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Take Big Brother on Vacation with You
An anonymous reader writes "Book a flight or a rental car, and that trip and your companions' names, where you stay, what you eat, your bed size preference, in-room movie preference, and just about anything else you get a receipt for is etched in stone."
Yes there is lots of detail that is stored about you, and yes it can be used to work out if you were a threat. However surely much of the same information could be found by people digging through your garbage, following you home from work etc...
The point I'm trying to make is that there is more information around that people realise. My supermarket know what I bought. Does that mean if the goverment saw that I never bought pork it means I'm Jewish or does it mean that I just don't like it?
As with everything its the analysis that can be worrying which can lead to the wrong conclusion
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
1. if you are an honest person, you wouldnt care about them knowing public details about you.
;p
2. credit cards have already recorded all this information already, now you know they keep it (it was already being kept silly, just for when they COULD legally do it.)
3. just remember, to monitor every one of you little punks, they have to have thier own little punk at the computer going thru it.
this isint a law yet, its still "proposed" so for all you chicken little people, read the damned article. its less than 3 pages. big print. small words.
i'd watch out for that law in oregon about blocking the roads = terrorism = 25 yrs prison
There will be people wanting to access it. And you can bet government will be one of them.
It was just a matter of time as soon as all these databases were compiled that the government sought to legitimately get access to them. (I personally think that they already have/have access to all of this data, they simply wish to make it legal now.)
What is the answer? I'm not sure, how can you stop people from collecting information about you? This is the Information Age we are living in right now. (Yes there are ways, but such as it is that type of behavior is going to be legislated away as "acting like a terrorist" soon I'm sure.) Maybe there is no current solution, maybe it's a phase that our society has to go though in order to realize that keeping track of everyone all the time is something that we really don't want in our lives...or maybe Orwell was right.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
I heard a guy from accenture talk about things like this and how it is possible with .net. He said if you want the convinence of companies to do things for you then you will have to give out information. You arent forced to give out that information if you do not want. There are options with everything. If buying some product requires you to give out your info then dont buy it and loose the convinence that it gives or use a competitive product which doesnt require your info.
If it's going to etched in stone, it better damn well be etched in granite. I'm not going to let those stingy operators short-change me again!
"Smoking helps you lose weight - one lung at a time" -- A. E. Neumann
The collection of information has been out of control well before post September 11th anti-terrorist legislation happened. Remember 9/11 wasn't the first time the US government used fear to ram through laws that screw with our privacy. One example is the bombing of Oklahoma City bombing in the mid 90s.
The Oklahoma City bombing, an event where a so-so president gained favor and popularity by passing feel good anti terrorist laws that served him the rest of his presidency.
Keeping the data forever would be against the law (Data Protection Act) in the UK and I suspect also in rest of Europe.
...your companions' names, where you stay, what you eat, your bed size preference, in-room movie preference, and just about anything else you get a receipt for...
What I don't get is why an airline company is even interested in all this data. I thought most companies log personal data only for commercial purposes (to offer personalized content/services). I can see some of the things listed could be (commercially) useful. What I don't get is what commercial use it is to an airline company to have information on who you travel with, or what bedsize you prefer.
this sig has intentionally been left blank
Here is another stunning example of why we need true e-cash. Anonymous E-cash, just like good ol greenbacks but useable in the new (and still under constant development) E-conomy.
Sure they say they will only use systems and tracking and cataloging and databases for limited uses and data types. Yeah right! Since when has the govt ever been handed a power and has handed it back after its orignal purpose has been fulfilled. I can't think of one sitting here writing this post. Once the system is built and limited powers have been granted, kiss off the rest 'cuz it is only a matter of time before the system/govt gets its fingers in the whole pie...
Right, wrong, irrelevent. What is, is.
All part of the wonderful services that the government provides for us.
regards,
Citizen #4534
CODE: ||| || |||| ||| |
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
Your driving habits are already tracked, as well as your financial and bill paying habits, as well as your web surfing habits. Its like you think that federal agents are going to storm through your bedroom windows because they found out you swiped a towel from a Holiday Inn.
baka baka, mina baka
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
I don't want any of my buying history recorded but it wont be long since cash will look suspicious...
