Did We Lose the Privacy War?

eihab writes "I've been a fanatic about my online privacy for the last few years. I've been using NoScript and blocking Google Analytics, disabling third-party cookies, encrypting IM and doing everything in my power to keep data-miners at bay. Recently, I've been feeling like I'm just doing too much and still losing! No matter what I do, I know that there's a weak link somewhere, be it my ISP, Flash cookies, etc. I've recently gotten AT&T U-Verse, who, according to their privacy statement, will be monitoring my TV watching habits for advertisement purposes. I'm extremely annoyed by that, yet I love the service so much and I don't think I can cancel it. I just can't take this anymore. I have nothing to hide, but I do not want to be profiled and become member #5534289 in a database somewhere that records everything I do. I know I'm not that interesting to anyone, but the idea of someone being able to pull up everything about me with a simple SQL SELECT statement and a couple of JOINS makes me cringe. One of the reasons I hate data mining is that data security is not understood and almost non-existent at a lot of places. Case in point: I changed my life insurance two years ago, and the medical firm that conducted my health screening was broken into and computers with non-encrypted hard drives and patients' data were stolen. That medical firm didn't really need my SSN, but then again neither did AT&T when I signed up for U-Verse. Am I just too paranoid? Is privacy dead? Should I just give up and accept the fact that privacy is not the norm anymore (like Facebook's founder recently said) or should I keep fighting the good fight for my privacy?"

Comments

There was a war?

[mandark1967]

Damn...If it wasn't so private maybe I'd have heard about it and fought...

Re:There was a war?

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn...If it wasn't so private maybe I'd have heard about it and fought...

Is there a "war" we haven't lost lately? We lost the War on Freedom when the terrorists got a standing army posted in all the airports checking all the shampoo bottles for size and taking fingerprints. We lost the War on Human Dignity when it became routine to have one's shoes and underwear snooped in order to travel. We lost the War on Peace of Mind when it became impossible to know if your name didn't match any one of countless badly-kept lists. We lost the War on Accountability when the telco's were given immunity from prosecution when then handed over data to government agencies who didn't have proper authoritzation. We lost the War on Moral Superiority when we stooped to using the same barbaric tactics that we derided our enemies for using. We lost the War on Rule of Law when terrorists stopped being criminals and became Enemy Combatants in an army that exists more as an attitude than an actual country we could invade, bomb the hell out of, and exchange prisoners with.

We lost the War on Innocence when we started routinely prosecuting murderous children as adult murderers, and others as sexual predators for sending pictures over their cellphones. We lost the War on Common Sense when we started sending kids off to jail for sharing aspirin tablets and bringing miniature toy weapons to school. We lost the War on Civility when political discourse degenerated into win-at-all-costs partisan battles fought on the air and in the houses of government where opponents are demonized and the faults of "our team" were defended against all reason. We lost the War on Political Solutions when gridlock became the norm and it was no longer acceptable to repair bad laws over time instead of blocking all legislation - good, bad, and indifferent - at the source. We lost the War on Intelligence when education became standardized tests, scientists were expected to promote or refrain from hindering political agendas and it was more important to be able to "have a beer" with leaders than that they should have enough intellect to lead wisely.

You name it, we lost it.

Re:There was a war?

[masmullin]

That statement is only true for Nuclear War and the Special Olympics.

You insensitive clod!

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I am member #5534289 you insensitive clod!

Re:You insensitive clod!

[Attila Dimedici]

No, you are member #31156320. Keep it straight.

Re:You insensitive clod!

[LMacG]

Would have been better if you'd actually used his slashdot ID instead of the message number, but you get a few points for at least trying to make the obvious joke.

Just call me uh, Clem.

Hobby

[Dan East]

Everyone needs a hobby. If you enjoy playing cloak and dagger, then let that be your hobby. Otherwise invest your time in more worthwhile endeavors.

Re:Hobby

[Algan]

I put virtually no effort into remaining anonymous or hiding my digital footprints, yet oddly enough I've never had the secret police bust down my door, or had any clear reason to believe that my privacy has been violated.

This just means you're an average Joe that makes no attempt to disturb the status quo, has no real power or influence and has nothing anybody in a position of power wants.

Re:Hobby

[bbernard]

"or had any clear reason to believe that my privacy has been violated."

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Your statement seems to be almost the corollary to statements like "If you don't have anything to hide what are you worried about?" I would also suggest that you're not looking at the bigger picture.

"I also happen to believe that anything I do online, by nature of the internet, is public, and accordingly I choose not to put most of the details of my life onto it."

What is preventing your friends from doing that for you? If I have an Android phone, and I have your contact info, along with perhaps your birth date, address, email, an ID picture of you, and some other interesting details in your contact, now I've given that data to Google, haven't I? What contract or understanding do you have with Google to govern how that data is being used and protected?

You surrendered.

[characterZer0]

'm extremely annoyed by that, yet I love the service so much and I don't think I can cancel it.

You are agreeing to give up your privacy. You are not losing - you surrendered.

Re:You surrendered.

