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Anonymous Library Cards An Option?
Ben Ostrowsky writes "On the heels of the possibility of requiring fingerprinting to use library resources, librarians don't like hoarding personally identifiable information; many are keenly aware of privacy concerns. Now it appears that anonymous library cards may be a possibility on the horizon. Tell your librarian you want to be anonymous!" From the article: " You've seen anonymous cash cards already; you may even have received them before. They're better known as gift cards. Using the same principle, libraries can issue a borrower card that uses cash, rather than personal ID information, as collateral. Here's an example: If a privacy-minded user deposits $20 to get an anonymous library card, she can check out The Terror State without identifying herself. Her account balance is temporarily reduced by $15, and when the library checks the CD back in (in good condition), her balance is restored to its original value."
Oh, great.
So, now how is Brad Pitt going to find the next serial killer to terrorise him and his wife?
..because the "resources" that they speak of in the link only talks about requiring fingerprints to access computers, similar to re-entering your password when you go to bid on something at ebay, just to make sure you are you. Unless im mistaken, you would have to have the balance of a PC on your card to use what you are being fingerprinted for, so why not just have cards that don't need to be fingerprinted, and those accounts can only use the paper resources of a library?
Because A) Not everyone who uses a library frequently has the $$$ to plop down on a book, even temporarily. One of the benefits of libraries is that the books are for everyone and not just us rich snobs who go to barnes and nobles every day. B) Sane people will not appreciate the library holding their dough unless they credit a decent amount of interest. Sure, it's only for a few weeks, but that money can add up fast (see: Office Space, Superman, etc).
These fingerprint scans for PC use are a stupid idea implemented by some town in Ill. I've never heard of. I'm sure that program won't fly...
Let's stop creating solutions for problems that don't exist. We have enough real problems in the US that need solutions...
this sig deleted by another sig
Is there really a need to keep everything so secretive? damn, wheres my tin foil hat.
http://www.fanboy.co.nz/adblock/
I'd rather not be anonymous at thge library. I'd rather have my reading list looked through than participate in a system meant to bypass the current political climate. By participating in an anonymous system, I would feel like I was legitimising the laws and practices that I feel are attacks at my personal liberty. By participating in a anonymous library card program, the situation that I find abhorrent might continue longer than it would under the current system
I work in a library. $20 is a small fine... many users end up with over $50, and I've seen hundreds owing (it's not that hard.. lose 4 hardcovers and that's nearly $200 right there). I would only think this would work if the deposit was much higher.. but of course then no one would use it.
I signed up at my local the other day, because I had to to use their Internet access, even though I didn't want to borrow books.
Presumably this is a reference for them in case you do something naughty online, which wouldn't still be required under the anonymous borrowing.
Your standard Internet cafe doesn't need ID, so are libraries really as "privacy concious" as the summary makes out?
__Laugh Daily free funny videos
Thats great if you want to turn the library into a bookstore. Dropping $15 (or whatever) for a book is no big deal for some people and they will feel no obligation to return the book.
Here's an example: If a privacy-minded user deposits $20 to get an anonymous library card... Finally I can check out all of books with naughty and dangerous information!!!! Seriously, I like the idea of people not knowing I read Star Trek novels.
011110010110111101110101 011000010111001001100101 01100100011101010110110101100010
i have an interesting story regarding my friend's incident at the airport security. at the security checkpoint, my friend was about to walk through the metal detector. he had on white sneakers, which usually aren't required to be taken off.
the metal detector guard asked if my friend wanted to take off his shoes. he didn't request it, just asked if he wanted to. my friend, being lazy, of course said he'd rather just walk through. the moment he expressed this, he was asked for follow the guard and they went into one of those corners and he closed the drapes around him and did a full body search (no cavity search though).
either way, by saying you want an anonymous card is similar to this situation, where you have the option to, but you'll be more suspicious for them to check you out, probably finding stuff about you that they wouldn't have else known.
HD Trailers
Seems like a great scheme - as long as the current indentity based method for those without $20 remains. One ponder I have though, assuming this takes off, what happens to these millions of $20s? Do they all get put in a bank and the interest used to buy new books? If so that'd be great as popularity encourages diversity. Or is this as step to commercialising a public service?
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
As anyone who uses their public library can attest, missing items are a common search result. Yet, recovery suits brought by the libraries seem rare. (Litigation may not be in their hearts.)
This escrow approach not only appeals to one's vengeful dark side, but also smacks of fiscal responsibility. Moreover, posting the actual replacement cost of an item just might extend its shelf-life.
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
Now where's my hat? I have to go outside, and you can never be too safe.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
The library has no way to contact the homeless person and tell them a book is being held, so the homeless person needs to stop in each day to see if the book has been returned. That's no different than a homeless person currently checking in each day to see if something popular is available for them to read on the premises.
The big problem with these $1 cards is that someone who doesn't want the public to read a book could buy a bunch of them and say "hold this book for me", then never return to read it. That would prevent the library from loaning the book out to other people so they could read it.
I would say that all librarians are very concerned about privacy issues. My IS degree was thru the graduate library school (so I had to take a few courses there) and the first thing they taught was that what and if somebody reads is that person's business and no one else's. The librarian has an interest in the book (and it being returned promptly) but not in the person or what they do with the book within their allotted time.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
Right, because the current system in places, across the entire country, isn't one where your name and home adress is on file, and if it was of any importance to the government, they can already do that. SO WHAT. It is a public library, in the sense that it is a service to the public. Since when does anyone have the right to anonymity in public?
What about in Deming, Washington, where the FBI issued a subpoena for a library to release the names of all people who checked out a biography of Osama bin Laden? (There are reasons for the subpoena - read the story if you aren't familiar with it, but still...)
This is not an isolated case. There have been numerous cases where the local, state, or federal go vernment has asked for such information.
I'm not saying this is a valid solution. (Nor am I saying it's an unreasonable solution.) I think the libraries are doing a reasonable job of protecting us against unreasonable searches. I just want to point out that we're not talking about one or two cases, but a repeating pattern.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
When there is a financial crunch, its often the new material acquistions that are cut. (I usually prefer the "new" shelves and notice this.) Anomyomity could make theft easier.
On the other hand they could institute a stricter "one-strike" policy for anonymous cards. That one be a single overdue or fine temporarily disables the card. Currently, libraries are little more generous than this because it cuts administrative costs and soothes customers.
The book would include the receipt for the deposit, and whoever brought the book back got the refund. As the article noted, you substitute anonymous cash for identity, and you have your choice.
If they don't collect the information, they can't release it, accidentally or otherwise. That bears repeating. Whatever information they do not collect, they can't leak to others.
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
Want to be paranoid? Wait until you can pay for it with your credit card. Now they can track you all they want!
Remember citizens, only use none sequential used notes to pay for this!
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
This is somewhat offtopic, but has anyone used any of the anonmyous cash cards mentioned in the blurb? The closest I've seen are gift certificates that can be paid with cash, but they're only good at one store. I've seen online gift certificates that provide a temp debit card (backed by Mastercard) but this requires a credit card to add funds so it's not anonymous. Are there places where I can buy a temp debit card using cash or money orders?
They're also known as cash, money, coins, etc and predate magnetic stripes on pieces of platic by thousands of years. And they aren't subject to expiration dates and can be used at any retailer.
Apparently, IIRC the town happens to be the home of the MAKER of the fingerprint scanners.
Seems to me that this is nothing but a Vendor looking for some FREE BUZZ.
Of course, if what you vend is EVIL....
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
Remember the old, completely paper-driven library cards of 30+ years ago? The borrower's name was written on the card, and every borrower before them was on a permanent list. No anonymity there at all. More recently, you were issued a bar-coded card that tracked what you borrowed against your name. No anonymity there, either (because, if you don't return the book, they need to know who's running around with a $50 copy of a coffee-table Leonardo DaVinci collection, or whatever).
