Date: Sat, 14 Nov 92 15:21:05 EST
Errors-To: Comp-privacy Error Handler <comp-privacy-request@PICA.ARMY.MIL>
From: Computer Privacy Digest Moderator <comp-privacy@PICA.ARMY.MIL>
To: Comp-privacy@PICA.ARMY.MIL
Subject: Computer Privacy Digest V1#100
Computer Privacy Digest Sat, 14 Nov 92 Volume 1 : Issue: 100
Today's Topics: Moderator: Dennis G. Rears
Re: Posting grades by SSN
RE: Re: Blockbuster announces plan to use data from video rentals
Re: Clinton/Gore consumer bill of rights
Technophiliacs
magnetic strips on driver's licenses
Re: Computer Privacy Digest V1#096
Re: Clinton Endorses Right to Information Privacy
The Computer Privacy Digest is a forum for discussion on the
effect of technology on privacy. The digest is moderated and
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(Moderated). Submissions should be sent to
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Back issues are available via anonymous ftp on ftp.pica.army.mil
[129.139.160.200].
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Dorothy Klein <dak@gandalf.rutgers.edu>
Subject: Re: Posting grades by SSN
Date: 11 Nov 92 17:20:09 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
The current status of SSN use by Rutgers University is that
the judge acknowledged that it's a serious breach of security, but
bought the university's argument that it'd be too difficult to
change the computer system. So all the professors and TAs have been
told not to post grades by SSNs or to circulate the rosters the
university gives us with everyone's SSN.
I'm a TA, and this schizophrenia over when students should use
their 6-digit, university-assigned "student #" aka "billing number"
and when they have to use their "ID#" which is their SSN is really
confusing. Their tests are by 6-digit, but I'll have to match the
exams with their SSNs to report the grades at the end of the semester.
The university droids still demand SSNs from everyone at the
drop of a hat, and get really nasty when you refuse.
To get the university to use anything other than SSN, you
have to file a request in writing, giving your SSN and your 6-digit#.
After a few months, you can use "000-your6digit#" in the SSN field for
most university purposes. Why they didn't just give everyone left-zeroes
should be explained to the judge, IMHO.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 11:26:36 -0700
From: Richard Thomsen <rgt@beta.lanl.gov>
Subject: RE: Re: Blockbuster announces plan to use data from video rentals
mellon@ncd.com writes:
>Needless to say, Blockbuster does not get my business. If you don't like
>their business practices, whether they have to do with privacy issues or
>censorship issues, I suggest that you vote with your pocketbook. :'>
This is an interesting comment. Because a company does not rent out movies
that you want to see, this is "censorship?" I thought this was a newsgroup
about privacy. What about the privacy of the company, and its right to
rent what it wants? Why does it have to rent what you want?
Richard Thomsen
rgt@lanl.gov
------------------------------
From: elee@bonnie.ics.uci.edu
Subject: Re: Clinton/Gore consumer bill of rights
Date: 12 Nov 92 20:38:55 GMT
In reading the bboard, I came across Bill Ranck's posting discussing
the Clinton/Gore consumer bill of rights. The bill states that the
government should protect people from the marketing of goods that they
consider harzardous. Bill goes on to state, in effect, "Who is the
government to judge what is safe or not?" I agree entirely. There are
issues to be elaborated here.
First of all, I think that products shouldn't be restricted from
potential buyers. They should be labelled, and potentially dangerous
items such as tobacco should be sold with a warning. The fact is, we must
draw the line between protecting consumers from truly dangerous items
(on the extreme end, things like plutonium should not be sold) to items
which may only be slightly harmful (skis, since skiing is potentially
dangerous). We must place some responsibility on the consumer and give the
consumer the credit by assuming he will know what he is doing. If we do
not do this, fewer people will be confident that they know what they are doing,
and the world will just become more benign.
Eric J. Lee
John Tillquist's section, M 9:00-9:50
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 21:35:53 +0100
From: Dennis Wier <drwier@clients.switch.ch>
Subject: Technophiliacs
An Introduction to Technophiliacs Anonymous
(By Dennis R. Wier )
The same Truth has many forms.
Technophiliacs Anonymous is a fellowship of persons and institutions
who desire to stop their addiction to technology.
