Date: Sat, 28 Oct 95 11:10:07 EST
Errors-To: Comp-privacy Error Handler <owner-comp-privacy@uwm.edu>
From: Computer Privacy Digest Moderator <comp-privacy@uwm.edu>
To: Comp-privacy@uwm.edu
Subject: Computer Privacy Digest V7#035
Computer Privacy Digest Sat, 28 Oct 95 Volume 7 : Issue: 035
Today's Topics: Moderator: Leonard P. Levine
Re: Call Blocking
Re: Author Profiles at Deja News
Re: Author Profiles at Deja News
Re: Author Profiles at Deja News
Re: Author Profiles at Deja News
Re: Author Profiles at Deja News
Re: Author Profiles at Deja News
Re: Copyright Notice
Re: Copyright Notice
Re: Voter Registration Records
Resistance to Electronic Road Taxes
Re: Inappropriate Access to Absentee Ballot Lists?
Re: State Phone Policies Survey
Stolen SSN -> fake credit card; real examples
SSNs on Wanted Posters
Re: Can you Sue if Credit is Denied for Lack of SSN?
Re: The Information Rights Act of 1996
Info on CPD [unchanged since 08/18/95]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: les@Steam.Stanford.EDU (Les Earnest)
Date: 26 Oct 1995 21:56:03 GMT
Subject: Re: Call Blocking
Organization: Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
WELKER@a1.vsdec.nl.nuwc.navy.mil writes: The default behavior of
the telephone company is to publish your number becuase most people
want their numbers listed. Since the phone company has to do
something special to "turn off" your listing, the cost of the
additional labor can be passed on to you, not to mention cost of
lost revenue from not being able to sell your name, which would
otherwise show up on everybody's phone bill (a fact that the phone
company will surely have reminded the UTC of).
This argument doesn't hold up under scrutiny -- in fact there is
practically no cost to "turn off" a listing. A more plausible argument
that did apply at the time that those charges were initially applied
was that unlisted numbers induce more calls to directory assistance,
which costs the telephone company money. However, now that there are
charges for directory assistance calls (or at least for those over a
certain small number), there is no longer an excuse for charging a fee
for an unlisted number.
--
Les Earnest (les@cs.stanford.edu) Phone: 415 941-3984
Computer Science Dept.; Stanford, CA 94305 Fax: 415 941-3934
------------------------------
From: crowdog@crosslink.net (Erik Rensberger)
Date: 27 Oct 1995 03:27:38 GMT
Subject: Re: Author Profiles at Deja News
Organization: The_Squiredom
[ Compilations of several Articles crossposted from alt.society.anarchy ]
Want to see how many times your name has been in posts to this group?
What the texts of those posts are? Who responded to you? How many times
you posted to which groups?
Check out http://dejanews.com/ and do a search of your own name!
Text-only people: no graphics to not see, so go ahead and check it out.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The CIA and various other military agencys set up the internet.
The problem they face now is how to control it.
They know who we are anyway.
The revolution wont be televised however.
Peace and hemp justice
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Ts cool!
If I die today, I can still get my point of view across to people.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Shit, Della, you _had_ to go and hip everyone to these databases??? The
one you mention is the second major publically accessible usenet
database, and the implications suck. It's not searching one's _own_
name that has _me_ spooked...
Now the world knows that you're a regular in
alt.sex.fetish.bestio-pedo-necrophilia .... smart move....
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
This may not be such a bad thing. On the net everyone is watching
everyone else. When someone has something good to propagate they post
it to the relevant groups and everyone can share in the newfound
knowledge. You can find answers to questions, advice, and many, many
people who my not know what's right but are compassionate and
uderstanding and willing to listen to what you have to say. Many times
that is enough to make things better. People worry about the
information being misused but when someone posts some crap that may be
harmfull there are many people who immediately step in and try to lay
the facts out for each of us to decide for ourselves. So people aren't
just seeing "how to make a bomb and startle your neighbors" they also
hear how so and so tried it and blew his hand off. It is much easier to
make intellegent decisions when we know all the facts.
As a society of specialists we must work together and trust each other
if we are to survive.