This reminds me of the ancient city of Babylon, where the authorities also collected information (to govern better...). What happened was, that at some point they couldn't handle it anymore. The information they collected was out-dated already after the request was issued. In the end, their bureaucracy dealed mostly with collecting and storing information, not governing. Oh yeah, and they wrote it all on clay plates, which they kept in large storehouses. When the city fell and was burned down, the storehouses were burned, too - effectively preserving the clay plates for thousands of years (they were discovered in the 20th century - real datamining ;).
Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
Definitly this is not a cause to worry, after all, the government is on our side!
...
... sure my ass!
It's just good they can 'disappear' you now when they find out that the waiter who served your dinner in Grand George Hotel, Bushtown, CA donated a part of his tip to an organization which may have the word "jihad" in their mission statement.
Lets see, there is this guy who hates the US and who is suspected to be the 20th hijacker of the 9/11 attacks. The government screws up and does not find evidence enought to make him suffer, so the whole nation has to suffer by removing their privacy
I don't get it, they already trample citizen and notcitizen rights with their feet, why do they need more information when they can already cloak everything in secrecy and FUD.
Its for the sake of national security
Our taxdollars are going towards rocks, chisels, and paying convicts to actually carve our flight itinerarys into stone, when this could all be done automatically with computers.
That's what I love about information technology - the tremendous cost savings it provides in keeping the french-loving commie peaceniks of the country in check. Now - I want a list of everyone on the island of manhattan who mail ordered anything french since the start of hostilities.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
With so much information passing through Government data banks, a major problem that's gonna crop up sooner or later is how to sift through the junk and get to the significant data. I mean hey, if they're just going to be anal retentives and spend all day keeping track of people's sexual preferences, they're going to miss out on the juicy stuff (like who's been buying nitroglycerine by the quart.) So, maybe the sheer volume of information they get is going to insure us our privacy in the short term. If this sort of thing continue's, look out for data mining becoming the next big thing 2 years from now.
I have found a truly wonderful proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, but unfortunately this sig is too small to contain it.
Of course, through six degrees of seperation, you're supposed to be linked with everyone on the planet. (I question that, but without a traceroute for people, who knows?) My own link with terrorists is shorter than six. I once had some copies made at copy shop downtown Toronto. It turned out they were forging documents for terrorists.
Chilling coincidence. But what happens when programs start grinding a large amount of data and flagging any other coincidences? Perhaps I once slept in the same hotel on the same night as someone who is a friend of someone who might be a terrorist.. (You see how quickly you can march through those six degrees.) I have nothing to hide, but vaccum cleaner information gathering and processing bears watching -- Because we are all linked to a terrorist.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
If We The People(tm) are gonna get off our lazy whining arses and actually combat this shit, then we need insiders.
People who can dig up dirt on high-profile figures, and not even blackmail, just release it. no amount of money can equate to something like a destroyed reputation, or a more informed electorate.
The purpose of all this crap is to crush dissent. Read Nineteen Eighty-Four [by George Orwell, if you live in a remote Hebridean cave]. It can be done imperceptiveley, like stopping you traveling, making credit/loans more expensive or not available, stopping you getting good jobs, etc.
Conspiracy theory? Yes, I could look up proof but I'm too busy. Ford in the UK is one example though, had MI5(6?) filter out anyone who would like a worker's union.
You have [ok, had] freedom. The government and $BIG_CORP stand to gain loads of you lose that freedom and more information about you is readily available.
Do you really want to entrust your freedom and privacy to groups of people with a proven record of corruption, megalomania, disregard for human life, and brutal crushing of disent, who stand to gain plenty from you losing those rights altogether?
- The Guv'na
Hey, you yanks, whats that over there in the toilet bowl? Uh, I think it says, umm... "Con...", "Cons... tit... ut... something". Hmmm nevermind, you probably weren't using it anyway.
