jgd@Dixie.Com (John G. DeArmond) (04/09/91)
randolph@cognito.Eng.Sun.COM (Randolph Fritz) writes: >Folks, can any of you tell me just what all this lifestyle information >is used for currently? *Not* potentially. What's being done with it >now? The publicly stated use of this information is to be better able to target you with direct mail and phone solicitations. In the classic double-speak of marketing, the offer it as a benefit to you the shopper. In reality, what they are trying to do is to improve the average 1% return rate on direct marketing. They don't want to bother the other 99% who don't respond. Now you might think that this is peachy-cool since you don't respond to junk mail anyway. Not true. The lifestyle profiles are based on what you actually buy and where you go. The model assumes that if you buy X from Y store, that you'd be amenable to buying the same X through alternative channels. Or in the case of the grocery stores, they want to only shelf what the bulk of the customers are buying. What this means is that if you're not white, median aged, with 2.1 kids, live in 1500 sq ft of space and watch 4.6 hours of TV, you might not like the selection. As someone else noted, diversity is what makes the shopping experience satisfying and this kind of stuff is the antithesis of selection. >And, equally serious question -- is the information you get any more >detailed or valuable than could be gotten by scanning the telephone >book and walking through your neighborhood? I'm beginning to get the >strong impression that vast amounts of effort are being spent to >gather information that -- for the most part -- just isn't that useful >and is pretty easily available anyhow. Yes, much more valuable. First off, walking a neighborhood will provide some basic demographics but even those are not reliable. For example, you could be living on the edge of bankrupcy in a $200,000 neighborhood and not have any disposable income at all. Secondly, it is well known that people often times say just the opposite of what they do. Lifestyle information is brutally accurate in documenting certain habits. The conclusions drawn are often incorrect but the facts are not. If your register tape shows you bought 30 lbs of beef last month, you actually bought at least that much. If that were as far as it went, I might not have a big problem. But as we've seen SSNs and credit databases abused, so will this information be abused. To paraphrase, it exists, ergo, it will be abused. John -- John De Armond, WD4OQC | "Purveyors of speed to the Trade" (tm) Rapid Deployment System, Inc. | Home of the Nidgets (tm) Marietta, Ga | jgd@dixie.com |"Politically InCorrect.. And damn proud of it
johne@hp-vcd.HP.COM (John Eaton) (04/10/91)
>>> >Folks, can any of you tell me just what all this lifestyle information >is used for currently? *Not* potentially. What's being done with it >now? ---------- An ice cream store sold the list of kids that signed up for its birthday club to the Selective Service. If you were listed as 18 years old and had not registered then they sent you a reminder. John Eaton !hp-vcd!johne
johne@hp-vcd.HP.COM (John Eaton) (04/11/91)
<<< < Of course, other reasons for this to be valuable were pointed out by John < DeArmond in his POS posting -- for example, your health insurance provider < would be delighted to find out that you were buying 3 cartons per day of < cigarettes...odds are that by dropping the coverage of all smokers, they < would save quite a bit on reduced lung-cancer claims. This sort of data < use is a severe invasion of your privacy, and is increasingly likely < to occur once the data is available. ---------- Insurance companies can become real inquisitive when faced with paying a claim. Suppose grandma dies and you try to collect on her life insurance policy. If she was paying non-smoker rates but was listed by Safeway as a carton a week buyer then they just might decide to offer you a lower payout corresponding to what her premium would have purchased at a smokers rate. How do you prove that she was buying them for someone else? John Eaton !hp-vcd!johne
seurer+@rchland.ibm.com (Bill Seurer) (04/11/91)
Excerpts from netnews.comp.org.eff.talk: 10-Apr-91 Re: Lifestyle Information (.. John Eaton@hp-vcd.HP.COM (386) > An ice cream store sold the list of kids that signed up for its birthday > club to the Selective Service. If you were listed as 18 years old and had > not registered then they sent you a reminder. > John Eaton > !hp-vcd!johne There are lots of good reasons to oppose the collection of lifestyle data, but PLEASE don't use examples of people getting caught breaking the law (even if you COMPLETELY oppose the law they break) as an example of why something shouldn't be done. How are we EVER going to convince society that such collections are wrong if the only examples we can point out are where lawbreakers were caught?! - Bill Seurer IBM: seurer@rchland Prodigy: CNSX71A Rochester, MN Internet: seurer@rchland.vnet.ibm.com