------------------------------
From: Jay@Mindspring.com (Jay Harrell)
Date: 26 Oct 1995 18:36:33 -0400
Subject: Re: Author Profiles at Deja News
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology
<hunt@austin.metrowerks.com> wrote: investigating *easily and
efficiently* what areas of UseNet they inhabit.
I've been following these discussions and I've taken a look at the
DejaNews web site. In my opinion, this site is at worst a neutral
thing. What DejaNews has done isn't particular difficult technically,
and wouldn't cost a ton of money either. If somebody, _anybody_,
wanted to collect this kind of data about people all they would need to
get started is an ISP, a newsfeed, a less than $5000 computer, and some
programming skill (or course, they would need a ton of storage space
pretty quickly). What DejaNews has done is put the rest of us, who
don't have the time or energy to collect the data ourselves, on more
equal footing with others who might actually be motivated to collect
this data. Big companies already have access to all kinds of sensitive
data about individuals (credit reports and medical histories for
example) and they keep this data away from us "little guys". I can't
help but be in favor of something that gives the little guy access to
exactly the same information that the big guys already have. (Gee, it
sure would be nice if the next time I sell a used car, I could check
the credit report of the guy who makes me an offer - just like the car
dealers already do.)
Now, you've turned UseNet into that small town where everyone knows
everyone else's business. It's now infinitely easier to find out
all kinds of information about people they normally wouldn't want
the whole world knowing.
I've seen basically this same sentiment several times and I don't
really understand it. How in the world could anyone possibly expect
something they post to be pseudo-anonymous when they put their name on
it and have Usenet copy it all over the world for them. I've seen
plenty of people flame away in Usenet forums - and I've run into those
same people later in business and social setting where they seemed like
regular normal people except I knew about a dark side they let show
when they felt anonymous. Go figure.
One more comment and then I'll go. Already, our society isn't nearly
as anonymous as people think it is. While it may be next to impossible
for an ordinary individual to easily track another specific
individual's habits and movements, it is trivial for a government or
criminal organization to do so. Most of what we do remains anonymous
because no one _cares_ what you do. But my grandmother lives in a
rural area and actually reads the legal notices in the local paper.
She knows who all has refinanced their property, defaulted on loans,
and all kinds of interesting little tidbits about people who she knows
and sees a regualr basis. These are things that my friends don't tend
to know about me because I live in a bigger city and frankly, they just
don't care to know. I realize it's a hell of a lot easier to track
stuff down when it's computerized and on the Internet, but really I
think that the answer here is for people to not post what they don't
want others to read.
--
Jay Harrell
Alanta Georgia
------------------------------
From: pshriner@csn.org (Peter Shriner)
Date: 26 Oct 1995 20:56:21 -0700
Subject: Re: Author Profiles at Deja News
Organization: Rocky Mountain Internet Inc.
"Bill McClatchie" <wmcclatc@nyx10.cs.du.edu> wrote: And the profile
could show someone as posting to groups like the alt.pedophilia.*
groups, and quite possibly they won't have the article you followed
up to which had a "unusual" follow-up line. Something like that
ought to look good on a quick check of what you do online.
Of course they aren't doing it now ;-), but consider what governments,
law enforcement agencies, corporate security depts., human resources
depts., etc. might do with their own version of dejanews.
And why not? Everyone's posts are publicly available. I've heard it
said that posting to UseNet is like standing in the town square with a
bullhorn, telling all the world what you think. When I go to post
something, my newsreader displays the following message:
"This machine posts news to thousands (now millions?) of machines
throughout the civilized world. Please be sure you know what you are
doing."
Forget the privacy lawsuits against services like DejaNews - it's
better to think a little before one's fingers starting wandering across
the keyboard. With the ability to say something comes the
responsibility _not_ to say it.
------------------------------
From: mikeb@ssd.fsi.com (Mike Bates)
Date: 27 Oct 1995 10:44:12 -0500
Subject: Re: Author Profiles at Deja News
Organization: FlightSafety-SSD, Tulsa, OK, USA
"Bill McClatchie" <wmcclatc@nyx10.cs.du.edu> writes: And the
profile could show someone as posting to groups like the
alt.pedophilia.* groups, and quite possibly they won't have the
article you followed up to which had a "unusual" follow-up line.
Something like that ought to look good on a quick check of what you
do online.