Technophiliacs Anonymous is supported entirely through contributions
of its membership and is free to all those who need it.
To counter the destructive consequences of addiction to technology we
draw on these resources:
1. We use our personal willingness to stop our addictive behavior on
a daily basis.
2. We use the support of the fellowship of Technophiliacs Anonymous
to increase our capacity to stop our addiction.
3. We practice the principles of Technophiliacs Anonymous to
recognize and properly respond to addictive behavior.
4. We develop our perceptions and awareness of the correct use of
technology by the regular practice of meditation.
5. We support the efforts of those who expose the hidden side effects
of any technological activity.
Technophiliacs Anonymous is not affiliated with any other
organization, movement or cause, either religious or secular.
What is a Technophiliac?
The word technophiliac is a newly coined word and it means "having a
pathological love of technology." We use this new word to imply that
the love is a dysfunction of some kind. We are all technophiliacs in
the sense that we as a society are dependent on the wide-spread use
of technology --such as electricity, cars, telephone, TV, computers
and many other forms. We need to seriously ask ourselves if this
dependence helps or hurts our human relationships. We need to
constantly examine this dependence to see if the hidden-side effects
of technological dependence are destructive to our families, society
or environment.
Are You A Technophiliac?
Has the use of technology improved or worsened your
financial condition,
health,
relationships with friends and family,
relationships with your mate or lover,
relationship with your self?
How many hours a day do you
watch television,
work on a computer,
operate technical equipment,
talk on the telephone,
tinker with your car?
Add those hours up.
Is your total use of technology an indication of your addictive
relationship to technology?
Now honestly look at your human relationships with the planet, your
environment your family and your inner self:
do you know what phase the Moon is in right now?
do you know which way the seasonal clouds are moving and their
shapes?
can you comfortably walk alone in the woods at night without a
flashlight?
do you know the type of earth around your house?
do you tell your children stories, or do you let them watch TV so
they leave you alone?
are you aware of environmental stress through your personal
sensitivity to the behavior of local animals and plants?
Do you choose to spend time on your computer or watching TV or
talking on the telephone or tinkering with your car or with other
technology rather than being with your mate or children?
Long-term focused awareness on technology or on technological matters
to the exclusion of natural or human relationships indicates a life
profoundly out of balance.
The cumulative effect of many lives out of balance creates a
world-wide disaster with profound effects on the environment, social
and group interactions, institutional and political behavior, human
and family values and ethics, interpersonal relationships, and
physical and psychological health, with immense costs in all areas.
What is Technophiliacs Anonymous?
Technophiliacs Anonymous is a multi-faceted fellowship based on a
desire to know the hidden side-effects of technology, to popularize
the awareness of the hidden side-effects of technology on our social,
psychological, economic and spiritual beings, and to counter the
destructive consequences of technological addiction. With established
meetings in many cities in the United States and abroad, this
self-help fellowship is open to anyone, and any institution, who
suffers from a compulsive need to use technology, and those
desperately attached to a specific technology such as the telephone,
the computer, the television, the automobile, etc. Technological
addiction also includes a pathological interest in destructive,
coercive and invasive technologies. What all members have in common
is the realization that the compulsive attachment to technology has
become increasingly destructive to all areas of their lives --
family, career, environment, society and political institutions.
Technophiliacs Anonymous welcomes the participation of anyone
directly involved in technology or directly affected by technology
--either beneficially or otherwise, or in the government, or in the
spiritual areas corned with the subtle effects of technology. We
especially welcome the participation of human potential workers and
facilitators.
We seek to understand, and to make known to all, how technology,
generally and specifically, affects our spiritual, mental, emotional,
physical, economic, political and social lives, and to cure, whenever
possible, the deleterious effects of technology; and to learn, by
sharing information, the correct ways to manage our lives for the
continued benefits of life-supporting technology without subjecting
ourselves to the hidden malevolent side-effects.
Technophiliacs Anonymous was first begun in June, 1988 in Berkeley by
Dennis R. Wier, who realized that technological dependency was
affecting life in the same ways as chemical, alcohol and love
addictions, but not only were the deleterious effects felt in
personal lives, but also in ecological, political and spiritual
realms. Thus, what may be said of a personal addiction to a
technology also may be said in a global way as well, that is, one
side effect of our addiction to automobiles causes air pollution, one
side effect of our addiction to telephones causes separation between
people, one side effect of our addiction to television causes loss of
awareness through induction of trance, one side effect of our
addiction to computers causes loss of judgement and cognitive
abilities. There are other, more hidden and more sinister side
effects of technological addiction.
