This thread is focused on issues related to privacy given recent technological developments, and the social policy response to those developments. The name of the thread refers to the title of a book written by David Brin. The issues we will discuss include:
The Internet
Corporate and government databases of personal information
The proliferation (and shrinking size and costs) of surveillance cameras
Data encryption
Wiretapping, bugging and monitoring of radio communications such as cell phones
Biometric identification systems
Publication on the Web of public information held by the government
Government secrecy and intelligence
In Brin's book, he argues that the participants in this debate today mostly fall into two camps, those who oppose any government role restricting the free flow of (possibly encrypted) information and those who believe the government needs backdoor access to all communication systems to protect honest citizens from terrorists and criminals-and should simultaneously preserve government secrets. Brin suggests we should consider a third point of view. Perhaps we need to think about a society that is open in both directions, that the government, major corporations and individuals should conduct more of their business in the open. Our discussion will try to consider all three possibilities.
2. JayAckroyd - 9/26/1999 9:02:44 AM
In terms of etiquette on the thread, I really prefer people remain civil. Profanity in reinforcing a point is a fine ("export restrictions are fucking crazy", but profanity directed at other people ("BugsBunny is a fucking idiot") doesn't advance the discussion at all. In general, insults don't advance a discussion either, and make it harder to get someone else to see what you're driving at. Of course if they're really funny, that helps, but keep in mind that the standard for humorous insults is quite high on the Mote. Also keep in mind that profanity used infrequently is more effective as a means for emphasizing a point than profanity used routinely.
Regarding how I see my role as thread moderator and the baggage I bring is that I'd like to facilitate a fairly intellectual (or highfalutin-pick your own adjective) tone, and will try to encourage such a tone in my posts. My view of the substance of these matters falls along Brin's. I think the horses are way out of the barn, and that greater transparency will help ordinary citizens more than a state where only the government, large corporations, rich individuals and cryptogeeks have something approach real privacy.
Some references you might find useful besides Brin's book are
Privacy on the Line, by Whitfield Duffy and Susan Landau, a pretty evenhanded academic discussion of these issues from the side of those who favor untrammeled privacy.
Secrecy, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, an analysis of the costs and benefits of government secrecy
Blind Man's Bluff by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew, an account of American spying by submarine
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, fiction set in the near future and WWII, featuring some real life players in the breaking of codes in WWII, and the mindsets of today's crypto-geeks.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
3. JayAckroyd - 9/26/1999 9:08:04 AM
In today's New York Times, Thomas Friedman has written a column called Little Brother.
In it, he points out a central theme we'll see again and again--that there is no way to govern an organization that has no mechanism for governance. If a regime as repressive as the Chinese government can be surprised by a demonstration organized over the internet, what hope does an open society have of setting rules that can be followed?
But that doesn't mean the other things he talks about in the column aren't worrisome. A friend tells him an online directory offered to a do a full background check, including asset holdings, for $59. He loses his room key in a hotel swimming pool. To prove he's who he says he is, the hotel clerk asks him for his two daughters' names, who are not traveling with him.
It's taken a while for corporate databases on personal information to get things right. But they're more and more accurate nowadays, and more and more comprehensive. What can we do about this? Laws restricting behavior won't work, because the behavior is pretty nearly invisible.
4. JayAckroyd - 9/26/1999 9:17:39 AM
One thing Brin writes about a lot in TTS is video surveillance.
He sees a huge opportunity for equitable transparency. Sure, the state can hang up cameras and monitor them, but so can ordinary citizens. Take a community that feels like the cops are messing with them. They can mount web cams to monitor live, or cameras to store images on tape.
Brin asks us to imagine a white cop stopping a young black man in an expensive car, with both equipped with a visible camera videotaping the encounter. He predicts some sarcastic politeness, but better behavior, in such a scenario.
5. JayAckroyd - 9/26/1999 9:21:50 AM
Here's an economist article on this issue from May 1, 1999. It also illustrates another problem--copyright violations like this one are all too easy. I can't link to the article because it's from a paid archive, and all rights are reserved. This is not fair use, either, and I'm gonna delete the post in a day or two. But look how easy it was. And it's a good article.
REMEMBER, they are always watching you. Use cash when you can. Do not give your phone number, social-security number or address, unless you absolutely have to. Do not fill in questionnaires or respond to telemarketers. Demand that credit and data-marketing firms produce all information they have on you, correct errors and remove you from marketing lists. Check your medical records often. If you suspect a government agency has a file on you, demand to see it. Block caller ID on your phone, and keep your number unlisted. Never use electronic toll-booths on roads. Never leave your mobile phone on—your movements can be traced. Do not use store credit or discount cards. If you must use the Internet, encrypt your e-mail, reject all “cookies” and never give your real name when registering at websites. Better still, use somebody else’s computer. At work, assume that calls, voice mail, e-mail and computer use are all monitored.
This sounds like the paranoid ravings of the Unabomber. In fact, it is advice being offered by the more zealous of today’s privacy campaigners. In an increasingly wired world, people are continually creating information about themselves that is recorded and often sold or pooled with information from other sources. The goal of privacy advocates is not extreme. Anyone who took these precautions would merely be seeking a level of privacy available to all 20 years ago. And yet such behaviour now would seem obsessive and paranoid indeed.
6. JayAckroyd - 9/26/1999 9:24:10 AM
That is a clue to how fast things have changed. To try to restore the privacy that was universal in the 1970s is to chase a chimera. Computer technology is developing so rapidly that it is hard to predict how it will be applied. But some trends are unmistakeable. The volume of data recorded about people will continue to expand dramatically (see ) . Disputes about privacy will become more bitter. Attempts to restrain the surveillance society through new laws will intensify. Consumers will pay more for services that offer a privacy pledge. And the market for privacy-protection technology will grow.
A bold prediction: all these efforts to hold back the rising tide of electronic intrusion into privacy will fail. They may offer a brief respite for those determined, whatever the trouble or cost, to protect themselves. But 20 years hence most people will find that the privacy they take for granted today will be just as elusive as the privacy of the 1970s now seems. Some will shrug and say: “Who cares? I have nothing to hide.” But many others will be disturbed by the idea that most of their behaviour leaves a permanent and easily traceable record. People will have to start assuming that they simply have no privacy. This will constitute one of the greatest social changes of modern times.
7. JayAckroyd - 9/26/1999 9:25:06 AM
Maybe it is fair use. It's only an excerpt. In the same issue is a longer analysis piece. Again, I can't link it, but subscribers can check it out.
8. RickNelson - 9/26/1999 9:27:23 AM
Very interesting Jay. A personal anecdote seems apropos. One day in 1997 I decided to investigate a home improvement mortgage. I called a local lendor I've had some experience with, casually explained my interest in the details of the process. I obtained my information and then forgot most of it. Well, I've plenty of reminders now. The last two years I've rececived no less than four to six mortgage proposal/advertisements in my mail per week.
Marketing hawks are the culprits. They've a system of disseminating me to every lendor in the nation. I believe my next ad will come from Hawaii or Alaska. Maybe Puerto Rico. Ha, it's just ridiculous.
9. JayAckroyd - 9/26/1999 9:31:09 AM
Did you know that the way PBS got caught swapping names with republican and democratic mailing lists was through a junk mail path?
See this month's Brill's Content. Their web site seems to be down right now, or I'f post a link.
Mailing list swapping is the least of our worries, however.
10. RickNelson - 9/26/1999 9:35:16 AM
What worries me the most Jay, the identity thieves.
Using our SS#'s to get whatever they can and split. That's got to be one of the average citizens biggest worries. At least right now. I'm getting the drift you've a lot more for us to pay attention to.