[delt0r]

Thanks. Its not like there are not alternative ways to get your media, TV shows, movies or otherwise. The submitter has sold privacy for convenience. Convenience of mere entertainment no less. Privacy is not getting taken away, we are giving it up freely.

Re:You surrendered.

[Shakrai]

You are agreeing to give up your privacy. You are not losing - you surrendered.

Indeed. I like his whining about them not needing his SSN. Then why did you give it to them? Phone and cable service is regulated in most states. I've yet to read state regulations that allow them to deny you service you refuse to fork over the SSN. If they refuse to give you service without the SSN then contact your state regulators and open a case.

I did this here in New York with Verizon and the public service commission compelled them to turn on my service within two business days of my filing a complaint. All they can do is ask you for a deposit -- the law usually requires them to return it to you after a certain number of timely payments (usually a year's worth) have been made.

Re:You surrendered.

[godrik]

As an alien living in this US, I find this SSN situation ridiculous. Everybody is going to say that you should not give your SSN to ANYBODY. Yet everybody is asking for it...

It seems to me that people are schizophrenic about SSN number. Is it a public unique identifier of a tax payer or a secret information ?

Re:You surrendered.

[Znork]

Its not like there are not alternative ways to get your media, TV shows, movies or otherwise.

Indeed. Most 'media providers' on the net certainly don't seem to be asking for SSN...

And in cases where it's hard to avoid some tracking, like social networking sites, just sprinkle freely with sockpuppet identities to screw with the tracking. If you're worried about leakage between browser profiles or users, create virtual machines to run multiple virtual identities. Create your own happy little multiple-personality collective.

Those with the idea that they want to track 'everything' often seem to miss how much crap 'everything' actually contains. And while they can attempt to record as much as they can, they can neither make you tell the truth, nor the whole truth, nor shut you up once you wander off into fantasyland.

And hey, best of all, polluting the data really seems to piss the data mining junkies off.

Re:You surrendered.

[CorporateSuit]

They can use it to check your credit history and decide whether you have to put down a deposit or not. They can also use it to tamper with your credit history, if you stop making payments that you owe them, or if they are simply evil.

Re:You surrendered.

[Wyatt Earp]

The problem with it is, its the only common identification number an American has. Driver's License number formats vary from state to state, with some using SSN, some using all numbers, some using numbers and letters. Its a mess.

Its primary purpose is to track individuals for taxation purpose, until 1986 you didn't get one until you were 14, I got mine in 1986 when I was 13, because of the new law then. The military phased it in as a replacement for the service number too I think.

Some religious groups opt out of getting them entirely. Its one of the schizoid things about the US, invasive privacy attacks by the government, but no uniform database of citizens or national ID.

Re:You surrendered.

[b4dc0d3r]

This is misunderstood a lot. Companies are not allowed to require your SSN for service. They often ask for it, just to be able to track you down if you fail to pay. (alert: USA-centric info follows). The loophole is, most companies are not required to offer service to everyone. So they can refuse to provide service to you without explanation (usually "incomplete application" or something similar), while technically following the law. That's why there's usually no state (or fed) regulation which allows this behaviour specifically.

Semi-related: I recently applied for a membership at Hollywood Video, when I lived 100 feet away from the store. They wouldn't give me a membership without a phone number, because they couldn't call me and tell me my movies were late. I told them it would be more convenient for me to rent there than somewhere else, but if they felt that driving 100 feet to get their movies back was a hardship, I'd take my business somewhere else. It's not required to have a phone number, but since my application was not complete I was denied.

The only workaround is as you said, contact someone and complain. More people need to do this. There are several companies which ask for my SSN and I level-set, look them directly in the eye, and say "You are not an agent of the Social Security administration, therefore you are not allowed to ask for that." They pause for a bit, say "uhhh, ok, I'll just leave that blank," and continue. By stating it that way, there is no question that I know my rights under the law, and they usually aren't prepared to fight it because they don't know the relevant law, being the front-line grunts just following orders. It amuses me.

Of course, recent IRS and anti-terrorism laws have changed this slightly, but it's still a small portion of companies.

http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs10a-SSNFAQ.htm
http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs31-CIP.htm

Partial list of who might legitimately be required to retain SSN:
        * Commercial banks.
        * Agencies and branches of foreign banks in the United States.
        * Thrifts (savings and loan institutions).
        * Credit unions.
        * Private banks.
        * Trust companies.
        * Investment companies.
        * Brokers and dealers in securities.
        * Futures commission merchants.
        * Insurance companies.
        * Travel agents.
        * Pawnbrokers.
        * Dealers in precious metals.
        * Check cashers.
        * Casinos.
        * Telegraph companies.

As always, know your rights. In my opinion, casinos require SSNs for tax enforcement under the guise of covering money laundering. Telegraph companies? Maybe "money by wire" makes sense for tracking financial terrorist support, but if I'm sending a telegraph, they are allowed to ask for my SSN for no apparent reason.

Re:You surrendered.

[XB-70]

Offer to live at other people's homes and pay cash for any and all services. Move monthly. Buy fake ID. Get psychologically weirded out. Commit suicide because you are such a social leper that you have no one to talk to about the latest gossip about the stars.