new@ee.udel.edu (Darren New) (04/11/91)
In article <Yc17Uk091EAf0UUpBn@rchland.ibm.com> seurer+@rchland.ibm.com (Bill Seurer) writes: >Excerpts from netnews.comp.org.eff.talk: 10-Apr-91 Re: Lifestyle >Information (.. John Eaton@hp-vcd.HP.COM (386) >> An ice cream store sold the list of kids that signed up for its birthday >> club to the Selective Service. If you were listed as 18 years old and had >> not registered then they sent you a reminder. >There are lots of good reasons to oppose the collection of lifestyle >data, but PLEASE don't use examples of people getting caught breaking >the law (even if you COMPLETELY oppose the law they break) as an example >of why something shouldn't be done. I was going to let the original post pass to save bandwidth, but... The store in question was Farrells (sp?). They gave away free sundays to people on their birthday. Needless to say, many people had many birthdays per year when visiting Farrells. When Farrells sold the list, people who *had* signed up for Selective Service (now there's an oxymoron) had to prove several times that they were already signed up because their birthdays didn't match in the database. It caused much grief for many people, especially as (in my experience) the *it's your birthday* suprise was done more to embarass the "birthday girl" than to get the free icecream (due to the use of fire sirens, base drums, much shouting and running about, etc). Anyway, my point is that the data used was *bogus* with no kind of validity check and it was acted on in a way as to make you prove your innocence (by not checking only names but also birthdays in the database). Maybe this could be avoided if Farrells insisted on having your SSN :-). -- Darren -- --- Darren New --- Grad Student --- CIS --- Univ. of Delaware --- ----- Network Protocols, Graphics, Programming Languages, FDTs ----- +=+=+ My time is very valuable, but unfortunately only to me +=+=+ +=+=+ When you drive screws with a hammer, nails look better +=+=+
jrbd@craycos.com (James Davies) (04/11/91)
After thinking about it for another day (and seeing a newspaper
article that is related), I realized that I DO have some examples of
"lifestyle" information use, loosely speaking:
1. I bought a CD player a few months ago, using a credit card. A few
weeks later, I got two CD club solicitations in the mail.
2. Last month, I bought some will-preparation software (don't tell my
health insurance company!) This week, I got a solicitation for
some other legal software in the mail. Again, I used a credit card
for the purchase, and the solicitation was from a company other than
the one that made the product I bought (I haven't sent in the
registration card yet, either).
3. Finally, and most frightening, there was a story in some newspaper
this week (it might have been the Tuesday New York Times) about
a woman who was denied health insurance coverage because she had
gotten two mammograms done in the past year. The horrifying aspects
of this case were that
a) She got the second one only because the first one was messed
up for some reason, not because the found anything, and
b) The insurance company told her that there was no point in applying
elsewhere, since all of the other companies in her state would
have the same information, obtained from the same source.
c) She wasn't being denied coverage because she had an illness, but
because she had tests done for the illness.
The latter case is a glimpse of the future, I think: health insurers are
already using unreliable centralized databases with fuzzy criteria
to reject people. Imagine what they'll do with your grocery-store
info...
I already refuse to give my social security number to insurers and
medical providers. I may never use credit again, either...woolf@isi.edu (Suzanne Woolf) (04/12/91)
In article <Yc17Uk091EAf0UUpBn@rchland.ibm.com> seurer+@rchland.ibm.com (Bill Seurer) writes: >Excerpts from netnews.comp.org.eff.talk: 10-Apr-91 Re: Lifestyle >Information (.. John Eaton@hp-vcd.HP.COM (386) >> An ice cream store sold the list of kids that signed up for its birthday >> club to the Selective Service. If you were listed as 18 years old and had >> not registered then they sent you a reminder. > >There are lots of good reasons to oppose the collection of lifestyle >data, but PLEASE don't use examples of people getting caught breaking >the law (even if you COMPLETELY oppose the law they break) as an example >of why something shouldn't be done. Good point. Try this: The medical evidence as to the relationship between serum cholesterol, dietary intake of cholesterol, stress, and heart disease is ambiguous, and the conclusions researchers draw are still being revised. One thing that "everybody knows" that probably isn't true is that the relationship between dietary cholesterol and heart disease is linear: "too much" dietary cholesterol -> heart disease. The medical researchers say there's a relationship, and it's mixed up with heredity, but there's no hard and fast rule. Individuals vary. Your insurance