11. cdm - 9/26/1999 9:39:57 AM
The Economist makes a lot of content available for free, including at least some of their privacy survey which can be found at:
http://www.economist.com/editorial/freeforall/library/index_special_collection.html
(Too lazy to link it for you; sorry)
The issue of what constitutes fair use of electronic content troubles me. I teach an economics class. I have the right, under fair use criteria, to, copy a newspaper article and distribute it to my class. But it is harder to know if I have the right to place an electronic copy on a class webpage, since in principle it is being distributed to the entire internet community, even if in practice it wouldn't be read (at that site) by anyone except one of my students. Any experts on copyright law here??
12. JayAckroyd - 9/26/1999 9:40:48 AM
The solution to that problem is close at hand. I predict that the computer you buy five years from now will have either a finger print pad or a retina scanner. I predict that POS terminals will, in that same time frame, be likewise equipped. Credit card companies are on the hook for this kind of thing, much more than you are. They have a huge incentive to improve identification procedures, and biometric devices are one way do so.
BTW, can someone tell me more about smart cards in Europe and how they work? And does anyone know what the deal is with this new American Express Blue Card? It looks like a smart card, but the ads are confusing.
13. JayAckroyd - 9/26/1999 9:45:31 AM
Copyright experts wouldn't help much. It's a big problem. Esther Dyaon (founder of release 1.0 and member of the committee trying to figure out how to replace the interenic) has famously said "Copyright is dead."
In this week's New York Magazine, a columnist gets ticked off because he's expected to give a speech at a symposium for free, and pay his own expenses. He's not supposed to make money with his content, but through connections made with other symposium members.
Dyson has predicted this is the direction copyright will go. You'll give away content to sell services. Call it "Grateful Dead marketing."
14. JayAckroyd - 9/26/1999 9:49:11 AM
That's Esther Dyson.
She's also Freeman Dyson's daughter.
Freeman Dysan was (is?) a physicist who had very interesting speculative ideas and once traveled across the country with Richard Feynmann. This trip is recounted in two places, Dyson's Disturbing the Universe and Feynmann's "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynmann"
The comparison of the two accounts of the night they were trapped by a flood in a town that had no room at any inn except the local brothel is pretty amusing.
15. ranheim - 9/26/1999 10:18:38 AM
Jay
What is your take? I have read that the Clinton Administration is 100% against allowing USA corps and/or citizens to use the most advanced encryption systems. The old excuses : "we have to control person/s who launder money" & child pornography.
Is this peculair to the Clinton Admin? Or is this the sentiment of the bureaucracy in Wahington D.C.?
16. JayAckroyd - 9/26/1999 10:20:37 AM
They just backed off on this, within last week. Export restrictions will be dropped. Lemme find a link.....
17. JayAckroyd - 9/26/1999 10:23:40 AM
Here's one:
Press announcement on export restrictions
18. JayAckroyd - 9/26/1999 10:25:14 AM
There are some funny stories in the Duffie/Landau book about attempts to keep programs like Pretty Good Privacy from being exported. There are no restrictions on books, for example, so MIT Press published the source code in hard copy, to make the point that not allowing people to have a cd with the source was silly.
19. JayAckroyd - 9/26/1999 10:26:17 AM
As to the source of administration's opposition, it's the FBI, CIA, and the DEA.
This administration has a very high regard for the government security apparatus, giving in to them fairly routinely.
20. JayAckroyd - 9/26/1999 10:29:32 AM
Here's a more useful link--the press conference associated with the release. Go the eff link I gave in message two for their take on it.
Press briefing
21. ranheim - 9/26/1999 10:30:28 AM
Thanks
22. dusty - 9/26/1999 10:53:27 AM
Jay, glad to see you are starting this discussion. I have been looking forward to it. As I read your opening thoughts, I starting dredging my mind for a relevant anecdote, but before I could recall the details, you recounted it in Post #5
I'm a subscriber to the Economist Online, so I'm never sure what is free and what is not free. But cdm says this is one of the free articles so I will link it:
Must read Economist article on Privacy
This link brings you to the Special collection, not to the privacy article itself. Look for the seventh item, labeled:
The end of privacy
It is well worth reading.
23. JudithAtHome - 9/26/1999 11:11:34 AM
What are Smart Cards...hope this isn't too dumb a question.
24. dusty - 9/26/1999 11:21:46 AM
One of the chilling aspects of the Economist article is the steps you would have to take to get a level of privacy consistent with the early 80's. I have been bothered by the ubiquitous use of the SS# by almost everyone, despite the fact that the number is not supposed to be used for identification. See this if you aren't yet concerned A few months ago, I started an experiment to see what would happen if I stopped giving my SS#.
25. dusty - 9/26/1999 11:22:05 AM
Continued
26. dusty - 9/26/1999 11:24:22 AM
JayAckroyd
There are some funny stories in the Duffie/Landau book about attempts to keep programs like Pretty Good Privacy from being exported.
Did they recount the one about the person who made up a T-shirt with some of the PGP code on it? Wearing the T-shirt outside the country technically was an illegal export of munitions.
27. dusty - 9/26/1999 11:27:50 AM
JayAckroyd Your link in Post 13 doesn't work.
28. dusty - 9/26/1999 11:30:49 AM
American Express Blue
The Blue card has both a traditional magnetic stripe for shopping in stores, but also has a smart chip that will hold personal information like shipping addresses and account data a cardholder can give online merchants in a secure manner.
Source
29. JudithAtHome - 9/26/1999 11:32:49 AM
Dusty:
I can't get your link to come up...
30. dusty - 9/26/1999 11:33:41 AM
Smart Card FAQ Starting with: "What is a smart card?"
Smart card overview
31. dusty - 9/26/1999 11:36:11 AM
JudithAtHome
Which one? I just test my links in 22,24,25 and 28, and they all worked.
32. dusty - 9/26/1999 11:55:56 AM
Here is the Brills Content Article Jay mentioned in Post #9.
33. JudithAtHome - 9/26/1999 12:00:02 PM
Dusty:
#s 28 and 30 don't work for me but #32 does.
34. JayAckroyd - 9/26/1999 11:44:14 PM
Dusty,
thanks for your help.
Would you like to cohost this discussion? You seem interested in the issues, and you and I have disagreed on a number of issues in the past. I think threads will be better if cohosted by people with different points of view. Let me know by email, jay@ackroyd.org.
35. JayAckroyd - 9/26/1999 11:47:05 PM
Thanks for noting the broken link, Judith. I typed it in from memory, which is always a bad idea. Should be www.networksolutions.net.
They are the people who govern US internet addressing.
36. CalGal - 9/26/1999 11:51:25 PM
I don't think there is any way of getting around the connection between Social Security ids and financial records. For one thing, its primary use is as a unique identifier, which reduces the possibility of mistakes in credit reports.
If financial institutions had been prevented from using our SocSec numbers as identifiers, they would have by now figured out some other standard id--which would be demanded instead of the SocSec id. It is that they have the means to identify us that causes the intrusion. And that would have happened one way or the other.
37. JayAckroyd - 9/26/1999 11:56:27 PM
Welcome calgal.
I don't share dusty's apparent concern about the publication of information about him (or me). I don't like the ssno id because it is easy to spoof. It's gonna piss people off who don't want an id card, but corps are gonna insist, in the very near term, that you identify yourself reliably. Up to now, ssno has been the best proxy for a useful id, but some biometric mechanism is on the horizon.
38. CalGal - 9/27/1999 12:08:47 AM
Yes, that's a good word for it--proxy. It's become the defacto identifier. But it really wasn't intended as such, and I'd rather we come up with an identifier that was designed for the job.
Speaking as a consultant who does much of her work through agencies, I'll be happy when I don't have to trip on down to the headhunter's office every time I start a new gig just to show them my passport.