Re:You surrendered.

[Randle_Revar]

>Is it a public unique identifier of a tax payer or a secret information ?

Both, unfortunately

Re:You surrendered.

[curunir]

The poster's problem is that he's going about protecting his privacy the wrong way. Trying to hide all personal information is a losing proposition, as he's noticed. The best way to protect your privacy is to drown the real bits in a sea of fake information.

If AT&T wants to monitor his viewing habits, write a script that will chose programming at random and switch the U-Verse box to that station while he's not watching it himself. Web analytics and ad servers are equally easy to poison with fake data. The health insurance records are a bit harder, but that's an area where we have more rights and is easier to push for laws that protect privacy.

If enough people did this, data mining would be almost worthless since you couldn't get reliable results. Of course that's a pipe dream, since not enough people have the technical acumen to do this, but those of us who can should be doing our part.

answered your own question

[socsoc]

I'm extremely annoyed by that, yet I love the service so much and I don't think I can cancel it.

Then you answered your own question. If you continue to use the service, you're giving them positive reinforcement that their activities are acceptable.

solution: add noise

[StripedCow]

It seems that the only solution is to add so much noise that data miners will have a really hard time filtering out the real data.

Here is a start.

Inherent privacy is dead.

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Given how interconnected our world is, if you want to participate, you have to do it in public. You have to connect to someone else's machine, hook up to someone else's fiber, talk to someone who you can't immediately trust, and you have to do it in the open.

That is to say, SSL, TOR, NoFlash, NoScript etc, still don't have a place in our lives as geeks. Just, forget privacy.

Besides, I think we live in a world where we have obscurity through density, instead of obscurity through privacy. Billions of people on this earth, nearly a billion of them connected to the 'net. Embrace it. Eventually, if enough personal data gets out there, it may become worthless to mine it due to the sheer volume available.

Re:Inherent privacy is dead.

[PhilHibbs]

So what we have in lieu of privacy is occasional access to anonymity. You can maintain that anonymity for a little more of your life for a little more effort, but maintaining it 24/7 for everything you do is increasingly difficult.

Re:Inherent privacy is dead.

[ShakaUVM]

>>Personal data mining will continue - it will only become more automated.

Mr. Shepard: Our records indicate that you have been dead for the last two years. Have you ever considered looking into Asari burial shrouds? Our burial shrouds are of the finest quality, hand-woven on the Asari homeworld by skilled artisans. You'll appreciate the difference the next time you die!

Re:Inherent privacy is dead.

[Sir_Lewk]

That is to say, SSL, TOR, NoFlash, NoScript etc, still don't have a place in our lives as geeks.

Speak for yourself, not all geeks share your defeatism.

Re:Inherent privacy is dead.

[malloc]

Besides, I think we live in a world where we have obscurity through density, instead of obscurity through privacy. Billions of people on this earth, nearly a billion of them connected to the 'net. Embrace it. Eventually, if enough personal data gets out there, it may become worthless to mine it due to the sheer volume available.

Panopticlick wants to disagree.

That, and "billions" / "sheer volume" are meaningless in the face of computers processing billions of cycles a second. The whole point of data mining is software can find neat correlations and connections that a human never could. You are not hidden in the billion bits of data.

Re:Inherent privacy is dead.

[BlackCreek]

Besides, I think we live in a world where we have obscurity through density, instead of obscurity through privacy. Billions of people on this earth, nearly a billion of them connected to the 'net. Embrace it. Eventually, if enough personal data gets out there, it may become worthless to mine it due to the sheer volume available.

Sure. Until someone uses that to steal your identity, and all of a sudden you will need to prove to N different government, banking and credit institutions that you are not a fraudster.

Re:Inherent privacy is dead.

[CodeBuster]

and you have to do it in the open.

So use a false or constructed identity. This can be done to varying levels of quality and sophistication depending upon how much time and money you are willing to put into it. Will this prevent a determined adversary from penetrating your disguise? No, but it will make it too expensive for most commercial entities to consider and unless they have reason to doubt your credentials then it is likely that they will never see past the deception. This is the sort of basic tradecraft that intelligence agencies have been using for decades (i.e. unofficial cover). Learn the skills and techniques of the intelligence agency if you really want to protect your privacy; the search for good educational resources is left as an exercise for the reader.

Re:Err no

[Anonymous Coward]

Part of the problem is that "they" need to be personally identified. You want to find the root of the problem, not just of privacy but why your (USA) government does not represent you and doesn't give a damn about you? Whose interests it really is serving? Look to the old-money families of the USA. The Rothschilds, the Morgans, the Carnegies, the Rockefellers, the Du Ponts, and the Vanderbilts. Don't hear those names very often? That's because they are not like the politicians. They don't like the limelight. They prefer to fund front groups and are politically active through those.

Do. The. Research. Yourself. Then start to understand the problem.

Just Because You're Paranoid...

[rebmemeR]

Every time you take some action to protect your privacy, someone does a +1 on your suspectability index in their database.

