Date: Thu, 14 Oct 93 16:21:11 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 V3#056
Computer Privacy Digest Thu, 14 Oct 93 Volume 3 : Issue: 056
Today's Topics: Moderator: Dennis G. Rears
New Journal
Re: Digital Cash
Worse Than Billboards
Re: Clinton Health Care Plan
Re: Clinton Health Care Plan
Re: Personal Privacy vs. the "Digital Detective"?
The Computer Privacy Digest is a forum for discussion on the
effect of technology on privacy. The digest is moderated and
gatewayed into the USENET newsgroup comp.society.privacy
(Moderated). Submissions should be sent to
comp-privacy@pica.army.mil and administrative requests to
comp-privacy-request@pica.army.mil.
Back issues are available via anonymous ftp on ftp.pica.army.mil
[129.139.160.133].
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Russ Abbott <abbott@aero.org>
Subject: New Journal
Date: 14 Oct 1993 14:28:37 GMT
Organization: Aerospace
________________________________________________________________________________
Announcement and Call for Papers: High Integrity Systems
________________________________________________________
The new Oxford University Press journal "High Integrity Systems" will
explore issues related to systems that either require high integrity or
exhibit it, or both.
o Systems may require high integrity because failure leads to
critical losses. Typically these are systems that affect human safety,
environmental stability, finance, or some aspect of the societal
infrastructure.
o Systems may exhibit high integrity because they have evolved
mechanisms to survive the kinds of shocks their environments may offer.
Although redundancy, fault tolerance, and reliability are important
properties of many high integrity systems, the journal is not solely
about these features. Its focus is broader. Its aim is to provide an
interdisciplinary platform for the examination of mechanisms that allow
systems to accomplish their objectives in the face of both anticipated
and unanticipated obstacles. Strategies used by both computer-based and
naturally occurring systems are of interest. Papers focusing on the
design, analysis, and explication of such mechanisms and strategies are
solicited. Analyses of the social and legal consequences of losses of
system integrity are also of interest. Original research, case studies,
and tutorial and survey articles are all welcome.
The journal is supported by an international editorial board. All
papers are fully refereed. Electronic submission is encouraged.
Publication of accepted papers within six months of submission is
anticipated.
For author information contact either:
Editor:
A. D. McGettrick,
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G1 1XH, UK
adm@cs.strath.ac.uk
or
Associate Editor:
R. J. Abbott,
California State University, Los Angeles, Ca 90032, USA
rabbott@calstatela.edu
or
The Aerospace Corporation, PO Box 92957, Los Angeles, Ca 90009, USA
abbott@aero.org
Announcements and news items are welcomed by:
P. A. Bennett,
Centre for Software Engineering Ltd., Scunthorpe, UK
------------------------------
From: mckeever@cogsci.uwo.ca (Paul McKeever)
Subject: Re: Digital Cash
Organization: University of Western Ontario, London
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 03:31:57 GMT
In article <comp-privacy3.55.3@pica.army.mil> Todd M Cocks
<tmc141@skorpio.usask.ca> writes:
>[ Article crossposted from alt.cyberpunk ]
>[ Author was Todd M Cocks ]
>[ Posted on 8 Oct 1993 04:46:14 GMT ]
>
>Ok, after being told by numerous people that what I was talking about was a
>debit card and not digicash, I'm now struck with a question:
>
>Why is privacy so important that people are wary about debit cards and instead
>would like the total anonymity of digicash? If the purchases made through a
>debit card are known only to the purchaser, the place the item/service was
>purchased and the bank, what is the problem? Laws have been put in place
>to protect banks from handing out account information to just anyone, no?
>I can see the possibility for misuse and abuse for this info should laws/
>attitudes change, but as it stands it seems to me to be people crying fire
>over just a little smoke.
>
>Digicash has many of the disadvantages of current cash transactions. Illegal
>activities can be conducted with complete anonymity. If you are mugged, I
>don't think the guy mugging you will accept that you don't wish to tell him
>your decode number...
>
>Anyway I'm sure there's a lot out there that I should catch up on since this
>subject is getting my 'wheels' turning so much. Can anyone offer me references
>to look into this more?
>
>Todd
>
>
I know little if anything about the technicalities of digicash,
but from what I can tell, it is simply an electronic form of money
that gives you all the benefits/drawbacks of cash. If that is so,
then here is something to think about re: "paranoid people " or
whatever one might wish to cause them/us.