The real object of all this identification is efficiency and knowledge. We benefit a great deal from it. And it can screw us. Yes, it's spooky. But read the list of "don'ts" that were posted a while back. Anyone really want to live like that?
Big business and the government has been out to get us in one way or the other since the beginning of their existence. Over all, I think we're safer from them now than we've been at any other point in history.
39. CoralReef - 9/27/1999 12:09:58 AM
William Safire had an article on this subject recently.
You can read it here
40. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 9:16:28 AM
38
That's Brin's message. He argues that we have a unique opportunity to create a society that's open and free. If we'll set mutual trust as the starting point, we can dramatically increase efficiency and knowledge. If there's a camera on every street corner, and we identify ourselves routinely for each transaction, crime plummets.
But it is scary. Did you know (quoting Duffie/Landau here) that the way they tracked the movements the Oklahoma City bomber was to review the surveillance cameras of all nearby businesses? They fast forwarded until they saw the camera shake caused by the blast, and then reviewed the period of time before the shaking.
that's a good thing, I guess. They caught him. But, Brin might say that this is only good if you're confident there's no risk that the FBI would abuse this kind of surveillance. Given the FBI's history, it might not be so good.
41. pellenilsson - 9/27/1999 9:21:45 AM
A word about personal identification in Sweden, where Government started to keep track of the population in about 1660.It was done by the church until just a few years ago when the tax authorities took over. The phenomenon is known in direct translation as "the population accounts".
Each resident in Sweden has a unique identification number which looks like this:
yymmdd-gnnc
The first six digits are the date of birth. The first after the hyphen indicates the geographical area of the birth, the next two are a running number assigned as per order of birth that particular day, and the last one is a check digit. The running number is odd for males, even for females.
Everything, everything that is registered about you refers to that number. And without it you are a non-person. Foreigners who get a residence permit in Sweden get the gnn digits assigned from a special pool of numbers. And before they get them they are helpless. An English colleague of mine who worked in Stockholm for a year told some amusing stories about that.
So from the gnn it is possible to see that a person is born abroad. On the other hand we don't register ethnic origin which I understand is done in the US.
42. Dantheman - 9/27/1999 10:08:52 AM
JayAckroyd,
Interesting topic for a thread, and one I am looking forward to being a part of. I did not read the title book, but saw some of the same issues in Brin's novel Earth, underlying the causes of the Helvetican War. I find this is an area where the real culprits are not the government, but rather the private sector's trade in person's identity that routinely goes on. Is there any serious attempt to reign this in?
43. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 10:11:00 AM
pelle,
There's no required ethnic ID I know of. The social security card (which i don't actually have anymore) is piece of flimsy 30 pound paper, which is never actually used for anything.
Personally, I like the idea of reliable id cards. Americans who oppose them fear an oppressive government. The solution for that is to make the government smaller. It always strikes me as funny that many of the people who oppose id cards favor a large military presence and an aggressive law enforcement approach.
44. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 10:16:53 AM
You mean "rein" not "reign" btw.
That's a big part of Brin's quarrel with the "Privacy forever" folks--that they are inadvertently providing cover for large corporations who are not committed to transparency or, even, honesty, in their dealings. It's easy to see this as John Perry Barlow (lyricist for the Grateful Dead and an EFF leader) vs Louis Freeh (Director of the FBI). But American Express is a player here too, and not necessarily in ways that private citizens are gonna like.
Brin's ideas for dealing with this aren't terribly practical, although they do make the point. For example, he suggests that if corporations really believe there's no harm in their having personal information about you and me, their board members and senior managers should be perfectly willing to publish the same information on the Web.
45. Bubbaette - 9/27/1999 10:17:04 AM
In Virginia, one's S.S. number is the Driver's liscense number. I've heard that if you know someone's name and SSN, you can find out everything else about them. Our DMV sells it's liscensee data base.
One of the notions that I find chilling is "if you're not doing anything wrong, none of this should bother you". Is it permissible to be law-abiding, minding your own bidness, and still not think that every piece of information about oneself that is on a database should be available to anyone who requests?
46. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 10:22:59 AM
Just why is it chilling, bubbaette? (I know a lot of people feel that way, and I'm wondering what it is that bothers you about it?)
Would it bother you less if it were just as easy for you to check as it is for them? Brin suggests that if we really do get to the point where anyone can find out anything about anybody, we'll worry about it a lot less than we think.
Personally I find the surveillance cameras weirder than anything else. I work with data for a living and am used to dealing with stuff that is confidential (salary information, medical records, client data for lawyers). Like most people who do this, I don't really look at the data itself. It's the processing that we focus on.
47. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 10:27:13 AM
On ssnos, it's not that easy to find things out. Credit bureaus won't release information without your signature. When I deal with a credit card company or our mutual fund company, ssno is the starting point, but some other ID is necessary. This identity theft stuff is only possible if you have more information than ssno.
Again, the problem here is that the ssno is an identifier, but it's not a secure identifier. Anyone can rattle off a number, whether it's hers or not. What I'm curious about is what the world will be like when we do have secure identifiers, through biometric means, like retina prints or finger prints or DNA samples. In that world, all cards would be smart, and would carry your secure identifier on it, in data. You'd prove you're you by providing the physical evidence that matches the data on the card.
48. Bubbaette - 9/27/1999 10:30:10 AM
Jay
Simple example -- suppose I've moved to another state to escape an abusive spouse -- a stalker. If he suspects the state in which I reside, and knows my Soc. Sec. Number, he can easily get my street address from voter registration.
I don't like the idea of the world in general having information at their fingertips about the books I've read, what I bought at the grocery store last month, my medical records, etc. Rather than ask why I object to this info being sold and passed about, why not ask instead why people want it or what right they have to traffic in my personal info? Chances are they want it for marketing purposes. Great! So now I can get more junk mail as a result of businesses swapping bits and pieces of my identity. But their purposes could be more sinister -- discouraging voting by targeted people, for example.
49. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 10:45:53 AM
But what if you have his information and a camera over your door. First time he shows up, you call the cops and give them the internet address of the camera. Off to jail he goes. Moreover, he KNOWs that can happen, so he's less likely to stalk.
I agree that the generation of massive databases that are used by corporation for their own purposes without your knowledge or approval is an important issue. I haven't heard of a good way of dealing with issue. People talk about various laws--like requiring corporations to get positive approval from you rather than requiring you to tell them they can't use the data. I don't see that as effective. It's hard to check to see if they are abiding by such a regulation.
It's more consistent with the transparency idea that the sender report the source of the mailing on any mailing. That's something that can be checked easily, and lets you know who's dealing out your name.
50. Dantheman - 9/27/1999 10:56:56 AM
JayAckroyd,
Your anti-stalking solutions assumes:
1. That the cops can arrive before any damage is done.
2. That the ex-spouse shows up himself and doesn't hire someone to harm the victim.
3. That the person who shows up does not disguise him/herself.
4. That the cameras are perfectly able to recognize or provide identifying information on the assailant (certainly not true with bank surveillance at this time).
As to letting the person know who provided the information, this can only be effective if there is then some compulsion to stop using the information (whether legal or societal). It can also be breached by using clearinghouses or intermediaries to collect and sell the information.
51. Bubbaette - 9/27/1999 11:02:18 AM
And if credit ratings can be released only with my signature, why do I keep receiveing "pre-approved" credit notices in the mail and (this is really frightening) $5,000 checks from credit companies that require only my endorsement?
52. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 11:05:04 AM
I'm assuming identification and threat assessment is done by the viewing victim.
I'm also assuming that there is significant deterrent effect in the assailant's knowledge that the odds are high that he is being surveilled.