Now, you walk into a library, as you've been able to do for centuries, pull a book off the shelf, sit down, and read it. Put it back. There's no tracking involved, never has been (except perhaps at the Library Of Congress and some other huge collections where you have to put in a request for the book to be brought out - and there's been no anonymity there, either). But if you want to walk away with the book, they want to know who's got it. Why is that a bad thing? If you want to temporarily take posession of something that the taxpayers paid for (or which was donated to the community by a private party), it's certainly reasonable for the community to have in place a way to get hold of that person when they don't return the item, or to charge them a fee if they hang onto it for longer than is reasonable.
Now, you walk into a library and want to use the internet. Fine. But suppose your entire purpose of using that service is to phish, defraud, or otherwise be bad? If some merchant somewhere tracks a fraud attempt, or a bank tracks the use of a stolen credit card back to an IP address mapped to a machine in a facility provided by taxpayers, isn't it reasonable to be able to figure out who was driving at the time they were committing a crime? The fingerprinting issue was about computer use. Biometrics are about making sure you are who you say you are, so that lifting an acquaintence's card doesn't allow you to commit crimes in her name using public facilities.
That said, I don't think I'd want a bored IT intern at a library able to troll through proxy logs and see, by name, who was looking at what on the web. Biometrics should just be a hash, and that sort of log data should be just like financial transaction data, with need-to-know one-way storage. Yes, that can be cracked. But so can everything if you can't trust anyone, ever. If a municipality, county, or school wants to continue to offer free computer/net use, but wants to mitigate the obviously real risk of people running scams from their network, they should certainly have the option of doing something about it. It's all about transparency, though: letting the users know what's being collected when they sign on, and generally how it's being protected and under what circumstances (subpeona, etc) it can be retrieved.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
DHS want's to check which person read "The Terror State" or "The Nuclear Bombs Howto":
1) Check when book was lent
2) Check which account was charged
3) check when book was checked in again
4) check which account is changed.
It's only some SQL statements and then you have an account/number/name/person.
In the USA there is NO anonymous reading/living/driving/renting anywhere because terrorist are everywhere! (and to protect the children!)
The USA are not any more "The Land of The Free".
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
First of all, the 'value' of the material you check-out should be increased from the purchase price. I regularly use inter library loan to get materials that are next to impossible to find otherwise. If this system was anonymous and the price of CD say was $15, then all of the obscure music would quickly vanish from circulation. You would need to increase the value to say $60 to discourage stealing.
The way that libraries counteract stealing now is that they have a dollar limit above which they do not lend further materials out to you and you can only have one library card per name address pair. So even if the value is comparable to real world cost, the fact that you can only steal a limited amount before you can return to steal more, and the fact that if you steal enough at one time they will put you in collection work well enough to prevent casual theft.
Already at that increased value rate for the card, this would turn-away most people. But say that they did not mark-up the value, just wait until you have three kids like I do. Right now I have some twenty odd books/videos/CDs checked-out from the library near my home. I also have two movies, two books, and 11 CDs that I am returning today to the library near my work. I do not even know how much my wife has checked-out, but she is a pretty voracious reader too. Think about how much money we would need to set aside for that.
So why is this being proposed? It looks like it is a solution to the wrong end of the problem. The real problem are the laws that force libraries to turn-over information. So guess what the solution is? Yes that's right, change those laws.
And may I ask, how do you know that I don't contribute to Wiki? Because as a matter of fact I do. [...] Why don't you stop making assumptions (because you know what they say about assumptions) and take a reality check.
I'm not making assumptions, I just don't respect the "get your priorities straight / think of the children" posts (your post being an independant entity from you, btw) because they never contribute anything to the discussion. Off course there are other problems in life, more pressing, more life threatning, etc.
If you're going to say there are more pressing matters to this thread, why not write a macro that'll post the exact same thing to every. single. thread. up until such times as hunger, war and disease have been wiped out from the world? Might as well.
You can't take the sky from me...
... rare book thefts ...
If they theft of books is so rare, then what seems to be the problem?
Let's say libraries had the resources to implement this. There is no replacing an out-of-print book, even if it originally cost less that the deposit amount.
-- We live in a kakistocracy.
Yeah, you know the Star Trek readers are definitely being watched.
. jsp?content=20050530_106573_106573
http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/justice/article
And this is the really scary part of library record snooping -- not the ones who are looking at people who check out The Anarchist's cookbook, but doing searches and serveillance for more casual connections -- hunting down trekkies because they might be pedophiles. -- Hunting down people who read american history because they might be "too patriotic" -- where does it end!?
No, the idea would be that when you check-out a book, the estimated replacement value of the book is taken off of your account. If you put down a small 20$ deposit, then you wouldn't be able to borrow any rare books, or even a textbook, or anything other than a trashy novel, really.
So I think you misunderstood the concept. The 20$ was only an example. Each person's 'deposit balance' would be different, and would vary as they borrow and return books. Presumably they could close the account at any time and receive the leftover deposit back. Now, this creates alot of extra work for the library staff, who must now carefully value every book, and maintain a database of book values and some sort of accounting check-out system, alongside a more conventional check-out system.
I think it's not a great idea, since most people don't have the ability to put down a deposit of 200$ in order to borrow a few books, and libraries don't need the extra work (unless, as others have pointed out, they used the interest to help fund the library). The current system seems to work fine (as long as we don't implement any crazy additional privacy invasions, like fingerprints!), so why not just stick with that?
I don't believe it's the anonymity, per se, that's the issue.
Back in the "Good ol' days" of paper cards, if an agency wanted to know who was reading particular books, they'd have to send an agent round, look through the files, and note the names down on paper.
Frequently, libraries didn't actually keep a reference of who HAD borrowed a book in the past, merely who has it at the moment (at least that's the way it worked in the UK).
To monitor it would take a lot of agent time, work and effort, meaning that those in power needed to think very very carefully about what they did keep an eye on.
If it really was something threatening to national security, and a life or death thing, you can bet they'd hang the expense and give the cat a goldfish, so to speak, and put in the time and effort.
These days, with little to no cost to themselves, govenment agencies can put a bill up attached to something else, and at a stroke force places to keep any kind of information they can think of. And give the agencies access to it simply and easily.
Really, it's a police state dream, of being able to watch everyone all the time (C.F. 1984).
Solutions like the 'anonymous library card' are simply a way of returning to days when people were treated as people, in the main, not as 'security threats' and 'potential copyright infringers' by govenment and commerce respectively.
What it does is force the powers that be to sit back, and for once, actually THINK about what information they really need, because all of a sudden, it'll cost them to collate it. And yes, this anonymous is only so anonymous. If it's important, they'll get you in the end. It'll just cost more than it's worth to identify a few 'potential political dissidents'.
Maybe if enough of them actually had to think instead of waving pens to create new data gathering laws, more of the ranks of government would turn round and say "Well, actually, we think it's a little paranoid, and a daft idea at the end of the day. What's next on the agenda?".
This is a perfect example of what no one talks about. That it costs more if you aren't going to identify yourself. People have bashed hotel places because they want your info, but if they don't have it, they would need to raise their insurance to cover you skipping on the bill or damaging the place and leaving. The fact is that most people would prefer to fork over their info rather than pay more money.
Maybe we should just be making our society more accessible to people with different preferences. Of course, once you allow people to do these things without sharing their info, they're going to protest the price.
If a privacy-minded user deposits $20 to get an anonymous library card, she can check out The Terror State without identifying herself. Her account balance is temporarily reduced by $15, and when the library checks the CD back in (in good condition), her balance is restored to its original value.
Borrowing The Terror State from your local library: $20
Parking your car anywhere: $50
Fast lane at the airport, bypassing extra security checks: $100k
Bypassing all important security checks: $10m
Bypassing all security checks and paying for it with American oil money: priceless.
