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Such a Thing as too Paranoid About Privacy?
jackoahoy! writes "As we become more connected, we have the right to be paranoid. But the question is: where do we draw the line between sane and insane privacy? CoolTechZone's Gundeep Hora tackles this issue and uses a recent blog entry on Infoworld to illustrate his point. From the article: 'Whether it's OnRebate.com or any other rebate managing company, asking for the industry you work in and your job function aren't the most personal questions they could possibly ask. However, they must carefully define the conditions for collecting such information. Targeted advertising by user opt-in newsletters and e-mail campaigns (unlike spamming) or internal market research to get a grasp on its customer base isn't unethical, in my opinion. And people making a big deal out of two vaguely placed questions is insensible and out of proportion. If you really are that paranoid about privacy, then do what this reader did and put in wrong information under those questions.'"
...to do the right thing.
If that's their reasoning, then let them ask for the demographic info WHEN the user opts in.
Otherwise they have it sitting there, calling thier name like a chocolate cake in the fridge at 3am. Yeah, they'll never give in to the temptation... and that cake is still sitting there, too.
Richard Stallman
*ducks*
If the information is so trivial and useless, why do they collect it?
If the information has value, why don't they pay me for it?
Is there any validity to the theories (and software) of social networking?
sPh
You draw the line when it's affecting psychologically.
The major issue I have with my information being private is not whether company A knows everything about me. That would be okay. In regards to online deals, it's the fear of unkown hacker B obtaining my life story unknowingly to both company A and myself. And just in general, I like to know exactly who knows what about myself. This is probably why I dislike rumours and gossip so much.
Industry: RIAA.
Job Function: Extorting the unlucky.
I'm still waiting for my rebate.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Why does everyone get up in arms about these companies who have absolutely no verification of your identity? I usually just fill out something like "Penguin P. Finsbury" and a ZIP code of 90210, and put equally garbage data in the rest of the fields. Save your energies for the real scary privacy stuff, like the credit card companies who actually know who you are. Just give garbage data to the cheesy websites; their market research will be crap as a result and no one will buy it.
... I forget the better worded expression but there's one that elegantly points out that once you forego some privacy (or something else, forgot what) it's a slippery slope till you have none. ... It's the principle of the thing. If you're letting companies get some of your personal information where do you draw the line.. and they shouldn't imo have any anyway. ... I have little doubt they're interested in every bit of information, and put together it can be made in to something that could scare any person. I'm sure some companies would love to data mine *everything* about a person. Having things to tie people together would make it a lot easier. (yay for google cookies).
To paraphrase the famous quote: Those who would give up essential privacy to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither privacy nor safety.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I got an iPod for christmas. I installed the software, which required my name and email address, and was forced to opt out for spam. Then I had to update the iPod software. I was forced to enter my name and email address and opt-out for spam. Then I had to update the iTunes software, where I was yet again forced to enter my email address and opt-out for spam. Thats 3 times in 15 minutes that a single company attempted to get my information and permission for spam. At this point, I was so pissed off that I entered a really long, expletive-laced fake email address to download iTunes.
It doesn't matter to me if a company has a reasonable privacy policy when they do everything in their power to get your permission for spam anyway. Like all advertising, it is invasive, persistent, underhanded, and extremely annoying. As far as I'm concerned, it has nothing to do with privacy. It is unreasonable marketing practices that piss me off. I think it pisses a lot of people off, and the backlash from that is a demand for more privacy.
No sig now
I don't think that is too paranoid at all. Unless there is a specific reason for entering accurate details on web forms, surveys or anywhere that asks for personal information, I always enter false information. Usually email addresses like bill@microsoft.com, admin@127.0.0.1 or something from a rival company.
I standardly use Tor for most important websites too.
I refuse to give up any of my privacy just so someone's advertising or demographics are more accurate.
I'd rather be paranoid now than when its too late.
Oh yeah right, next thing you know, you'll be telling us all that tinfoil hats don't work.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Privacy all comes down to correlation according to this blog.
As we become more connected, we have the right to be paranoid.
Bullshit. You don't have the right to be paranoid... no one can stop you from being paranoid... but that doesn't somehow impart a right to you in the same sense that you have the right to free speech or to practice your religion. Sure, you might want to be paranoid, or be inclined to be more paranoid... but that's a behavior and action a choice on your part, not some sort of right. If anything our "rights" are being assaulted by careless use of the term "right"... everything is a right so that truly important rights become lost in the sea of rights to paranoia, and right to wear a tinfoil hat in public, and my right to run Linux on every single thing that might sustain an electric current.
Please just disregard this idiotic thread.
that scares me. Sure, this is only a question about the industry in which you work. This other site asks you if you're married or not. Another if you have babies. Slowly but surely outfits like these are building a profile of you that would put the FBI and most stalkers to shame.
Maybe we are overreacting but what happens with this data in the long run? Who controls it? If the company that holds it goes bankrupt or is bought by another, where does the data go?
-- No Sig is a Good Sig
With the information on NSA data mining still ringing in my ears, i'm forced to consider the possibility - no , the near certainty - that all data will eventually be cataloged, whether legally, illegally, or otherwise. Answer a few of these seemingly innocuous questionaires... well, it's not deterministic, but I'm still wagering that, given enough of these simple, 'safe' answers, someone can build a fairly accurate demographic of a huge percentage of internet users.