This last point is nontrivial. Folks often focus on the severity of punishment as what deters. In fact, it's certainty of punishment. In my neighborhood, on Mondays, Tuesdays Thursdays and Fridays, one side of the street has a no parking restriction for three hours. If you are parked on that side of the street, you get a ticket. It's only $55, but you always get a ticket. The appropriate side of the street are clear. Every day.
53. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 11:09:57 AM
Credit history can only be obtained from reporting bureaus with a signature. But you've given that signature to companies that have issued you credit cards. They can sell your name with more general information than your actual credit history.
54. Bubbaette - 9/27/1999 11:27:57 AM
Jay
The signature I gave to my credit union was for the purpose of membership. I don't recall any disclaimer that they would sell records of their customers' on-time payment. I think it's a misuse of that trust.
Already, most of the goverment databases could be put on line. I think this is an exacerbation of the problem, not a cure.
55. Raskolnikov - 9/27/1999 11:30:43 AM
Interesting thread topic.
I think data encryption hasn't been talked about sufficiently yet. In many ways, encryption moots many privacy arguments. Any transaction or communication that two parties *choose* to keep private, *can* be kept private. So the corporations and criminals that worry transparency advocates already have their privacy almost guaranteed. (of course, some data, like financial statements and tax forms can easily be made public, but internal communications and a "second set of books" can be hidden).
56. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 11:46:43 AM
Yes, encryption, once made easy, will address a lot of concerns. By easy, I mean you supply proof of identity to the software and it encrypts behind the scenes using a public key style program, like Pretty Good Privacy.
But that doesn't address bubaette's concern about a trusted recipient of your information sharing it with a third party without your permission.
57. pellenilsson - 9/27/1999 11:54:56 AM
Jay
Re ethnic ID. I was not clear. I meant to refer to what I think is US practice: to ask about etnic origin at the census. And that gets stored somewhere.
58. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 11:58:21 AM
yes, the census does report on that. And they say they won't use it for anything other than summarization. They lie. According to Duffie/Landau Census data was used in the round up of Japanese citizens for internment.
59. ScottLoar - 9/27/1999 12:10:50 PM
Unless I'm mistaken the ethnic identification is rather selective, limning minorities, and not punitive as the practice seeks to redress "imbalances". So, you could be a recent immigrant Russian Jew but you're white, the same as someone whose ancestors came from England 350 years ago, or you could be a fifth generation haole from Hawaii yet a recent immigrant from Japan or China would be a minority and even considered "local" by local standards.
60. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 12:15:55 PM
It's not supposed to be punitive, and it's purely self identification, so it's not necessarily accurate.
However the census bureau has in the past provided data on individuals, in violation of their promises not to do so.
61. ScottLoar - 9/27/1999 12:19:57 PM
I don't dispute that, but I do maintain census identification as it is now used and constructed in the US seems designed to transfer benefits and not punishments. And I've no doubt the census bureau will continue to provide information on individuals and corporations as other arms of government deem necessary and so demand.
62. ScottLoar - 9/27/1999 12:21:02 PM
By the way, aren't grades at University still posted by listing social security number?
63. ScottLoar - 9/27/1999 12:21:04 PM
By the way, aren't grades at University still posted by listing social security number?
64. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 12:27:47 PM
The census bureau does not , by law, release data on individuals. In fact, they suppress tract (the lowest level they report) data that might reveal personal information.
65. ScottLoar - 9/27/1999 12:30:34 PM
Interesting. Yet as you say in post #60, the census bureau has in the past provided data on individuals, in violation of their promises not to do so.
66. ScottLoar - 9/27/1999 12:32:44 PM
Photo ID cards are common in many, many countries to ensure proper identification, but in the US failing a driver's license we must rely on a photo ID and social security number.
67. ScottLoar - 9/27/1999 12:34:08 PM
The very fact the driver's license carries the social security number implies the social security number is also used for identification as in the military.
68. Bubbaette - 9/27/1999 12:34:11 PM
When I was an undergrad, grades were posted by SSN. Of course, that was long long ago in a place far far away.
69. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 12:41:09 PM
Not where I went to school. Student IDs were distinct from ssno.
70. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 12:44:19 PM
Scott,
My driver's license doesn't carry ssno. It's not a reliable identifier.
71. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 12:45:56 PM
65
Yes. exactly. The FBI wire taps illegally. IRS agents look through tax records for people they know. Ken Starr leaks information. Bill Clinton lies under oath.
All illegal, all practices that happen nonetheless.
72. Bubbaette - 9/27/1999 12:48:30 PM
But as you said earlier, Jay, I think that the cat's out of the bag and there's no putting it back in. Our state legislature passed a bill to prohibit entities from putting together databases to compile info about people that would not be directly available from the database. I don't know how in the world it can be enforced.
73. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 12:55:10 PM
That's the problem. They can pass all the laws they want, but if there's no way to enforce them there's no point. That's part of Brin's point when he argues for transparency rather than regulation.
74. Dusty - 9/27/1999 1:03:15 PM
At the risk of sounding paranoid, I'd like to see if this group can successfully answer a question. I've posed it to many people, most of whom start with the assumption that the answer is obvious, but not a single one can give me an adequate answer.
Shortly after some terrorist incident, the airlines began requiring a photo ID to board a plane. The pretext is that it is a part of their anti-terrorist measures, but I cannot think how it would deter a terrorist. I can, however, think of a reason that airlines want the measure; they can eliminate the practice of people using a discount ticket issued in another person's name.
I challenge anyone to describe a (plausible) scenario in which a potential terrorist is deterred from carrying a bomb onto a plane.
How is this related to privacy? Two ways:
75. ranheim - 9/27/1999 1:22:12 PM
I am very ambivalent about all the information about me (and you) stored in various computer data bases.
I receive so much junk mail that I fill several wastebaskets every week. That doesn't bother me any more. And once in a blue moon, I get a piece of junk mail that I actually open.
What bothers me is that I have the general feeling/impression that lawyers and bureaucrats want all of this information available so that all/most of us have a 'paper trail'. And should we get on a lawyer's or the govt's shit list, we are in big trouble. There are so many rules and regulations that all of us has bent or broken one at some time. And this will haunt you should a government bureaucracy or a lawyer really become horsed.
i.e. "Big Brother" is not watching you (in the present tense). But, he can go back and reconstruct such a high % of the activities of your daily life that it is scary.
Maybe - I hope - that is a fear without foundation.
76. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 3:38:25 PM
The practice of providing ids, and the practice of asking those stupid "Did you pack your own bag?" questions started after flight 800 blew up outside of Long Island. We now believe that there was no terrorist on that flight, whieh makes the rules even sillier.
As you say, dusty, the only reason for the ID check is for airline revenue. If a terrorist wanted to blow up a plane, the simplest thing to do is to buy a ticket for cash, check in bags with bombs in at the outside facility, and go home.
77. cdm - 9/27/1999 3:42:10 PM
Dusty
Like you, I think that the airlines' id requirement is merely designed to help them with their price discrimination. But the privacy issue it raises is real.
78. Raskolnikov - 9/27/1999 3:44:12 PM
The "did you pack your own bag" questions began occuring after the Lockerbie bombing. At least in the airports I have frequented.
79. CalGal - 9/27/1999 3:50:42 PM
The practice of providing ids, and the practice of asking those stupid "Did you pack your own bag?" questions started after flight 800 blew up outside of Long
Island.
Actually, the question was SOP for international flights since well before 800. Paris has been destroying isolated baggage for years now.
The id check has also been around for years; they just hadn't standardized the process. The terrorist scare gave them a venue to enforce it. Since the customer is committing fraud if they aren't the person to whom the ticket is issued, this is a valid check and not a privacy invasion. You implicitly agree to it at the time of purchase.
80. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 3:50:53 PM
Domestically in the US?