--Bud
thats not how it works here. We already paid for the book via taxes. There is no 'rental fee' when you check out books.
There is a fine if you bring it back late of course.. That could be deducted from the card.
But turning a library into a book rental shop isnt a good idea at all. would be bad for both tax payers and the low income types..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I, as a tax paying citizen, have already paid as much as I should have to in order to use my public library anyway I want (as long as my use does not dirupt the rights of other tax paying citizens to use the library as well of course).
The way to a man's heart is through the left ventricle
.. for good, all we need to do is peer-to-peer distributed solution?
A card that can hold unique id and your public/private key pair and a ubiquos cheap device everywhere allowing to "mate" any two cards and sign (transfer bit of trust) from one card to another?
Plus a Congress mandate NOT to store any identifiable info next the the card number and just permitting storing trust relationships?
Seems an ID card like that will satisfy needs of anyone: contr-terrorism agencies (person buying the plane ticket will be more scrutinized if his trust level low/non-existent), credit agencies (trustworthy people are good with money), etc.
Now, you walk into a library and want to use the internet. Fine. But suppose your entire purpose of using that service is to phish, defraud, or otherwise be bad? If some merchant somewhere tracks a fraud attempt, or a bank tracks the use of a stolen credit card back to an IP address mapped to a machine in a facility provided by taxpayers, isn't it reasonable to be able to figure out who was driving at the time they were committing a crime?
By the same token, all uses of a public telephone should be recorded, just in case the call was used to plan something illegal.
In fact, why not record the whole phone call? And why limit it to public phones? You might have gone to your friend's house to plan your next terrorist attack.
Maybe it's only a little bit of info, or maybe the request comes with a "trust me", but still each little bit soon adds up to a lot.
To the extent that we agree to each little restriction, we give in to the demands of those who don't agree with our freedom.
Well, I think anonymity really is what it's all about. We're not talking about who's borrowing which books, here, anyway. We're talking about who's walking in to use net-connected boxes to, say, interact with sites and message boards that are being hosted by killers, or who are using them to log into a mailbox somewhere and download the day's collections from their phishing bots, or who are using them to send threatening e-mails to fellow students, etc.
Certainly the "cost" of retrieving that data should be in the cost of persuading a panel of judges that it's appropriate to do so. I don't think there's any merit in deliberately ratcheting up the actual tax dollars it costs to pursue a scam artist, stalker, or Hamas money launderer just because it's a form of brake on the law enforcement people. You're saying make it actually expensive and time consuming because we can't trust ourselves. I'm saying set the legal bar higher, and save the money (or spend it on things, like education, that might convince some twits to do something besides rip people off for a living).
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
now i can borrow "the picture guide to making dirty bombs by naked chicks" without being arrested!
But how much should the deposit be on a cheap but out-of print book, to avoid the library becoming effectively a used book shop with a really nice selection?
Sure, you can abuse the old system like that too (just pay the fine and keep the book), but the psychology of it is sure to be more tempting when they have no way of finding you (even if they proabably wouldn't bother in any case).
sudo ergo sum
But you're not walking up to a payphone and getting it "free" because it's been funded with tax dollars. And your friend's house, phone, and net access is not a taxpayer-funded "public" facility. That's the whole point: if someone wants to use something that we (as taxpayers) have paid for, then that person can't complain when there are some limitations in the nature of that thing we bought for them. If they don't like it, they can use their own personal systems (just like we do), and if their reason for going to the library to surf is so that they don't leave a trail from their personal system, you've got to wonder what they're hiding. Never the less, this isn't any different than any other government-provided service. You can't get welfare, medicare, city services, a license to drive on public roads, or really much of anything else like that without introducing yourself. Why should sitting down in front of a computer and network paid for by me (and you) be a wide-open avenue, with no recourse, for people to attack me (and you)? None of this applies when you put money into a payphone, because you're purchasing a service from a common or private carrier. None of this applies when you use your friend's equipment and services, because he's doing the same.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
But seriously, are you suggesting we should have universal anonymity with universal trust? You must be mad. Did you follow the 'white bicycle' and 'green bicycle' experiments?
Anyway, the 'rich' (in this case those with 20 bucks to spare) only get to be anonymous by forfeiting access to some of their money.
You might as well complain that parking schemes are only for the benefit of those who can afford a car.
Justin.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
Why not give them a interest free loan? It's not like you're not getting something in return.
Meh.
They don't HAVE the identity. The book was borrowed by Mr $20.
I would assume that anyone who turns up with the book and card could collect the money too.
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
Frankly, I think that libraries are grossly underfunded, and while $.16 on $20 isn't a big loss for a single borrower, it's a huge gain when you think about the thousands of people who are likely to use this anonymous feature. I'm ok with giving the library some additional funding for them to protect my right to privacy.
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
The anonymous card is called your reciept. You pay cash, return the book within a month and you get your money back.
Public Libraries should be free for everyone. It is only a short period where there was any sense of anonimity in the Library. When I was a kid, we had to sign our names on the cards which was public for anyone to see. I made a lot of friends just because we knew we checked out the same sort of books.
What if the person in question was a him instead of a her. It bugs me how some people have to be so politicaly correct sometimes... Okay, give me a point for being off-topic now...
Man is the lowest-cost, 150-pound, nonlinear, all-purpose computer system which can be mass-produced by unskilled labor.
I would only think this would work if the deposit was much higher.. but of course then no one would use it.
Elite Level: For a fee large enough that only rich people (and well-funded cells) will pay it, you can have a library card not traceable to you (until you show up to use it again).
Comrade Level: For free-as-in-police-state, you can have a library card that logs every transaction you make. (Future upgrades will upload the logs directly to DCS1000.)
The surveillance situation in this country is just wrong and it keeps getting wronger(TM), but look where this solution leads us: two classes of access. The principle of libraries is that free public access to information improves society. Free -- not paid, not surveilled -- free.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
So when does the library see the money, if the book is returned on time and in good condition? People pay to use libraries through their taxes; it's not a free service. If you can get these cards and have all transactions be free, then there is no money going to the library to pay for staffing, purchasing the books, etc.
One could, perhaps, work out a system where you are refunded the cost of the book, minus a small processing fee for each transaction. Since people usually don't realize that they are paying to use the library already, this would probably be widely unpopular; but it would be necessary to keep the library afloat.
"Folks bent on reinventing the wheel should understand that if it's not round, it ain't a wheel." - Jonah Goldberg
I know this will be completly offtopic, but I must tell a large audience this breaking news
(I have never heard of something similar before and I think this one is worth a slashdot storry of its own. Hopefully this news makes its way on top of slashdot.)
You probably aware that in Germany there will be elections for a new government in Speptember.
The political party "Bündnis 90/Die Grünen" now opened part of their election manifesto to the public
"Bündnis 90/Die Grünen" are one party of the current German government, maybe you know the german foreign minister/Secretary of State
"Joshka Fisher", he's a member of this party.
The topic of the part modifyable is "Digital Society" and is exactly what the parties - better say the *public* position
Everyone is invited to contribute to their manifesto (seriously, no joke!) and the *collective* opinion about this topic will be the basis for the members to decide about their final political manifesto.
The URL of the page is:
http://www.gruene-service.de/wiki/index.php?title
Everything is in German, but you wouldn't expect a different language, right?
And here's a link to an interview in "Spiegel Online" , a well known german news-magazine. (Sorry, that I can't provide you a translation of the article.)
That's a pretty nice example/test balloon how democracy should/could look like in the 21st century!
I think you're missing the point: libraries *want* to provide anonymous services. It's not users demanding this, and libraries saying "we're taxpayer funded, so you have to put up with our monitoring".
Why should sitting down in front of a computer and network paid for by me (and you) be a wide-open avenue, with no recourse, for people to attack me (and you)?