Thinking outside my Head
People are for the most part, under concerned about privacy. Rights Online are one thing, but I think businesses (small ones included) should take it to the next step and concern themselves with surveillance with cameras and such to protect their homes and businesses. If you've ever been robbed before, you'll know the feeling of wishing you could prove exactly who done it. Digital surveillance is often the same way, except logfiles can be manipulated whereas its a lot more difficult to fake a filmed robbery of your home or business.
O come all ye whack-jobs, Joyless and in-tol-erant O come ye, O come yeEE right-wing Biblical hacks!
Come and behold him Angry at a bull-e-tin board
O come let us mod him down O come let us mod him down O come let us mod him down cuz he doesn't know it's just a silly bulletin board!
Happy Holidays!
"You better watch out
...
You better not cry
You better not pout
I'm tellin you why
He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness' sake!"
Many people believe these are lyrics from the popular Christmas song, "Santa Claus is coming to town." Unfortunately, this is the new theme song from the NSA, the US's electronic intelligence firm. Bottom line: power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. The government acts in its best interest, which is usually to become more powerful AND keep its job. The beauty of the democratic system is that the people are granted this same right. I will happily be paranoid about privacy over giving up my rights for "security" any day of the millenium. The most agrivating proposition is that many "conservatives" (conservative had meant favoring less government intervention) are, of course, in favor of this invasion of privacy granted by such laws as the patriot act, and the power assumed by Georgie the Boy King and his agency, the NSA. They in fact are either so indoctrinated by this "crusade" for freedom or by the payoffs of power that they are in fact calling privacy paranoids "privocrats," a label intended for derision. If this is how they want to bash us, I'd favor being a privocrat everyday over some other greedy political party.
We don't you moron! You draw your own line, make your own decisions. This bullshit idea that "we", whatever the hell that means, have to come to some sort of consensus is idiotic. Make up your own mind about what works for you and leave the rest of use alone.
Joe Dogooder is not a criminal, in fact Joe is your average, well do-gooder. Pays his taxes, supports his family, visits his community church, where mind you, he's visited since his days as an altar boy. Normally Joe wakes up around 5:00am in hopes of making some decaffeinated coffee, followed by a quick glimpse at the New York Times Online, while his television is tuned to the news. Today however, Joe woke up at 5:30am - and although he won't be late, he decided not to watch television. Instead he is going to work early in order to catch up with some work.
After his shower, getting dressed, kissing his family goodbye he grabs his trusted cellphone, and heads for his car. "Welcome to OnStar" flares for a quick second before he turns the service off. He'd know his way to work driving blindfolded, he's been there plenty of times. After stopping for some coffee and paying with his credit card at the local 7Eleven at 6:15am, he makes a right on Main Street leading to the turnpike. Joe always has money on his EZ-Pass, and although it has been hacked in the past, his information is now safe. He continues to work and breezes right through the toll-booths it is now 6:21am and he's right on time.
Getting off at the Broadway exit, Joe is running pretty early, 6:41am. Pulling into the Shell gas station at 6:45am, he fills up his car and swipes his credit card again through the machine so he doesn't have to walk an extra 20 feet to pay the cashier. Stops at the local Megasupershopper store and buys some chewing gum, a soda, and some shaving cream. Back in his car, he finally pulls into the corporate garage at 7:00am, swipes his identification card, and continues on his way. This is pretty much a daily routine for Joe, and millions like him.
So who is this average Joe and why should you care? Joe is noone really important, what's important is that you understand how Joe's movements were tracked and how dangerous can be at some point. TiVo recently shoved their foot in their mouths when they announced that Janet Jackson's breast of mass destruction was the most rewound video capture. Meaning? Watch a TiVo, they'll know it, what time, what it was, and who did it - you do after all have your information attached to it.
Joe also decided to check the news via the New York Times, and he had to sign into his account in order to do so, meaning his information was gathered there too. What time he logged in, and from where. Sure he could have registered with false information, after all it's free, but unless he decided to manually change his IP address somehow - whether via proxy or other means - the New York Times has his information. This is not to say in any way the New York Times is selling your information or using it against you, I don't know their policies, I'm simply trying to make you aware of the signs of the 'Times'
We can also average out a time where Joe starts his car every single day for as long as we'd like using his OnStar information, we can determine a definitive pattern of his daily life with ease. What about the chewing gum?, simple, RFID tags gave us that info. Now this may not be a big deal considering Joe Dogooder is an upstanding citizen so he would have nothing to hide. John Cheatman is an altogether different story.
John has been having an affair on his wife of 30 years, and he happens to be a millionaire. Wonder what he'd do if someone threw together a video portrait of his weekly (T
MoFscker
same freaking shit
Saying something isn't unethical "in my opinion" borders on redundancy. Ethics are simply a set of defined rules, and by definition are subjective. But that's not my real point.
Targeting advertising email is spam. The thing that distinguishes spam is the sender's attitude toward non-respondents. A spammer doesn't care what his non-respondents think of him -- he's only interested in the response rate. An advertiser with an ounce of sense realizes that he's going to drive away people by spamming, and doesn't want that. A spammer doesn't care.
A targeted email campaign may be more effective than simple spam, but it's still spam. Cleaning up your list will improve your response rate, but it still is going to drive people away.