81. Dusty - 9/27/1999 3:51:12 PM
JayAckroyd
If a terrorist wanted to blow up a plane, the simplest thing to do is to buy a ticket for cash, check in bags with bombs in at the outside facility, and go home.
That might work in the US (I should know, but I don't), but it wouldn't work in London, as I learned to my advantage.
I was sitting in the passenger's lounge, engaged in reading, and apparently not paying attention to the time. Then I heard my name paged over the intercom, and I hustled down to the gate, to find everyone else on the plane waiting for me. After I got over the embarrassment of making everyone wait for me, I asked why they were so nice to search for me. The answer was that they had packed my bags. They matched baggage checklists against the list of boarded passengers, and there was a mismatch. They won't let a plane take off in that case, and their choices are to find the passenger or remove the baggage. Luckily, for me, it was easier for them to find me than to find my bags. It's the only instance I can think of where I was happy about the idiotic baggage procedures.
82. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 3:54:13 PM
That's right, CalGal. I shoulda been clearer. I meant on domestic flight in the US.
And it's such a joke. I fly the Delta shuttle to Washington pretty frequently. THe easiest way to get a ticket is from a ticket machine. They recently upgraded the machine, and now IT asks me the questions.
Or there was the time I was stuck in line behind a couple of japanese people who answered the questions BACKWARDS. What did the gate attendant do? Told them the right answers!!
Just once, I'd like to see what would happen, around Christmastime, preferably, if everyone told the truth.
83. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 3:57:02 PM
That's right. They do match up bags internationally, and they do scan them. I remember a delayed flight where there had been a bomb scare. They unloaded the bags onto the tarmac and made each of us identify our stuff.
More scanning supposed to be happening here, but they obviously don't want to publicize the fraction scanned.
BTW, if they really do that matching thing, bags wouldn't get lost, would they?
84. Raskolnikov - 9/27/1999 3:59:33 PM
I haven't taken an International flight since 1990. I know I have been asked the "who packed your bags" question on domestic flights taken before TWA 800.
They did start asking for IDs only recently, however.
85. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 4:01:41 PM
They also haven't taken the stickers off the mailboxes, even though they caught the unabomber.
86. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 4:01:56 PM
i stand corrected rask.
87. CalGal - 9/27/1999 4:03:26 PM
As I said--the airline has the right to ask you for your id and always has.
Although I completely agree about the mockery of airline safety. Whenever people say "There is no price limit on safety," I tell them that the price is whatever they paid for that damn ticket, and the squawk that they'll issue when the price increases 300% and the flights drop to 5-10 per day.
88. CalGal - 9/27/1999 4:04:23 PM
The "who packed your bags" thing started in the US after Lockerbie, as Rask said. Although it was inconsistently applied--you saw it most often at the major hubs.
89. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 4:06:22 PM
Yeah, the tickets have always been non-transferable. They just never used to enforce that.
90. Dusty - 9/27/1999 4:06:54 PM
CalGal
Since the customer is committing fraud if they aren't the person to whom the ticket is issued, this is a valid check and not a privacy invasion.
Why is this fraud? Note that I'm not asking for verification that someone has managed to get some such law passed, I'm asking why it should be fraud. If a company sells me a ticket to fly a certain airline from Point A to Point B on a certain date, why should it be fraud if Mary flies instead of Dusty? If I purchase a particular seat in a baseball stadium, it isn't fraud to let someone else use it. If I purchase an ice cream cone at a stand, it isn't fraud to let someone else eat it. Why is it, or more properly, why should it be fraud to use an airline ticket that doesn't have your name on it?
91. Dusty - 9/27/1999 4:09:38 PM
Uhhh, this is rather freaky. While discussing plane bombings, I hear a loud boom, then another one. I look out my window and realize it is cannonfire in the Baltimore Harbor. I don't know anymore details, but I can see the smoke rising from the cannons on a ship in the middle of the harbor.
92. CalGal - 9/27/1999 4:13:15 PM
If a company sells me a ticket to fly a certain airline from Point A to Point B on a certain date, why should it be fraud if Mary flies instead of Dusty?
Different conversation. It has nothing to do with privacy. If you wish me to be gruesome, it has quite a bit to do with the fact that bodies get mangled during crashes, and it is important to know that if the airlines say Person A was on a plane, then dammit--they were on that plane. I can check with my father for further details, if you like.
93. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 4:16:22 PM
I also think it's in the fine print, dusty. that is, you agree to not transfer the ticket when you buy it.
94. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 4:18:23 PM
It DOES have to do with privacy. In order to fly, you give up rights you normally wouldn't, answering personal questions, letting your stuff be searched, restrictions on what you can say and so forth. That's apparently a trade-off most people can live with.
95. CalGal - 9/27/1999 4:19:28 PM
Jay,
Well, yes. I should have said you "explicitly" agree to not transfer the ticket, rather than that you "implicitly" agree to offer identification if asked. Same diff.
Yeah, the tickets have always been non-transferable. They just never used to enforce that.
Actually, that isn't true. It has always been enforced, and pretty well. Even before the crashes, it was common to ask passengers for id. Airline agents also had other attributes they look for that trigger the questions. The fact that most of us aren't asked is merely indication that most of us didn't trigger the questions.
It is actually quite rare for the average person to swap tickets.
96. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 4:21:59 PM
I've flown on other people's tickets more than a few times.
97. CalGal - 9/27/1999 4:23:32 PM
Jay,
You are then pretty much playing the odds that the plane doesn't crash. Because believe me, your death is nothing compared to the havoc you wreaked on that other person's life. Being as they are now officially dead.
98. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 4:24:24 PM
Sure. I don't worry even a little about planes crashing.
99. CalGal - 9/27/1999 4:25:17 PM
In order to fly, you give up rights you normally wouldn't, answering personal questions, letting your stuff be searched, restrictions on what you can say and so forth.
Yes, fair enough. I was addressing the specific requirement of non-transferability, which is not really about privacy, imo, but practicality. The others have to do with safety.
100. CalGal - 9/27/1999 4:29:08 PM
Jay,
I don't worry even a little about planes crashing
I know. But it can happen, and that is most of the reason why the requirement is there, I believe.
Essentially, the airlines used the security scares to close some holes. But I stand by my assertion; I can't remember the numbers but it was quite rare before the id checks for people to use tickets that weren't issued to them. They had random checks that rarely caught anyone, they had plane crash after plane crash where everyone on the plane was who they said they were, and so on.
101. Dusty - 9/27/1999 4:41:54 PM
It's a bit dated, but here is a WIRED article about surveillance cameras.
I'm still forming my thoughts on the use of cameras, and hope this discussion will help. I think the use of cameras in police cars is positive (See Jay's post #4). I'd like to see them used 100%.
My knee-jerk reaction is that I don't want cameras used where there isn't some form of notice, but that may be an onerous restriction.
I'm sympathetic to the idea of transparency in some situations (political contributions), although I'm not yet convinced that transparency is the answer to privacy concerns.
102. Dusty - 9/27/1999 4:44:45 PM
JayAckroyd
I also think it's in the fine print, dusty. that is, you agree to not transfer the ticket when you buy it.
I don't doubt that. I'm wondering whether there is any rational argument for that restriction other than the maximization of airline revenue. (I'll respond to CG separately.)
103. Dusty - 9/27/1999 4:50:20 PM
CalGal
Actually, that isn't true. It has always been enforced, and pretty well. Even before the crashes, it was common to ask passengers for id.
This is simply not true. Do you tend to fly some particular airline that had this rule? Are you extrapolating from international flights? It just isn't true that most passengers were asked for ID before the Lockerbie incident. Even if it is true on 100% of international flights, that still comprises a relatively small proportion of all passenger flights.
