Human-Nets-Request%rutgers@brl-bmd.UUCP (Human-Nets-Request@rutgers) (02/23/84)
HUMAN-NETS Digest Thursday, 23 Feb 1984 Volume 7 : Issue 22
Today's Topics:
Response to Query - Computing Worlds,
Computers and the Law - Person numbers (3 msgs)&
Database Information Reporting,
Computers and the Media - "The Computer for the rest of Us"
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Date: 18 Feb 1984 2051-PST
From: Rob-Kling <Kling%UCI-20B%UCI-750a@csnet2>
Subject: Computing Worlds
Cc: uc.gds%mit-eecs%MIT-MC%UCI-750a@csnet2
Sherry Turkle is coming out with a book that may deal in part with the
cultures of computing worlds. It also examines questions about how
children come to see computer applications as alive, animate, etc.
It was to be called, "The Intimate Machine." The title was
appropriated by Neil Frude who published a rather superficial book
with an outline very similar to that Turkle proposed to
some publishers. Frude's book is published by New American Library.
Sherry Turkle's book promises to be much deeper and careful.
It is to be published by Simon and Schuster under a different
title.
Turkle published an interesting article
called, "Computer as Rorschach" in Society 17(2)(Jan/Feb 1980).
This article examines the variety of meanings that people
attribute to computers and their applications.
I agree with Greg that computing activities are embedded within rich
social worlds. These vary. There are hacker worlds which differ
considerably from the worlds of business systems analysts who develop
financial applications in COBOL on IBM 4341's. AI worlds differ from
the personal computing worlds, and etc. To date, no one appears to
have developed a good anthropological account of the organizing
themes, ceremonies, beliefs, meeting grounds, etc. of these various
computing worlds. I am beginning such a project at UC-Irvine.
Sherry Turkle's book will be the best contribution (that I know of) in
the near future.
One of my colleagues at UC-Irvine, Kathleen Gregory, has just
completed a PhD thesis in which she has studied the work cultures
within a major computer firm. She plans to transform her thesis into
a book. Her research is sensitive to the kinds of langauage
categories Greg mentioned. (She will joining the Department of
Information and Computer Science at UC-Irvine in the Spring.)
Also, Les Gasser and Walt Scacchi wrote a paper on personal computing
worlds when they were PhD students at UCI. It is available for $4
from:
Public Policy Research Organization
University of California, Irvine
Irvine,Ca. 92717
(They are now in Computer Science at USC and may provide copies upon
request.)
Several years ago I published two articles which examine some of the
larger structural arrangments in computing worlds:
"The Social Dynamics of Technical Innovation in the
Computing World" ^&Symbolic Interaction\&,
1(1)(Fall 1977):132-146.
"Patterns of Segmentation and Intersection in the
Computing World"
^&Symbolic Interaction\& 1(2)(Spring 1978): 24-43.
One section of a more recent article,
"Value Conflicts in the Deployment of Computing Applications"
^&Telecommunications Policy\& (March 1983):12-34.
examines the way in which certain computer-based technologies
such as automated offices, artificial intelligence,
CAI, etc. are the foci of social movements.
None of my papers examine the kinds of special languages
which Greg mentions. Sherry Turkle's book may.
Kathleen Gregory's thesis does, in the special setting of
one major computing vendor's software culture.
I'll send copies of my articles on request if I recieve mailing
addresses.
Rob Kling
University of California, Irvine
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Date: Fri 17 Feb 84 05:48:36-EST
From: Marc Shapiro <SHAPIRO@CMU-CS-C.ARPA>
Subject: Person numbers
Marc Shapiro/CMIRH/22, ave Matignon/75008 Paris/France/
tel. (1)(33)268-11-00
French Social Security numbers are very indiscreet.
Mine is 1530199404003, meaning:
1 = male (2 for female)
5301 = born Jan. 1953
99 = in a foreign country (if born in France, number of department of
birth, 1:95)
404 = born USA (if in France, number of city within department)
003 = to ensure uniqueness
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Date: 17 Feb 1984 0719-PST
Subject: Person Numbers
From: WMartin at Office-3 (Will Martin)
To: ole at NTA-VAX
Quite an interesting discussion on "person numbers" -- it brought
a few questions to mind:
What information besides sex is known at birth in order to
compute the "control digits"? Eye and/or hair color? (Or are
90% of the individuals covered blond with blue eyes anyhow, and
it isn't enough of a distinguishing factor to include?)
Handicaps? Or am I wrong in assuming that the number is assigned
at birth -- maybe not until the child is some months or years
old?
Idle speculation -- does the number change if the person gets a
sex-change operation?
Please don't go to any trouble to locate the entire algorithm,
but it would be interesting to know what sort of data are
considered valuable enough and worthwhile to store in this coded
number.
Will Martin
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Date: Mon, 20 Feb 84 07:10:32 -0100
From: ole@NTA-VAX (Ole Jorgen Jacobsen)
To: WMartin@Office-3
Subject: The Person Number Algorithm
Here is the description I found in my old high-school Computer
Science book ("EDB for videregaaende skoler", NKS-Forlaget,
1974):
Each person is assigned a number N consisting of a 6 digit
birthdate and 5 additional digits labelled as follows:
d1 d2 m1 m2 a1 a2 n1 n2 n3 k1 k2
\--------------/ \------------/
Birth Date Person Number
The first six are obvious. n1 through n3 are used to dis-
tinguish people with the same birth date. The first, n1,
is used to indicate whether the person was born before or
after 1900. If it is >= 5 then the person was born before
1900, if < 5 then he/she was born after 1900. The last, n3
is the "sex indicator", female = 0, 2, 4, 6 or 8, male =
1, 3, 5, 7, 9.