Co-Dependency
If a technophiliac is addicted to technology there are those around
him or her who are co-dependent. Co-dependents may not be addicted to
technology but they derive important benefits from the addiction.
Manufacturers of alcoholic beverages are co-dependent to alcoholics
in different ways than a person in a close personal relationship with
an alcoholic is co-dependent, but both are co-dependent in that their
common behavior supports the continued addiction of the alcoholic.
A technophiliac has the same problem. Manufacturers of the newest
computers are co-dependent with the technophiliac. And, if the
technophiliac is highly paid, those persons dependent financially on
the technophiliac psychologically support his dependence even though
it may be personally destructive to the technophiliac.
One of the differences between AA, SLAA and Technophiliacs Anonymous
is that many institutions --government, educational and business
--support and encourage technological addiction because they are not
aware of the hidden side-effect of technological addiction. It is
possible to make a change in awareness. A change in awareness will
help bring about an important social change. Some years ago,
cigarette smoking was socially acceptable and tolerated if not
encouraged by many social institutions. Smoking was generally
tolerated as a common and nearly harmless bad habit. Now, with
greater social awareness of the dangers of cigarette smoking, society
is now attempting to reduce cigarette addiction by prohibiting
smoking in public places and requiring manufacturers to place health
warning messages on tobacco products.
It may seem that technological addiction is a trivial and unimportant
matter compared to the more obvious and important issue of cigarette
smoking; yet, technological addiction has greater consequences for us
all the longer we ignore it. Technophiliacs are not the only victims
of their addiction, but their creations often are at the root of
important and world-wide dangers and all of us become victims.
Beneficial social changes came about because of increased social
awareness of the dangers of the hidden side-effects of tobacco
addiction, and the same social awareness now extends to alcohol and
drug addiction. The same social awareness is now beginning to be felt
in environmental and ecological areas, because of PCB contaminations,
acid rain, toxic waste treatment procedures, atmospheric pollution
and other technological hidden side effects now making themselves
known. It may become obvious that there is an increasing awareness of
the hidden side effects to technological things we think are simple,
are not.
It is the position of Technophiliacs Anonymous that society needs to
become aware of its dangerous addiction to technology and to begin to
cope with its co-dependent issues, as well as the underlying and
important hidden side effects.
Because technological addiction is so pervasive and is encouraged by
co-dependent governmental, educational, business and institutional
entities, the members of Technophiliacs Anonymous include not only
those who recognize their compulsive need for technology, and those
with a desperate attachment to one specific form of technology, but
also those leaders and visionaries who may conceive of the
possibilities of a right relationship to technology.
Why Technology Can Be Addicting
The use of technology for the purpose of lessening pain or augmenting
pleasure, by a person, institution, government or business who has
lost control over the rate, frequency or duration of its use, and
whose corporate or individual psychological, economic, social and
spiritual life has become progressively unmanageable as a result is
addicted to that technology.
Technological addiction extends from teenagers addicted to
television, to yuppie programmers making piles of money, to a
military establishment addicted to acquiring newer, faster and more
exotic destructive forces, to a government intent on knowing and
controlling everything possible, to real estate agents with a
perverted sense of "highest and best use."
Technophiliacs Anonymous believe that an addiction exists not just
because we need or use technology more than others, but because of
the motive. A technophiliac uses technology to lessen the pain that
comes from problems in other areas of life. Governmental and business
institutions use technology to regulate and control life, a behavior
which is typical of co-dependents.
As we collectively or individually seek someone or something to 'take
us away from all this,' we are really seeking to avoid reality
altogether. We come to use a technology as a substitution for other
satisfactions, to comfort ourselves for real or imagined needs, or to
avoid or try to make unnecessary attending to a life that seems to
give us too much pain.