Essentially, you are raising the old "Hey, we can trust our
government enough, why do we need [fill in here your form of
supra government power] to keep government in check?" argument.
It's quite a valid argument, and it comes up all the time in
discussions about whether countries need Charters/Bills of Freedoms
and Rights to prevent Government from creating laws that undermine
(in the case of the USA and Canada) the rights and freedoms of
individuals. My guess is that, if you can trust your government
not to violate the freedoms and rights of individuals, you can
also trust them when it comes to such things as anonymity. HOWEVER,
if you don't, as a matter of POLICY, and in the name of long
term protection of the individual, trust the government to make
'good' laws (i.e., if you figure that, as a matter of policy,
a Charter/Bill of Rights [and amendments to the US constitution,
for example] is a necessary/good thing to have) why should you
trust them any more with respect to anonymity matters?
In an age where electronic money is more and more prevalent,
there is increasing temptation for those with power to monitor
money transactions to a greater degree...the development of
an electronic equivalent to cash is simply maintaining the
status quo. If you are against paper cash, you are probably
against digicash. But if you are in favor of the anonymity
granted to you through the use of paper cash, why would those
who advocate the use of electronic cash seem paranoid to you?
(by "you", I'm not referring to Todd in particular).
By maintaining the availability of cash, you will be helping
both yourself and your government. Yourself, because nobody will
be able to tell that you're buying books from 'the wrong store',
or that you're renting 'bad movies', or that you donated money to
an eccentric/"radical" political party or charity etc.. Your
government, because polititicians will be able to give the
following reply to people who would otherwise use information
about your transactions to oppress you: "I have no way of knowing
who is behaving in a way that you find undesireable...I cannot
punish an unknown menace". In fact, in an effort to mask their
impotence in that arena, they may even be forced to go onto a
libertarian offensive: "I have no way of knowing, and I SHOULD
NOT have a way of knowing who is behaving in a way that you
find undesireable...." etc. etc. Ultimately, preserving the
legal use of paper/electronic cash may help to save/revive what
is left of a libertarian society (the USA) badly torn by
authoritarian laws made inevitable by the increasingly
pragmatic populist politicians of our day who are far too willing
to sacrifice the high principles of free markets and free minds
in exchange for mass approval and the job security it brings.
Finally, in response to the comment about the 'evils' of anonymity
(e.g., tax-evasion) consider the words of Benjamin Franklin (as
I read them on somebody's .signature): "Those who trade an essential
liberty for a promise of security will have neither."
This is just my (long winded, rant and rave) opinion, not a
criticism of Todd's letter (per se).
Paul
=====
My opinions are my own and do not represent the opinions of
those who disagree with me.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 93 18:34 PDT
From: John Higdon <john@zygot.ati.com>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
Subject: Worse Than Billboards
On Oct 12 at 16:27, Computer Privacy Digest Moderator writes:
> Subject: Digital Detective At Your Service
I never thought that I would have to see this ad here in addition to
everywhere else. Are your advertising rates reasonable? I run an IP
bureau, a long distance aggregation concern, am a telecom and RF
consultant, and do technical consulting in criminal cases. How much per
column inch?
Sorry about the sarcasm, but I really am offended to see this blatant
commercial annoucement posted all over the intermail world. And here,
too, Dennis?
(I won't be offended if you don't publish this; I am just pissed.)
[Moderator's Note: I'e received many complaints about this one. This is
one where I wasn't paying attention. I was gone for about 10 days
and really just looked at the headers as opposed to the body of the
article. ._dennis ]
--
John Higdon | +1 408 264 4115 | FAX:
john@zygot.ati.com | 10288 0 700 FOR-A-MOO | +1 408 264 4407
------------------------------
From: Dan Hartung <dhartung@chinet.chinet.com>
Subject: Re: Clinton Health Care Plan
Organization: Chinet - Public Access UNIX
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 03:44:38 GMT
Jerry Whelan <guru@camelot.bradley.edu> wrote:
>In article <comp-privacy3.53.1@pica.army.mil>,
>Dennis D. Steinauer <dds@csmes.ncsl.nist.gov> wrote:
>
>-} BTW -- The "Card" isn't likely to be a smartcard, massive memory card, or
>-} other such thing -- at least not for a long time. Indeed, it probably won't
>-} even be the SAME card in all ares. The president's plan, in line with the
>-} approach of encouraging technical innovation, initially calls for a minimal
>-} machine readability capability (read "mag strip").