Examples:
d1 d2 m1 m2 a1 a2 n1 n2 n3 k1 k2 Birth Date Sex
--------------------------------------------------------
0 2 0 6 6 5 4 7 8 7 9 June 2 1965 F
2 6 0 8 2 7 4 9 4 5 3 August 26 1927 F
2 5 0 7 9 2 6 7 5 2 2 July 25 1892 M
2 5 0 7 2 9 6 7 5 2 2 ------bogus------
Now for the fun part, to check N's validity, first compute
t = 5*d1+4*d2+3*m1+2*m2+7*a1+6*a2+5*n1+4*n2+3*n3+2*k1
Secondly compute the remainder: r = t - [INT( t/11 )]*11
If r = 11 - k2
then OK
else BOGUS!
(I discovered that if r=0 then k2 must be zero as well, this condition
seems to have been omitted in the above)
According to the text, no other information is extractable
from these numbers, boring isn't it? There are only a total of 4
million people in this country by the way which accounts for the
relatively short magic number.
<OLE>
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Date: 21 Feb 1984 0707-PST
Subject: Re: Notification of individuals re database entries
From: WMartin at Office-3 (Will Martin)
To: REM at MIT-MC
I must admit to being mystified by the stated objection (that
"privacy-invaders" could conduct a sweep of mailboxes to steal
summaries of credit ratings sent out with bill mailings once a
year).
This seems so far-fetched as to be meaningless to me. Of course,
they COULD. (Whoever "they" might be.) But why on earth WOULD
they?
If someone wants credit histories/data on a large group of
people, all they have to do is to become a business, either for
real or fraudulently (and only a business or government would
have any such desires, I think). Then they can much more cheaply
simply BUY the data from the credit bureaus like any other
business does.
Areas where mailboxes are stolen from are traditionally ghetto
and slum neighborhoods. Nobody cares about the credit histories
of the mass of the inhabitants of these areas anyway. So no
"privacy invader" (sounds like a video game) would bother
"sweeping" such an area. It is much harder to do this in the
neighborhoods where people live whose credit histories would have
some value; I'm not claiming that the mailboxes are secure --
they probably are much LESS secure if nobody ever steals from
them! But the little old ladies are watchful, being nosy, and
the cops come when called, and the USPS pays attention to reports
or complaints more promptly. (You should see the newspaper
debates about carriers walking across lawns! What they would do
about organized thefts from the mailboxes I shudder to
conjecture!)
And what good would it do somebody/some organization to get all
this info in this obvious manner (someone will notice if all the
bills from Grubb's Department Store are missing in this square
mile...). What are they going to do -- blackmail people? What
would they do that the credit bureau people don't do now?
(Another thought -- at least around here, mailings are staggered
by the first initial of the last name, not geographically, so I
can get my department store bill two weeks before (or after) my
next-door neighbor anyhow.)
Sorry, not convinced. So far, I stand by my original posting...
Will Martin
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Date: 20 Feb 1984 1703-PST
Subject: Re: HUMAN-NETS Digest V7 #20
From: Ian H. Merritt <SWG.MERRITT@USC-ISIB>
To: RSaunders.TCSC@HI-MULTICS
Subject: No documentation is a feature???
I have just seen the most interesting commercial on the TV.
I feel it is for the new Macintosh but the story line goes
Look at this IBM pc and its 200 pages of instructions, Look
at this cute new Macintosh with its 30 pages of
documentation, Which is more advanced. Is this an IBM
comercial in disguise?? It presents an interesting concept,
that a computer can get by with 30 pages of documentation,
but I wonder who the pitch is aimed at.
The point of the commercial, unless I misinterpret it, is that a
layperson (not a genius, but not entirely stupid either) should be
able to learn how to use the computer with only the ~30-page manual
shown in the ad. Presumably, that's not the only documentation
provided with the system, however. You and I tend to look at a
computer system as a scientific tool, and tend to expect gobs of
complex detailed documentation. J. Random BusinessPerson, however,
wants a box that just does what he needs.
We in the computer business could learn to work the
Macintosh from 30 pages, because of experience with similar
systems, but would never buy a system that did not have the
background information to tell us HOW it works. John Q.
Public couldn't care how it works, but having nowhere to
turn but his Apple dealer when he is confused doesn't sound
like something I would be advertizing. Maybe Apple feels
that people are so stupid that they will shell out $2500 (or
whatever it costs) for a machine that does 30 pages of
tricks, but I doubt it (but I could be wrong).
We in the computer business could probably sit down in front of the
thing and learn to use it with no documentation at all, as I did with
the first version of the Lisa when it was introduced. The little
~30-page manual is nothing more than an introductory and quick
reference document. Having spent considerable time trying to teach
non-computer people how to use various software for among other toys,
the IBM-PC, I am painfully aware of the difficulty introduced by
excessive documentation as a subsitute for well written,
self-explanatory software. I think the average home/small-business
computer user will fully understand and identify with what the ad is
saying.
<>IHM<>
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End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
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