Even the humble electric light, used to provide illumination at night
to read, has become a substitution for other satisfactions such as
observing the night, and it comforts us in driving away the
mysterious darkness, and helps us avoid our own thoughts, those same
thoughts we need to think in order to keep our life in balance. Even
the electric light has the side effect of keeping our life out of
balance in very subtle ways. The cumulative effect of millions of
lives out of balance causes disastrous effects over the entire planet.
More technology is not the answer.
In our addiction to technology it seems as though the power lies
elsewhere, and that our lives are being destroyed by forces and
tensions that cannot be denied and by problems that cannot be escaped.
For the technophiliac, closeness to others has become increasingly
rare and difficult. It is easier for the technophiliac to have a
relationship with his car, television or computer than with his mate,
his children, or his neighbors.
Within an institution, it may be easier for an institutional
technophiliac to buy more computers, hire more consultants, process
more data faster, make heavier reports, create ever more
sophisticated military hardware, than to have a real and meaningful
relationship with its clients, citizens or employees.
What can you do if you admit, however reluctantly, that technological
addiction might be the problem, instead of lack of 'enough' or the
'right kind' of technology?
The Road to Recovery
The road to recovery starts with an awareness of the existence of the
problem. To get aware that technological addiction is the problem,
try this experiment: turn off all your electricity for five days.
Most technological devices depend on electricity in order to work. If
the changes you go through during the five days are not painful, but
"business as usual," then you are not addicted to technology.
However, if the changes are painful, frightening, or perhaps so
difficult that you cannot finish the five days, then you are a
technophiliac.
The beginning is simple, but not easy. The admission of powerlessness
has to be coupled with a readiness to break the addictive pattern --
to stay away from all technology for long periods of time. This
withdrawal from the addictive use of technology generally brings
symptoms just as physical and as painful as the withdrawal from drugs
or alcohol. On our own the tension would be too much, the temptation
to indulge just one more time would be unbearable, and the belief
that there could be another way to live would weaken.
First we find a sense of wholeness and dignity within ourselves. Even
while working with technology we need to keep balanced and at some
distance from it. To find wholeness within ourselves we first must
know that part of us which is human and then to explore the intimate
and mysterious relationship we have with the planet.
Meetings
For information on meetings in your area, please write to us and we
will send you a local meeting schedule or give you information on
organizing a local chapter.
Evolving A Proper Relationship
The hard questions cannot be ignored. The most difficult questions
are ultimately the most important because they represent those
aspects of life which we tend to ignore or deny. In place of facing
these difficult questions which are different questions for each one
of us, we create substitute problems, such as technical problems, as
symbols for our own internal processes. There is the mistaken belief
that by solving these technical problems somehow the more difficult
questions will also be solved.
Technology can be known in many ways which will enhance our
relationship with ourselves and with the universe.
The proper relationship with technology is a distant and cautious
one. Without spiritual protection in place, dealing with any
technology ultimately is damaging to us. Any other relationship
ultimately damages our spiritual, social, environmental and
psychological life.
Developing spiritual protection is a life-long continuous practice
which is helped by meditation in all of its forms. The support of
others in a community devoted to personal awareness and growth lays
the foundation for right social action and planetary unity.
How you can help
If you want to help in a real way to popularize these concepts,
please discuss these ideas with your friends and the media, send
pertinent newspaper clippings, cartoons to us and write us for any
information. Help us start a chapter in your area. We will appear on
TV and talk on the radio about these concepts. Write for helpful
details, but ultimately the power, benefits and responsibility is
yours.
---
Comments on the above are welcome by e-mail. Yes, I am ALWAYS
on my computer!
Dennis
------------------------------ End of body part 2
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 92 09:34:13 MST
From: Tom Wicklund <wicklund@opus.intellistor.com>
Subject: magnetic strips on driver's licenses
In <comp-privacy1.97.4@pica.army.mil> Doctor Math <root@sanger.chem.nd.edu> wri\tes:
>The state of California is now issuing laminated plastic drivers licenses
>with a magnetic strip on the back. When using terminals at the DMV, you
>have to swipe your card through to identify yourself. This would seem to
>provide an adequate amount of authentication.
So I steal a driver's license, find a lost one, or rummage through the
trash at DMV for a license turned in for renewal. It doesn't seem to
provide much help.