OP, show some backbone

[spyrochaete]

I've recently gotten AT&T U-Verse, who, according to their privacy statement, will be monitoring my TV watching habits for advertisement purposes. I'm extremely annoyed by that, yet I love the service so much and I don't think I can cancel it.

If there is a privacy war it is a war of one. You know the chef is poisoning the soup but you find it too delicious to stop eating.

Cancel your cable. War won.

Get !Prozac.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

This amazing new drug from Pfizer called !Prozac, pronounced Not-Prozac. It has the complete opposite effect on a human body. !Prozac, when ingested by a normal human being, it will trigger multiple-personality-disorder. Now you can use one identity for your normal law-abiding activities without any concern about privacy and data mining etc. Then you can use the other identity for nefarious, criminal and/or shameful activities. Infact the other identify can ingest another dose of !Prozac and create another personality. Recursively! Your criminal personality A does not have to know what your shameful personality B is doing. Just look at the hoops people are willing to jump through just to get prOn!

Good privacy is really difficult

[jgreco]

It's probably a good fight to fight, but remember it'll keep getting harder. I was connected via VPN last night (all IP connectivity except the VPN itself runs over the VPN) from a hotel. Pulled up Google Maps to look up some local destinations. It offered me the option to use Firefox's location services. Curious, I let it, and despite being logged in via VPN, it accurately pulled up my location to within a few hundred feet. Still not exactly sure what it's doing to figure that out, but boy, that's scary...

Re:Good privacy is really difficult

[icebraining]

Firefox uses Google Location Services. From their privacy policy:

If you allow a website to get your location via this service, we will collect, depending on the capabilities of your device, information about the wifi routers closest to you, cell ids of the cell towers closest to you, and the strength of your wifi or cell signal. We use this information to return an estimated location to the Firefox browser and the Firefox browser sends the estimated location to the requesting website. For each request sent to our service, we also collect IP address, user agent information, and unique identifier of your client. We use this information to distinguish requests, not to identify you.

Re:Good privacy is really difficult

[IndustrialComplex]

It offered me the option to use Firefox's location services. Curious, I let it, and despite being logged in via VPN, it accurately pulled up my location to within a few hundred feet. Still not exactly sure what it's doing to figure that out, but boy, that's scary...

I'm not sure why you are surprised. Now, I haven't worked in IP networking for a while, but I don't see how a VPN would have any effect on what you did.

Lets say the termination point for your VPN is a server at your house. IP A.B.C.D
You connect to the Hotel's wifi and get assigned IP W.X.Y.Z

You establish your VPN by whatever means you use. You are now using your home server as a proxy with the data between you and your server encrypted.

Now for standard advertisements which try to 'local' advertise to you (Find deals in YourCity/ZIPCODE), they would likely return results which are based on the location of IP A.B.C.D, your home server.

But when you connected to google maps, and it ASKED you for your location information, this is what I expect happened:

Google: Hey, what is your location information? (Sent to your home server ABCD, encrypted and relayed to you at IP WXYZ)
You: Sure here it is. (Your computer then filled in it's LOCAL, ie hotel, IP address and other information , encrypted at WXYZ, decrypted at ABCD, and sent to google)
Google: Based on the information you sent us, here is the public information regarding the location of that IP address, and we will stick it on a picture of a map for you.

Again, it's been a while since I dealt with VPNs, but there doesn't seem to be anything surprising going on here.

Re:Privacy

[armyofone]

"...don't think that was a problem which the people originally started worrying about what people knew about them were concerned with."

Still trying to parse this. Will get back to you when parsing is completed... ;]

No SELECT is necessary.

[t33jster]

I know I'm not that interesting to anyone, but the idea of someone being able to pull up everything about me with a simple SQL SELECT statement and a couple of JOINS makes me cringe.

Actually, we've written a stored procedure to determine whether or not you're interesting.

EXECUTE IS_INTERESTING(5534289);

Very interesting indeed.

Queueing job "MineSoulskill5534289"

[davidwr]