For what it's worth, Deja News doesn't archive alt.*, soc.*, talk.*, or
any of the binaries groups. At first I thought this was odd, perhaps
just a strategy to eliminate junk from the database. It also provides
a way for eliminating most of the controversial groups from the
database and from an author's profile.
There is a flaw in the way they present profiles, however. My profile,
on another account, looks like this:
* 5 articles posted between 1995/07/04 and 1995/08/30.
* 60% followups.
*
Number of articles posted to individual newsgroups:
+ 3 rec.travel.europe
+ 1 soc.culture.irish
+ 1 soc.culture.british
So two soc.* groups show up in my profile. (I've posted a lot more
articles to soc.culture.irish, none of them crossposted, so they don't
show up.) It turns out that Deja News only tallies the first group in
the newsgroups line and doesn't filter for alt, soc, talk, or
binaries. The newsgroups line for the soc.culture.british posting
(which was a follow-up) looks like this:
newsgroups:
soc.culture.british,soc.history,rec.music.celtic,soc.culture.irish,
soc.culture.scottish
The soc.culture.irish posting was crossposted (by me) to
rec.travel.europe.
In my case, no real harm done, but here's a scenario. Someone trolls
rec.pets.cats with "101 things to do with a dead cat" and sets
followups to alt.pedophilia and rec.pets.cats, with alt.pedophilia
appearing at the beginning of the newsgroups line. Yes, we all ought
to be careful, but it's easy to get burned, especially if you're new to
the net and have lousy news software.
My suggestion to Deja News is that they use their newsgroups filter on
the newsgroups line when compiling the user profile. This would
prevent this kind of blind-siding.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Bates FlightSafety International, Simulation Systems Div.
Principal Engineer 2700 North Hemlock Circle
Computer Systems Group Broken Arrow, Oklahoma 74012
mikeb@ssd.fsi.com 918-251-0500 ext. 598
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
From: miller@cs.rochester.edu (Brad Miller)
Date: 27 Oct 1995 13:36:36 -0400
Subject: Re: Author Profiles at Deja News
Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science
"David H. Klein" <davidhk@dciexpo.com> wrote: On the issue of
privacy in the Newsgroups, IMHO, the service such as Dejanews was
bound to happen. I agree with it.
I'm glad someone came forward and said this. I do too. One of the
problems in "society", IMHO, is the lack of responsibility for one's
own actions. If you can't feel responsible for something you put your
own name on, then the rest of us deserve to know that about you.
Is forgery a potential problem? Sure, but if you respond to the forgery
(and now you know where to look to find out if there's been a forgery
to a group you don't read, in your name), that'll be indexed too.
And all these things have to be taken with a grain (or a cow-lick :-)
of salt. Just because someone is a frequent contributor to
alt.howto.cook.kids doesn't make their arguments in comp.unix.wizards
more or less plausible. (If you don't buy that, I suggest finding a
good book on fallacious argumentation techniques).
When you post something, there may be expectation of copyright, to the
extent the article goes beyond the usenet system, but there is
certainly no expectation of *privacy*; you do not post to a restricted
set of readers, you post to anyone who happens to read the newsgroup,
suscribe to a clipping service, or (now), use services like Dejanews.
Confusing this with **real** privacy issues, like information you have
to give your doctor for him to make a diagnosis, just clouds the issue
of what is private and what is public.
If you don't want something potentially read by everyone on the planet,
don't post news!
--
Brad Miller miller@cs.rochester.edu
Computer Science Dept http://www.cs.rochester.edu/u/miller/
University of Rochester (716) 275-1118 (v) 461-2018 (f)
Rochester, NY 14627-0226
------------------------------
From: "Prof. L. P. Levine" <levine@blatz.cs.uwm.edu>
Date: 27 Oct 1995 15:18:02 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: Author Profiles at Deja News
Organization: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
"Bill McClatchie" <wmcclatc@nyx10.cs.du.edu> wrote: And the profile
could show someone as posting to groups like the alt.pedophilia.*
groups, and quite possibly they won't have the article you followed
up to which had a "unusual" follow-up line. Something like that
ought to look good on a quick check of what you do online.