>
> This is unfortunate from a privacy standpoint. I would prefer
>that all my medical/personal information be stored solely in
>something under my control. I realize that there would still be
>potential privacy concerns when the card is used (after all, what
>good is the data if it isn't used by the medical providers). But
>keeping the data only on the card goes a long way towards controlling
>the distribution of data about me without my consent.
Oops! Lost the card. Sorry we didn't know abot your allergy
to this common anesthetic....
--
The only variable that is really keeping down
health care costs is the number of DOAs.
Daniel A. Hartung -- dhartung@chinet.chinet.com -- Ask me about Rotaract
------------------------------
From: Mike Brokowski <brokowski@nwu.edi>
Subject: Re: Clinton Health Care Plan
Date: 13 Oct 1993 21:48:25 GMT
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston IL USA
In article <comp-privacy3.53.1@pica.army.mil>,
Dennis D. Steinauer <dds@csmes.ncsl.nist.gov> wrote:
>Bill Murray writes:
> >>
> >> The bureaucrats response of choice in this situation will be a personal
> >> identity number and a massive data base. This data base will contain
> >> our most intimate personal information. It will be in the
> >> hands of government bureaucrats. If bureaucrats simply do what
> >> bureaucrats do, these tools will result in huge loss of personal and
> >> family privacy. While safeguards, may mitigate this to some small
> >> degree, and whether or not there is abuse, the impact will be major.
> >>
> >> This is a natural and unavoidable cost of this program. Before we adopt
> >> this proposal, we should understand this cost which we cannot avoid.
>I think it would be best not to be ratcheting up the sound level on the
>debate until more facts and details are on the table.
Actually, I think that the privacy concerns inherent in any of the
proposed "reforms" should be made known clear and loud early on,
lest they be swept under the rug *now* as "technical issues" as
opposed to "policy issues". Then, later the government will do
what it does best and just choose the actual implementation that
satisfies the most vocal political interests. You can bet that
loudest among those interest will *not* be privacy-oriented folks,
who are a little quiet almost by nature.
I feel pretty certain that we won't see "more facts and details on
the table" in any substantial way until well past the time when
opposition to any facet of the plan will be taken to be opposition
to the whole thing. Then the choice will be to live with the
monster they plan to foist upon us or be labelled as some sort of
obstructionist.
>I don't believe there
>has been anyone familiar with the president's plan who has said anything
>about a "massive database" with "our most intimate personal information ...
>in the hands of government bureaucrats"
I haven't heard any public statement where "anyone familiar" with
that level of implementation detail has said anything about it at
all. And I certainly *don't* expect any administration official
(who values his job) to say that they "plan to keep a massive
database..." even if they've never considered anything different.
> -- nor do I believe that one has to
>assume that such is implicit in any of the plan's elements. In fact, the
>president's reform plan retains a great deal of decentralization in order to
>foster information technology innovation.
Hmmm. We'll see. I am not certain how any *national* plan will
tend to make things more "decentralized".
>Nowhere does the president's plan dicate a monolithic approach to the use of
>information technology. Rather, it focuses on a rational and (much) less
>fragemented approach that has been the case to date. It focuses on data and
>system interoperability standards and encouraging technical innovation.
>It recognizes the need for information technology to address problems both in
>administrative processes (read "claims processing") and ultimately in
>clinical automation. The healthcare industry itself has recognized the
>critical need for leadership in providing standards (including privacy and
>security standards).
>
>To the extent that personal information is maintained in "the system" -- and
>it certainly will be -- the president's plan calls for clear, national
>privacy rights and standards of protection. It occurs to me that this is
>certainly better than the current situation, which has resulted in a
>patchwork of state legislation and, in effect, less assurance of medical
>privacy than one has over ones video rentals. (And, frankly, I think I
>probably have a better chance of controlling my privacy rights with
>"government bureaucrats" than I do private organizations such as "medical
>information bureaus".) Does anyone seriously think he as acceptible privacy
>of his or her medical information now?
No. But I certainly don't feel that the government will be any
better than any private bureaus either. At least private industry
isn't likely to make information available to people who can't pay
for it. That may not be much of an assurance, but I don't see how
the state has any motive at all to keep things private.