104. Dusty - 9/27/1999 4:52:36 PM
JayAckroyd
They also haven't taken the stickers off the mailboxes, even though they caught the unabomber.
What stickers?
105. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 4:55:18 PM
The ones that say not to put anything that weighs more than a pound.
BTW, I think you have to concede that CalGal has offered a sound reason for airlines to ask for ids. It makes the passenger manifests correct, which are pretty useful after a crash.
106. Dusty - 9/27/1999 4:57:33 PM
alGal
If you wish me to be gruesome, it has quite a bit to do with the fact that bodies get mangled during crashes, and it is important to know that if the airlines say Person A was on a plane, then dammit--they were on that plane.
There is a separate procedure for this, although it occurs to me that it isn't used 100%, and I cannot at the moment recall whether it is an international/domestic distinction or something else. I have been asked to provide a phone number, on occasion. When I asked why they wanted a phone number, they didn't want to tell me, but the reason was so that they would have a contact person in the event of an accident. You are allowed to refuse to give a number, I believe. But this procedure doesn't have to be related to the name on the ticket, although I conceded that delinking it may be a logistical problem.
107. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 5:02:02 PM
They're in testing on this contact business.
108. CalGal - 9/27/1999 5:07:28 PM
It just isn't true that most passengers were asked for ID before the Lockerbie incident.
I think you misunderstood me. I probably wasn't clear. The airline has always enforced the requirement that the person identified on the ticket be the person getting on the plane. But before the various explosions, they didn't mandate an identification check. They gave their agents various ways of identifying potential frauds, they had random checks, and so on. The research they did told them that their identification method was solid enough that they were getting a high hit rate without mandating id checks. So they didn't mandate id checks, because the customer resistance would have been extreme. The bombings lowered the resistance enough that they could mandate the id checks and make the enforcement much closer to 100%.
As I said, there is at least one excellent reason for this requirement. Your emergency number provided is just that--an emergency number. That does zip to prove that it's you if there is a crash.
Your next question is, "Well, why can't I sell my ticket to someone else?" In other words, why can't ownership be transferred? There are a variety of answers. Because airlines are public transportation and there might be fifty people who are waiting for that seat. Because they don't want to have the airline equivalent of scalpers. But most of all because if they allow you to transfer ownership, they are either relying on you to do the id check, or they will have to do it anyway. And in that case, it reverts to being public transportation issues--there are other people waiting for that seat. No matter that the airlines are "de-regulated", they are still pretty damn regulated. You might not like that, but it still isn't a privacy invasion.
109. CalGal - 9/27/1999 5:08:00 PM
Correction to my last sentence--it still isn't a needless privacy invasion.
Side issue: I can't think of a single reservation-run business (whether it is hotel, car-rentals, etc) that allow you to easily transfer ownership. In all cases, you have to show id to obtain the resource. Car rentals you have to show insurance, age (which is 25, not 16), and name.
110. Dusty - 9/27/1999 5:08:27 PM
JayAckroyd
BTW, I think you have to concede that CalGal has offered a sound reason for airlines to ask for ids. It makes the passenger manifests correct, which are pretty useful after a crash.
It's the best reason I've heard yet, but I'm not completely satisfied. Let me mull over the alternatives. My knee-jerk reaction is to dislike the misinformation, but I'll concede that it is understandable that the airline doesn't want to explain "Oh, dearie, we just want to know who you are in case you are mangled and burnt beyond recognition".
111. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 5:09:58 PM
I just went to the link in post 24. Why does that scare you, dusty?
112. CalGal - 9/27/1999 5:10:53 PM
Understand that to airlines, the manifest is the Bible. They take it very seriously.
113. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 5:12:59 PM
It's no worse than the "in the event of a water landing" discussion. Unless it's a roll off the runway, it's pretty much body parts left over.
114. Dusty - 9/27/1999 5:13:03 PM
CalGal.
The airline has always enforced the requirement that the person identified on the ticket be the person getting on the plane.
At the risk of overly parsing, random checks that confirm that most people use a ticket in their name isn't exactly "enforcement".
The bombings lowered the resistance enough that they could mandate the id checks and make the enforcement much closer to 100%.
And I don't like the intrusion into privacy, for the purpose of revenue gain, masquerading as security.
115. Dusty - 9/27/1999 5:16:17 PM
JayAckroyd
I haven't read the book yet (where the hell is JJ?). But I gather that one of the themes is that transparency of information is the preferred approach. If you agree with that (I don't think you have said, so I don't want to put words in your mouth), I can see that you would be relatively unconcerned that practically anyone can see virtually all of your financial and health records. I'm still not convinced that this is a good thing.
116. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 5:20:38 PM
I didn't see medical records on that site, and only financial records that could be found were those that were a matter of public record anyway. Is it a bad thing to be able to confirm that someone went through a bankruptcy? How is this different from the laws that require publication of the names of sex offenders?
Brin does say that crooks are among the strongest opponents of transparency.
117. Dusty - 9/27/1999 5:20:58 PM
CalGal
Side issue: I can't think of a single reservation-run business (whether it is hotel, car-rentals, etc) that allow you to easily transfer ownership. In all cases, you have to show id to obtain the resource.
Theatre tickets are a reservation business (partially). By definition, if you reserve something, there has to be a way to ensure that the person making the reservation is initially given the item. But reserve theatre tickets, walk up to the box office, show your ID, pay for them, and hand them to people standing in line, and no one will care. Make a reservation for a hotel room, show up with an ID to get the key, and they will ask you how many keys you want. They not only don't ask who the second key is for, they probably don't want to know.
118. bubbaette - 9/27/1999 5:21:02 PM
The notion of videotapes in places of business doesn't bother me so much. I expect that not only are the videos good for deterrence and for police purposes, I can also understand wanting to keep an eye on the help, since many of the business losses in 7-11 type places are those that walk out the door with the employee.
And although I don't have any children, I'm sympathetic to parents who may want to "keep and eye" on the day care provider from time to time. So if I'm ok with videos for cashiers and day care providers, why not for any employee?
What spooks me are the stories we hear about video cameras in locker-rooms, bathrooms, hotels, etc. How do you know that a camera is in place, and for what purpose. If it's for deterrence, then wouldn't it make sense to call attention to the camera's presence?
119. CalGal - 9/27/1999 5:21:16 PM
Dusty,
At the risk of overly parsing, random checks that confirm that most people use a ticket in their name isn't exactly "enforcement".
I'm not sure if you actually read what I said. It doesn't seem as if you did.
And I don't like the intrusion into privacy, for the purpose of revenue gain, masquerading as security.
You don't know your airline history. These requirements were in place long before the concept of discount tickets existed. You can't transfer a full-fare ticket, either.
120. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 5:26:20 PM
118
Deterring with hidden cameras is interesting. They can't see everything, so you certainly don't want to call attention to the cameras themselves. Perhaps it should be requirement that a notice be posted that there may be cameras in use.
I don't think the locker room cams are placed there by the locker room owners.
I tend to agree--the more cameras, in the more hands, the better. If cops are gonna carry cameras, I think we should also have them in the precinct house, on the web.
However, we're used to a world where there's no record of our purchase of a pornographic magazine at the local 7-11.
121. CalGal - 9/27/1999 5:26:27 PM
Dusty,
Scratch theater tickets--I was only speaking of travel-related things.
As for the hotel room or car: yes, you can give the keys to whoever you want. And when they trash the room or the car, does it work for you to say, "Hey, I wasn't in the room/car at the time?"
No. It does not. You're on the hook. No transfer of ownership.
And I still am thinking you can't transfer ownership of these things. I imagine it has something to do with the regulation, but that's just a guess. It may be possible to transfer ownership and I just don't know the procedures.