company, however, would be more than happy to treat your dietary cholesterol intake, as determined by buying your grocery-shopping history, as a risk factor-- whether your personal heredity and lifestyle means those dozen eggs are really changing your heart disease risk or not. You can't prove they're wrong, exactly, and all they need is a plausible excuse to raise your rates or deny you a payout. This is a perfectly reasonable extension of what insurance companies already do, all the time. My husband is 24 years old. He, personally, has a perfectly fine driving record (one speeding ticket 4 years ago, no violations since, no claims). When we were considering changing auto insurers last week, we discovered that the agent wanted us to wait until after his birthday in June because the rate he could quote us would go down by $400 (about 45%) after my husband is 25. The truth is we could argue all we wanted, but the company doesn't care about his individual driving record; they have a rule (under 25 males are high risks) and don't care whether it applies to this particular person or not. Proving he's more dangerous than someone else doesn't enter into it, just as proving that those eggs will kill you won't enter into it when your health insurer can buy your grocery-shopping history. Another example: It already happens that if you live a lifestyle inconsistent with your reported income on your federal taxes, you are far more likely to get audited by the IRS. This will cost you time and money to deal with even if you are not, in fact, a lawbreaker: all you have to do is be different enough from "average" in how you earn your living and/or what you do with your money. >How are we EVER going to convince society that such collections are >wrong if the only examples we can point out are where lawbreakers were >caught?! Everybody has plenty of things they do, buy, and think that they wouldn't necessarily want known to anyone who asks. It's perfectly legal for me to get catalogs from Frederick's of Hollywood, but I'd just as soon the Moral Majority couldn't buy their mailing list and start sending me "Repent and be saved!" literature. If my employer were of a religious persuasion that frowns on alcohol, I'd just as soon he didn't know if I buy a case of beer a week. There are people I deal with daily with whom I don't care to share some of my political beliefs, which could easily be determined from a list of charities I contribute to. There are plenty of things that are neither illegal nor unethical, but are personal and not necessarily appropriate to treat as public information; and some of them can, and will, be used to hurt you. Even if you are completely innocent of any wrongdoing in your own eyes, you aren't necessarily innocent in someone else's: the government, your insurance company, your employer, your neighbor. Do you want to trust them all not to use "public" personal information against you, or do you want to keep it "private"? --Suzanne woolf@isi.edu
learn@gargoyle.uchicago.edu (William Vajk ) (04/12/91)
In article <Yc17Uk091EAf0UUpBn@rchland.ibm.com> Bill Seurer writes: >Excerpts from netnews.comp.org.eff.talk: 10-Apr-91 Re: Lifestyle >Information (.. John Eaton@hp-vcd.HP.COM (386) >> An ice cream store sold the list of kids that signed up for its birthday >> club to the Selective Service. If you were listed as 18 years old and had >> not registered then they sent you a reminder. >How are we EVER going to convince society that such collections are >wrong if the only examples we can point out are where lawbreakers were >caught?! The data collected (in this case, purchased) was about law abiding citizens, minding their own business, exercising their rights. What you are implying is that some of the group about whom data was collected MIGHT at some future date become a violater. There is no legality to the government's action in purchasing the list. There isn't even a vague justification for it. There are surveillance laws AGAINST the government arbitrarily collecting information about citizens exercising their civil rights. How about extending this thoughtto all sorts of activities. Let's have anyone purchasing a blank videotape registered. They MIGHT record some copyrighted TV show. Good heavens, they MIGHT dupe a copyrighted movie. And we shouldn't speak out against such registrations, because they're designed to catch persons performing criminal acts. Do you think we can't convince society that registration of videotape purchasers is a generally bad idea ? But just to set your law_abiding mind at rest. What happens to the names on the list of children who die between their free ice cream birthdays and age 18 when the Selective Service, in their infinite wisdom, sends out their reminders ? How many of the parents will have wounds unnecessarily reopened opened by this illegal intrusion ? Bill Vajk