I feel the service is a good add-on to the internet. It gives a
service to the rest of us that is already available to the most wealthy
of us. Not only is it a useful service for those of us who cannot keep
our own massive archives but it serves as a good teaching tool to those
that somehow are unaware of the lack of privacy that occurs during
posting.
One difficulty is this: How sure are we that the postings that are
attributed to us are ours and how sure are we that our postings are
all listed? Who becomes sueable (able to be sued) when there is an
error in the database, of either of these two kinds?
Finally, I hope that the owner of the database is prepared to accept
correction lists from us posters that we can use to fix the errors
that have crept into the database. Even Equif*x and services like
that have been ordered to post corrections when a user presents them,
I am sure that dejanews will do the same, right? :-)
--
Leonard P. Levine e-mail levine@cs.uwm.edu
Professor, Computer Science Office 1-414-229-5170
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Fax 1-414-229-6958
Box 784, Milwaukee, WI 53201
PGP Public Key: finger llevine@blatz.cs.uwm.edu
------------------------------
From: les@Steam.Stanford.EDU (Les Earnest)
Date: 26 Oct 1995 22:52:43 GMT
Subject: Re: Copyright Notice
Organization: Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Peter da Silva writes: The right to make copies is automatically
reserved to the author. You don't have to assert it to retain
copyright.
My understanding of the copyright law is different -- that the
copyright belongs to the person who first puts "copyrightable" material
in a permanent form, such as a paper copy or a magnetic recording.
Simply posting an article on Usenet does not meet this standard.
An example from another situation is human speech -- you can't
copyright spoken words, but you can copyright either a printed version
of a speech or a recording of it. (However, I'm not a lawyer, so don't
act without consulting one.)
Submitting a copyrighted posting to an electronic newsgroup is an
oxymoron as it causes the copying of the document very widely and
quickly causes the author to lose control over just what he has
officially reserved.
When you submit a document to a newsgroup, you are requesting that
copies be made under the normal Usenet distribution mechanisms.
Copyright in the document and responsibility for its contents
remains with the author, oherwise nobody could afford the liability
involved in carrying Usenet!
Nonsequitur! First, the copyright for this material will belong to the
first entity that makes a recording of it, which will probably not be
the author. Second, there is no agreement about what the "normal
Usenet distribution mechanisms" are, so if you take seriously the idea
that Usenet material is copyrighted and you also note that the
copyright holder (whoever that is) has not given explicit permission to
copy, then we are all in violation of the law and have been for years.
I hope that the Congress and courts will address this issue and clarify
our rights and obligations some time soon. As things stand, I believe,
the status of copyright in electronic media is rather ambiguous.
To claim that one is giving up that copyright by posting, would be
to claim that George Lucas (or Paramount, or whoever holds it these
days) gave up the copyright to Star Wars when it was broadcast on
TV.
No. Lucas first put Star Wars in the form of film, which was
copyrighted, so he owns it.
--
Les Earnest (les@cs.stanford.edu) Phone: 415 941-3984
Computer Science Dept.; Stanford, CA 94305 Fax: 415 941-3934
------------------------------
From: JF_Brown@pnl.gov (Jeff Brown)
Date: 28 Oct 1995 00:03:45 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: Re: Copyright Notice
Organization: Battelle Pacific Northwest Labs
levine@blatz.cs.uwm.edu says... Copyright is a reservation to
yourself of the right to make copies. Submitting a copyrighted
posting to an electronic newsgroup is an oxymoron as it causes the
copying of the document very widely and quickly causes the author
to lose control over just what he has officially reserved.
I think that considering copyrighted posting to a newsgroup an oxymoron
is equivalent to shooting the victim. We are ethically bound to
respect the copyrights of others. If we do not, we are either acting
unethically or at best are ignorant of of our laws and societal
standards of behavior. Thus, an author should be able to post
material, and be aware of the risk, without giving up control.
--
Jeff Brown
JF_Brown@Pnl.gov
------------------------------
From: Robert Gellman <rgellman@cais.cais.com>
Date: 27 Oct 1995 10:07:35 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: Voter Registration Records
There has been some discussion here about access to voter records. I
just thought that I would contribute a few facts to help clarify the
situation.