Ph33r m3!!!
Glasser said civil liberties advocates should instead focus on pointing out proven problems in proposed surveillance systems. "You cannot go out and argue that privacy is important when everyone is afraid," he said. "But point out where the scams are, why these proposals will not make anything safer, and people will listen."
This is probably the sanest bit of advice I have heard in a long time. Bottom line is neither side is going to agree wholely with the other. The Privacy Freedom folks will see any collection of such information as invasive, and the Security and Safety folks will always think that the Privacy people don't see the big picture and some sacrifices must be made. Looking at the situation from a realistic point of view, without the personal moralities and agendas is the only way anything will get done.
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Several years ago, PBS had a show on various companies that collect data on consumers and the methods they use. A few points they discussed:
1) There are companies that send employees to courthouses to collect data from public records, e.g., real estate sales, births and deaths, etc. (For anyone with a child, this is why you magically gets the first birthday photo coupons in the mail. For home buyers, this is why you get coupons from the local Home Depot.)
2) Everyone is aware of data collected thru credit cards, but there are other sources. Everytime you use your frequent buyer card at the grocey store, they know who you are and what you buy. Similar things occur with similar cards at other stores.
3) There are companies that specialize in correlating the above data with census records. Publically available census records provide average income and other information for each zip code in the U.S.
Add this to airline databases, and credit card info, and you have your life history.
Folks, this is really nothing new.
:)
Since we've had people dedicated to preserving information (more commonly known as scribes and librarians), we've had the opportunity to have our privacy violated. Aren't you guys familiar with history?
I guess my point is, if people want information on you, they're going to get it, no matter what you do. Privacy is a shield that corrects you in the smallest effect -- your actions are violating your privacy in itself.
In other words, using PGP is great, but the person you're sending the message to can just as easily decrypt that message and send it off to anyone they damned well please, and nothing is ever going to flag your 'web of trust' otherwise.
Hiding behind a veil of 'security and privacy' is just a waste of time. I'm not saying it's not needed in certain situations, but I guarantee that you're going to get more privacy out of holding a quiet conversation in a loud, crowded bar than you'll ever get through any other means.
Just be smart and KNOW BETTER, and you'll always know what people know about you.
Have a nice day.
For example, in the article (yes, some people RTA)
They can list special meal requests, which may indicate a traveler's religious affiliation.
A lot of people order the kosher meal on a flight just because it tends to be better food. There's also an option for a "muslim meal." If lots of people start ordering the muslim meal then that makes that particular data point less useful.
I'm sure the more creative among you could come up with variations for other data types. (watch DVD's on your laptop instead of renting an in-room movie for one).
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Col. Jeff Cooper
I don't see how this will encourage tourists to fly, nor even to travel at all. All the air passengers now are business class who must fly, or change their jobs. The airlines need not wonder about why they're going bankrupt.
Ed Craig "Who cares what you think?" George W. Bush, 4th of July 2001
Retaining data from travel plans is just a symptom of the real problem which is the ability of anyone to gather and retain massive databases due to plummeting storage costs. Data is constantly generated by our activities. Just buying groceries at the supermarket leaves a long data trail of how many light bulbs you bought, the amount of red meat you consume, and the number of beers which enter your refrigerator. When you use your cell phone, every call is recorded...forever. Your emails are logged. When you go to the doctor, your records are now digital. Given the widespread use of computers, this trend is irreversible. Data will be generated and stored. Low storage costs mean that this data can be stored very inexpensively by all sorts of public and private institutions for nearly forever. We can talk about all sorts of rules about access to data and its deletion as it ages but any such rules will be easily circumvented by those most likely to abuse it in the first place...large corporations and governments...while making access by little people more difficult.
The bottom line is that we are living in the information age and our activities and preferences are no longer going to be secret...to anyone.