>It seems to me that the president's reform proposal offers an outstanding
>opportunity to IMPROVE the state of privacy and security -- not the opposite
>as some people have suggested.
I hope so. That would be a welcome departure from most of the
administration's other proposals, as in the area of encryption.
>As with other aspects of the current
>healthcare system, the worst thing we could do is nothing.
Not true. It isn't hard at all to imagine alterations to the
current system which make it worse than the present one. And,
since privacy concerns are not the only area where nothing more
than lip service has been given to implementation details, I
don't imagine that privacy is the only aspect of the system
which stands at risk from the changes. "Change" isn't always
good, and government mandated change is neither the only kind
of change nor the most desirable. We are always changing
*something*, whether or not the change is worthwhile is a
separate question.
>Dennis D. Steinauer
>National Institute of Standards and Technology
>A-216 Technology
>Gaithersburg, MD 20899 USA
>DSteinauer@nist.gov
>
>BTW -- The "Card" isn't likely to be a smartcard, massive memory card, or
>other such thing -- at least not for a long time. Indeed, it probably won't
>even be the SAME card in all ares. The president's plan, in line with the
>approach of encouraging technical innovation, initially calls for a minimal
>machine readability capability (read "mag strip").
My SS card has, essentially, only one number on it, yet I'd
estimate that one-third of the posts to this group relate to
actual and potential abuses of that number. So, the simplicity
of the card itself doesn't do much to assuage privacy concerns.
Respectfully,
Mike
brokowski@nwu.edu
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 11:31:12 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Tansin A. Darcos & Company" <0005066432@mcimail.com>
Reply-To: "Tansin A. Darcos & Company" <0005066432@mcimail.com>
Subject: Re: Personal Privacy vs. the "Digital Detective"?
From: Paul Robinson <TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM>
Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA
-----
For the benefit of other readers, comments from Lauren Weinstein
(Lauren@vortex.com> are prefixed with "> ", comments from
Patrick Townson <ptownson@telecom.chi.il.us> are prefixed with ">> ":
> A few days ago, in my capacity as PRIVACY Forum moderator, I received
> an e-mail submission from Patrick Townson, politely asking if I would
> consider publishing it in the digest. (Pat is moderator of the
> TELECOM digest; we have various communications regarding digest
> matters from time to time.)
>
> The submission was essentially an ad promoting a new service he is
> offering. I informed him that my policy is not to run ads, though
> particular products and services may be mentioned in the context
> of informational or discussion messages submitted to the Forum.
>> I wish to announce my recent aquisition of some databases which are
>> primarily used by skip-tracing, investigative and government agencies
>> to locate people, any assets they may have, and other pertinent and
>> personal details of their lives.
>>
>> These databases are being made available to anyone who wishes to have
>> access to them. The charges are simply being passed along, 'at cost'
>> based on what I am paying.
Seems a little higher than 'at cost'. I don't particularly care one way
or another whether Pat makes money off this service or not (and if it's
valuable, he should.)
>> You provide an SSN. I will advise you of all the names which have
>> been used with this SSN
Let's see: drivers licenses, voting records, and possibly matches from
credit reports. (I think that while giving out the information in a credit
report requires permission, it may not be prohibited for a credit
reporting company to use collected information to add to or correct other
infomrmation files, e.g. putting SSAN into name collections. If it is not
permitted, then this isn't one source for the base data.) If I sat down,
I could probably think of a few more places to get this from.
Oh yes, the Selective Service Registration requires filing by the
Selective Service with every County Clerk of each male in that county who
is registered. When I was visiting the Los Angeles County Courthous to
renew my ficticious name registration, the list for that week or month was
posted for anyone to look at. I don't remember if the list included the
Social Security number or not.
You now have to - courtesy of the Internal Revenue Service - have to file a
notice with your social security number when you buy or sell a house.
A former Commissioner of Social Security - Dorcas Hardy - had considered
sharing their SSA database with some credit reporting companies. There
was a rather serious opposition to this, and it was dropped, fortunately.
>> You provide a name. Any name okay, but very common names will
>> render a useless list. Middle initials and last known address is
>> requested if possible. You'll receive a listing of every person who
>> has that name, along with other data:...