** Sender Unknown ** (04/12/91)
seurer+@rchland.ibm.com (Bill Seurer) writes, in reply to John Eaton: >> An ice cream store sold the list of kids that signed up for its birthday >> club to the Selective Service. If you were listed as 18 years old and had >> not registered then they sent you a reminder. > > There are lots of good reasons to oppose the collection of lifestyle > data, but PLEASE don't use examples of people getting caught breaking > the law (even if you COMPLETELY oppose the law they break) as an example > of why something shouldn't be done. Good point, but I still am not comfortable with the idea of a business making a buck in this particular way (if they did indeed *sell* the list.) I hesitate to make this cynical comment, but I wonder if some politician somewhere has thought about this: requiring any business that asks you to sign an "I'm over 18" consent form to provide the names for cross-checking against draft registrants. If you know a reason why it would be illegal or bad form to do this, please speak up. -- Bob Bob Izenberg cs.utexas.edu!dogface!bei [ ] "So young, so bad... So what!" 512 346 7019 Wendy O. Williams
seurer+@rchland.ibm.com (Bill Seurer) (04/12/91)
Now that's a little bit different. Instead of catching a bunch of people who were avoiding selective service it caused grief for a bunch of people ripping off an ice cream store. Hmmm. Still not a good example I guess. I know some people who would say, "If they were ripping off the place they deserved whatever trouble they caused themselves." Hey, maybe that was Farrell's way of preventing people from giving false data. "Try to rip us off and we'll sic Selective Service on you!" :-) - Bill Seurer IBM: seurer@rchland Prodigy: CNSX71A Rochester, MN Internet: seurer@rchland.vnet.ibm.com
new@ee.udel.edu (Darren New) (04/13/91)
In article <Yc1Qkog91EAfQ6M0d6@rchland.ibm.com> seurer+@rchland.ibm.com (Bill Seurer) writes: >I know some people who would say, "If they were ripping off the place >they deserved whatever trouble they caused themselves." Sure. I steal an icecream cone by lying about my age, and wind up in prison for five years. Sounds like a good tradeoff to me. :-( -- --- Darren New --- Grad Student --- CIS --- Univ. of Delaware --- ----- Network Protocols, Graphics, Programming Languages, FDTs ----- +=+=+ My time is very valuable, but unfortunately only to me +=+=+
gundrum@svc.portal.com (04/13/91)
I was wondering if it would be possible/practical to play the corporate game to protect one's preferences. I am thinking of registering a DBA (doing-business-as) and using my DBA name for any transactions possible. I suspect this would be treated as a business, with it's own tax ID. Phone service would cost more, and medical service would probably have to really be me, but magazines and the like need never know. It might even be possible to get credit cards this way. Has anyone actually tryed this? Btw, I have found that you can refuse to give your SSN to various organizations and they will assing you a separate id number that looks like an SSN. However, sometimes you have to fight your way up the chain of command to get it. It may also be possible to just make up data if they insist. Beware that this could possibly be used as grounds to deny you service in the future. service in the future. -- _______________________________________________________________________ Any statements made by this account are strictly based on heresay and should be assumed to have no intelligence behind them. (No, that does not mean they have the approval of management.) gundrum@svc.portal.com
peter@taronga.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) (04/13/91)
seurer+@rchland.ibm.com (Bill Seurer) writes: > There are lots of good reasons to oppose the collection of lifestyle > data, but PLEASE don't use examples of people getting caught breaking > the law (even if you COMPLETELY oppose the law they break) as an example > of why something shouldn't be done. Why not? The whole reason this country exists (as opposed to being a collection of ex-spanish, ex-french, and ex-british colonies) is because the government cannot be trusted to only pass just and reasonable laws. Homosexuality is against the law in some states: should a bookstore sell lists of people who bought "suspect" books to the local law enforcement agencies? On the other hand, another category of problems people bring up completely miss me: why is directed mass-marketing such a bugaboo? -- (peter@taronga.uucp.ferranti.com) `-_-' 'U`
seurer+@rchland.ibm.com (Bill Seurer) (04/15/91)
Excerpts from netnews.comp.org.eff.talk: 13-Apr-91 Re: Lifestyle
Information (.. Peter da Silva@taronga.h (874)
> Why not?
The reason not to use such examples is that they give the wrong
impression. If you want to convince Mr. or Ms. Average Consumer that
collecting lifestyle data is wrong you don't want to say, "Well, it let
the police catch this guy over here and the IRS caught this tax cheat
over here and ..." Many people would say, "It caught a bunch of crooks?
Good!"
Instead, use examples that show how such collections of info will (or at
least might) HURT THEM.