I'm not generally in favor of the death penalty, but in the case of people who use my inbox for their foul spam, I'm on the fence.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
"Targeted advertising by user opt-in newsletters and e-mail campaigns (unlike spamming) or internal market research to get a grasp on its customer base isn't unethical, in my opinion."
Prvacy violation or not, the information is obviously of value to the advertisers, especially if they're paying a third-party to collect it. If it's valuable enough for them to pay money for it, it's valuable enough for me not to part with it without seeing some of that money.
Aerospace is my industry.
Analyst is my job title.
I always just pick the first choice on every pulldown menu. Except after 9/11 when doing free viruscans:
No need getting your IP address eventually targeted as that of an Aerospace Analyst in Afghanistan.
I think a moderator became afraid that you were on to him!
Anyway, I always thought of paranoia as a finer, more granular reality.
This article COMPLETELY misses the point. I don't care if spammers know if I'm a university student or a fast food worker. What I do care about, is being hassled to tell them. When I buy something, I don't want to have to bother telling them my postcode, phone number, or which industry I work in. Now if it served some purpose to the item/service I was purchasing, fine. But when it's just to sell my info (or to perform their l33t marketing tools on) I'm going to get annoyed.
As advertisers work to get into my home more and more, I'm becoming less and less tolerant of them. Unobtrusive ads that don't collect or use peronal information on me, I'm fine with. But when they start serving me ads based on what country I live in, or pester me about what my age is or are louder then the shows I'm watching, I become annoyed. It isn't about privacy, it's about comfort. I'm not going to provide them with my personal information, unless they offer me a damn good reason for them to have it. They should use what information I naturally give them, and be happy they get that. The idea that it's perfectly fine for shops to expect me to answer any questions they want, is ridiculous (IMO). I'm going shopping to buy items, I'm not going shopping to provide them with demographic information for them to utilize/sell. They should remember what the purpose of their stores are, and to stop trying to be advertising firms. I'm not going to lie to them, I'm simply going to refuse to tell them. If they're going to annoy me with asking for my personal information, I'm going to annoy them by not playing along.
The rebate in question is affiliated with Tigerdirect, which anyone who trolls for incredible internet pricing will tell you is notorious for not actually issuing rebates, or when they do it's 6-9 months later. So it's not as if we're talking about a particularly ethical company to begin with.
But on another issue, I find the linked article itself to be a troll. The framework of the question starts out right off that bat as "is this sane or insane privacy". By polarzing the issue into a "sane or insane" we lose perspective on this issue and start fighting for one of the two particular sides the author has chosen. This sounds more like a Crossfire! type discussion than a real look at the issues.
Stepping back from the linked article perspective, I'd like to present a different one. Is not providing all the rebate details upfront a breach of contract? If I advertise a $20 rebate for a product, but fail to disclose that you'll have also have to buy $200 in magazine subscriptions until after you've already bought the product, that's not a valid contract.
My major problem (and I think the original posters major problem) is the lack of upfront details on the rebate. Had they told him you'd have to provide job function, company size, etc before they'd issue the rebate then you can make an informed decision if those specific details are worth the rebate price. When they don't tell you the full details of the contract then I think that's at least an ethical violation, and possibly an invalid contract. If you dig deep enough you can eventually find the form to fill out without first buying the product, but who expects a rebate form to ask anything but where to send the check, and who to make the check out to? I certainly don't.
But as I said previously, tigerdirect isn't exactly well known for holding up their end of the bargain.
AccountKiller
When the extra time lost from reinforcing privacy issues exceeds the average cost(that is, probability of privacy being violated x time it takes to recover from privacy violation), then it's useless. We see this all time - companies building shoddy products because it's worth their time to just send a new product or deal with tech support for the few who whine than to remake/design their product. Notice - if your data is infinitely valuable, you can't ever be too paranoid.
http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
Pfft, everyone knows the very idea of tinfoil hats was planted in our brains by the Alien-Government co-conspiracy to allow them to amplify their mind control rays to enable them to completely take over your body! You have to use plastic wrap! Only it's unique molecular structure can disrupt their mental control technology!
Tinfoil and aluminum foil are NOT the same thing.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
Try asking President Bush.
And the biggest advertising company of them all... Google.
You draw the line when whoever your giving data to, doesn't need to know. For instance, if I buy something in a hardware store, and the clerk asks for my name and address for the recipt, I'll be annoyed, but given that the expensive hardware may break, I'll go along generally.
However, if the company starts asking my age, education level, bank account number, purchase history etc, I'm going to be seriously offended. If they do, I just lie outright. Give the dirty data fiends some serious false positives. Why I'm a 36 year old primary school dropout who will be buying at least $20,000 worth of home applicances this year.
May the Maths Be with you!
.. they care about your demographic.
Your information is useless (in a relative sense). Your demographics is not.
Information on the buying trends of a certain salary range in a certain area are only valuble in a large-scale demographic. Even if a dollar value was assigned to it, your own *personal* share of that pie would be infentessimal.
Do you really expect them to pay you 10 cents to fill out those fields? Because in actual fact, they are - via the rebate program / rewards program / whatever.
It's not that there's anything bad about marketing information by itself.
It's that, unlike say 20 years ago, my personal information is in a file along with hundreds of thousands/millions of other people, and one break can give a potential user of said information free reign on millions of people.