>> It can be searched by telephone number only: You provide the phone
>> number, I will respond with the person's profile and neighbor listing.
Two points - I remember this; some company in Florida or Texas or somewhere
is providing this computerized service, and they get reports from
courthouses and search firms around the country who supply them with local
information.
Also, R.L. Polk & Company does - or did - operate a city directory service
where they published cross-index directories; I remember doing a lookup in
a Polk guide more than 20 years ago. Look up a street and it
will tell you the name of everyone there that they could find either by
canvassing the neighborhood and asking people, or leaving post cards asking
for a call back (cards were marked 'urgent') or reading the directory sign
in apartment buildings if there was one. In one famous copyright case, a
company was doing this, then using the phone book to verify the accuracy
of their information. The courts ruled that while the information in a
telephone book was protected (not the case now) it is not infringement to
use one to verify an independently collected batch of information. And
Polk even printed a number to call in their St. Louis office to
specifically ask NOT to be listed. You had to give them your information
in order to identify which listing not to be printed; it sounds strange,
but it makes sense: unless they know which item not to print, they can't
remove it.
Lotus was planning to offer a similar service on CD ROM, until public
complaints forced them to drop it (thousands of people asked not to be
included. Technically, since the information is collected from public
sources, Lotus didn't HAVE to remove the information.)
I believe also Compuserve is now running a similar service for people
searches.
Here's another one: MIT runs a newsgroup scanner, either on 'Pit-Manager'
or 'RTFM' or some place. (Or I may be wrong and it's some other school.)
If anyone on Internet posts a message on any newsgroup (or I suppose, on
any list that it receives) it captures the name and E-Mail address. So
you can query that database for people's names or E-Mail addresses, and it
even tells you the date that the particular name was seen. I don't know
how often the cache is flushed, but it's one place to find recent E-Mail
addresses. In one case I queried it for my account and it gave me a list
of all the identifiers I had used.
The Whois database used to do this for anyone who requested registration;
now, you have to have a reason to be there, like contact point for a
network or a domain. (I'm still there; if anyone does a 'WHOIS TDARCOS'
they will get my name and address because I hold an Internet Class C
Address block.)
>> Consumer Credit reports availale from one bureau, $60
I once called one of the local offices of a national credit bureau. I
pretended to be an employer, and asked them, if I was just interested in
getting an occastional listing because I am checking perhaps 5 or 6 people
a year as potential employees, and not doing enough business to justify a
$15 a month subscription, was it possible for me to obtain reports even
though I am not a subscriber. 'Certainly'. I have to send in a written
statement indicateing (1) that I have a legally authorized reason to
obtain the information, and (2) what that reason is, e.g. type of request,
employment, credit, etc. (They send out a packet of information along
with their forms to apply for srvice and the request for a non-subscrber
pull.) The subscriber rate for pulls in commercial requests is $8 apiece,
and the non-subscriber rate was $15. Employer requests are slightly
higher because different information had to be requested.
I used to work for a real-estate office that rented out property. The
owner would routinely obtain credit reports - and reports of people who
had been evicted, sued for unpaid rent, etc. - from a clearinghouse that
handled information for that purpose; all they had to do was to collect
the reports from the 50 or so courthouse in Southern California where
evictions were filed. Also, if you were sending someone the preliminary
5-day ("Notice to Pay Rent or Quit"), you could report this to them.
I think only the credit reports needed proof of a legitimate business
reason.
All the other stuff is out there if you want to dig for it.
>> Information should be available to everyone, not just the lawyers
>> and bankers and government agencies. I'll provide information to
>> anyone, at anytime from the categories above. Hope to hear from
>> you soon with your requests.
All Pat is doing is making available to the general public,
something that only the 'big boys' have had access to. This seems to
sound like the exact same argument that erupted when Caller-ID became
available to anyone, even though ANI has been available on 1-800 number
calls for many years. Pay minimum and you get an ANI list at the time you
get your bill. Pau more and you get it in real-time while the call is
coming in.
>> Regards criminal histories for example, if someone does not like the
>> information being given out, then their real beef is with the concept
>> of free, open to the public trials in the USA. In every courthouse in
>> America, anyone is free to walk in, sit down and observe a trial going
>> on. We do not have secret trials in the USA.
Except for Juvenile Court where ther trials *are* secret. The public is
not allowed to visit those trials, and the records on those are sealed.