Access to voter registration lists varies considerably among the fifty
states. About half restrict access to or use of voter registration
records. California is a restrictive state, allowing disclosure to
candidates, to researchers, and to a few others. Pennsylvania permits
public inspection but prohibits use for "commercial or improper
purposes." Oklahoma and South Carolina have unrestricted voter rolls.
Even in states with restrictions, access to political parties or
candidates is typically permitted.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
+ Robert Gellman rgellman@cais.com +
+ Privacy and Information Policy Consultant +
+ 431 Fifth Street S.E. +
+ Washington, DC 20003 +
+ 202-543-7923 (phone) 202-547-8287 (fax) +
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
------------------------------
From: Phil Agre <pagre@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: 27 Oct 1995 11:15:27 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Resistance to Electronic Road Taxes
A newspaper article in the UK describes a report on the possibility of
public resistance to road use taxes ("tolls") implemented using
electronic systems for (though the article does not use this particular
term) "automatic vehicle identification":
Jonathan Prynn, Road tolls "could be another poll tax", The Times
(London), 2 October 1995, page 4.
It quotes the report, issued by the Centre for Policy Studies, a think
tank closely associated with Britain's governing Conservative Party, as
asserting:
If electronic tolling is not seen as fair, there is a very real risk
of civil disobedience. ...
Many motorists might decide simply to ignore the law and drive on
motorways without paying tolls. The Government would be quickly
overwhelmed by the number of violations and could have no choice but
to abandon the system. The experience of the poll tax might not be
entirely irrelevant.
This last sentence is a reference to the massive public resistance to
the "poll tax", officially known as the "community charge", an
extremely unpopular per capita tax instituted by the Thatcher
government around 1990. I was living in the UK at this time and was
most impressed; resistance to the tax was highly organized and drew on
centuries of cultural memory of popular resistance to unfair taxes.
(Thus the term "poll tax".)
But resistance to electronic road use taxes has occurred elsewhere.
Citizen councils and professional societies in Hong Kong rejected such
a "congestion pricing" scheme in the 1980's, citizens in Washington
State are currently waging an effective campaign against similar
proposals there, and a so-called "Citizens Jury" in Minneapolis
recently came out strongly against the idea in that area. The pattern
is pretty common: concerns over unfair or excessive taxation rank
highest in citizens' minds, but as the issue unfolds they learn more
and become more concerned about the serious privacy issues associated
with such systems. The CPS report, for example, proposes that the
Government maintain databases listing every road user in the country as
either a "low" or "high" road user, keeping track of everybody's
travels and issuing bills to "low-use" drivers who exceed a certain
limit. Unlike electronic automation of existing toll collection
systems, participation in these proposed schemes is effectively
mandatory because it would be impractical to pay all of the new tolls
with cash. The effect is to create the technical means to track the
movements on public highways of practically everbody in the country.
The article states:
This [system of registering low and high users] would be policed by a
network of roadside cameras linked by microprocessor to a hard disc
list of high-use vehicles.
Such proposals are going forward in one fashion or another throughout
nearly the whole of the industrialized world, and it is crucial that a
proper public debate take place on them before they provoke massive
public resistance -- or, much worse, before they progress so far that
resistance becomes futile. The solution to the civil liberties
problems, as pointed out in an article in the October 2nd US News and
World Report, is for these systems to employ technologies such as
digital cash that prevent the capture of individually identifiable
information about citizens' movements. Technology is not going to
solve the taxation problem, but all of these systems embody choices
that ought to be made through proper public debate, not the back-room
fiat that is now the norm.
--
Phil Agre
------------------------------
From: cwarack@kirk.usafa.af.mil (Chris Warack <sys mgr>)
Date: 27 Oct 1995 20:32:49 GMT
Subject: Re: Inappropriate Access to Absentee Ballot Lists?
Organization: USAFA Dept of Computer Science
"Dennis G. Rears" <drears@Pica.Army.Mil> writes: Steve Rose
<clearnts@coho.halcyon.com> writes: I live in Seattle, Washington.
I just got a mailing from a candidate named Richard B. Sanders
encouraging me to: "Mark your absentee ballot today..." I found
this, shall we say, interesting, considering I also happened to get
an absentee ballot this same day. This mailing was clearly
addressed: "Attention Absentee Voter" and my next door neighbor,
who had not ordered an absentee ballot, didn't get the same
mailing.