E cash is fine, but what about real cash? Ya know folding money. Thats impossible to track and untill they take off the phrase "for all debts public and private" the government isent going to be able to do squat.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
More seriously, data exchange between computer systems has always been the biggest problem. The hotel computer might know you got a room with single beds but it has enough trouble just remembering that, let alone talking to some strange surveillance computer through a non-existant interface.
My problem with this system is that there are some many variables that are under human control, changeable by casual users.
So eventually this data is routinely collected and analyzed, and eventually people start having an image of what makes up their "threat score" or what really sends up red flags and gets your luggage torn apart every time you fly.
How long will it be before I encounter a rude airline desk attendant or hotel employee, and make a perfectly valid complaint about them - and they retaliate by changing my check-in data in subtle ways to make sure I am harassed every time I travel? Hard to do in credit systems, much easier to do in ridiculously insecure hotel systems, and it might even be as simple as changing the codes of movies I ordered in my hotel room, or my meal preference on a flight.
The government is making more and more information critical to their decisions on national security, with no understanding of the security of the data itself.
-------
Believe me, I'm as surprised by my comment as you are.
The whole approach is wrong. Data never collected can't be abused. It's shocking that the public would tollerate a misuse of public money for this purpose. What good can government actually do with the information?
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I just don't get it. Call me dumb, but I don't understand these laws... or how they think they get away from them.
Whatever the administration thinks, they have not killed individual rights / privacy advocates. Yes, the threat of being called 'terrorists' or branded as something near has silenced some of them, since 9/11 and the "War on Terror."
However... think Marx's socialist revolution. Eventually, if the people get their ideals, hopes, and dreams pushed down too much, they will rebel. I believe that it is only a matter of time before people get fed up with having the government destroying their privacy. And we will have a semi-revolution. Eventually, people will decide this isn't good for them. And opposing it isn't unpatriotic, or terrorism, or whatever the brand happens to be at that time.
Eventually, you take away enough, and people realize they have nothing left to lose.
Please reserve a room for me and my compatriates at the airport Hilton in Washington D.C..
We will need 2 pounds of humus, a large ryder truck and 3 tons of fertilizer. We will be departing the next morning each on separate flights.
Allah be with you,
Mohammad Smith
p.s. Is Al Jazeera available on the hotel's cable? Oh, and some extra towels would be very nice.
-666 terrorist
Right now, nobody can make money except the US government because it's very difficult.
But if it was electronic, then there would be times when security was breached, and massive amounts could be created. This would depreciate the value of money and throw our economy into a depression.
Even if no one breaks in, it would be a lot easier for the government itself to create money, which could easily create the same problem. Sure, they might not all do much, but if thousands of government agencies are all doing it a little...it'll add up.
Having electronic money is a bit like have electronic war. I think I'd rather have them know what I'm doing.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
"Another Sept 11th will be on its way if you continue."
Almost every year, I imagine...
Heh, you're a funny guy!
Oh wait. You're not.
I, James A. Baker, Senior Counsel to the Carlyle Group, would like to reserve a suite for myself and the Bin Laden family, at the Washington DC Ritz Carlton, for September 11, 2001.
This is well known in military circles, as discussed in a Slashdot story:
Don't think that only military prosoners are subject to this tactic. Police interrogations use this as well.
And if you are sure you will NEVER be accused of a crime? Consider any civil legal action. The opposing attorney reveals they know all sorts of private facts about you. Will you continue to press your case, or will you settle on unfavorable terms?
Someone with the personal details of your life has a certain power over you, regardless of how exemplary a life you think you have led.
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
When you use that grocery store discount card at 1AM on a Saturday, to purchase a 6 pack of beer, 4 packages of Oreos, 1/2 gallon of chocolate ice cream, a frozen pizza, and 7 slim jims you really think the DEA isn't going to think you had the munchies?
"...and just about anything else you get a receipt for is etched in stone."
No wonder it takes so long to do the 'paperwork' when renting a car!
That green slime had it coming.
I'm taking big brother on vacation with me... he'll hog everything and kick me around just like when we were young!