122. Dusty - 9/27/1999 5:26:58 PM
JayAckroyd
I agree that health records aren't listed on that site. Do you want to make some of the positive arguments for transparency? I also agree that criminals are some of the most vociferous opponents of transparency, but criminals are also some of the strongest proponents of the Bill of Rights, so I hope you didn't expect us to be in favor of transparency simply because criminals oppose it. (I'm sure you can fill in the Latin name of this false argument.)
123. Dusty - 9/27/1999 5:30:05 PM
CalGal
Scratch theater tickets--I was only speaking of travel-related things.
Looks like back-pedaling to me :)
Car rentals make sense. Younger drivers pose more of a risk to their property, which, essentially is the point of your rebuttal to the hotel room. But I trust you won't argue that airlines are worried about passengers trashing the plane.
124. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 5:30:23 PM
Another running Brin theme is what he calls the century of amateurs. Making available stuff like a precinct-cam or a prison-cam would allow amateurs to monitor activity that would go otherwise unmonitored. Amateurs do things like putting up web sites to discuss privacy issues. They take it on themselves to publish sex offender lists, driver license lookups, property values. He suggests a scenario where a neighborhood in the US makes a deal with a neighborhood in the Punjab, where the residents keep a video window open on their counterpart's neighborhood during their local day. Shazaam!! Free night security. I could mount a web cam in my office, and ask Alistair to keep an eye on while I do the same for him.
125. Dusty - 9/27/1999 5:33:57 PM
CalGal
Understand that to airlines, the manifest is the Bible. They take it very seriously.
I don't believe you. They may take it seriously, but not that seriously. I was recently on a flight where the count of passengers differed from the manifest by one. They shrugged it off, Frankly, I was more unhappy about it than they were. Now, perhaps they were goofing, but I know there are other instance where there has been a mismatch.
126. Dusty - 9/27/1999 5:35:19 PM
CalGal
Let me rephrase that. I don't believe whoever told you that the airlines treat the manifest as the Bible. I hope it wasn't your father.
127. Dusty - 9/27/1999 5:38:16 PM
CalGal
You don't know your airline history. These requirements were in place long before the concept of discount tickets existed. You can't transfer a full-fare ticket, either.
Are you reading what I am writing? I haven't questioned that the airlines have such requirements. I am questioning that they enforced them, and I am questioning the rationale (as compared to what they want you to believe).
128. CalGal - 9/27/1999 5:39:50 PM
Dusty,
No, I wasn't backpedaling. I just hadn't been specific enough in my first post. I was thinking of travel all along.
You are mixing and matching your objections, and I'm not sure if you understand the different issues. I'll restate:
129. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 5:40:00 PM
dusty--
The positive arguments are easy. An open, honest, trusting world is better than a skulking, secretive one. The more openness and honesty there is, the harder things get for the dishonest people. If we don't object to routine monitoring, not by the state, but by everybody, everybody's gonna behave better.
The mote is an example of such an attitude leading to everyone being better off. Each of us who worked on it did so in blind trust that everyone else would do their parts. The people who sent in money to JJ did so in blind trust that he would not violate their desires regarding identity and would try to set this site up.
A world where cops know they're being monitored is a gonna be a world with better cops. If cameras are routinely mounted in homes, breaking and entering becomes a thing of the past, and do faster if those cameras are monitored widely.
The monitoring has to go both ways, though, or it doesn't work. The IRS should monitor employee browsing, especially now that it's illegal, and publish the results periodically. The FBI should report to the people they've tapped that they've been tapped and why.
This doesn't mean that I can't close my door, or encrypt my communications. But when we're in public, if I, and my neighbors, monitor each other, the honest, well meaning majority of us will be more secure.
130. Dusty - 9/27/1999 5:44:33 PM
I don't want to beat this side-subject to death (if it still survives).
My summary: the airline insistence on an ID is an invasion of privacy. There are some legitimate reasons for the request, and some unpublicized reasons for the request, neither of which are related to the purported reason for the request (security). If people cared enough about privacy, the legitimate reasons for the request could be resolved other ways. I suspect that people won't care enough. In my opinion, a cost/benefit review of the ID request does not provide enough benefits to outweigh the privacy intrusion, but I concede many people would reach a different conclusion. However, I would like more people to realize that the purported reason of security is a fraud.
131. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 5:45:00 PM
These positive arguments are placed in the context of a society where official monitoring is growing rapidly. Cops, security guards, keystroke trackers, smart sign in cards, and so forth are mushrooming. The risk is that the intrusion will be one way--that they'll (government and faceless corporations) track our movements and activities in the pursuit of institutional interests that are not our own.
Privacy advocates want to stop this by empowering the individual to keep more secrets.
Brin says to be careful what you wish for. But he also says that it may be too late to get to the point where individuals can keep secrets. If that's the case, greater openness may be our only hope.
132. Dusty - 9/27/1999 5:47:24 PM
bubbaette
Your post makes sense to me. There are lots of places that it makes sense to have cameras. To the extent that they are for deterrence, as opposed to detection, they should be announced.
Are there any exceptions to this reasonable rule?
133. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 5:53:56 PM
Here's a piece by Brin
http://kspace.com/KM/spot.sys/Brin/pages/piece1.html
discussing some of these issues. I'm afraid there are some tangents in there for our purposes. If you search down to this string: "ALL of the anecdotes I've just mentioned" you'll see some more relevant material.
134. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 5:55:57 PM
And here's an excerpt:
Soon, that fellow who laughed as he rudely cut you off on the freeway won't be able to hide behind a shield of anonymity anymore. The kid who swipes an apple from a shouting fruit vendor can expect to get a phone call on his wrist phone before he runs more than a block away. Would-be burglars will have to be awfully clever, when cheap video cameras in any home can be automatically linked to the police, in real time....
In the village, it wasn't fear of retribution that kept you from behaving rudely, callously toward your neighbors; it was the sure knowledge that someone would tell your mother, and bring shame to your family. Tomorrow, when any citizen has access to the universal database to come, our "village" will include millions, and nobody's mom will be more than a fax call away.
I reiterate; it's over. It was fun while it lasted, living on these city streets amid countless, numberless fellow beings, not knowing any of them at all. It was also lonely. Today, you read about old folks found dead in their apartments, months, even years after anyone had last seen them alive. That won't happen anymore when the village returns. Busybodies will gossip, but you'll be able to leave your doors unlocked. Everyone will know how much you paid for your nose job, and what videos you rent; but you and your kids will have friends in every part of the world, whom you met through shared interests on the Net. And when you travel, those friends will pick you up at the airport with wide open arms, even though you never laid eyes on them before in your life.
Perhaps, after all is said and done, most of us will even decide that it's better that way. Better to know our neighbors (in their multitudes) than to live a fiction, a lie, of splendid, lonely isolation.
As if we're going to have the slightest choice in the matter.
135. Dusty - 9/27/1999 6:02:06 PM
Brin Link
mentioned in Jay's post.
136. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 6:06:59 PM
Thanks Dusty, for cleaning up after my laziness. I've gotten hooked on the notetab thing that someone else recommended.
137. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 6:07:09 PM
And don't have it on this machine.
138. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 6:17:32 PM
Another background search service
This one popped up after I tried to do an email lookup on yahoo. It essentially provides background checks for the masses.
That's an important distinction. I've had background checks run on me, before doing work for a bank that involved their most valued customers, and when working on database software for a guy's private art collection. Those folks could run background checks ten years ago. These take place without your permission; I only discovered recently that one was done wrt the art collections.
So there was no real privacy here. The ability to check public records has always been available to those who knew how or could afford it. Does democratizing it change it? If so. why?
This is a trick question; the supreme court has already expressed an opinion on a similar issue.
139. JayAckroyd - 9/27/1999 6:43:06 PM
Shoulda done more homework before I started this.
