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Databases and Privacy
A couple of stories made an interesting juxtaposition today. First read this story about information marketers scouring public records to compile personal information. Note the emphasis on cross-linking data from various sources to provide more information than any one source did - databases are synergistic. Now read this column about David Nelson, and its follow-up.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Bet that would make things get sorted out pretty quickly.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
...but isn't this the same set of issues that lead to the various privacy measures that web portals enacted somewhere around 1999?
Totally idiotic, and I for one, am glad that I don't work in the US anymore.
-- Samir Gupta, Ph. D. Head, New Technology Research Group, Nintendo Co. Ltd., Kyoto, Japan.
Looks like we don't even need to worry about Total Information Awareness, Carnivore or our FBI files. The corporations are going to do all the work towards the police state, at the low low rate of $8 a record!!! They gather our information, they push for laws to restrict our freedom and extend the control of a few over cultural symbols, means of communication, and ideas themselves.
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power"-- Mussolini (I think)
The Rise and Fall of Online Community
Anyone else? I Lie. Sometimes I'm a yak herder with a yearly income of ~$6000, other times I'm a "Decision Maker" with a yearly income of $800k+.
I used to get frustrated and angry when asked for personal info. Now I wind up happy because I'm stickin' it to the man, and the shlub collecting my info is happy because he didn't get called a nosy fuckhead by an irate stranger.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
The whole POINT of marketing is to make people think they want something, when in fact they never wanted it before the marketing got to them. I don't want incessant ads that companies think I "want" to see; the only thing I want is to be left alone, and not be "persuaded" to buy useless junk that will just sit in a corner and collect dust.
I don't want to be sold to. If I need something, I'll go looking. The only advertising I trust is word of mouth. Otherwise, stay out of my consciousness.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
In Transparent Society, he said we can't keep that privacy, like you say, it's long gone from the barn. But trying to restrict who gets to see it is also a long gone horse. The rich and powerful will always have access, legally and openly or otherwise.
Best to let EVERYBODY look at ALL info. Right now, the rich and powerful can look at everybody's info, but (1) we don't know it, and (2) we can't look at theirs.
I'd rather be able to look at everybody's info, including the rich and powerful, even at the tradeoff of knowing that my neighbors are looking at mine.
The problem isn't that the info is available. The problem is that it is only available to the rich and powerful.
Infuriate left and right
What happened, Linux lovers? Double standard, perhaps? Hypocrisy?
The silence is deafening.
The integrity and quality of the data isn't so much as important as the sheer volume of it.
...sometimes I wish we really could copyright facts. I sure as hell would copyright my personal information.
A marketer (or really anyone) who is actually using this data is probably using it on a statistical basis.
Very few, if any, are using this to check out individuals. What they are doing is focusing in on their target market. This way they dramatically increase their probability of getting a sale... or getting a mark given the potential for abuse.
For example, someone sets up a "fake" evangelical fund and targets wealthy old baptists with cold calls and mailings.
It statistical targets us.
Ah well guess I'll have to continue acting erraticaly to throw the stats off.
What I was to know is when can I get a complete, real-time dossier on every member of the U.S. Congress.
And lest anyone be fooled into thinking that just passing some laws will solve this, I urge you to remember all of the IT outsourcing going on. Our laws aren't applicable to India. An example of this was a recent article on sfgate.com, noting how Kaiser was sending its IT work to India, including the management of databases.
What we have here is an unstoppable force, that not even Congress can legislate away (nor will they even try, until their own information starts appearing).
But the information doesn't have to be scrubbed. All we need is a LOT of it. Don't assume that the people doing the correlations are stupid. For example, you left information in your post above.
From your post, I deduce that you have a college level (post-secondary) education [spelled anonymous correctly]. You are not a "professional" typist. [misstyped "their" as "thier". Confirms first point, you didn't use a spell checker]. Since you used "QA" and "DB", you have familiarity with, or work in the Information field. You used the expression "totally bogus". From this, I deduce you are between 22 and 37 year of age.
I could go on. But I won't. This type of information can be extracted from (say) 10 minutes of your life.
The point I am making (and one of the articles was making), is that it is possible to track EVERYTHING. ALL the minutes of your life.
Nothing by itself may be relevant, but it is possible to uniquely identify a person by 3 or 4 markers. These markers may vary, but they CAN be pulled together. TIA is GOING to pull them together. Indeed, private companies are doing it.
"They" are going to know us better than we know ourselves.
And, it seems that only reasons are to prevent a few people from blowing things up, and to sell us more razorblades.
Ah well, progress.
Ratboy.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Excuse me, but I don't think that swapping my privacy for the chance to only get 'relevant' spam is a fair trade. If I don't mention some fact about myself to other people, maybe it's because I don't think they need to know it? If my would-be employer doesn't trust me enough to employ me without finding out everything that can be, then they're not worth my trust, either. What about if I'm a millionaire, but I don't show it - some random thugs can buy my file for $8. And so on. The new slogan should be: "I gave away my privacy, and all I got was this lousy penis enlarger"
Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
I'm not sure which is scarier, the idea that these databases are being opened to anyone who has a credit card and a willingness to snoop on their neighbors, or the idea that they should be restricted so that only "legitimate" businesses like telemarketers can get it.
Considering the recent actions of ChoicePoint, I find the latter far more scary than the former. At least with the former, I can log into their site and see what they say about me. I can't do that with ChoicePoint. Imagine how different things might be in our country right now if all the banned voters in Florida had been able to see that they were incorrectly on the list before the last Presidential election.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Face it, we are stamped, coded and catalogued. All they need to do now is make us get GPS chips implanted and the picture is complete.
/paranoid rambling
We have crossed so any bridges on the way down this road, that short of a complete breakdown of society we are never going to get away from this. We are defined by what we consume, and what we buy. If we cannot purchase we are dead weight. All of society is built around giving us enough money so that we can spend it back to the system. Credit and lending creates money, and someday more money will be owed than there is in circulation (if it isn't already)
Total gain: 0
Our entire society adds up to 0.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
For what it's worth, check out this article (admittedly dated) about one paranoid who's done something about this very problem. Even if, as another poster argued, I did graduate from high school and have a bank account, if you followed this guy's advice and went cash-only, the database info they've got on you might be relatively useless after a few years.
The bottom line is, if you want to "beat the system," you've gotta give up a lot of what "the system" provides. There's no better weapon than simple non-participation.
"It's an erotic, spectacular scene that captures the thrusting, violent, vibrant world Bohemian spirit..."
And it's only getting worse!
The antidote for misuse of freedom of speech is more freedom of speech.
-- Molly Ivins
Suppose these kind of "security measures," delaying people at airports because their name is on a list, become commonplace in other areas of life: say, bank loans, college applications, flags on credit reports, applying for any kind of license, and so forth. Now, suppose the government leaks to the media the various "reasons" people get on The List.
Okay, it sickens me to go on, so use your imagination.
How will something like this affect the actions of the general population (a.k.a. "sheep")? People will become afraid to do anything that may get them on the list of people subject to legal, unrelenting harrassment.
People will even be afraid to be friends with such people.
The kind of character this instills in a citizenry is kafkaesque. People fear do anything "out of the ordinary" for fear that some nameless, intractable and omniscient power will make their lives miserable.
It's frightening that so many accept these changes as a fait accompli.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.