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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
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.
I don't want any of my buying history recorded but it wont be long since cash will look suspicious...
#1: This only works if the information is accurate, and is understood in context. #2: Credit cards record WHERE money is spent, but not WHAT is purchased. If you see I spent $100 at a hotel, yeah, I spent a night at the hotel. Or had an expensive dinner there. Or played at the hotel Casino. Or my card was stolen and I didn't notice the charge. #3: They do? Does Google have a little punk reviewing all the sites they index?
Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to phish...
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!!!
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
You've missed the point, which is that we shouldn't have to fear the misunderstanding, the change of context, or the coincidences of our innocent actions. Your argument is akin to saying that someone can break into your house and steal your stuff no matter what, so you should just leave everything out on the front porch anyway.
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.
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Believe me, I'm as surprised by my comment as you are.
"There's got to be a bank out there that would be willing to go this route [anonymous visa]"
Unfortunately, laws designed to prevent money-laundering make people very nervous indeed about the idea of anyone being able to spend money anonymously.
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
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."