Plus, nothing says "please ignore my argument" like a dictionary definition used as an argument, like the dictionary definition is the ONLY way a word can be used in all situations.
This is more about a review of an article that was originally a rant.... So it is a rant on a rant... When did this become news???????
Anon Coward
I think the important question that would solve all this is "What is the chocolate cake?" What exactly can they do with this information? Granted I don't want them to have it, but what can they do with it that really would hurt me? Our country is pretty far away from Hong Kong (on the Orwellian map), where you get 10 years prison for spitting gum out on the sidewalk. I don't see collecting information to be a chocolate cake. Maybe one my mom baked, but certainly nothing appetizing at all. It might look nice on the outside, having all those names and numbers and addresses, but it would take a lot of digestion energy to do something useful with it.
I freaked out the people at my local Albertson's a few years back (side note: If it's "My store" why is it called "Albertson's"? My name isn't Albertson) when they started doing the valued customers card or what ever it was they called it. Every time I went in, they kept asking me if I had my card yet, if I wanted to get a card, and so forth. And they kept going on about how much I would save.
Every time, I said no.
Finally, I made a form asking for basically the same information they wanted, and offered to pay 10% more every time I shopped if they would just fill out the form and give little cards with bar codes of my choosing on them to all the checkers, so I could scan them with my cuecat each time I checked out. Easy as pie, and it would probably double their profit on my purchases.
This resulted in very amusing conversations with the supervisor, and assistant manager, and a manager--throughout which, I'm proud to say, I kept a straight face. The upshot was, they said no.
I said that was fine, but they really were passing up a good thing, and I'd be sure to make them the same offer the next time I came in. And the time after that.
Oddly, I don't think they ever tried to sign me up for their stupid program again.
--MarkusQ
Or did I misunderstand the question? Thinking that government and business want to track, monitor, and ultimately control your actions and even thoughts is far from being too paranoid. I'd call it a willingness to admit the obvious. Some people don't care, but anyone remotely concerned about privacy would worry about the direction things are taking.
provide false and misleading information.
NEVER give anyone anything, ever.
The *ONLY* exceptions are banking and police/gubmint.
Everyone else gets a flaming chainsaw up the ass sideways..
It might look nice on the outside, having all those names and numbers and addresses, but it would take a lot of digestion energy to do something useful with it.
Not all that difficult. Things start to slack, that info is some mighty fine barter to the right buyer. A 'partnership' later and our data collecting friends have a nice influx of new capital, and some marketing firm claims 'preexisting relationship' and spams/telemarkets the hell out of us.
...using the money argument when a cashier asks for too much. Face it - typical information collection at a cash register (as an example) is big bucks - and when someone crosses a line, I answer that I'll be happy to sell them the information.
The result is the typical baffled look, since it isn't the typical "paranoid" response. I then ask them how much their company paid for the "collection module" for their POS software - I know it isn't cheap. I then ask what they paid to have it setup, and have the results of this current campaign implemented. That isn't cheap either.
I then ask how long it takes the average cashier to gather the desired information. 15 seconds? How long does the average cash transaction take without this? 30 seconds? By gathering this info, we've effectively cut the cashier throughput - meaning to maintain that throughput, the store needs to increase its cashier staff by that amount... a full third in this example. That is NOT cheap.
Clearly my zipcode is worth an assload of money, I conclude... and if they are willing to spend THAT kind of money to get it, then I'm an idiot to just GIVE AWAY something they deem so valuable.
That's the general concept, at least... and it is quite effective as it cannot be argued against. This information clearly has significant value; Paranoid has nothing to do with it.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
They won't send paper in the mail as that is too expensive...and too easy for me to throw away. They won't call my cell phone because I'm on the do not call list and will file a claim if they do. They can send email but Thunderbird's got a great spam filter. I fail to see what the problem is besides a bit of inconvenience?
So, you know if you uncheck the newsletter boxes you can download the updates without giving them your info, right? YOU DID KNOW THAT, RIGHT?
thief! come back here with my .sig
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you
I've received all my rebates from TD, in the time frame specified up front. Typing this from an econo box I built with all "under rebate" deals from that store. All the checks came in, they all cashed. Case, mobo, ram and cpu, I used my existing drives is all. Knock on wood, but my experience there so far is 100% good.
Ef you in in why!
Yeah, we are. Every now and again i stumble accross another unfortunate misled user on IRC panicing...
...
f00l: Hey, i was hearing about this new technology thats the minitary is making is going to intercept wireless signals
me: So?
f00l: So what if iranian wi-fi pirates get hold of one?
me: Um?
f00l: Yeah, some guy on slashdot said that they're growing as an organisation.
me: Ok, so?
f00l: SO? So somebody is proabaly sitting outside in a brand new (but dodgy looking) BMW. Tracking my evey move by American developed spy tools, this explains so much, Why the mail-man has been coming late, What i thought was a dog tearing up my rubbish bags, its now much more likely to be hydro-phobic alien people, brought here to maintain a close eye (after all, wikipedia says they do have over 327.8) upon me.
me:
f00l: And my e-mail? By now there's probably another foreign terrorist watching all of the people i've send e-mail too! And they've probably made it so that if my bandwidth consumption falls, below 50kb/s, then WERE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!
OK, so not quite this insane.
But nowadays we're focusing so much on what the "bad people" could do to us. We spent very little time looking at weather these "bad people" actually exist, and weather they could care less about spending time and money terrorisimg the general public.