Creating record "Soulskill5534289"
Set "Slashdot Story Submission alias"="Soulskill"
Set "PrivacyFanatic"=true
Set "UsesNoScript"=true
Set "BlocksGoogleAnalytics"=true
Set "disables3rdPartyCookies"=true
Set "UsesIM"=true
Set "EncryptsIM"=true
Set "blocksFlashCookies"=false
Set "UsesATTUverse"=true
Set "TimeStartedCurrentATTUverseSubscriptionRange"=1/1/2009-2/16/2010
Set "ProbablyReadsPrivacyStatements"=true
Set "LovesATTUverse"=true
Set "EnjoysBeingProfiled"=false
Set "WantsToBeMember5534289"=false
Set "HasInflatedEgo"=false
Set "HadInsuranceRecordsStolenTwoYearsAgo"=true
Set "ChangedLifeInsurance2yearsAgo"=true
Set "AsksSlashdot"=true
Set "MoreNotes"='Ask Slashdot: Did We Lose the Privacy War? on Tuesday February 16, @11:44AM
Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday February 16, @11:44AM
from the no,-now-finish-your-cheerios-and-straighten-your-shirt dept.
background: url(//a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/topicprivacy.gif); width:71px; height:53px; privacy
eihab writes "I've been a fanatic about my online privacy for the last few years. I've been using NoScript and blocking Google Analytics, disabling third-party cookies, encrypting IM and doing everything in my power to keep data-miners at bay. Recently, I've been feeling like I'm just doing too much and still losing! No matter what I do, I know that there's a weak link somewhere, be it my ISP, Flash cookies, etc. I've recently gotten AT&T U-Verse, who, according to their privacy statement, will be monitoring my TV watching habits for advertisement purposes. I'm extremely annoyed by that, yet I love the service so much and I don't think I can cancel it. I just can't take this anymore. I have nothing to hide, but I do not want to be profiled and become member #5534289 in a database somewhere that records everything I do. I know I'm not that interesting to anyone, but the idea of someone being able to pull up everything about me with a simple SQL SELECT statement and a couple of JOINS makes me cringe. One of the reasons I hate data mining is that data security is not understood and almost non-existent at a lot of places. Case in point: I changed my life insurance two years ago, and the medical firm that conducted my health screening was broken into and computers with non-encrypted hard drives and patients' data were stolen. That medical firm didn't really need my SSN, but then again neither did AT&T when I signed up for U-Verse. Am I just too paranoid? Is privacy dead? Should I just give up and accept the fact that privacy is not the norm anymore (like Facebook's founder recently said) or should I keep fighting the good fight for my privacy?"'
Close record.

Create job "MineSoulskill5534289" "Compare record Soulskill5534289 against all known databases".
Queueing job "MineSoulskill5534289". Monitor job queue for job status.

RE: Privacy war

[gad_zuki!]

Thank you for being a loyal AT&T U-verse customer! We have received your email and have created a trouble ticket for you automatically by monitoring your web postings. Please submit both a fresh semen sample and a two day old fecal sample so our customer service reps can verify your information and begin to investigate the issue.

Thank you. AT&T Customer Service.

No, you're confusing what the war is about.

[Coopjust]

It's not the war of privacy- it's the war of privacy vs. convenience.

Facebook lets me keep in touch and aware of what my friends are doing. On the other hand, photos of me doing something that may reflect poorly on myself to an employer or other friends. I have pretty strict privacy settings on Facebook, but the reality is that something bad could easily be associated with my profile and seen by many before I could get it pulled.

On the other hand, if I didn't share quite a bit of personal info on Facebook, I wouldn't even be aware when I was tagged in a photo.

Today, people are accepting convenience at the sacrifice of some privacy. It's nice when I can call up the cable company and have them able to see what services I have, that I'm paying the bill, and the modem has the wrong DOCSIS file. On the other hand, I'm in a database that is easier to access than ever. I accept the sacrifice for convenience when I have to work with the cable company.

Or credit cards. The majority of my purchases are now associated with my SSN in a database. The ability to track my spending and have some degree of purchase security is worth the sacrifice for me, so I choose to use electronic payment.

So did we lose, giving up so much? On one hand, there are plenty of alternatives- I can buy online with a Visa Gift Card, registered to whatever name and address and purchased in cash. I can buy in cash in person. On the other hand, it's virtually impossible NOT to be in a database- even if you were to forego electricity, television, cable, etc., you'd still be in a government tax database. Someone I know got a letter last year saying "an IRS employee with your and a couple million other taxpayer documents, including your taxpayer ID number, full name, and address, lost their laptop. We'll try not to let it happen again. Here's a year of credit monitoring from one of the three bureaus, then you're on your own. Seeya!"

So, yes, to some degree we lost. It's hard to avoid changes that the rest of society is fine with. Living like a hermit in a powerless shack in the woods is still possible, but for the average person, it definitely has been eroded.

Try to skew their stats, if you must...

[mi]

If you can neither accept being the statistics (and you seem to admit, that you can't put together a rational explanation for your aversion), nor avoid it, try screwing them up...

I share the same syndrome as you (although, perhaps, to a lesser degree), so this is, what I do:

• Whenever asked for an address (except when I am expecting to receive something from the asker), I put in 0 Privacy Drive, MyTown, My State, MYZIP . The credit-card verification, in reality, needs only the ZIP-code, so for "billing address" this is enough. And for the vendors knowing my ZIP-code is enough to know, what they need to know for their stats-gathering efforts, but robs them of the ability to mail me their "exciting new specials" later.
• When signing-up for a store "discount card", in addition to the address-trick above (you can use a bogus name too), be sure to either share the same card (the store will give you multiple ones with the same number) with as many relatives/friends as you can. First you (well, the one of you, who gets to the store on the lucky day) will get the bonus-points discounts faster, and second, the stats will be sufficiently skewed by the multiple people and their preferences. This is somewhat bad for the store, so I, instead, just exchange the cards with others. The store still knows, that the same person bought A and B, they just don't know, who that person really was.
• When forced to give out e-mail address online, use the VendorName@yourdomain. If the vendor abuses your trust (such as by automatically adding you to their e-mailing list), you can block that single address. If you don't have your own domain (how come?) you could use yourself+ Vendorname@gmail.com for the same purpose (it is a shame, Yahoo! Mail does not support the sub-address). Unfortunately, many vendors' sites — including highly prominent ones like the Enom-registrar reject the sub-addressing e-mails as "invalid" — the verifying regular expressions must be too complicated for the dumb programmer wannabees, employed by these companies. This is where having your own domain is very useful.
• When asked for personal data in person, ask to explain, why the information is needed. If the clerk says, oh, I just need it for the computer, ask, if it can be avoided, or given later. For example, some companies insist on creating a full record, when you are just asking for a quote... Don't get confrontational — just explain, that you'll give your last name and address, when you pick their bid. If they insist, give the address as described in item 1...

