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An Epidemic of Snooping
Travoltus writes "Privacy advocates are frequently confronted with the rhetorical question, 'If you don't have anything to hide, you don't have a good reason to worry about losing your privacy, right?' This AP story uncovers a vast, distributed, decentralized epidemic of snooping into databases of personal information by workers at major utilities, the IRS, and other large organizations. In a number of cases these incidents have led to real harm. One striking example involves now ex-Mayor of Milwaukee Marvin Pratt, who had a pattern of being late paying his heating bills. This fact was leaked to the media by a utility worker and may have led to Pratt's losing a bid for re-election. As one can imagine, the harm becomes much greater when this same snooping is done by Government officials to deal with political enemies, or by corporations to uncover whistleblowers."
How's this for an answer:
I do have stuff to hide. It's just not illegal stuff.
A co-workers once made the same statement to me regarding warrantless wiretapping -- why hide anything if you are not guilty. The response is simple:
- Do you have a daughter?
- Would you mind preparing a binder with photos of her, along with all her diary entries, emails and phone conversations and sending a copy to every police officer in the city?
This will shut up most people. -----------
/. Mathematics:
+1 Insightful for encouraging killing of Muslims
-1 Troll for Muslims responding to such messages
I knew a girl who had a cop look up her name and address from her car's plate just to flirt with her. She was a bit freaked out by it.
Table-ized A.I.
Who the hell is going to believe that he lost his bid for re-election because he was frequently delinquent in paying his utility bills?
Bear in mind that we live in a nation that's over nine trillion dollars in debt. Whoever believes horseshit like the above has no sense of scale.
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell.
Why must evil corporations go out of their way to violate the privacy of others? I would never do such a thing. Now excuse me, for I have some other things to do today, such as this and this. Oh, and I have a date tonight and I want to get to know her. I even picked the movie!
What I like to do to those "If you have nothing to hide" people is tell them the truth. I make sure to tell them about all of the weird fetishes I wank off to, my thoughts on the whole "don't eat your own boogers" conspiracy, and whatever twisted thoughts are going through my mind at the moment.
My right to privacy isn't for my sake, it is for everyone else. Their fragile minds can't handle the onslaught of awkwardness I bring down upon them.
"Everyone poops, but it takes a special person to do it in public."
(Dunno where I read it.)
First, things that are legal are not always socially acceptable. Your weekend bar escapades and porn habits are probably quite legal, but it may not be in your best interests for the outside world to know about your attraction to midget transvestites.
Secondly, and more importantly, things that are legal and/or acceptable now might not be in the future. Look at drug use, for example. There was no point in hiding it back in the 70's, because "everybody did it", and now it's coming back to haunt people (like politicians). People shouldn't be scrutinized because they have the brains to foresee that stuff they're doing today might bite them in the ass later.You don't have to give them the keys. Then again, they don't have to let you in the country. And if they do let you in, they'll probably never give the laptop back.
In any event, I read one article about a girl who did give them everything they wanted. This was years ago and she never got her laptop back anyway...
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
I'm pretty sure the video my girlfriend made of me chasing her around the apartment dressed as Captain Cocktastic doesn't actually violate any laws (There's nothing on the books in Canada about good taste as far as I know).
On the other hand, I doubt whether having it posted on the internet would help my political career all that much, if I had one. Unless I was running in Toronto/Rosedale, of course.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
... again and again and again and ...
I'm always amazed just how often this and other nonsense comes up. Then I remember that today's people have attention spans of chronically depressed Lemmings and it all comes rushing back... along with that deep sickening sinking feeling.
At any rate, here's a good essay (found it linked to on Schneier's blog) that destroys the argument:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565
Just used it on my parents a couple days ago. Spread it around!
The reason privacy safeguards need to be in place is because the people working at the IRS and other organizations are just regular people too. They are not "better" at handling power than anyone else.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Mind if I follow you into the bathroom?
Some years ago, I had a very strange medical problem. A very severe auto-immune response. The doctors ran through the gamut. Rheumatoid Arthritis, Rheumatic fever, Lupus, Lyme's Disease, Lymphoma, Steve Johnson syndrome, eventually long shots, like HIV, advanced STDs. Nothing, nadda, zilch.
Eventually it was concluded it was a rare allergic reaction, just the right combination of things.
Well, about 3 weeks after the hospitalization, guess what comes in the mail?, a big splashy vivid orange package for fucking Rituxan (a lymphoma/arthritis medication). Is that any of my neighbors fucking business? No it's not.
A far more insidious (in my book) example. I racked up some debt taking care of my mother when she was dying. Anyway, for Valentine's, I send my girlfriend flowers at her work. Three days later, guess what? Creditors calling her work, asking for my girlfriend, and asking about my whereabouts. When asked how they got this number, they replied "We heard you were dating".
Outside of that one credit card transaction, there was no other paper trail connection to us otherwise, anywhere on earth. It's obvious they used the records to call her and harass her at work. That's not fucking right.
Now let's extrapolate that. Let's say I was a married or taken man, and that was not my wife? Would they have the right to potentially destroy a family or otherwise cause such destruction in someone's life?
Sure, some people will say, they would be getting what they deserved, but it misses the point, I'm of the mind that if business is allowed to get that personal, then it's a two way street, including grievous, personal harm in return.
On this subject, this was posted last summer, so some of you probably read it. Quite worth the read though, it makes valid points.
"I have nothing to hide" and other misunderstandings of privacy
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/10/2054219
No wit here.