Ostensibly this is to "protect" the juvenile that is arrested. (Note that
appeals, however, are NOT sealed because appeals make the court reporter
cases, they do, however, only print the first name and first letter of the
last name where a juvenile is a party in a case, which is why the famous
"Born Innocent" case (Girl sues NBC over someone getting the idea of using
a houshould object to commit rape from that movie), was known as "Oivia N.
v. National Broadcasting Company".
Otherwise this is correct; all court cases are open to the public.
Sometimes the judges would prefer to railroad people in secret, as they
sometimes ask why you are watching a case (I was asked by a judge once,
I'm not sure whether it was because he was wondering if I was one of
the litigants in a case or if he wanted to know why I was there. So I
said that I was just there to watch.)
> But here's the *real* issue. If we assume that Pat is right in his
> statements that all of the information to which he has access is
> legally distributable, it goes far to pointing out what an utter
> disgrace the state of privacy and privacy laws in this country
> have become.
I don't know where 'have become' came from. Until recently - which
means the last 20 years or less - communicating long distance was
expensive and keeping records required huge manual files on paper.
Now we have cheap national communications and computers can store
information for about 1/5c per page (figuring 1 megabyte of disk
at $1 and 1 page at 2048 characters).
But the fact is that courthouse records have been open to the public for
more than 200 years. It's only with the cheap transmission and storage
capability that the issue of privacy has surfaced, since now, records
tend to be cheap to keep around for long periods of time.
> There is certainly a philosophical underpinning to all of this. By
> analogy, Pat's view that everyone should have access to all the
> information available on everybody seems similar to the view that the
> way to solve the violent crime problem is to make sure that everyone in
> the country is carrying a gun at all times and is provided with plenty
> of ammunition. While some will no doubt agree with both of these
> concepts, hopefully many of us do not.
Funny you should say that. The places with the most restrictive gun laws,
Washington and New York, have the worst gun homicide rates. Ones with
controls but not as severe - Chicago, Los Angeles - are almost as bad. In
Phoenix it is legal to wear a gun in public - wich almost nobody does -
and thethe number of homiceds there are much less. (There are probably
other causes such as the goverment telling people in the slums that they
are vicitms and it's okay to feel that government is their only hope, and
since the government doesn't really plan to put people in prison, it's
okay to commit any crime since you probably won't do time.) In
Switzerland by law every male is required to keep in their house, loaded,
a FULLY AUTOMATIC machine gun which the government gives them. Gun homicides
are rare there.
> It should now be crystal clear that the privacy situation in this
> country is in shambles. You can't just sit there, read this, and
> then file it off and forget it. Sooner or later, and most likely
> sooner, *you* are going to be affected.
>
> And just exactly what, my friends, are we going to do about it?
Short of declaring a civil war and pulling another Magna Charta, I doubt
there is much that can be done. But there is a wider issue: access to
credit, to money, and other valuable things requires that those who offer
access have reasonable assurances they will be repaid. Credit databses
got started because people didn't always pay their bills or sometimes
moved from town to town to escape judgements. The credit reporting laws
came into effect because the people running the reporting agencies were
not careful in how they handled the information they got.
A future employer may have reason to want to know if a person who handles
money is running large debts and not paying bills; this may indicate that
they are a possible risk. A company that issues a mortgage wants to be
certain it will be repaid; a person renting out a house or apartment wants
to be certain their rents will be paid on time. Without access to the
information, people may have to charge more.
And in some places, getting people to take a check is almost impossible
because getting information suitable for skip tracing if the person
doesn't pay is restricted. Where there are restrictions in the access to
data, the honest suffer when guilty people cannot be located. One man in
California mentioned that even with a court judgement, because of fears
of misuse, he can't get access to someone's address from their drivers'
license, even though a private investigator or insurance company
representative can.
---
Note: All mail is read/responded every day. If a message is sent to this
account, and you expect a reply, if one is not received within 24 hours,
resend your message; some systems do not send mail to MCI Mail correctly.
Paul Robinson - TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM
Voted "Largest Polluter of the (IETF) list" by Randy Bush <randy@psg.com>
-----
The following Automatic Fortune Cookie was selected only for this message:
In case of injury notify your superior immediately. He'll kiss it and
make it better.
------------------------------
End of Computer Privacy Digest V3 #056
******************************