The offensive part.

[Xzzy]

The thing that bugs me about being endlessly monitored and categorized is that it's never used to make my life better. It's only ever done to help some random corporation improve their profits by some fraction of a percentage.

If being tracked watching a TV show for a full season resulted in them going "hey, thanks for being a loyal viewer, have this X as a token of our appreciation", I wouldn't complain so much. It wouldn't necessarily have to be a material bonus, in this day and age they could simply grant access to some kind of insider info website. The possibilities are only limited by imagination.

But no. Everything I do gets dumped into a database and sold to the highest bidder. It serves no purpose but to try and get more money out of my wallet. Or if the government is involved, measure my odds of being a terrorist.

Re:The offensive part.

[jeti]

Achievement "COUCH POTATO" unlocked!

There you go.

Tracking your TV watching is good

[Yossarian45793]

I can understand concerns about privacy when it comes to web browsing, but I don't get the fear about TV watching being tracked. I can't count the number of good TV shows that have been canceled because of bad ratings. Before Tivo existed, every time one of the shows I liked was canceled I wished that the TV network was tracking MY viewing habits instead of the unwashed masses who appear to like reality TV. Ever since I've had Tivo I always record all the shows I like and I'm happy that Tivo is collecting that information. Sometimes I even record and play back reruns (with the TV off) to positively affect the data for the shows I like.

Re:Stop stressing

[Jenming]

don't do stuff that you're going to be ashamed of

This is very good advice. Online and offline. Be proud of your actions and don't be afraid to put your name on them.

I know this isn't possible in all parts of the world. But the real problem in that case isn't lack of privacy.

Yes, privacy is dead.

[aussersterne]

The division between the "public" and the "private" only matters when there is a world of hidden "private" lives (from which the public is excluded) and your public life (with private excluded) has to circulate within and be measured against other public lives (with private excluded).

Once everyone's private becomes public, your own private is no more embarrassing or important than the "private" of most other people.

The same thing applies to thinks like identity theft. The more these things become regarded as "public" rather than private, the more identity theft (a) will happen in volume and (b) will be commonly understood and mitigated through tools and common forms of recourse as a "regular" thing, and others won't hold you nearly so responsible for it.

The reason, in other words, that privacy seems critical is that you assume that you're being marked by and held responsible for everything in your "private" world at a much deeper level than whatever is in your "public" world. Meanwhile, however, the rest of the world continues to increasingly dissolve the "private" into the public, with the inevitable shift that the "private" will be less and less something that people will be marked and/or held responsible for.

Once your boss has a Facebook profile with pictures of their drunken weekend, and friends you with it, your own photos aren't so embarassing.
Once the bank has so much identity theft going on that it's considered a cost of business and made easily reversible, your responsibility for protecting these "identity" records is diminished, as are any consequences of failing to do so.

You've mistaken privacy as an inherent value and end in itself, rather than the means to an end (social success). Increasingly, social success lies along the very opposite path: being as open, public, and omni-visible/trackable as possible.

So hold on to your privacy if you really love it, but realize that society is going to reward you for it less and less, and in fact may even punish you for it relative to much less private others.

What if you are privately gay?

[elucido]

Leviticus 20:13:
"If a man lies with a man...They must be put to death."

If you are gay, and a jew, and you voted for Obama.... it's only a matter of time before the Christians who take Leviticus seriously find out where you live.

Re:What if you are privately gay?

[Bengie]

I found this on the web. Great points to bring up.

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination... End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God's Laws and how to follow them.

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighbouring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of Menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is, my neighbours. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

5. I have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath.Exodus 35:2. Clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination - Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this? Are there 'degrees' of abomination?

7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle- room here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?

9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16.Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

U-verse tip...

[Temkin]

Temkin's u-verse tip... Turn off the TV using the native remote. The box stays on, and continues to stream for hours. It eventually turns off after a timeout of roughly 6 hours. But they can never be certain where I stopped watching. Just adds a little noise to their data.

Re:Err no

[fearlezz]

Most other countries didn't even have a blitzkrieg, people did an Anschluss instead.

Re:Err no

[Ethanol-fueled]

The government did not cause Swine Flu, September 11th, or AIDS.

Maybe not, but they were so opportunistic in exploiting them that they might as well have caused them. They want you to win the war on terror by being afraid.

Privacy is more nuanced than that...