And PNR data are NOT conserved forever. With the 100's of 1000 of people we have which travel each days that would be really really really expensive after a while. No, we get hold onto them depending on what we have to give account about. PNR data if I recall correctly is 6 monthes to 2 years. Flight data is two days. Electronic ticketing data is 60 days to 1 years.
Now the US governement may be tempted to conserve it more than that but it is a different story.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
I don't remember where I heard this idea, weather here at the dot or in another forum, but it's one of the best I've ever heard. It was actually in reference to the data mining that national supermarket chains did with their "savings cards" and the like, rather than the U.S. Govt. The short of it was, throw crap in the database.
Don't own a cat? Buy two bags of cat food, and give them to your neighbors who do. Same with a dog, or any other pet.
Are you a jew? Buy all the pork you can get your hands on, and give it to the local charity, anonymously.
Randomly buy (over-the-counter) drugs and donate them.
Look suspicios from time to time. (Just make sure you aren't actually doing anything!) Let some of the cameras catch you. Make them waste their time.
Rent two hotel rooms at once (if you can afford it). Especially good if you are purchasing an "upper-class" one anyway, and can afford a $6/night shithole. They won't know which one you stayed in...
There are many other ways to do this. The idea is to pollute the database as best you can. Make the data in it so stupid and wholy inaccurate that the project needs to be dumped in 5 years anyway.
"Sir, our intelligence shows you own a cat"
"Nope, sorry, never. I'm allergic to them."
"Then why did you purchase cat food?"
"Because I can."
where there are laws to forbid forcing people to give up information for simple commerce to take place.
Even now, as grocery stores (Which are in many ways an essential service to modern cities) require you to use a "courtesy card" in order to get cheaper prices, they have an unfair advantage over the community.
Yes, from a pure capitalist point of view, all's fair... but really.. forcing you to identify yourslef just to get a fair price? Rediculous.
Cash could be tracked, well paper money anyways. It all has a neat little serial number on it.
Making fake money seems like something a terrorist would do, perhaps we need an OCR system to keep track of them all when they are spent.
I'm stocking up on dollar coins.
Apply Moore's law to these economically feasible storage terms and it will be obvious that it will become economically feasible to store this information longer than the average age of people (75) in about 12 years (assuming 6 months & that moore's law applies to storage capacity as well). Maybe it will be a few months more but eventually it will become economically feasible to collect and keep this kind of data.
Jilles
If you opt for a car with a navigation system from a rental company, some use the GPS location to locate the car if stolen. Great. But here's what you DON'T know: Those same systems can record your conversations while inside the car. This is no lie - government employees have been told to watch what they say inside of rental cars while traveling on official business.
-- (Score:i, Imaginary)
~sigh.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Right now, nobody can make money except the US government because it's very difficult.
It's called counterfeiting. It's not that hard for some people do in very small scales. i.e. Some high school kid who decides to forge a couple bills. But if you tried to do this on a large scale you will get caught.
But if it was electronic, then there would be times when security was breached, and massive amounts could be created. This would depreciate the value of money and throw our economy into a depression
There is just as much likelihood of this happening as someone managing to artifically inflate their bank account. If you allowed cards with massive limits on it, then yeah it would be a problem. But they would probably just put a limit like $100 on the cards, and it would become very similar to they way debit cards word. I don't think anyone would complain about $100 or $500 limits on these cards.. because who needs to carry around $1 million in cash?
Dang, they must be using better digital media than I am...
The estate agents in this city formed a city wide tenants database about 10 years ago, supposedly to find people who skipped without paying their rent, and so on.
I had one agent try to pressure me into handing over money I didn't owe, for 'repairs' to stuff that wasn't damaged. I got legal advice, contacted the head office, and everything was dropped.
Then I tried to rent somewhere else. I didn't find out what was going on until the seventh place rejected me, the agent there waved my record under my nose and asked how stupid did I think he was, to rent to a guy who'd done $5k damage to the last place. The agent had put a bogus entry in the DB, and made it impossible for me to rent. And since I didn't contest the entry at the time he'd done it, there was no legal way for me to get it removed.