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
Of course I'm paranoid. Everyone is trying to kill me!
The inverse is true. The advertisers/marketers don't care about you they care about your kind. If they were that interested in you, they would just target you and steal from you, they want X number of people similar to you. There are things like "target demographics", "males between 25 and 35", "housewives" or "stay at home moms" if they have kids, etc.
Certain products, goods, or services may appeal to statistical outliers, but any marketer or advertiser never appeals to them, they appeal to the middle 2 standard deviations. Niche products even do this thing. About 1 in 5 women are into anal sex, butt 4 out of 5 are not into it and would not be into seeing advertisements for a better anal lube on TV even though it might even change their opinion of that kind of sex. Herpes medication is accepted though, because everybody knows somebody that has it.
I'm not paranoid about privacy in marketing. Nothing I buy that is legal to buy is that interesting. The good stuff is not advertised, nor needs to be. I've heard that Nukes go for something like $10 mil. Buying those might be of interest to some people, but being that the US government is too stupid to figure out which 3rd world country's government owns them or not, I can buy them in relative comfort.
It doesn't put the FBI (et all) to shame since they can just buy the information from the ones collecting it.
Unfortunately unlike so many times in the past there is no option of voting for the "other" party. The DEM party is no more conservative, and for the most part they just fight the GOP on religious issues. The real problem is that people who have supported the GOP in the past continue to support the GOP because they fear/lothe what the DEMs are trying to do. The solution is for people to get over their fears, no matter how intense they are, and realise that living in fear isn't really living at all.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
By definition, paranoia is a mental delusion. If you are paranoid about your security, you've already gone too far. Maybe "cautious" is the word you're looking for (and no, I don't think you can be too cautious).
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
The issue isn't whether you're (too) paranoid, but whether you're paranoid enough.
is that "having nothing to hide" is not semantically equivalent to "having nothing to lose". In fact, if you do have something to lose, then by definition you have something worth hiding.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Such a Thing as too Paranoid About Privacy? That's what the Government WANTS YOU TO THINK!11!!11!1 *twitch* ... .
But that Alien Illuminati Patriot Act infringes on my rights.
I hate the one hundred and twenty character limit for signatures with an all-enveloping, all-destroying, incredible pass
What exactly can they do with this information?
The common-sense answer is 'they can choke in their big mass of data.'
Which leads to the common-sense approach to take: it can never be cost-effective to keep and the kind of tracking information that gets the paranoids all frothy. Anybody who has experience managing big masses of data could tell us this. So it's all hand-wringing by people without much of a clue.
resigned
Let me throw a different perspective in here...
As we are social animals, we are bound to want to share something of ourselves with others. We need to believe that we have something of value to share with friends as well as strangers. Exactly what information we choose to share is determined by how much trust we believe we can place in the other person. ("Person" including groups and organisations as well as individuals).
That's what the real problem comes down to - we are being given no choice. We are made to believe that our information is of no value, and so we should willingly give it up to some person whom we increasingly find ourselves unable to trust. It is not that we don't want to trust them, so much as the behaviour of those people reinforces to us that we cannot trust them.
When asked to provide private information as partial payment for goods or services (or to receive discounts or rebates on same), we instinctively feel cheated because we are trading our humanity for cash. We fight down that instinct at every turn, as we manage to convince ourselves that it is only a small loss for such great gain.
As other posters have pointed out before, if it's really of so little value, why are we repeatedly given such incentives to give out such information? Especially when the information we provide is so irrelevant for the goods or services provided?
A credit card company needs to know that you are 18 years of age, and have some way of uniquely identifying you - but date of birth is too much information for the former, and too little for the latter. Is the email address I provide when I enrol going to be used to save trees, or is it really just cheaper marketing? We're lapping up the convenience on offer, enjoying the opportunity to get something for almost nothing, and feeling trapped by something we just can't put our fingers on. And now, as individuals faced with increasingly long and complex forms (and an out-of-control legal system), none of us really knows how much information is required by law, and how much is just an opportunistic marketing grab.
In the end, I don't believe the problem is that we lack privacy. Most forms carry no penalty for lying. No, the problem is that we neither know nor trust the people we're giving our details to. And that's a situation that won't change while most of us chase after our personal privacy.
With each breath in, a flower somewhere opens; with each breath out, a flower withers away. In between lies beauty.
Not without a whole lot of painstaking work...
||| I still can't believe Parkay's not butter.
We should never cease to be paranoid about our privacy. If you are a US citizen you have a right to be secure in your quarters, gaurenteed by the consitution. And until they ratify that (like anyone will vote for that) then we are entitled to that right.
It may indeed be the case that some people cannot spell their way out of a corporeal paper bag. However, I for one, am at least erudite enough to know that those pesky commas go inside the quotation marks.
They won't send paper in the mail as that is too expensive...and too easy for me to throw away.
Clearly you haven't moved out of your parents basement yet -- when you get your own place, you'll find out it is NOT too expensive. In fact, 100% of mail I recieve is unsolicited advertisements. I have opted for paperless billing with every company I legitimately do business with. I go to the mailbox 2-3 times a week just to throw the junk mail away because the Post Office will slap me with a fine if I ignore it.
They won't call my cell phone because I'm on the do not call list and will file a claim if they do.