Because librarians think that distributing information is good, even when some of it is false. They think that restricting the distribution of information is bad, and that invading their patrons' privacy is bad.
None of this applies when you put money into a payphone, because you're purchasing a service from a common or private carrier.
I think it depends on the contract with the phone company whether you're purchasing a service from them or from the owner of the location where the phone is installed, but surely getting something for free or getting it for $0.25 shouldn't make such a fundamental difference to whether you have a right to expect privacy or not.
Hmm.. You seem to be associating basic web access with having an anonymous email account (sending threatening letters to fellow students).
If the cost is worth it (investigation into a scammer/phisher/harasser), you know the ip address it came from (library) the time of day, so you examine the proxy logs, and identify the terminal.
Many places have security cams nowadays.
Get those and you have the person.
Others, well, you can ask for the description of the person using the terminal at that time of day.
Those are the things that'll actually capture a criminal.
Otherwise you may well end up on the doorstep of some old chap who's had his identity appropriated, and the library account set up in his name.
The point is that the electronic trawling won't catch you the people you're saying you think it will. It'll only net you the ones that are net illiterate (the average user who just wants a few minutes on the net).
There are way way way too many other, less public ways of getting into the net if you don't want to be found.
Wardialling, wardriving, Net cafes with appropriated identities, anonymous net cafes etc.
Libraries are just too much of a risk.
And actually, from the story headline (and the article about the anonymous cards), we are talking about who's borrowing which books, DVDs and everything else borrowable. I don't think the article once mentioned net access, which is a whole other story.
We need Netflix for books. I'd use it. Heck, I'd probably buy (keep) a lot of them.
Actually, he said "The department has no interest in rummaging through the library records or the medical records of Americans." And, as far as I know, the PATRIOT Act has not yet been used to try to get information from a library. (Key word is "yet", but correct me if I'm wrong.) I'm not supporting the PATRIOT Act, and in fact I think the name is quite the misnomer, but let's not muddy the waters with false claims. If these are not false claims, please correct me. (All I've read so far is about the possibility of using the PATRIOT Act to get library records.)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
A bookstore with the most flexible return policy ever! I'm in!
~D
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
Most of the only time knowing what the bad guys did at a library is only helpful after the fact, but that can help a lot.
All of this is based on the theory that government is honest, never makes mistakes and always lives up to the principles laid out in the Constitution by our founding fathers.
The truth falls well short of this - during my lifetime there have been multple large scale abuses of power by the federal govenerment - and I think history will show the Patriot Act to fall into that category.
And pray, tell me WHY reading a book, no matter how inflamartory should make one bit of difference in a criminal context? This is surely only a back door towards eroding some of our most basic freedoms - of speech and the press.
What next, are we going to record how individuals voted in the elections? Surely, if you vote for a Muslim candidate that must mean you have terrorist leanings, right? And don't laugh - people lost everything during the McCarthy era simply because they associated with somebody who belonged to the wrong political party. Look at the case of Robert Oppenhiemer.
We live in an era where there have been many proposals by agents of the goverment to establish centralized databases full of data characterizing the actions and behaviors of citizens without any restraint on who gets cataloged. There is a bill before Congress right now that would mandate a national id card.
Can you imagine how data of that nature would have been misused by the likes of McCarthy and Nixon?
No, rather than this incessant data gathering and spying that seems to be the idea of moment (and in reality it signals victory by the terrorists who want to destroy our way of life) we should be working to STRENGTHEN the erosions of privacy that are occurring in the digital age.
Anonymous library cards are a WONDERFUL idea.
Since when does privacy equate to anonymity? I have every right to demand to know who you are if you want to engage in a transaction with me, and you have every right to retreat from the transaction if you don't want to identify yourself. Your right to privacy extends to me in our transaction only to the extent that I may agree to conceal your identity from others in accordance with a clearly articulated policy - or by explicit or implied contract. You have no right to anonymity. You have a right to privacy. If you think the only way to preserve your privacy is to hide behind anonymity, your cynicism exceeds your grasp of reality.
How ironic that a cost-saving method such as a "ram-disk" should now be considered a terrorist weapon.
10 years ago, having a RAM-disk on your PC was considered a good way of extending the life of your hard disk drive.
Our library was desperate to prevent the spread of boot viruses, and managed to find a way of making the hard-drives of publicly accessible PC's read only, and all user data downloaded from 'ftp' or 'gopher' could only be downloaded onto the ramdisk or floppy drive. As soon as the user went back to the applications menu, the ramdisk would be reinitialised.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
In this case, what happens if someone steals ('borrows') your card, and doesn't return the books? You are out the $$ for the books. Under the current system, if someone 'borrows' your card, and doesn't return the books, it is actually a legal case. Please be aware that I am not for loss of privacy, but I think there needs to be a happy medium here.
A friend of mine (We can call her Hot Girl 1, or HG1) had her library identity stolen, by a former friend (we'll call her Unknown Girl 1, UG1). So, UG1 takes HG1's card, gets some books, and never returns them. HG1 tries to get books months later. Library tells HG1 she can't check out books, b/c she has $200 in overdue charges. HG1 realizes UG1 took out the books. HG1 is told by the library to call police and file a complaint. Police tell HG1 that UG1 is going to be arrested for pretending to be HG1.
Now, wouldn't this all have been easier if library required maybe a photo on the card? Then, library could verify the person getting the books.
I for one welcome our new [insert main topic] overlords.
Only old Korean people use the library anymore...
Hey guys, I like tin foil hats. I think privacy is a good thing. I don't want to be tracked by RFID tags. I don't like cookies. But LIBRARY CARDS? Come on. Who cares if the librarian that helps you check out your latest book sees a list of the books you currently have out, or even the last year's worth?
:-)
Are they selling this information to marketers? I don't think so. Are they calling you in the middle of the night and harrassing you for checking out Ender's Game for the 4th time? I don't think so. What's the big deal?
I like privacy, but come on.
* Aluminium for my British brothers out there.
I doubt any such law would prevent many librarians from yelling from the highest mountain if the USA PATRIOT Act were used in such a way. This is similar to the law "forcing" journalists to reveal their sources. The law cannot do that - it can merely punish journalists for failing to reveal their sources.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
People will just think that they paid $15 for a book and will keep it. The libraries won't have any books left.
Want to buy a book? Go to a bookstore.
Want to borrow a book? Provide identification, get a borrows card, and check out a book from your library.
Don't want to share your personal information in order to borrow a book? Too bad. Don't like it? Fine, go here
No, I'm not confused about this. The thread was initially about biometrics (like a thumbprint scan) as the user sits down to use the machine in question. That's exactly what prevents the "old chap" from being implicated in the illegal activities of someone else attempting to act in his name. Agreed that the original article is talking about anonymous borrowing (using a cash balance as collateral), but the thread wandered off into the earlier discussions about biometrics in the library - and that's what I was responding too. Sorry if it's off topic.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Because librarians think that distributing information is good, even when some of it is false.
But in the case of sitting down at a web-connected workstation in a library to launch a worm, or interact with a bot network, or send fraudulant mail, you're not dealing with the same issues. The library is less and less about shelves full of books, and they can't really make their web access useful if people can't type things into web browsers. Making such things minimally useful to patrons immediately makes them very useful to criminals, too.
but surely getting something for free or getting it for $0.25 shouldn't make such a fundamental difference to whether you have a right to expect privacy or not.
