It's people who think that, just because they are buying Pampers and falafel, that they don't need to worry about government search/seizure issues.

And that's the worst part.

I've got nothing against the proper use of profiling and data mining to hunt down the enemies in our midst - but what's proposed is too-easily defeated. It smells like a scam to bring in consulting bucks, and offers no real security.

Suppose we tune our food-purchasing-database scanners to look for of Arab males under 30 who happen to live, work, and travel together. (Snide remark: ...because we know goddamn well the fucktwaddles at the airport won't catch them, as said fucktwaddles are too busy patting down your mother and feeling up your daughter to watch for groups of Arab males under 30 travelling together.)

But because Joe Camel knows we're looking for single Arab males under 30 who claim to live alone, yet still buy enough falafel for five people, he'll adjust his purchases to match, perhaps by buying a box of Pampers when he buys falafel for the gang. (If he's smart, he'll upgrade the size of the Pampers every few months, then start buying baby clothes.) The databases will conclude that Joe Camel has a wife and brand-new kid, which doesn't fit the profile of "terrorist", and he'll slip through the cracks.

Meanwhile, Joe Slashdotter, who hosts the dorm LAN party every week where he swaps grocery cards with his friends, gets h0z3d at 3am by the f3i, because two of his friends were vegetarian, and the food-tracking software rang the alarm because his purchase records didn't make any sense. (He bought nothing for a week, then ten pounds of falafel, then nothing for another week! WTF? Call the cops!)

Food profiling is a lousy idea because it's too easily-defeated by knowledgeable adversaries, and results in too many false positives even when not under attack by adversaries.