Here's chapter 1 of The Transparent Society.
I should have mentioned earlier that the book is a bit of a mess. It's not really a straightforward or entirely coherent. It jumps around, and offers multiple points of view on some issues. His attitude is more oriented to getting you to think about these issues than it is toward persuading you a particular course is correct.
140. ChristinO - 9/27/1999 7:26:32 PM
Jay,
The link in 138 looks like a link to the Mote Main Page. Am I crazy?
141. ranheim - 9/27/1999 7:37:57 PM
I get an error message on that link mentioned by ChristinO
142. Dusty - 9/27/1999 8:20:43 PM
Yes, there is an error in that link.
143. Dusty - 9/27/1999 8:46:42 PM
I just read the first chapter of the book. (linked in 139)
I'll urge, as strongly as possible, that everyone at least read that chapter. There's lots to praise and lots to criticize, but above all, lots to discuss.
144. JayAckroyd - 9/28/1999 7:08:46 AM
Sorry about the bad link. I'll try to recreate it later.
145. JayAckroyd - 9/28/1999 7:15:45 AM
Another background checker
Here it is, I hope.
146. JayAckroyd - 10/4/1999 11:16:01 AM
Crytponomicon, by Neal Stephenson is a hilarious book set in two moments in time, World War II, with a haiku-spouting marine filled with derring-do and international chess games between code makers and code breakers, including master of cryptoplogy and father of computing Alan Turing.
The second moment in time is today plus some epsilon (smidgen to you non-mathematicians). Our heroes are cryptogeeks who are involved with setting up a replacement for the role that the Bank of New York has been playing recently--a place to keep money without anyone asking intrusive questions about where it came from.
The book has it all--ciphers and codes, a hot babe, a couple of hotter laptops, hidden treasure, submarines, and even a little of perl.
Have you read it? If you did, what was your favorite Shaftoe haiku?
If not, what are you waiting for?
147. CalGal - 10/4/1999 12:55:50 PM
I've got it on order. Did you like it more or less than Snow Crash and Zodiac?
148. JayAckroyd - 10/4/1999 1:09:55 PM
Number 1 on my Stephenson list. It's really funny--laughing out loud on an airplane annoyed a seatmate. And it really conveys the paranoia of crypto culture. I couldn't stop thinking of Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow while I was reading it. But it's less over the top, more accessible and just as funny.
Caveat: Hardcover only now.
BTW, I really liked his first collaboration with his uncle, as Stephen Bury, in a book called The Interface .
149. JayAckroyd - 10/4/1999 1:16:21 PM
Number 1 on my Stephenson list. It's really funny--laughing out loud on an airplane annoyed a seatmate. And it really conveys the paranoia of crypto culture. I couldn't stop thinking of Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow while I was reading it. But it's less over the top, more accessible and just as funny.
Caveat: Hardcover only now.
BTW, I really liked his first collaboration with his uncle, as Stephen Bury, in a book called The Interface .
150. CalGal - 10/4/1999 1:22:07 PM
Jay--I think he writes better as Bury. His uncle is a better closer than he is. I enjoyed Cobweb a great deal, too.
And I only buy hardcovers, as a general rule. Have you read Tad Williams' newest series?
151. JayAckroyd - 10/4/1999 1:43:36 PM
I didn't like cobweb.
Don't know Tad Williams.
152. CalGal - 10/4/1999 1:49:48 PM
You didn't like Cobweb? I enjoyed it. Very nice change of pace.
The major weakness of Interface was the woman who went from homeless to President in a few short months. I found her politics tedious, although her righteous rages were fun to read. Cobweb didn't have a serious flaw, so it holds up better. I enjoyed the hero, as well as the nice switch of the wife going off to war.
Tad Williams' new series is Otherland? The third one is out now. They are loooooong books, but good stuff.
Nicola Griffith?
153. JayAckroyd - 10/4/1999 2:19:09 PM
No Nicola.
Williams, what sub genre?
154. CalGal - 10/4/1999 3:19:10 PM
Williams--his first trilogy (The Dragonbone Chair) was straightforward fantasy. This one is nominally in the cyberspace-VR subgenre, but I think by this point the concept can be used as a backdrop without being defined by it. Otherland website.
Nicola Griffith won the Nebula a couple years ago for Slow River.
155. JayAckroyd - 10/4/1999 5:06:43 PM
Just shows that I'm not a Fan.
156. CalGal - 10/4/1999 5:50:46 PM
Well, I have a friend who is a sci-fi writer, and I've met many of the writers in the Seattle community-- Greg Bear, Nicola Griffith,Julian May, Vonda McIntyre, Lucius Shepard, Kelley Eskridge, Joanna Russ, the list goes on. I also know Tad Williams slightly--he used to live in Redwood City (my home town), until he dumped his wife for the editor of the British edition of The Dragonbone Chair series.
Anyway, I tend to follow the awards and such more closely than most, since I know more of them.
157. dusty - 10/4/1999 9:13:30 PM
I enjoyed reading the first chapter of The Transparent Society, but I confess to being taken aback when I read, "After initial experiments garnered widespread public approval, the City of Baltimore put police cameras to work scanning all 106 downtown intersections." I moved to Baltimore almost a year ago—I lived in the heart of downtown for months, and I travel to downtown every day—but this was the first I had heard of it. Not a single person has mentioned it; not a single reference in the newspapers. I was startled enough that I wondered if it was a short-term experiment, over and done with. But I found the following statement, from this year, so it is still active.
"Our cameras are not covert," says Frank Russo, Director of Public Safety for the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore, Inc., and a retired Baltimore City police officer. "They are obvious, which is part of the reason public support has been so overwhelming. We haven't tried to hide anything."Source
158. JayAckroyd - 10/5/1999 8:40:18 AM
In that article, Russo makes a transparency argument:
"Our objective was not necessarily to fight crime, but to make people feel safer. Our goal was to make the area a more inviting place to be. We feel like we've succeeded in that," Russo says.
Criminals fear the light. Why would honest citizens? Some reasons they might include that they engage in behavior that is illegal (soliciting prostitutes, say) borders on the illegal (going to a strip club that engages in almost sexual acts) or could be embarrassing (engaging in an adulterous relationship).
The acts that aren't illegal don't hold water in this instance. The cops say they reuse the tapes after 96 hours unless a crime has been reported, and they don't look at them unless a crime is reported. Of course, this technology is still young. Looking at that much tape is too unproductive an activity to put a human being on it. But if there were a way to automate the review, then perhaps the cameras would be used more proactively. Would that be better? Or worse?
159. Rossi - 10/5/1999 4:53:41 PM
my cat's name is "Dusty"
160. CalGal - 10/5/1999 5:10:57 PM
But if there were a way to automate the review, then perhaps the cameras would be used more proactively.
Or suppose that we tagged cars with some sort of electronic tag that a computer (parked right next to the camera) would scan. Then you could run a report any time you wanted to, or search on, a particular id to see who has been by, how often, and so on.
Create that capability, then it becomes worth saving the videotape.
161. mintcar - 10/6/1999 4:20:40 PM
Re: Cryptonomicon
Like JayAckroyd, I enjoyed the book greatly. I'm wondering if it's possible to get into a discussion of the book while avoiding spoilers; it seems like at least one person is still waiting for the book to arrive. I'm impressed by some of Stephenson's characters, and some of the ideas he throws out seem like good topics for discussion. Should I put
SPOILERS
at the beginning of any message that talks about events in the book?
162. mintcar - 10/6/1999 4:27:15 PM
Hmmmm, there seems to be a book thread now.
Just goes to show what happens when you're not paying attention.
163. JayAckroyd - 10/6/1999 6:48:48 PM
yeah. I've RIPed this thread. Not enough interest.
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