First, nothing is free. You're paying for it, or someone else (like taxpayers) is paying for it. Taxpayers, individually, have no choice in the specifics of how those funds are used, and so there are rules and regs about taxpayer-funded facilities of all sorts that keep the use of those things reasonable to most people. Whether you're using a web workstation at a library (paid for out of local taxes) or you're using a payphone into which you're putting a quarter - someone is paying. But when you're paying, you can certainly expect a different privacy framework than when you use something that I'm paying for.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The purpose of these cards would be to protect the library from loss, assuming the only reason to be able to trace library patrons is to recover unreturned items. Assume a small library loses $1000 worth of books per year, buys the replacements, buys $5000 in new books, pays $4000 for utilities, pays $80,000 for wages, and has $10,000 in other expenses. The $1000 they recoup from the anonymous prepaid library cards is 1% of their budget. Where do they get the rest?
Government. Which means taxes. Which means taxpayers. Which means public officials liable to the taxpayers/voters on how their funds are spent. Assume you are an official in Almost Readerless County, next to Cheap University Student County, and you implement the anonymous system. Suddenly you find your sleepy three-branch library system expanding to 18 busy branches full of textbooks and anime, at the expense of the taxpayer-funded county budget. How much of the new demand is coming from your constituents' appreciation of privacy and how much from freeloaders in the next county?
Seriously, look at all my questions:
What is a library? How does the massive copyright industry allow libraries to exist? It seems like libraries are promoting the free exchange of information, isn't that illegal? If books can be lent out for free, why not software, why not video games? Why can't I download e-books from a libarie's website? If information should be freely available for everyone from libraries, shouldn't it also be available over the web? Is the physical act of visiting a library somehow built into the libaries' mandate?
Overall it seems to me that libary are surviving in a small pre-industrialized niche of the information economy and being extremely careful not to offend any coorporations lest they be driven to extinction. They/we even avoid thinking about the philosophy behinds libraries too deeply lest we realize that it conflicts with our information ownership society.
Well, after writing all my questions down, I realize that perhaps libraries could be a launching point for the free information revolution. All we need is one renegade librarian willing to lead us. Are there any risk taking libarians out there today reading this?
That's not considered "extra effort". That's considered essential to ensure users identities, password details, credit card numbers and other stuff isn't stolen, and to ensure people don't leave illegal material all over the place.
Considering that any user that were conscious about security could clean up after themselves anyway if they had to, unless the operator of the terminals takes extra effort to carry out surveillance (key loggers, logging network traffic etc.), this is a pointless discussion unless you're suggesting active surveillance of all internet users is a good thing (in which case you're a lost cause).
It is, to about everyone, including most supporters of the PATRIOT act. Myself, for example.
However, there's a big difference between tracking what ordinary citizens are reading and being able to easily subpoena the library records of a suspected terrorist.
Keep in mind, too, that library records were not out-of-bounds in criminal investigations prior to PATRIOT ... it's just that they are now easier to obtain.
"Forcing" journalists to reveal sources is actually dissimilar to requiring librarians to disclose library records. The law CAN do that. The librarians are employed by the government (or "the people" if your glass is half full) and libraries are state-funded. There is no real option of discretion or conscientious objection to the disclosure of government records on the part of government employees.. god bless the patriot act.
If you are worried that your "Reading List" would be 'flagged' by the FBI. I was doing a paper at one point on How and Why people followed some of what are considered to be, the most evil men in history. That meant reading up on all the literature that most people avoid:
1. Mein Kampf
2. Quotations from Chairman Mao
3. Das Kapital
4. Beyond Good and Evil (Nietzsche is actually very good for segway quotation)
And a few others.
And when I checked all these books out, I had this unjustified worry that in just checking these books out something quite bad was going to happen, that some where sattilites were linking, my information was being bounced from one system to another, and that I was going to be blacklisted for life... 'Course now I think I was just being parinoid, but a system like this would of helped my worrying greatly.
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
You used the words "bomb assassinate bush terror allah osama jihad" in a post on /. using your /. ID. You will now be on terrorist watch lists until you die. Wait, I said "bomb assassinate bush terror allah osama jihad", too! Arrgh! I said "bomb assassinate bush terror allah osama jihad", again! ...
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
In short, the library is at no risk financially for lost books, and gets to make money off the interest. Plus it provides a new service for those who want it.
It's a win-win situation all around.
That's why the GP is flat-out wrong; this will work, and work quite well. I'd like to see one single public library which DOESN'T need more funding.
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
You go to your local library with a sealed request for a book, they forward it to another library who return a sealed copy of the book you requested. You pick up the copy at your local library and, when done, return it sealed, with the reference number they gave you at the start of the transaction. The issuing library can still issue fines by proxy if need be.
However, I was comparing "forcing" journalists to reveal sources to "preventing" librarians from revealing that the USA PATRIOT Act was used to require them to disclose library records. That the law cannot do (short of executing the librarians) for the same reason it cannot force journalists to reveal their sources.
Nevertheless, the law cannot actually force librarians not to destroy the library records, either. :)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
And don't laugh - people lost everything during the McCarthy era simply because they associated with somebody who belonged to the wrong political party.
I'm going to let Jonah Goldberg take this one:
Senator Joe McCarthy was a lout, generally speaking. But he was on the right side of history and, in a broad sense, of morality as well. If, in some sort of parallel-universe exercise, the same number of (now proven) Soviet-Communist spies, collaborators, sympathizers, and the like were somehow switched to Nazis, and McCarthy went after them with the same vehemence as he went after Reds, Joe McCarthy might well have universities and foundations named after him today. Just imagine if a ring of Nazi party members were found to be working in Hollywood, never mind the State Department, taking money from Berlin to advance the Nazi cause. Does anyone really think "McCarthyism" would still be denounced as an unmitigated evil, often put at the front of the parade of horribles alongside Hitlerism and Stalinism?
I suppose my problem isn't with privacy efforts per se: if you have a legitimate technical reason, as other replies have discussed, that's fine and wonderful. Maybe the results would be the same either way. But it sickens me to see so many people apparently motivated by the thought of protecting terrorists, acting more afraid of Bush and Ashcroft and bogeymen-du-jour than of the people who thought it bright to drive airplanes into buildings. Sometimes we have to pick the least bad option.
Fascist asshat.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
I would describe the the first few years of my (way too young) marriage as "first world poverty", we were easily in the bottom 20% bracket. I lost access to the library because I could not afford to pay the fine for a misplaced book. My answer was "op-shops" and second hand books, I never went without smokes because I rolled my own and to this day (25yrs later) I am still addicted. The biggest problem with being poor is that you get oh-so-fucking-sick of scrimping and chasing work. When you occasionally get a wad of cash you stock the cuboards, pay the red bills, get new clothes for the kids and blow the rest on a dirty weekend because you just want a break from it, even for a day.
I agree 100% with your sentiments (except poor does not imply uneducated), if you really want privacy you will find the $50 (~2 slabs in Australian money). If you are that dirt poor that you can't afford it then simply read the book in the library, trust me, you will have the spare time and it will cut down your smoking (librarians frown on that type of thing in thier library).
Librarians are a powerfull force in upholding everyones right to read Chairman Mao, the Koran, the Bible, the Unabomer's manifesto, Osama BL's diatribes or anything we fucking feel like. The interest from a single account would amount to the best part of nothing to anyone living in a country that has local libraries in the first place. If the system became popular, (no offence but I'm sure you would get takers in the US), the total interest could be a tidy sum and used to enhance what I consider is a service at the core of any "free" civilization.
To all the naysayers that are throwing up red herrings such as poverty what is the alternative besides the current status-quo (ie: no option of annonomous accounts for anyone)?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Ok, scneario. Assume that I've never had a library card at library A:
- I walk into the library, approach the "cards" desk.
- I hand over $50, and the library creates a new numbered account with $50 in it.
- I am handed a card with the account number on it.
- I walk to the rack and select a book worth less than $50.
- I walk to the circulation desk and check out my book; $50 is "frozen" in that numbered account.
- A few weeks later, I return my book, and the $50 is "unfrozen" in the account the book was checked out to.
- I decide I no longer want my library card, and I surrender it for a $50 cash refund.