- Bill Seurer IBM: seurer@rchland Prodigy: CNSX71A
Rochester, MN Internet: seurer@rchland.vnet.ibm.comjohne@hp-vcd.HP.COM (John Eaton) (04/15/91)
<< < Now that's a little bit different. Instead of catching a bunch of < people who were avoiding selective service it caused grief for a bunch < of people ripping off an ice cream store. ---------- An example of "O what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive". One thing to remember about "The Law" is that there are so many of then that most people violate some on a daily basis. We allow them to set speed limts knowing that they will ignore minor violations and not nail us everytime that we edge over the limit. If the police think a particular law is stupid then the standard tactic to get it repealed is for them to enforce it to the letter of the law. If every car in America had a computer monitor that issued speeding tickets for EVERY violation then you would see the law quickley changed. Computers and data bases are giving us the ability to detect and prosecute lawbreakers that previously escaped undetected. But before we go out and fill up the prisons we need to examine these laws determine if they would have even been on the books if people knew that they would be enforceable. John Eaton !hp-vcd!johne
gordon@sneaky.lonestar.org (Gordon Burditt) (04/16/91)
>Good point, but I still am not comfortable with the idea of a business making >a buck in this particular way (if they did indeed *sell* the list.) I hesitate >to make this cynical comment, but I wonder if some politician somewhere has >thought about this: requiring any business that asks you to sign an "I'm over >18" consent form to provide the names for cross-checking against draft >registrants. If you know a reason why it would be illegal or bad form to do >this, please speak up. It would be bad form to use this information because it's going to harass a lot of people needlessly. Of course, that never stopped the government before. Is everyone (male, and living in the USA) alive today over 18 required to be registered for the draft, with particular attention to those age 105? How many fathers are going to get their son with the same name except for "Junior" or "III" in trouble? How many women with male-sounding names will be harassed? Does the government still have a record of my draft registration in 1970? (Changes of address to the draft board bounce - they left no forwarding address.) I can just hear the excuses in South Texas: "I don't have to be registered, I'm an illegal alien (or legal visitor to the USA)". Is John Smith going to be able to prove he's registered sufficiently fast to leave him time to eat? And after all this trouble, how many draft-registration-dodgers are they going to catch? One for every 2 man-years of Draft Police effort? Maybe it would be easier to draft the Draft Police. This might work better if they got addresses also, but it's still inefficient. It would be a lot easier, and more in line with the way the government does things, to force the businesses to check draft cards. Gordon L. Burditt sneaky.lonestar.org!gordon
alayne@hobbit.gandalf.ca (Alayne McGregor) (04/18/91)
In article <E483E4F@taronga.hackercorp.com> peter@taronga.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes: >Homosexuality is >against the law in some states: should a bookstore sell lists of people who >bought "suspect" books to the local law enforcement agencies? More to the point: the automated circulation systems used by most larger university/college and public libraries could be used to track and profile readers of certain types of "suspect" books. Librarians are very aware of this problem; the vendors of these systems generally ensure that once a book is returned (and any fines are paid), that the connection between book and patron is severed. Only the fact that the book was taken out n times is saved. Alayne McGregor alayne@gandalf.ca
kurt@think.com (Kurt Thearling) (04/18/91)
In article <1991Apr17.215136.5150@hobbit.gandalf.ca> alayne@hobbit.gandalf.ca (Alayne McGregor) writes: > >More to the point: the automated circulation systems used by most >larger university/college and public libraries could be used to track >and profile readers of certain types of "suspect" books. > >Librarians are very aware of this problem; the vendors of these systems >generally ensure that once a book is returned (and any fines are paid), >that the connection between book and patron is severed. Only the fact >that the book was taken out n times is saved. > This reminds me of something I saw while visiting the library at St. Johns college a few years ago. They didn't have computer records but still used the "card in the back of the book" system. After the books were returned, the librarian took one of those gold color pens (the kind that have metal in a solvent) and covered over the name of the last person who borrowed the book. I asked her about this and she said that they were trying to prevent people from finding out who previously borrowed a book (supposedly the gold pen was the only one that obliterated the name to their satisfaction). But, the reason they were doing this was that they had heard that a wife introduced into evidence in her divorce hearing the fact that her husband had been planning on divorcing her for some time (I'm not sure exactly how this affected the divorce). She found out this info by looking at their local library and noticing that her husband had been checking out books on divorce for the past six months. Recently I saw on television a story of a woman who was involved with a case of over-the-counter drug tampering. One of the pieces of evidence used against her were fingerprints in books on poison. I'm not sure if she was listed in the circulation records. kurt
gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) (04/19/91)
jgd@Dixie.Com (John G. DeArmond) wrote: > it is well known that people often times say just the opposite of what > they do. Lifestyle information is brutally accurate in documenting > certain habits. The conclusions drawn are often incorrect but the > facts are not. If your register tape shows you bought 30 lbs of beef last > month, you actually bought at least that much. I wonder if any governments would be willing to pay to locate people who bought cigarette papers more than once but never bought any tobacco at all? How about people who buy lots of blank cassette tapes but never bought any CD's or albums anywhere? [Certainly they would catch a few law-abiding people in such a net, but their rate of finding lawbreakers would be a lot higher than if they went door-to-door.] If they have detailed information, down to the person who forked over the money, and know exactly each commodity they bought, the number of people who are interested in buying it are almost endless... I can even see Safeway being willing to sell more 'controversial' items such as pornographic magazines, if there are buyers who'll pay them to find out who buys such things. It's harder to track through those little fly-by-night porn stores; better to cut a deal with a major distributor who's already set up to gather the information. Suppose the local vice squad offered to pay 50c per name of such people; would this be considered entrapment? Would you think it was a good idea? (Don't email me your answer, just think about it. Pretend these are the end-of-chapter questions in a textbook on privacy :-). -- John Gilmore {sun,uunet,pyramid}!hoptoad!gnu gnu@toad.com gnu@cygnus.com * Truth : the most deadly weapon ever discovered by humanity. Capable of * * destroying entire perceptual sets, cultures, and realities. Outlawed by * * all governments everywhere. Possession is normally punishable by death. * * ..{amdahl|decwrl|octopus|pyramid|ucbvax}!avsd!childers@tycho *