I would bet that Mr. Sanders doesn't even see this as a
government/privacy issue. Candidates have always gone to the
voting records. Why else do only democrats get democratic primary
mailings and republicans republican maillings. When a process has
always been done a certain way very few if any look at process.
It's not right but it is human nature.
I'm not sure this is not right. As a long time absentee voter (active
duty military) I think about the process quite a bit. I'm 1000 miles
away from where I vote. I don't see local TV, I don't get a local
paper. I have two sources of information about state/local issues: 1)
relatives in the area, and 2) election mailings... If addresses
weren't available for any voter, I'd say absentee voter addresses
should be available to candidates, etc. It's the only way many
absentee voters can get information about the topics they should vote
on.
Even with the mailings, my family and I find we abstain on a lot of
issues.
BTW, what is worse that people have access to these records or the
junk mail they send? I have problems with the access but I wonder
what is the worse evil, lack of accoutability of voting records or
lack of privacy of records. If it is the junk mail, even if the
access was denied they would probably end up junk mailing
everyone. Either way we lose.
One man's junk mail is another man's only source of info. :-)
--
Christopher A. Warack, Capt, USAF cwarack@cs.usafa.af.mil (719) 472-2401
Computer Science Department, US Air Force Academy
STANDARD DISCLAIMER: This content in no way reflects the opinions,
standards, or policy of the USAF Academy, or the US government.
------------------------------
From: wrf@ecse.rpi.edu (Wm. Randolph U Franklin)
Date: 27 Oct 1995 21:08:55 GMT
Subject: Re: State Phone Policies Survey
Organization: ECSE Dept, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 12180 USA
prvtctzn@aol.com (Prvt Ctzn) writes:
Illinois, Chicago metro are, is covered by Ameritech. Charges are as
follows:
To stay out of the telephone book = $0.97/month
To stay out of the book and Directory Assistance = $1.45/month
To get the names and phone number of those
paying Ameritech up to $17.40 / year to
keep thier numbers private = $9.00 month
This reminds me of the book, "The Arms of Krupp". Krupp, the large
German arms company, would sell bigger and bigger guns and armor to
both sides of a war. In fact during WWI, Vickers, the British arms
company used a licensed Krupp shell fuse against German soldiers, who
were firing Krupp guns at the British. After WWI, Krupp used the
number of dead Germans to estimate how many licensed shells Vickers had
fired, and submitted a bill. Vickers paid part of it.
--
Wm. Randolph Franklin, wrf@ecse.rpi.edu, (518) 276-6077; Fax: -6261
ECSE Dept., 6026 JEC, Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst, Troy NY, 12180 USA
------------------------------
From: wrf@ecse.rpi.edu (Wm. Randolph U Franklin)
Date: 27 Oct 1995 23:03:47 GMT
Subject: Stolen SSN -> fake credit card; real examples
Organization: ECSE Dept, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 12180 USA
This one is for the people who don't think that it hurts to let your
SSN be public. It is from the Albany Times Union, Wed Oct 25, page
B-4, POLICE BLOTTER:
Bethlehem, 2:23 pm. IMPERSONATION: Someone used complainant's son's
name and SSN to obtain a MC/V card from Citibank... When the
application was checked, fraud was discovered. Victim also learned the
same person illegally used his SSN to get a Discovery card....
------------------------
Wm. Randolph Franklin, wrf@ecse.rpi.edu, (518) 276-6077; Fax: -6261
ECSE Dept., 6026 JEC, Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst, Troy NY, 12180 USA
------------------------------
From: sean@sdg.dra.com (Sean Donelan)
Date: 28 Oct 95 01:40:36 CDT
Subject: SSNs on Wanted Posters
Organization: Data Research Associates, St. Louis MO
"Dennis G. Rears" <drears@Pica.Army.Mil> writes: estate
transactions. Never make the FBI fugitive list, on the wanted
posters they publish the SSN of the criminal. Is that an invasion
of privacy?
The FBI doesn't publish the SSN of the criminal (wanted person,
innocent until proven guilty in a court of law etc). The FBI publishes
the SSN(s) reportly used by the wanted person. The published SSN(s)
may or may not be the same SSN assigned to the person by the Social
Security Administration.