At no point in that sequence did the Library need to know who I was. So, DHS could get a dump of everything checked out, but unless they are already suspicious of me and get hold of my account number (e.g. by searching my person), that data is useless. There is no way to associate it to me using only the Library's data.As to your other "no anonymous reading/living/driving/renting anywhere", two points. One, this evolved not as a result of "Big Brother" but mostly as a result of individuals and corporations wanting to track their customers; someone who wants to sell or rent something of value to you usually wants to know who you are, for obvious reasons. Two, remarkably little of those are actually requirements -- your landlord doesn't have to track who you are, for example. Most do, because it's good business to do so -- it ensures that you get paid. However, it is perfectly possible to find people willing to rent a room, house, or apartment where you pay in cash, in advance. However, you also likely give up your rights should the landlord screw you: after all, you can't prove you ever rented the place.
The same relationship exists for a lot of things. One can be quite anonymous in our society -- but one has to give up some things as well. Everything is a tradeoff. If I don't want the state to register my photo, I don't need to get a driver's license. Of course, I'll then be limited to public transportation, biking, and walking; it's a trade.
The government didn't historically issue IDs and the like for nefarious purposes -- a driver's license was originally issued for one reason: to eliminate the need to arrest people for summary offenses (e.g. speeding), since they know who you are and where you live they can just write a ticket. It's something the citizenry wanted for the sake of convenience. What to watch out for isn't identification, it's the abuse of the system for nefarious ends: I shouldn't need to provide my driver's licence to check out books from a public library, but I appreciate the convenience of not having to get arrested if I go 10mph over on the way to work.
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
Sometimes we have to pick the least bad option.
I agree 100%. The least bad option, in this case, is to protect both the bad people and the good people.
If the price for preventing terrorism is taking away our freedom, then the price is too high.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I'm not a big fan of the PATRIOT Act, but I'm always apalled by the number of people, and who pontificate on its provisions without actually reading them! The referenced article states " Unfortunately, if an over-zealous special agent on a fishing expedition wants to know ... the librarian will probably have little choice. Under the USA PATRIOT Act, he or she would have to surrender the personal identity information that was originally collected to protect the library's materials."
This just isn't true! If you are going to express opinions on the PATTRIOT Act then try reading some of it so that your opinion is based on fact. The pertinent section of the PATRIOT Act is Title II section 215
Anyone notice the part about it not applying to activities protected by the first ammendment? Or the part about needing a warrant from a judge? Or the part about the agent needing to have a particular rank to pursue a library inquiry?
Here is the text of section 215, although a download of the PDF serves much better:
"SEC. 215. ACCESS TO RECORDS AND OTHER ITEMS UNDER THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT. Title V of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1861 et seq.) is amended by striking sections 501 through 503 and inserting the following: ''SEC. 501. ACCESS TO CERTAIN BUSINESS RECORDS FOR FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE AND INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM INVESTIGATIONS. ''(a)(1) The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation or a designee of the Director (whose rank shall be no lower than Assistant Special Agent in Charge) may make an application for an order requiring the production of any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items) for an investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities, provided that such investigation of a United States person is not conducted solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution. ''(2) An investigation conducted under this section shall-- ''(A) be conducted under guidelines approved by the Attorney General under Executive Order 12333 (or a successor order); and ''(B) not be conducted of a United States person solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States. ''(b) Each application under this section-- ''(1) shall be made to-- ''(A) a judge of the court established by section 103(a); or ''(B) a United States Magistrate Judge under chapter 43 of title 28, United States Code, who is publicly designated by the Chief Justice of the United States to have the power to hear applications and grant orders for the production of tangible things under this section on behalf of a judge of that court; and 50 USC 1861. ''(2) shall specify that the records concerned are sought for an authorized investigation conducted in accordance with subsection (a)(2) to obtain foreign intelligence information not concerning a United States person or to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities. ''(c)(1) Upon an application made pursuant to this section, the judge shall enter an ex parte order as requested, or as modified, approving the release of records if the judge finds that the application meets the requirements of this section. ''(2) An order under this subsection shall not disclose that it is issued for purposes of an investigation described in subsection (a). ''(d) No person shall disclose to any other person (other than those persons necessary to produce the tangible things under this section) that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has sought or obtained tangible things under this section. ''(e) A person who, in good faith, produces tangible things under an order pursuant to this section shall not be liable to any other person for such production. Such production shall not be deemed to constitute a waiver of any privilege in any other proceeding or context."
1) So? In order to listen to a person's phone conversations, we require a court-ordered phone tap. I think that in order to find out a person's browsing habits on a computer, we should need a court-ordered "computer tap."
2) At the same time that you are creating an "anonymizing system," you are letting go of a "tracking system." The libraries are already expending extra effort keeping track of people and books. They could be expending less effort with an anonymous system.
J'aime mieux les méchants que les imbéciles, parce qu'ils se reposent. -- Alexandre Dumas
they're registered to Richard M. Nixon and other people who live at slightly altered variants of my phone and address.
With Photoshop, you can get enough to do the same at the library.
We're Americans - those under seige by the "Patriot Act" - we believe in Freedom!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
With the Patriot Act still in place, allowing the government to check library listings, it would not take much for 'Big Brother' to just install surveillance equipment outside the libraries to circumvent the whole issue.
It's You and I against the World... When do we attack?
If the deposit is refundable by turning in the card, then you could use this as an anonymous electronic cash system. Deposit some money into an account, then send the magstripe data to somebody, they rewrite their card with it, go to the library and withdraw the cash.
"Like a gift card, a phone card, or indeed a $20 bill, an anonymous library card represents value that vanishes if the card is lost or damaged. This is a risk that library users take for granted in these other situations, and so they should readily understand it."
But why even have the card? Why would you need to pre-deposit money - why not merely collect the rented items replacement cost at the time of checkout, and then upon its safe and intact return, refund it again? With phone cards you prepay for two reasons, one, you are getting a 'bulk discount' by purchasing a large amount at once, as well as a 'loyalty' discount becuase you arent going to payphones and picking a different carrier each time. Since payphones only accept coins, the convenience here is not having to carry coins, or to have to look for somewhere to get change if you need to make a call. With giftcards, the person paying the money is not the same as the person spending the money. The reasons are that a giftcard is (slightly) less tacky than giving cash, if you use a one-store-card then you may get a 'loyalty' discount as well, since the gift amount can only be spent at that store, and if you use a 'credit card' type of gift card (Visa, M/C, etc), then the person can also use it online or for a phone order (where using cash would be problematic)
For a library, none of these concerns is really present. The library could easily accept cash, the deposit can easily be made *at* the time of checkout, the same person providing the cash is the one checking out the item. And you can't check out a physical library item over the net or a phone call.
By avoiding the card, you avoid creating this 'additional' bearer item to worry about losing. You only have to worry about being careful to hang onto your cash, which is a pretty well ingrained instinct with most folk.
So only women can get the anonymous library cards?
I believe I understand where you're coming from: You feel that since your tax dollars are paying for it, then the use of that taxpayer-funded service should be monitored.
First of all, I don't get to track the use of all my tax dollars. So-called "black ops" or whatever immediately jump to mind where I, as an individual taxpayer, do not have any right to know what my tax dollars are doing (and I probably wouldn't approve of it, either). In our government with it's huge tax rolls, you simply will not be able to track every dollar spent.
But that's not really the point here. I personally like the idea of putting up a block that the State must go through in order to get private information. What I'm surfing for on the net is not public information.
The real point is, just as with free speech, in order to protect access to ALL information, we must put up with some bit of unsavoriness in the information that is accessed. It is absolutely NOT the State's job to tell it's citizens what public information it can access. Giving the State access to the list of which citizens are accessing which information, be it books, websites, CD's, whatever... is a de-facto limitation as to what information is accessed.