gundrum@svc.portal.com (04/20/91)
> It would be a lot easier, and more in line with the way the government > does things, to force the businesses to check draft cards. The government already requires businesses to record some form of identification (typically a driver's license) verifying your right to work in the U.S. This is painfully close to a national I.D. system. Now you want to make it the same card throughout the country? That scares me. :-( -- _______________________________________________________________________ Any statements made by this account are strictly based on heresay and should be assumed to have no intelligence behind them. (No, that does not mean they have the approval of management.) gundrum@svc.portal.com
gundrum@svc.portal.com (04/20/91)
> How about people who buy lots of blank cassette tapes but never bought > any CD's or albums anywhere? How about people who buy lots of computer disks but never any comercial software? This may be sufficient grounds for impounding all computer equipment in a person's home. At least, until the original allegation was decided in court. -- _______________________________________________________________________ Any statements made by this account are strictly based on heresay and should be assumed to have no intelligence behind them. (No, that does not mean they have the approval of management.) gundrum@svc.portal.com
peter@taronga.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) (04/20/91)
seurer+@rchland.ibm.com (Bill Seurer) writes: > > Why not? > The reason not to use such examples is that they give the wrong > impression. If you want to convince Mr. or Ms. Average Consumer that Mr. and Ms. Average Consumer? Hands up please! > collecting lifestyle data is wrong you don't want to say, "Well, it let > the police catch this guy over here and the IRS caught this tax cheat > over here and ..." Many people would say, "It caught a bunch of crooks? > Good!" What does that have to do with comp.org.eff.talk? -- (peter@taronga.hackercorp.com) `-_-' 'U`
sean@drgate.dra.com (Sean Donelan) (04/21/91)
The policy on library records can vary from place to place. In a public library, borrower history's are usually treated as confidential information. Public libraries generally won't reveal information without a court order, and even then attempt not to keep information. Library automation systems are designed to obliterate as much of the identifying information as quickly as possible. After returning a book (and paying any fines), it would take a skilled program to recover the information. Within a day the information would pass into the realm of the NSA magnetic-oxide readers, depending on individual library policies (database recovery files are nasty things for holding onto information like this). A corporate library is often at the opposite end. Supervisors may look at records in the normal course of business. Academic libraries may fall in either ground. Some places treat the library as being under the faculty senate (eg. certain faculty members may request to see the library records to check for things like plagerism, or that students are doing their reserve room readings). However most places tend to treat library borrowering records like other student records, such as transcripts and the like. A few have firm policies about not revealing such information except under court order (or to the borrower themselves). I work with a number of librarians, and was rather amazed at how many of them had been called in to court to and ordered to turn over borrower records. Actually it would turn out they would have to explain why they didn't keep such records. In most states library records are not legally protected, hence the reason why libraries try not to keep them at all.
cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) (04/23/91)
gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) writes: }jgd@Dixie.Com (John G. DeArmond) wrote: }> it is well known that people often times say just the opposite of what }> they do. Lifestyle information is brutally accurate in documenting }> certain habits. The conclusions drawn are often incorrect but the }> facts are not. If your register tape shows you bought 30 lbs of beef last }> month, you actually bought at least that much. }I wonder if any governments would be willing to pay to locate people who }bought cigarette papers more than once but never bought any tobacco at }all? }How about people who buy lots of blank cassette tapes but never bought any }CD's or albums anywhere? Of course they would... and they already do do essentially that [remember "Operation Green Grocer"?]. But this is not such a good argument, is it? This is less a matter of flagrant abuse than it is one of the police dancing around the edges of the gray-zone of evidence-gathering techniques. }[Certainly they would catch a few law-abiding people in such a net, but }their rate of finding lawbreakers would be a lot higher than if they }went door-to-door.] Ah, but we have to be clear about what the problem is here. Let us assume for the moment that essentially all of these law abiding people are duly found innocent in the unlikely event they actualy get dragged into a trial. What was the cost? Well, we caught [and, presumably, convicted] a whole bunch of criminals that would otherwise have gone free, and the cost was that a few people were inconvenienced/scared/embarrassed. After all, the LEOs still had to prove you guilty, just buying the cassettes *themselves* is not a crime [yet, of course...:-(]. Is that a price we ought to be willing to bear to live in a more crime-free society? /Bernie\
johne@hp-vcd.HP.COM (John Eaton) (04/24/91)
<<<< < I can even see Safeway being willing to sell more 'controversial' items < such as pornographic magazines, if there are buyers who'll pay them to < find out who buys such things. ---------- Buyers like the Department of Justice? A lot of arrests for "Kiddie-Porn" are made through targeted sting operations. Police get mailing lists of porno buyers and send them a fake ad for illegal porn. If they respond then they mail them a film and bust them when they pick up the mail. John Eaton !hp-vcd!johne
peterm@seattleu.edu (Peter Marshall) (04/24/91)
What's "Operation Green Grocer" mentioned in a recent post on this topic
by Bernie Cosell?