[yar]

Privacy is a nebulous concept, and it's possible that in some cases, we give up privacy, and in others, we don't. It's not necessarily a binary on/off thing that you either have or you don't. I don't believe that people who say that privacy is dead are correct; or if they are, it's a very narrow view of privacy. You still don't have people watching you in the shower, for example. (Hopefully...)

Check out Daniel Solove's work- here's a good start.
"I've got nothing to hide" and other misunderstandings of privacy
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565&rec=1&srcabs=667622

He's got some other interesting articles on the subject there, and some interesting books as well.

There are still things you can fight for to protect privacy, even if you are giving up some facets. You can fight against ubiquitous surveillance, and continue to do the things that you're doing to protect your privacy. You can help make threats to privacy transparent, for example, by supporting groups like EFF.

Re:You aren't fighting properly

[ducomputergeek]

In the US, they want your SSN in order to run a credit check. Want to know where the real privacy problem is: credit. It's virtually everywhere. Want cable, they run a credit check. Go to a new dentist/doctor, they run a credit check. And then try reminding these businesses that by law they have to offer another way around it. By law, the only people you are supposed to give out your SSN to is the government for Social Security and tax purposes. No one else is supposed to have access to it. The credit system is broken and required by just about everyone these days.

Oh, and god forbid you pay cash for everything and live within your means. I have 1 credit card, but I've carried a balance of a few hundred dollars for 3 months out of 10 years. Apparently that doesn't help your credit score. I paid cash for my last car and now drive "company" cars. Company provides my cell phone and cell card and I've always rented. Even then I've tended to pay the lease upfront just so I don't have to bother with it.

Re:Yes you can win the privacy war

[shentino]

What little privacy you DO have can always be taken from you by force.

_ ...or corporations like Google that completely foul up a new feature and accidentally expose everyone's contact list to each other.

Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.

Computers are the weapon...

[mi]

For ages our privacy was protected only by the others' ability to remember. A human being can only remember so many faces and facts about other people (and himself, for that matter)...

Written records reduced the privacy immensely. Computers made the next giant leap. The only thing we can do is legislate, what the computers are allowed to memorize, but those would be merely human (as opposed to physical) laws and have serious limitations. Legal pitfalls will abound — an Evil Corporation may lease a server in a foreign locale to keep your data, for example. WikiLeaks has shown the ways around various attempts to close access to information.

Information wants to be free. Does not it?

Re:privacy is going obsolete

[jemtallon]

I used to be very concerned with privacy and keeping my secrets "safe" from prying eyes. But as I've grown I've come to realize my secrets are very similar to everyone else's secrets and I've just stopped caring about privacy. Privacy really only served to make me more self-important; like I was so special and so different from everyone else that I had to hide. That attitude was so harmful. I can just as easily be unique and proud instead of unique and ashamed.

It's so much work walling parts of our lives off from everyone around us. I'm glad we're working to move past it and just be honest with each other. Wouldn't it be nice if we knew our family and friends, the teller at the bank, the mayors of our towns were being honest? I'm not giving up the war - I'm buying into the solution.

Re:Accept and enjoy!

[ArcherB]

Until you walk by an e-billboard and a loud commercial for some herpes treatment starts up.

That can work two ways. Consider the following:

You finally made it to the magical third date. You have a good idea as to what will happen, but you know she holds the cards. You took special care to clean your undercarriage and wear the underwear that has no holes or stains. You meet her at the restaurant. She is wearing something sexy! You... Are... In!

After a flawless dinner where you managed to not say anything stupid and she laughed at all your jokes, you are walking with her back to your car, hand in hand. You pass by one of the new billboards that recognizes your ID card's chip and gives you the new personal ads. You wonder what add will you get this time; WOW4? Duke Nukem Forever Expansion? XBox720? The new Android V? Nope. It looks like it picked up her card first.

Worried about your genital herpes? Try Herpago and get those bumps GONE!

We had a great evening. What, you think I'm going to let a virus filled pus pockets stop me? It's not like I get this chance very often. I'm a Slashdot user after all.

Re:Losing the war..

[BronsCon]

We're not there QUITE yet, but that's not stopping me from armor plating my walls and installing a drive-thru with a tunnel-and-cart pulley system in my back yard.

You know, to sell the guns, knives, and pipes I've been stocking up on when the time comes.

Are we over using 'war' and question headlines?

[AP31R0N]

Yes. Yes we are.

Re:Accept and enjoy!

[tomhudson]

Well, if only they knew a little *more* about you, they would know that you don't like public evidence of your little problem...

.. and they would use that aversion to coerce you into even quicker action about your "little problem" because they ARE insensitive clods!

Re:Accept and enjoy!

[mcvos]

And if you just buy their product, there won't be any public evidence of your little problem.

Re:Err no

[Red Flayer]

You're being too exclusive in your list of those who wield the real power. It's not just the old money... there's plenty of (relatively) new money there too.