The classic example is the whistleblower. One can dream up all sorts of examples of this. In order to protect yourself you go to the public library to look up information to verify your claims, or perhaps even to look-up what your rights as a whistleblower are. If you know that the government has easy-access to all information accesses, you may be better-served by just keeping your big mouth shut and not risking loosing your job... or worse.
So, yeah, we may have to put up with the occassional "worm, or interact with a bot network, or send fraudulant mail", etc.. but that's the TRUE price we pay for freedom.
Your freedom and personal safety are much, MUCH more threatened by an out of control government then it is by some looser running his phishing scam from the public library.
It's obvious that librarians are just another bunch of liberal aids to the terrorists. It's obvious that they must be stopped. Therefore, we need to eliminate their funding. After, with all the fine educational television, who visits libraries anymore?
Mod me as flaimbait, but the political discussion in the US is getting that rediculous. And that scary. Just watch - if the Librarians counter with something like this, the rabid right will follow suit.
Again, you got your guns (as if there was any danger of "liberals taking them away...") but we're loosing basic civil liberties. Are you really as free as your party would like you to believe?
Summary: White bicycles were scattered around Amsterdam in the 60s for people to use. They got stolen and vandalized, so the experiment didn't work.
Libraries (and individuals) are generally allowed to lend materials and/or resell materials under the concept of the "right of first sale". Libraries are not (generally) making copies of any of their materials, so they cannot be in violation of copyright law.
you keep saying this, but its not that simple. if i start publically screening dvds ive purchased, even though no copies have been made, the mpaa will come down hard (w/ the fbi, they promise)
Lies about crimes
I think the anonymous cash cards are a great idea. I don't know why they didn't think of this long ago (I guess there was no real reason to). Libraries are now having fight with their patrons over identity privacy and they shouldn't have to. It's already hard enough to get people to utilize their local libraries, now with the Patriot Act, that is even harder.
So I say, use the cash-based system and check out books to your hearts content. I know in my day I've checked out books that might send up a red flag, but my intent was usually for school reports, not terrorism. Uncle Sam doesn't know my intent when I check out a book, so just putting up a red flag on Mein Kampf doesn't asses my intentions on reading it.
Health Insurance Quotes
1 all the ones ive seen dont. how do i know which is which? how do i know when a library quietly changes its policy?
:)
2 why cant i swipe the anon card to see whats checked out?
3 bookstores dont need to tack extra surcharges onto a book for "processing", but whatever... just charge a little extra to the anon card to cover your processing
librarian, talk to your it people. yes, i am an "it people"
Lies about crimes
"or possesion of one would be considered evidence that you're up to no good." - If it got to that stage then libraries would be the least of your worries.
To paraphrase TFA, with an annomous account the spooks MUST start with a suspect and use thier card to find out what books the suspect is reading. A resonable use would be a crime commited that was inspired by an obscure movie/novel the suspect had borrowed.
With an ID account the spooks can start with a book containing "bad ideas" and then round up the suspects. There is no valid use unless somehow the spook already knows the obscure movie/book exits.
TFA also points out the Patriot act gives spooks the power to secretly look at existing ID accounts, historically if you give spooks that kind of power they will use it to silence thier masters opposition.
the excuse "well, you can get an anonymous card if you like" - but of course, no one really does.
Considering the current US political climate, if I were an honest politician (oxymoron?) or an amnesty international executive, I would consider this system a need rather than a want.
Actually, it's worse. - If you straighten your hat and read TFA, it's actually better.
MOD: It would also help if you the read TFA before hitting "insightfull".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Public libraries operate under a code of ethics. The third principle of this code is
"We protect each library user's right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted."
This isn't something secret, it's right out there on the ALA web site, and I'm sure it's available on paper in most libraries. This is what you're paying for. Violations of this code are violations of your rights as a taxpayer.
If you disagree with this principle, I suppose you could lobby the ALA to change it, or you could lobby your government to stop funding public libraries, but saying that the libraries should violate this principle because they are publicly funded is just plain wrong.
Makohund hit the nail on the head here. One more point that I don't think was mentioned.. A lot of books carried by libraries are out of print. Fifteen dollars is nowhere near the replacement cost of many of these books. A possible solution would be to increase the amount of the security deposit based on the replacement value, but that means maintaing an entirely new pricing system, and, more importantly, means pricing large numbers of people from being able to view books. The more I think about this idea, the more it pisses me off. To a significant number of public library patrons, twenty dollars is a lot of money to be locked away in a card. Privacy is a good thing, but only if you can afford it. I already dislike having to pay a premium at the grocery store to keep my purchase habits from being tracked, I'd hate to have to do this at the library.
This is a really good system. I would hope that there aren't so many dangerous books that we need to go to all this, but I can certainly see it getting this way in the future.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
That's capitalism, you say?
In our library we can check out any (reasonable) number of materials. And I have seen a lot of parents borrow 20-30 books/taps/cds at a time for their children, or college students ~5 hardcovers for their projects once a while. A low deposit encourages stealing, while a high deposit discourages checkouts...
We protect each library user's right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted.
I guess I'm wondering if that principle was written before or after libraries started doubling as internet cafes? I'm not being glib, I'm just thinking that it makes perfect sense when you look at the library as research tool, but it's a little anachronistic now that they can be used as cybercrime field offices. Just wondering, in real life, how many library IT or management people truly don't worry about that sort of thing, and can't conceive of any means or measure they'd embrace to discourage or, in the case of a court order, manage to dig up logs related to, illegal use.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
nowadays, as the world leans more and more to only accepting credit and debit cards, im sure that there would be a way for the government/whoever else is interested to tie your "Anony-Card" to your bank account or credit card account... Time to get your tin-foil hats out!
"Its a grey area". "How grey?" "Somewhat of a charcoal shade"
"Here's an example: If a privacy-minded user deposits $20 to get an anonymous library card, she can check out The Terror State without identifying herself. Her account balance is temporarily reduced by $15, and when the library checks the CD back in (in good condition), her balance is restored to its original value."
So she goes in, slaps down a $20, "borrows" a $40 book, and makes a $20 profit.
By "free", I think they meant "free as in beer".
This system is a simple and effective method of obfuscation, it forces the govt to start an investigation with a criminal suspect rather than a "criminal idea" and safegaurds community property against theft just as effectively as the current system.
Arguing the Patriot act is wrong and hoping that govt's won't look at records (of any type) is foolish. This system can't stop them looking, however it ensures that the govt would have to use extreme measures to get bulk information that connects individuals to "bad ideas". This has the practical effect of nullifying the snooping power of the patriot act. As it is now they can walk into any library, dump the database and enforce secrecy by legally gagging a few librarians.
"Two classes": There is nothing to stop anyone from having both types of accounts. One for normal borrowing, the other for iffy(TM) borrowing. Iffy(TM) material is not normally expensive (eg: M.Moore's F9/11, Amnesty International's latest report). If you really want privacy and really can't afford to loan $50 to the library for a few days. I would expect to find you already living in a cardboard box and it should be obvious by now that nobody in power gives a shit about what you think or say.
"I would only think this would work if the deposit was much higher.. but of course then no one would use it." - I'm sure M.L.King and other pacifists of the time would have appreciated the option had it been available.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Read the whole page. The rules aren't absolute, they're guiding principles. If librarians had reason to believe that someone was violating the law in their library, I imagine they'd violate that user's privacy.
But the point is, taking away privacy is bad. You shouldn't take away everyone's privacy, just because you have a theory that some library users are criminals.
I am a credentialed, ALA card-carrying librarian, and I think this is a GREAT idea. To all the "it will never work!" people, I'll be blunt: you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. There are numerous types of user accounts, this is a welcome addition and a great solution.