In <comp-privacy1.97.8@pica.army.mil> Jim Budler <jimb@silvlis.com> writes:
>Of course, since my drivers license now has a mag stripe on the back,
>how long is it before the grocery store starts swiping it through the
>cash register to validate a check?
This seems rather dangerous. The store clerks will quickly get into
the habit of swiping the license through the register without looking
at the picture or signature. It's one step further to being able to
steal a checkbook and wallet and use them in relative safety without
worrying about an ID.
Of course this type of problem also exists even when people are
supposed to look at pictures. I knew somebody at IBM who spent a full
day wearing a badge with a picture of a teddy bear on it.
------------------------------
From: Doctor Math <root@sanger.chem.nd.edu>
Subject: Re: Computer Privacy Digest V1#096
Organization: University of Notre Dame
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 17:34:19 GMT
In article <comp-privacy1.97.8@pica.army.mil> jimb@silvlis.com (Jim Budler) writes:
> [ new plastic drivers' licenses in California ]
>Of course, since my drivers license now has a mag stripe on the back,
>how long is it before the grocery store starts swiping it through the
>cash register to validate a check?
Probably not very long - this is seen as one of the great new uses of this
new style of drivers' license. That and little terminals in cop cars that
have a magstripe reader and use packet radio to display any information
that the officer might need to know about you after you're pulled over.
I heard a rumor that MADD was behind this movement; perhaps it's the first
step in a national database? In any case, I remember reading something
about the magstripe being useful for other authentication purposes (such
as check validation) in the newspaper.. I imagine it will find its way
into liquor stores to be used for age verification, since the magstripe
would be "harder" to forge..
------------------------------
From: Flint Pellett <flint@gistdev.gist.com>
Subject: Re: Clinton Endorses Right to Information Privacy
Date: 13 Nov 92 17:51:51 GMT
Organization: Global Information Systems Technology Inc., Savoy, IL
ranck@joesbar.cc.vt.edu (Wm. L. Ranck) writes:
>CPSR (cpsr@csli.stanford.edu) wrote:
>:
>: Excerpts from - Clinton/Gore Campaign Pledges Strong Consumer
>: Protections; Blasts Bush/Quayle Record - Oct. 26
>:
>: * * *
>: A Clinton/Gore Consumer Bill of Rights will include:
>:
>: 1. The Right to Safety - To be protected against the
>: marketing of goods which are hazardous to health or
>: life.
>While the other stuff on the list doesn't bother me this one sure does.
>Basically it says that the government knows what is good for me and will
>not let me decide. How long till this results in making alcohol and
>tobacco illegal? How long till it makes "dangerous" recreational activity
>illegal? "Sorry, skis and ski poles are dangerous, you can't buy them
>anymore."
> If a product is possibly dangerous then requiring some reasonable labeling
>is fine, but to "protect" the public from what is considered dangerous is
>not.
Good grief. While it is probably true that our government does far too
much in the vein of trying to protect us from ourselves, (making certain
drugs illegal, rather than just giving us all the facts and letting us
make informed decisions on our own), that has little if anything to do
with the one sentence above which you've blown up into a whole paragraph
of paranoia.
A lot of times products which everyone thinks are perfectly safe
may not be. If a company is making really cheap toasters and 1 in 3
people who buy one end up getting an electric shock (or worse) from them,
I for one want my government doing something about it. You want a warning
label on all the new ones saying "Warning: one person in ten who has bought
this toaster has been electrocuted?" What about the thousands of people
out there who already have these unsafe toasters, but don't know it?
There are also times when we need to be protected from each other.
For example, if a farmer finds a chemical that kills weeds really well,
there is a lot of incentive for him/her to use it to improve the
crops. If we find out that it also causes cancer, it isn't going
to be enough that the government stick a warning label on it, because
a lot of people would put on masks to protect themselves and use it
anyway, and tough luck for their neighbors or the people in the city
downwind.
The thought that the government might outlaw skis is pretty ridiculous.
You might try re-reading that sentence and try to figure out how you
possibly could have inferred that it was implying anything of the sort.
--
Flint Pellett, Global Information Systems Technology, Inc.
100 Trade Centre Drive, Suite 301, Champaign, IL 61820 (217) 352-1165
uunet!gistdev!flint or flint@gistdev.gist.com
------------------------------
End of Computer Privacy Digest V1 #100
******************************