Begin forwarded message: From: Brock Meeks <Brock.Meeks@xxxxxxxxx> Date: November 8, 2005 12:24:57 AM EST To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx Subject: RE: [IP] A missing packageOh no! Scary personal information available at the click of a mouse... available via the scary Internet!! What's next, child predators waiting to snatch our kids right in front of their monitors?! (Oh, right, TIME magazine already warned us of that a zillion years ago...)
I mean give me a break here. The author of this message is too breathless. This kind of information from the public tax rolls has been "out there" and available since before Jobs and Woz were sneaking peeks at discarded Playboys they dug out of the dumpster behind the 7-11.
I'm just old enough to remember when reporters actually had to get off their a** and do "real" reporting that involved more physical movement other than a couple clicks of the mouse. Yeah, you had to go to the county clerk's office, walk up a flight of stairs to the taxation office and dig through--wait for it--paper records! (The horror... the horror...)
But all this same information was there, always has been. I don't want to discount the very real problem of personal information theft or the potential abuse of personal information stored on databases, but ke-ripes, this message borders on hysteria and reminds me of those wacko articles of years past we've all seen (and snickered at) that showed up on the front page of the New York Times about some evil of the Internet. "Bomb making material found online!" "Phony Drugs available from Internet Drug Stores!" -- Ok, the Times never used an exclamation point, I made that part up...
My point is: let's save the nail-biting and worry-warting for a REAL problem... like the FBI putting the screws to librarians in order to get records of their patrons computer usage.
Good night... and good luck. --Brock -----Original Message----- From: David Farber [mailto:dave@xxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Mon 11/7/2005 8:04 PM To: ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [IP] A missing package Begin forwarded message: From: EEkid@xxxxxxx Date: November 7, 2005 8:47:52 PM EST To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx Subject: A missing package Mr. Farber, About a week ago I purchased a few items online and while the package was in transit, I eagerly awaited the arrive of the package while tracking it's trip to my home. The package was supposed to be delivered on Thursday November 3rd. The package didn't arrive as expected. Thinking there was simply a delay and being too busy to check the tracking info, I waited another day. Friday afternoon I checked the Fed Ex tracking and was disturbed to see that it had been left on my door step the previous day. But, it hadn't been. My wife was home from work and no delivery was made. I called the company immediately to inform them of the problem. They promised to resolve the issue promptly. Sunday night, I received voicemail message from a woman. The message went something like this. 'Hi my name is Tracy you must be my neighbor, a package meant for you was delivered to my home by mistake, you can come by to pick it up.' She left no return phone number or address. I looked at my caller ID and it recorded her phone number and name. I called it but there was no answer. While I was on the phone, I pointed my laptop to an internet reverse telephone lookup site. No luck, there was no listing for her phone number. I had an idea, since I knew what street she lived on (same as me), I searched the Maryland Department of Taxation website. There I found her name, her husbands name, address, the size and type of her home, the size of her property and how much she paid for it. I then punched in the address into Google maps and it pointed to her address on the street. Of course Google maps always seems to point to the house next door, but I knew the immediate vicinity. A short while later, she called again and this time gave me directions to her home. As I stood on her doorstep and received my package, I realized just how easy it was to quickly unravel her personal information. I didn't reveal to her that I knew her name, address and value of her home before she called back. I must admit I was a bit embarrassed that I had done so. I can remember playing with my first computer years ago, it was a Commodore 64 with 2400 baud modem, I never dreamed such things would be possible. Yet, what's ahead? ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as brock.meeks@xxxxxxxxx To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ipArchives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting- people/
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