The only fine ever levied as a result of the "Do Not Call" list was recently to DirecTV. DirecTV was the number 1 offender with over X complaints, and was fined $5.4 million for 1.4 million complaints -- or less than $4 per complaint, not per illegal call. Incidentially the maximum fine is $11,000 per complaint, so they got off cheap. All of the other offenders haven't been touched at all.
They can send email but Thunderbird's got a great spam filter.
This costs me real money in bandwidth charges, as well as hard drive space (either locally or on my mail server), and a sysadmin (me or my ISPs) to maintain that spam filter.
The problem, besides "a little bit of inconvenience", is that it costs me both money and time to deal with this problem. Normally when you deal with someone elses problems you get paid for doing work for them. Normally when someone makes a career out of making problems for other people, they go to jail for Organized Crime.
~Rebecca
Okay, maybe the customer didn't see the indication, but it doesn't seem like TigerDirect was purposelly trying to hide it in order to make him think he had to give the information. Or maybe the customer tried to send the form without filling those fields and got an error (I've had similar problems), but in this case this would be a very different issue and should have been mentioned in his story.
I understand the point the Infoworld writer is trying to make: I frequently feel that I'm being asked too many questions when filling forms (both on- and offline). But this was not an appropriate example.
King of the Hill character Dale Gribble.
He orders pizza under the pseudonym Rusty Shackleford. That is the point at which one becomes "too paranoid about privacy"
We've all heard about the bar code modifications carried out to defraud various stores. Rather than do that, shoot for the grey area and modify the barcode on those store savings cards to remove any traceable data; a few members of the local 2600 group have been doing so with great success.
If I remember correctly they've managed to combine the 2 major bar code schemes used my the local markets into a single barcode and printed our their own "Preferred Shopper" cards which have no real personal data attached to them.
You can find a little more info here as well as some graphics that can be used to make your own cards.
Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.
I know it's a bit off topic but hey, that whole deal about the Dartmouth student being visited by the agents, turns out he lied:
0 5/a01lo719.htm ... why isn't it on /. ?
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/12-05/12-24-
Our country is pretty far away from Hong Kong (on the Orwellian map), where you get 10 years prison for spitting gum out on the sidewalk.
Perhaps you're thinking about Singapore? They're the country that's famous for banning chewing gum, among other facist laws. I've never heard of harsh punishments for chewing gum in Hong Kong.
AccountKiller
Our country is pretty far away from Hong Kong (on the Orwellian map), where you get 10 years prison for spitting gum out on the sidewalk.
You're thinking of Singapore, perhaps, where streets are clean, and the girls are oh so hot. Hong Kong also has hot girls, but the streets are dirty and the sky is brown.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Foil hat.
I worked in the market research industry for a data collection company for a number of years. The fact is that everything about you is WIDELY available to anyone willing to pay for it. I can take your cell phone number and get your name, address and social security number for $0.40 (if I buy 10,000 or more and have a reasonable sounding excuse for needing your social), it's not heavily regulated unless it's medical, legal or government information. Most companies who collect information about you (particularly demographic information, most other information is too specific for the general market) are looking to immediately sell it to whoever will buy it, in addition to using it for their own marketing. When it comes to the acronyms (FBI, CIA, NSA, etc.), you can be sure that if it's on a server somewhere or if it was transmitted over the internet they have it already.
Privacy is not a crime, but it's starting to seem like one... A little paranoia is healthy, but in this information age the individual is powerless to controll any of this so paranoia is just more stress in this case. Until there's some sort of privacy revolution in this country the paranoid will have no choice but to behaive like the man is always standing behind them watching (which he is). He knows when you've been sleeping, he knows when you're awake. He knows when you've been bad or good so be good for goodness sake. Merry Christmas.
Unfortunately unlike so many times in the past there is no option of voting for the "other" party.
Don't blame me; I voted for Badnarik.
I for one, am at least erudite enough to know that those pesky commas go inside the quotation marks.
Not on an info-tech discussion site they don't. For example, what is the difference between the following lines?
They won't call my cell phone because I'm on the do not call list and will file a claim if they do.
Are you not in the US? DNC be damned, they're not allowed to call cells at all.
I strayed slightly off the original topic, but it's still relevant. Information is worth a lot; to companies, to governments, the local stalker. There isn't a line because at the point, I'd say it's damn necessary to take caution with anything these days. You never know what's going to turn around to bite you in the ass.
Fun Zoid RPG
Here in the States, yes, but not in England.
Stallman is mainly concerned with Freedom, not privacy. The two do happen to overlap, of course, but there's no reason to insult the man for caring, and for being aware of the issues. That's why most of us are here talking about it. Also, what Stallman seems "paranoid" about generally turns out to be the reality of the situation just a few years down the line. The man is a visionary, not a quack. The success of the Free Software movement, Open Source, and Linux, and the attempted corporate dominance of Internet Explorer, Microsoft, and others are all here as evidence of Stallman's deep understanding. Probably best not to deride the guy who's kept your online world sane, huh? ;)
Setting that aside and addressing the article itself, I would point out that privacy is always a trade-off with ease of use. Regardless of what the ideal level of privacy is, we do need good privacy, which few of us have achieved. Real security and privacy is hard, and you're far more likely to run into usability issues before you run into overkill issues.
So, I think it basically boils down to this: implement the best security and privacy you can reasonably expect yourself to keep up without getting lazy.