Peter Marshall
--
halcyon!peterm@seattleu.edu
The 23:00 News and Mail Service - +1 206 292 9048 - Seattle, WA USA
+++ A Waffle Iron, Model 1.64 +++harkcom@spinach.pa.yokogawa.co.jp (Alton Harkcom) (04/26/91)
In article <63847@bbn.BBN.COM> cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) writes:
=}What was the cost? Well, we caught [and, presumably,
=}convicted] a whole bunch of criminals that would otherwise have gone
=}free, and the cost was that a few people were
=}inconvenienced/scared/embarrassed.
Don't forget all of the innocent who will be convicted... Is that a
cost you can live with?
=} After all, the LEOs still had to prove
=}you guilty, just buying the cassettes *themselves* is not a crime [yet, of
=}course...:-(].
But proving you guilty and you actually being guilty are usually two
very different things...
Also, don't forget the social costs which will have to be born to
help those who are not guilty to fight being decreed guilty...
(Notice that lovely word 'decreed')...
--
-- Al
** Our network will be down from 4/27 to 5/7 **
** so if your post bounces post it again after 5/6 **mowgli@mummy.cis.ohio-state.edu (Mowgli Assor) (04/26/91)
In article <1991Apr20.022809.10259@svc.portal.com> gundrum@svc.portal.com writes: >> It would be a lot easier, and more in line with the way the government >> does things, to force the businesses to check draft cards. > >The government already requires businesses to record some form of >identification (typically a driver's license) verifying your right to work >in the U.S. This is painfully close to a national I.D. system. Now you want >to make it the same card throughout the country? That scares me. :-( I also found it quite interesting when one night I was out riding my bike around, & was stopped by the police for riding without a light. Among my other offences was ... not carrying an ID. I had gone out without my wallet (not expecting a police lecture that night 8-), & as such had nothing but my keys with me. Apparently, around here it is illegal to go out without carrying some form of ID. Now, all they have to do is specify the ID, & there you have a nice, easy national ID system. Kind of scares me. > >-- >_______________________________________________________________________ >Any statements made by this account are strictly based on heresay and >should be assumed to have no intelligence behind them. (No, that does >not mean they have the approval of management.) gundrum@svc.portal.com And of course, I do not speak for the university or my department, both of which are listed above. These are strictly my own opinions. Later, <Mowgli> -- Address: mowgli@cis.ohio-state.edu (Mowgli Assor in pseudo-quasi-real life) "Too many lonely hearts in the real world. Too many lonely nights in the real world. Too many fools who don't think twice, too many ways to pay the price. Don't wanna live my life in the real world." - The Alan Parsons Project
achilles@pro-angmar.UUCP (David Holland) (04/26/91)
In-Reply-To: message from gundrum@svc.portal.com > How about people who buy lots of computer disks but never any > commercial software? ? > This may be sufficient grounds for impounding all computer equipment > in a person's home. At least, until the original allegation was > decided in court. One would hope not, since it's perfectly possible to run a computer system on freely distributable software... or to write most of your own software. Of course, you can't expect the government's computer "experts" to think of that, or a grand jury composed of English and history majors or such [ :-P ], so it could be a very real problem. ------------ David A. Holland pro-angmar!achilles@alfalfa.com ... alphalpha!pro-angmar!achilles CAD/CAM: Computer Aided Disaster/Computer Assisted Mayhem :-)
les@DEC-Lite.Stanford.EDU (Les Earnest) (04/27/91)
Mowgli Assor writes: . . . >I also found it quite interesting when one night I was out riding my bike >around, & was stopped by the police for riding without a light. Among my >other offences was ... not carrying an ID. I had gone out without my wallet >(not expecting a police lecture that night 8-), & as such had nothing but >my keys with me. Apparently, around here it is illegal to go out without >carrying some form of ID. Now, all they have to do is specify the ID, & there >you have a nice, easy national ID system. Kind of scares me. I suspect that Mr. Assor misinterpreted the remarks of the police. While we are legally required to have a driver's license while operating a motor vehicle, no one is required to have ID while either walking or riding a bicycle. However, if you are charged with an offense and cannot prove your identity, you may be arrested and brought in for that offense so that your identity can be determined. In any case, you are not obligated to answer any questions. (Not a lawyer, but a card-carrying member of the ACLU.) -- Les Earnest Phone: 415 941-3984 Internet: Les@cs.Stanford.edu USMail: 12769 Dianne Dr. UUCP: . . . decwrl!cs.Stanford.edu!Les Los Altos Hills, CA 94022