It's not even a small, select list. It's the ultra-wealthy -- same as it has always been. I'm not one to advocate class warfare... but it's an entire socio-economic class on the top reaping the rewards of control of the political system. Don't exclude the Bushes or the Kennedys from your list. Don't exclude the wealthy in the banking and energy industries who are relatively anonymous. It's misleading and harmful to think that the list is limited to a few families with old money -- and it makes you seem like a conspiracy theory moonbat. Far better to "Do. The. Research. Yourself." and discover that it's a wider problem with no easy scapegoats to blame.

are you the tv shows you watch?

[circletimessquare]

so somebody knows all the tv shows you watch. ok, so fucking what?

the question is not that somebody has profiled your viewing habits, but that you consider such effluvia about you to be some sort of vital intrinsic part of your identity, worth protecting, worth fighting for, or worth even caring about

i don't know about you, but when making a list of private facts about my identity, what i watch on tv doesn't even remotely enter the realm of relevancy. and no i'm not some "i don't watch tv" weirdo, i watch a lot of tv

i just don't care if anyone knows what i watch, because i don't particularly consider that information about myself remotely valuable or interesting

Don't borrow money

[Animats]

I get very little junk mail and very few promotional calls. This despite living in a good neighborhood in Silicon Valley.

It may be because I don't have any debt. The big source of personal data is credit-reporting agencies, and since I have nothing but a bank credit card, they don't know much about me. I've obtained a copy of my credit report; they see my bank credit card and my cash bank account only. They have no info about brokerage accounts and mutual funds.

I use a local ISP, Sonic, for DSL. They don't seem to give out any info about their customers. I don't have TV cable. I don't have any "affinity cards", other then a Costco membership. I belong to a few organizations, none of which seem to send junk mail. I have AdBlock and FlashBlock installed in Firefox.

But I make no attempt to hide. My phone number is listed (and on the Do Not Call list). I'm registered to vote. My web sites have valid, non-anonymous WHOIS information. Yet I get almost no targeted advertising.

So I think that much of the targeted information is coming via credit-reporting agencies.

Spend less than you earn, and life will be good to you.

Re:Don't borrow money

[dwye]

> So I think that much of the targeted information is coming via credit-reporting agencies.

Obviously, you also do not respond to charities received in the mail. My family used to do this, occasionally, and my parents are still inundated, even though they stopped responding after my father retired, over a decade ago.

Re:Don't borrow money

[SleazyRidr]

Oh, charities...

When I was a kid I donated $2 to a charity for guide dogs. My parents still receive a letter every year asking if I want to give more money this year. So much for those two bucks, they must've spent several times that by now just writing to me...

Re:Not totally true

[bhtooefr]

Problem is, in the case of AT&T, they're doing a credit check. So, give the wrong SSN, it'll error out, and you don't get service.

So what you are saying is:

[Tired and Emotional]

On the Internet, everyone knows you are a dog.

Obfuscate, prevaricate, and lie

[RandCraw]

You can't hide from Big Brother, but you can confuse the hell out of him.

Do this by behaving inconsistently, in ways that complicate spammeisters from slotting your into a standard bucket.

Leave the TV tuner box set to a channel you hate (e.g. Country Music TV, Fox News, MSNBC, TLC, Family Channel) and then turn off the set. Choose a different odious channel each time. Or choose channels randomly.

Lie on the shopper discount card questionaires. In time, most places will disambiguate you (if you use a credit card), but your misbehavior will probably flag you as a spoil sport who won't be receptive to spam.

Even if this stuff doesn't protect you, it'll make you feel like you're taking arms against being stamped, indexed, briefed, and debriefed.

I sympathize

[KGBear]

But what ticks me off is that corporations are making bucketloads of money from information that belongs to me, at the same time as corporations are doing everything in their power to prevent me from using the information that belongs to them. All I want is some fundamental fairness. Part of the problem is that I cannot purchase some products and services with money alone; I am forced to fork over information in addition to money. On the other hand they make it as hard as possible, sometimes they make it illegal, for me to use products and services I payed for in any way I see fit - you know, as if what I purchased was actually my property. What's more, we have indeed lost this battle when most people here say "it's over - get used to it." It's *my* privacy you're selling for your own convenience, punk!

Re:use SSL

[osgeek]

I voluntarily gave my SSN to my cable company so they could run a credit check to see if I would pay my bills. I guess I should have no expectation that they won't sell that information on the open market.

Maybe if my ISP has the horsepower, they could start decrypting my SSL streams and snoop out my medical history, selling that information to those marketing cures, literature, insurance, etc.

While I'm running this to its logical conclusion... maybe leaving a window in your house unlocked should be a good enough excuse for someone to break in? Maybe a woman's dressing sexy is her just asking to get raped. I just don't buy that "tough shit, anything goes, use SSL or else, barricade yourself in your home" line of reasoning. We should expect better of our society and codify those expectations into laws where possible.

With the power and ubiquity of computers in our society, companies can completely blow away any traditional notions of privacy. Just because they can do something doesn't mean that they should or that it should even be legal.

Sorry, but my stance will always be to fight tooth and nail for freedom and privacy of the individual. There are plenty of malicious, greedy, and stupid forces that act to erode those things. I'll oppose them, tyvm.