Think it's unfair that it requires actual MONEY to secure materials? Tough shit, folks. It cost us money, and if we're public, that money came from property taxes, bond measures, or other public resources. It's not like we're trying to keep the poor folks down. Much as I'd love to have an endless supply of books free for the taking (honest, I would) we just can't give away things YOU paid for.
While I am concerned that people get to access information with as little censorship/obstacles as possible (note: sometimes we do laugh at the crap you're into), we do need some way to track our material. The best privacy guarantee would be the "honor system" -- unfortunately, as human nature is not yet perfected, people are not honorable enough in gnereal to keep all the best material from disappearing from our shelves.
We let you take things for free, as long as you return them -- and no, we can't take your word for it that you'll bring it back. So here's a way to keep us from knowing any personal info about you by saving us the trouble of having to send your cheap ass to collections when you disappear with the Kung-Pao Soccer DVD or the latest Mark Minasi book -- you'll just be out the money that it cost us. It's fair, so SHHHHH!!!
Senator Joe McCarthy was a lout, generally speaking. But he was on the right side of history and, in a broad sense, of morality as well.
Ridiculous on the face of it. McCarthy did reveal some spies in government - but purely by accident. In his paranoid world all of the American people were guilty until proven innocent, and association was enough to prove treason. His net was so wide that it would have been impossible to not catch a fish or two.
The problem is the many innocent people his 'investigations' destroyed. In our society this sort of collateral damage is unacceptable. McCarthy was not on a moral high ground - rather he was in the gutter, using the lowest of human emotions and principles to further a reign of terror.
If the errors of the early stages of the Cold War are not acknowledged now, they will be repeated. The history of the 1950s is a must-read today. The first lesson is clear: within America, freedom must be defended vigorously for there will always be people looking to erode it in the name of security.
The most secure society is one where there are no personal freedoms and everthing not compulsory is forbidden.
The idea that anonymous library cards is a threat to our nation or protects terrorists is absurd on the face of it. The far greater danger comes from laws like the Patriot Act that implicitly hand victory to the same terrorists.
But isn't that the whole point of logs of all sorts? It's data you can go to if you need to, and if a judge says you have the authority to. That's just as true of a publicly held companies books as it is school enrollment records, medical records, and all sorts of other quite private things that are only made not private when there's a convincing reason for it. But to spend tax dollars on services that are shown to be regularly used for nefarious things, and not even have the capacity to know, under court orders, who was (say, cracking into school records, or sending ZIPed up financial files to a recipient in Hamas or crypto goodies to North Korea, whatever) from a library's equipment - that's just dumb, when that info can be secured just fine, but can't be synthesized if it's never logged.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I guess some people value privacy more than you do. I'm glad they're the librarians, and you're not.
I deal with sensitive (very) private (very) information that could impact people's family finances, careers, businesses, employers, investors and more every day. I value my privacy, and the privacy of others to a nearly religious degree. Now, I also spend a good part of my day dealing with criminals trying to break into, steal, deface, and otherwise devalue the very things that I build and protect. Many, many of those attacks originate from public networks - including schools, libraries, dorms, etc. Because I know that information can be properly squirreled away, and I know that I don't have to give it up absent court orders, I'm comfortable with my position. Privacy and law enforcement are not mutually exclusive.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I value my privacy, and the privacy of others to a nearly religious degree.
And yet you think that the ALA ethical principle of protecting the privacy of their patrons is anachronistic.
I'm afraid I don't understand what principle you would replace it with. Instead of "We protect each library user's right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted", what would you suggest?
I wouldn't replace that, I would append to it for clarity. Make it clear that people there have the same expectation of privacy that they have at, say, their doctor's office - where even the most intimate details, no matter how appropriately protected by HIPAA, can be dug out by court-approved investigations if it looks serious enough (just ask Rush Limbaugh!). Privacy, while using publicly provided equipment and networks, is not the same thing as absolute anonymity. Operating international communications hubs from which people can remotely plant or manipulate data anonymously cannot be considered a long-term, historical, traditional library activity. You indicated earlier that if a librarian thought a user was up to no good that that would the time to act. But how would the librarian know? Looking over the user's shoulder? Evaluating shifty-looking visitor hair styles? And even with those suspicions, however justified, what mechanism would the librarian use to demonstrate the user's illegal activities, absent some form of logging and user identity?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Well, not really the anonymous part (though I can be anonymous, since I'm not required an valid ID to
check my personal data).
Here, you can either get a public library card by placing some money (it was 5 last time I checked) in the library fund OR by getting a signed recomendation by any business store (which will "vouch" by the patron good behaviour).
Notice that using the library (in place) is free for all, but to take books (and CD/DVDs) home, you have to pay a (very low) anuall fee (about 2,5).
You indicated earlier that if a librarian thought a user was up to no good that that would the time to act. But how would the librarian know?
Presumably because someone like you would have called up the library to say that a breakin was in progress, or had just finished.
However, I think this is very unlikely to happen. You said that you get breakin attempts from libraries, dorms, etc. all the time. I think most of those are likely compromised machines acting as zombies, they don't actually have a human being sitting at them to be arrested.
This is why I think your proposed monitoring of library patrons is useless and potentially dangerous. It's useless, because most abuse of library PCs is probably done by people who aren't in the library, and the logs aren't going to help to find them. It's dangerous, because it's very likely the logs won't be protected adequately (the machines are compromised, after all), and will potentially be distributed and published.
Doctors need to keep records to do their jobs. Libraries don't need long term records, and shouldn't keep them.
Not true. Your name would be on paper, but collecting all those seperate pieces of information together to get a list of what someone reads would involve going through every book in every library that you go to.
ANONYMITY IS NOT ABSOLUTE. They could also interview everyone in the library to determine what books you've read, but that would be so difficult to do, that most people would still consider that a perfectly good level of anonymity.
Nobody said that was anonymous. What has changed in the past few years is how EASY it is for the GOVERNMENT to get that information, without probable cause, without notifying you, etc.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
That is one of the main arguments I have against anyone who says "if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear" when things like new scary ID cards and Patriot-style laws come up. If you've got nothing to hide, you should be happy to get your bank to send statements on a postcard. You should be happy to publish your itemised phone bill online for all to see.
If you have a problem with showing these things, or any doubt regarding the government's use of such data, you do have something to hide. Congratulations. Nothing to be ashamed of. I have lots to hide, not because it's dangerous or illegal or immoral. Just because it's my stuff and I prefer it hidden in my head or in a secure location than it being in the public domain.
catch (HumourFailureException e) { e.user.send("You, sir, are a humourless idiot."); }
I'm not sure about the Library of Congress, but I'm a Reader at the British Library (that just means I'm a researcher who's got a ticket to use the library). I've just sent them an email enquiring about their privacy policy for Readers (the BL is a stack-request library, and a dang good one at that).
I'll post any response I get here (if it comes soon) or on my blog. Drop me a line (bbtommorris ~at~ gmail ~dot~ com) if you want me to tell you of any response I get.
I will also make enquiries next term over library policies at my university and my specific college (we have a university-wide general library and a specific library for my discipline).
Anyone else who uses research or academic libraries should consult them on their privacy policy for patrons - reference and borrowing - and bring any examples of good and bad practices to the public attention (I'll do my bit: email me with anything you find).
If you are in the United Kingdom, libraries which do not give you helpful information quickly or reasonably can be sorted by using the Data Protection Act 1984 request system.
You simply send your name and details and the current fee (I think it's £10) and the Data Protection Registrar has to send back in a reasonably quick period all the data that the organisation holds on you. (This used to apply to CCTV which was extremely cool!) If they do not provide information or do not do it in a timely or reasonable fashion, you can make a complaint to the Commissioner of whichever bureau it is that handles Data Protection (I forget, but it's easy enough to Google for).
From D,P,A, requests, you should be able to find out what information a library holds on you and your borrowing record.
catch (HumourFailureException e) { e.user.send("You, sir, are a humourless idiot."); }