I'm an Oracle DBA and from what I've seen sometimes people don't even know they're breaking the law. The worst case of data theft without people knowing is when they take an export of production data to development for testing. You're not allowed to do that! I've seen organisations not even know what data they have or that it should be audited. And when it was audited the level of auditing was totally insufficient. Mainly because some clown set it up and didn't understand the requirements from management, or management let some clown set it up and didn't understand the requirements themselves but were glad to hear "it has auditing enabled".
I hope this doesn't come across the wrong way but since alot of companies have been outsourcing their systems to India data theft has increased (google for 'inda data theft'). for example - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/05/india_exposed/
Heh, I saw someone on the Oracle forums post a question, "how do I take an export of Production to import to my home PC" and judging by the name... and he even mentioned he's allowed?!
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=2289794�
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
Nobody likes a Nerd, or to be proved wrong. You put them in the position of being proved wrong by a nerd. Surprised they aren't happy? (Written by a nerd who has come to learn that that a discussion on quantum randomness and free-will is not what everyone looks for on a first date!)
One case in point that I often beat to death (among those who know me, of course!) is the case in California, where "Megan's Law" resulted in quite a few gays being put on the list because they were considered "sexual offenders" by an earlier set of laws, and their names remained in files sitting around in the office of the bureaucrats for years.
Do we all have stuff to hide? Yes! But what is wrong with that? Just because we have stuff to hide doesn't mean that it's "illegal" -- just that we don't want the entire world knowing about it as all. People tend to judge you on the basis of their own morality, and their own expectations. If you happen to simply not "fit in", you could be harassed by the very private information on yourself were it to be exposed.
So the whole sneaky argument of "do you have anything to hide" becomes a semantic one, one in which we all
privately answer "yes" to, but because of the implication we are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Even the very question is in and of itself an invasion into our privacy. That very question turns privacy upside down and invites further inquiry. Instead, the question should be answered with a question -- the same question -- thrown back at the person asking it. And if said person says "no", then start asking that person really private questions and see how they respond. Questions like, "do you do cunninglingus with your wife" or similar. That act, by the way, is still considered illegal in some states!
So, the truth is, if you are human at all, you have something to hide. That is nothing to be ashamed of. There is nothing wrong with that. Privacy, by its very definition, is all about "hiding" details of your life you don't wish the world to know -- and of course, is nobody's business, anyway.
So, really, the question is really saying "Do you have anything to be private about", and nearly everyone of course will answer "yes" to that. If you have something you wish to keep private, then you have something you wish to keep hidden. Period.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
I note that the summary feels the need to mention the IRS, even though the IRS had only a brief paragraph in the article saying they had taken action against some snoopers. Some things you should know about the situation at the IRS:
The IRS was misused by Richard Nixon. Congress responded with certain privacy protections aimed right at the agency. As a reslut, for the last 30 years or so the IRS has been better than most places when it comes to snooping. Not perfect, but generally ahead of the curve.
25-30 years ago, when online data was just becoming ubiquitous within the agency but auditing protocols were laughable, snooping was more common. Nowadays, things have swung the other direction. Some, particularly the Union, would say too far. Currently, if you work at a Taxpayer Assistance Center helping the public, it's entirely possible that an investigation will be triggered when you assist someone (a complete stranger to you) who, it turns out, happens to live in your apartment block or your subdivision (along with a few thousand other people). The data mining that goes on, matching people's database accesses with any possible connection with their lives, is thorough to the point of ridiculousness. I have no doubt that the majority of people at the IRS who snoop get caught. I would not be surprised if the 219 disciplinary actions referred to in the article were 99%-plus of the perpetrators in the reported time period.
And the penalties are *harsh*. Disciplinary actions are taken for inadverdent accesses. Deliberate accesses get you fired. Flagrant deliberate accesses result in jail time. Yes, jail time. I've seen employees hauled out in handcuffs for this stuff. (I've also seen a flagrantly deliberate access case that resulted in jail time that was a total miscarriage of justice. The perp was previously a rising star as an Officer. She was a wonderful young woman. Then, she had a major stroke and lay on the floor of her apartment for three days over a weekend before she was found. Afterwards, her mental capacity was severely reduced and she could no longer do the Officer job, so she was moved to a support position. The organization really tried to keep her employed so she could keep her health insurance. People really went out on a limb for her, even though if you knew her before and after, you could have easily concluded that she should have left the Agency on a disability retirement. Given her reduced mental abilities, it just didn't click in her mind that it was a serious violation of the law to look up the tax records of every one of her coworkers so she could compile a list of their birthdays so she could plan parties. She was that far gone. When she was prosecuted, her lawyer was strictly forbidden by her family from using any sort of diminished capacity defense. They were too embarrassed that their superstar child had become...well...what she had become. They preferred she go to prison rather being forced to publicly admit they had a less-than-perfect daughter. So she went to prison for a while, lost any shot at a disability pension, and God only knows whatever became of her. It was rumored that her parents took her back to Korea but I never found out for sure.)
Finally, why the big increase in incidents? Simple. Up until about 7 years ago, the IRS was a very convenient political punching bag. Politicos loved to cut funding to the IRS because that always played well with the constituency. As a result, the agency hired damn near nobody for about 15 years, from the mid-1980s to about 2000. Recently, though, we've started hiring in droves. The newbies, who don't yet appreciate the culture and public service mission of the agency, are doing things they figure no one will care about. They're getting caught. That's a good thing.
219 disciplinary actions out of about 100,000 employees is, in the real world, pretty damn good.
Yes, I work for the IRS. No, this is not official communication; it represents my personal feelings only.