When I'm continually being bombarded by spam and tracking-cookies on the web, phone calls all day from people trying to sell me "targeted products" and so on and so forth, then some privacy would be very much appreciated. I tend to use my old address (my folks address) when signing up for ANYTHING with the hope that my current address will be reasonably well protected, some slip through the net though.
However, on a slighty unrelated note, PGP/GNuPG and signed emails. I'm on a number of mailing lists of which a number of emails from certain people on those lists are signed by PGP or GnuPG. That is taking paranoia and privacy a little too far. What makes these people think their emails are SO important that they'll be stopped mid-transmission, altered by some hacker and then sent on with changes to their mail?
If you're digitally signing every email you send, just have a think about what you're doing, PLEASE!And if you think spam is merely an invasion of privacy, then I suggest a few months spent having to wade through a knee high pile of shit to get in and out of your house might explain the problem better. Especially if you are only knee high yourself.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Ask them what they are going to do with the data. Why they do need it. Where you can see the information about this data you have given them and they processes.
Most likely they are unwilling to give you that information. So they want us to give information, yet they do not want us to get any. (Information that is.)
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
The problem is that, given enough information, even your vague answers can lead to someone building up a complete picture. Let me give you a very simple example (the reality is much more complex and much more technical - and has been in use for years by places that have too much computing power to start with).
;-).
;-)
Say, for instance, that you selectively withold information (or that the specific company involved labels something as 'something we would never ask because we respect your privacy' (haha).
So, out of a full information set you provide A + B + C, but leave out D. The next provider will leave out something different, so you provide A + C + D. Look clearly: you already have a double link between the two answers (A + C). And while you entered it online you provided details of your browser, with or without help of a tracking cookie, which IDs your provider, the country you're in, the time of day you're online etc etc etc.
Another classic exmaple is the 'points' system large retailers use to get you to use their loyalty card. The more shops take part in such a scheme, the more detailed a picture you give them of your buying habits, and that is used to target marketing. For example, suddenly you start buying nappies - it won't be long before the baby product advertising arrives. Or you buy pizza and coke in quantity - expect programming magazine offers soon
The bottom line is that giving ANY information will eventually lead to disclosure. If you feel you have to give info - lie like hell. And don't buy the crap that the products would otherwise be more expensive - if a product is good I'll hear of it from my friends. Saves a lot on expensive marketing. Oh, and your spending habits may already be collected by your credit card companies - buying cash also has the advantage that you can't spend what you don't have.
So there
Note: Do not feed the trolls.
Instead of calling it a right, call it a freedom. Freedom IS a right, and being paranoid is one of your freedoms.
And you are correct, nobody can legally take away your paranoia without your consent... Unless they have you institutionalized for it. All bets are off at that point.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
The "Tinfoil Hat" is realy a government trick to catch out the STUPID PARANOID people who are daft enough to buy one in the first place, because as soon as you buy one the Government get saty lock on you and track you everywhere. The only way to get around this problem is to use a STEALTH-HAT!
Steal or "purchase" STEALTH plane or boat parts and glue to head with poxy resin or similar, walk down street in comfort whilst not being followed by any
But, be carefull of these
:-]
The post office can fine you?
Advanced users are users too!
>then do what this reader did and put in wrong information under those questions.
Good grief. As a matter of course you should supply incorrect details to all questions asked my marketers. In the words of the late great Bill Hicks these people are "Satan's little helpers" so no, you do not need to be polite to them. Nor are you obliged to give them ANY accurate information.
Whenever I get my hands on a questionnaire I fill it in with incorrect information and return it. When I get a marketing call then, if they're doing "market research", I give them totally, WILDLY inaccurate information ("yes I am a female and yes I earn 2,000 pounds a year") or, if they're trying to sell me something, I just tell them to fuck off. (And yes I am in the TPS but sometimes like to fuck with the bastards who ignore the list)
Hell I especially love telling double glazing salespeople to call round then when they show up I just tell them "no I'm not interested, but I just wanted to waste some of YOUR time like you do when you ring me when I'm home on MY time".
Fuck marketers, fuck advertising, fuck all that consumeroid crap.
So no there is no way you can be too paranoid about privacy. Give them an inch and they'll shaft you a mile. It is the duty of every sane human being to poison the marketroid database with false values. At each and every turn fill it with shit.
Souless bastards.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
A lot of problems in this area exist because we let them.
When a business, marketer. rebate processor, loyalty card issuer, or any entity gathering [too much] information uses the phrase "Your Information" they obviously mean "information about you that we own." It is never used to mean YOUR (as in you own it) information.
In the perfect world we would be able to retain control of something of OURS that has value.
"You want my name, address and employer's industry? Fine. I charge a modest $5 for that."
or:
"Since you are no longer my bank, please document that you have deleted MY information from the non-regulatory areas of your database. Thank you."
or:
"Here's the email address you want in order for me to download your drivers. Be advised that it will expire once I've completed the process."
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
Don't see why not, the library can. It's probably a just part of the agreement to rent a P.O. box.
Fuck them...I am not getting anything for free, so neither will they...
If the information is so trivial and useless, why do they collect it?
These were the folks who spread the completely unfounded, and likely illegal, revelation about Microsoft buying Opera. In fact both of these "articles", both completely written to get coverage on Slashdot, were released on the same day.