--
Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO
Affiliation given for identification not representation
------------------------------
From: JF_Brown@pnl.gov (Jeff Brown)
Date: 28 Oct 1995 00:06:37 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: Re: Can you Sue if Credit is Denied for Lack of SSN?
Organization: Battelle Pacific Northwest Labs
straurig@mailgw.sanders.lockheed.com says... A few people
misunderstood the question. They thought the bank was paying *me*
interest, and needed my SSN for tax reporting purposes, as opposed
to a credit account where I pay the *bank* interest. At any rate,
the general consensus was, no, I could not sue for this reason, as
companies can do business with whomever they like, aside from such
issues as race, religion, etc.
I once had this problem. I talked it over with the Credit Manager. It
came down to this: if they could verify my creditworthiness without the
number, they would grant credit, otherwise not. They were able to by
using my name and address, and so did grant credit.
Moral: you may have to bump the problem up in the bank's chain of
management. Do they want your business?
--
Jeff Brown
JF_Brown@pnl.gov
------------------------------
From: tye@metronet.com (Tye McQueen)
Date: 28 Oct 1995 02:57:30 -0500
Subject: Re: The Information Rights Act of 1996
Organization: Texas Metronet, Inc (login info (214/705-2901 - 817/571-0400))
I feel that I should own all the information about me. For anyone to
publicly give out information about me, no matter how they came by it,
they need to ask my permission. That would be a good law!
rj.mills@pti-us.com (Dick Mills) writes:
1) Information is either public or private.
The net especially has been contributing to lack of clarity and
confession by failing to make this distinction. This week's
furor over the Deja News service is a good example. "I want to
post on the thousands of people who read the UseNet group but
that doesn't mean I want the whole world to know. Not my
employer, not my parents." Get real.
I happen to know that my employer and my parents don't read
alt.sex.beastiality.marketing, otherwise I wouldn't have posted there.
If all there is is "completely public" and "completely private", then I
must either hide in a cave or expect Bob Saggat to widely broadcast
videos of every embarrassing thing I ever do in public.
Yes, I want to contribute to the global Usenet community. And, no, I
don't want to be tracked, categorized, and recorded in a database.
Just like, yes, I want to walk in public and, no, I don't want anyone
handing out pictures of me tripping on the curb.
--
Tye McQueen tye@metronet.com || tye@doober.usu.edu
Nothing is obvious unless you are overlooking something
http://www.metronet.com/~tye/ (scripts, links, nothing fancy)
------------------------------
From: "Prof. L. P. Levine" <levine@blatz.cs.uwm.edu>
Date: 18 Oct 1995 13:55:25 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Info on CPD [unchanged since 08/18/95]
Organization: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
The Computer Privacy Digest is a forum for discussion on the effect of
technology on privacy or vice versa. The digest is moderated and
gatewayed into the USENET newsgroup comp.society.privacy (Moderated).
Submissions should be sent to comp-privacy@uwm.edu and administrative
requests to comp-privacy-request@uwm.edu.
This digest is a forum with information contributed via Internet
eMail. Those who understand the technology also understand the ease of
forgery in this very free medium. Statements, therefore, should be
taken with a grain of salt and it should be clear that the actual
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the moderator at the beginning of the posting. He will comply.
If you read this from the comp.society.privacy newsgroup and wish to
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On the other hand, if you read the digest eMailed to you, you generally
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[new: Ordinary copyrighted material should not be submitted. If a]
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A library of back issues is available on ftp.cs.uwm.edu [129.89.9.18].
Login as "ftp" with password identifying yourid@yoursite. The archives
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People with gopher capability can most easily access the library at
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Web browsers will find it at gopher://gopher.cs.uwm.edu.
---------------------------------+-----------------------------------------
Leonard P. Levine | Moderator of: Computer Privacy Digest
Professor of Computer Science | and comp.society.privacy
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee | Post: comp-privacy@uwm.edu
Box 784, Milwaukee WI 53201 | Information: comp-privacy-request@uwm.edu
| Gopher: gopher.cs.uwm.edu
levine@cs.uwm.edu | Web: gopher://gopher.cs.uwm.edu
---------------------------------+-----------------------------------------
------------------------------
End of Computer Privacy Digest V7 #035
******************************
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