cwpjr@cbnewse.att.com (clyde.w.jr.phillips) (04/30/91)
In article <1991Apr20.022809.10259@svc.portal.com>, gundrum@svc.portal.com writes: > > It would be a lot easier, and more in line with the way the government > > does things, to force the businesses to check draft cards. > > The government already requires businesses to record some form of > identification (typically a driver's license) verifying your right to work > in the U.S. This is painfully close to a national I.D. system. Now you want > to make it the same card throughout the country? That scares me. :-( > > -- Were y'all been. Business is required to Verify: 1) Your work eligablity 2) Your citizenship 3) Your tax pre-payment 4) In some instances your body chemistry 5) In some instances your lack of political affiliation The usual penalty for most of this stuff starts at $10,000 per offense. Squarly in the range of small business strong arm amounts. If the recession weren't shutting down the poor small businesses in record numbers these regulations would. As it stands the scrambling to build new small businesses to replace the ones done in by the recession may well be curtailed by innocent non-compliance ( scrambling in ignorance ). This "overhead" to run a small business will deter many also. Just another brick in the wall, that's all. Clyde
sbrack@isis.cs.du.edu (Steven S. Brack) (05/01/91)
Two articles appeared in comp.dcom.telecom recently: The first talks about Prodigy apparently uploading information from users machines without their knowledge. This information has included programs, legal records, & personal documents. The second regard GEnie (again) apparently terminating someone's account because they were critical of GEnie's administrators. I will post these two articles as followups to this one. -- =========================================================================== Steven S. Brack sbrack@nyx.cs.du.edu | I have yet to find a I am not speaking for the Ohio State University. | quote good enough & Now, if only I could convince them of that 8) | short enough.
sbrack@isis.cs.du.edu (Steven S. Brack) (05/01/91)
>The second regard GEnie (again) apparently terminating someone's account >because they were critical of GEnie's administrators. ===== Begin reposted article ===== From mnemosyne.cs.du.edu!uunet!lll-winken!telecom-request Mon Apr 29 03:51:41 MDT 1991 X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 311, Message 3 of 4 Dear Telecom Readers: In the {MacWeek}, April 16th, 1991, Volume 5, Number 14 issue, there is a story about a user lockout in the GEnie on-line service: A Toronto couple requested an explanation of the online service's recent lockout of members who disagreed publicly with GEnie management. Linda Kaplan, a GEnie member for more than five years, had both her internal account and her paid account discontinued last month in what she described as a series of personality conflicts and escalating misunderstandings. She said that GEnie cancelled accounts not on the basis of rules being broken but just because someone lost their temper. Apparently, GEnie officials refused to comment on the matter but said that they would clarify their policies in the future. Ms. Kaplan had a paid account but she mainly used a systemwide free account designed to bring in more users. She said that some account holders were bound by the secret agreements forbidding them from criticizing GEnie, its sysops or executives. She added that friends who inquired about her absence from forums or who questioned management's handling of the incident either in on-line forums or private electronic mail found themselves drawn into the fray. When another long time user, Peter Pawlyschyn, contacted management and inquired about his rights on the service, he found himself censored and harassed. Other members have said that they were reduced to read-only status or had their accounts cancelled after simply mentioning Kaplan's name in postings. Soooooo, here we go again with the issue of censoring certain materials in large online systems. Or is it really an issue? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Alex Cruz Associate, Center for Advanced Study in Telecommunications Consultant, American Airlines Decision Technologies ===== End reposted article ===== -- =========================================================================== Steven S. Brack sbrack@nyx.cs.du.edu | I have yet to find a I am not speaking for the Ohio State University. | quote good enough & Now, if only I could convince them of that 8) | short enough.