Kudos to CoolTechZone - Managing to get so much tech coverage of a couple of garbage articles is a monumentous event. Maybe tomorrow you can tell us that the music industry is right, and Oracle is dropping their RDBMS and they're going to be a MSSQL reseller.
Cooltechzone's Gundeep Hora ends his article entitiled "Are we too Paranoid about Privacy?" with a telling sentence: "Maybe I'm missing something here, but this situation makes me believe that maybe we are being too paranoid about privacy in some cases."
What Mr. Hora is missing is an understanding of what privacy means. Sure he throws out a vapid definition of privacy from dictionary.com and a general statement of what privacy means from wikipedia. His poor definition of privacy leads to a bad conclusion.
Privacy includes a right to seclusion, the right to keep your name, likeness and identity to yourself unless you concent, the right to not be defamed, the right to do what you will in your home, and the right to make autonomous decisions about your body and person. Thus, privacy is the right of individuals and organizations to control the collection, storage, and dissemination of information about themselves.
Traditionally, when you buy something at the store, all you do is hand the merchant your money. You don't sit around and tell the store owner where you live, how much you make each year, and what you do for a living. That information is my business. It's private. I don't go around telling strangers how much money I make each year.
So, if I walk into a store, buy an item that is on sale with a rebate...and then I find out when I go home that I have to supply additional information, beyond my mailing address, to get the rebate check, I get pissed. Why? Because I was tricked. I made a deal with the store - I'll pay you $50 for this, if I get a $10 rebate. I did not bargain to give away my private information.
So how far is too far? When the government circumvents legal processes, such as obtaining warrents for searches. When corporations blackmail you into providing confidential information about yourself. When companies trade your private information with out your permission for a profit.
Can you be too paranoid? Absolutely. No tin-foil hat here. But I regularly opt-out of lots of stuff to keep my personal information private.
If my grocer wants to serve me better, he will do so by respecting my privacy and not gouging me for trying to keep information about myself private.
It is unethical, immoral, and should be illegal for companies to study their customers. Companies need to study themselves, not their customers.
In an ideal world, every purchase would be performed through an anonymous cash transaction, with the anonymity able to broken only by the government under appropriate court order for the rare instance when needed (for example, persons who purchased ammonium nitrate right before a bombing).
Otherwise, it's nobody's business, ever, anywhere, anytime, what another person buys.
By stopping their stupid card programs, grocers will be better serving their customers. That's so obvious, but somehow you can't grasp that simple fact.
All I can imagine is you must work for a grocer and your income must somehow depend on data mining for you to otherwise inexplicably applaud this revolting intrusive practice.
Incorrect, In fact California is the state which originated the case that went to the supreme court who decided that Americans never have to show ID to just walk doen the street. This is a seperate set of circumstances from any situations where a person has been stopped for commiting a crime or upon citation for any civil infraction, (such as riding a bicycle on the wrong side of a street) which in Californaia is sufficient justification for custodial arrest.
Very well I might add.
Are _you_ not in the US? Because legislation made it legal to call cells years ago. Thats why they also legislated the cellphone do-not-call list. Get with the times.
~Just thought I'd mention I'm an out of state student at Georgia Tech, and that your basement comment was not necessary. Why the hostility all of a sudden? I doubt you can truthfully say you're at such a good school....and anyhow, you have a problem going to your mail box? I spose it would be difficult, having to go outside and all. Sounds like _you_ are the one living in somebody's (or company's) basement. You really should get out more.
But (honestly), how many advertising phone calls have you received on your cell? I can count mine on one hand, and those were because I gave out my cell to a company who gave it to one associate. I've not been very inconvenienced.
As for your last comment, the sysadmin view hadn't occured to me. I can see that could easily be a big problem. But one thing: shouldn't we be at least somewhat thankful for this? If it always requires maintenance, then we can be sure we'll always have a job. Now this is a lousy excuse for saying it (spamming) is ok, but I'd say its helping more people than its truly hurting. Deleting spam isn't nearly as bad as not having a job. Just a thought.
A tad cynical, but I noticed the same thing (their other recent news had that Opera thing). Ridiculous.
1. Sign up with your proper ID and give them current address (if you want to). 2. Move to another address. Never notify the store of your move. 3. Change your phone number after you sign up. 4. Never use a card, just give them the original phone numebr you used to sign up in the step 1. Extra steps: 5. Share the phone number you used in the step 1 with your family, friends, and co-workers. They'll all get the discount and the poor sob(s) who lives in the address, and those who might get your old recycled phone number, will get all the junk mail and telemarketing harrasment calls, that was given in the step one. Let them complain to the company and tell them to stop pestering them. Some enhancements: E1. For step one, use your correct ID, or a fake ID if you have one, but give them totally fictious address and phone number. If this does not work, then revert back to non-enhanced step 1. Anyone got any better ideas?
Now tell me, do you think most sysadmins enjoy maintaining the filters? Personnally, I don't. Or do they do it because they have to to stay sane? Personnaly, I do. Don't you think the money used to maintain those filters couldn't be used for better things? Or that the money saved on paying those sysadmin could reduce the cost of your Internet connection?
You are either selfish or you fell for the broken window fallacy: hire half the population to be spammers and hire the other half to be sysadmins. Result: no more unemployement in the world.
There is always a cost at fixing something bad. If it was good by itself, it would be done even without the bad thing happening