[IP] more on A missing package
Begin forwarded message:
From: Ross Stapleton-Gray <ross@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: November 8, 2005 12:42:23 AM EST
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx, EEkid@xxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [IP] A missing package
At 08:04 PM 11/7/2005, EEkid@xxxxxxx wrote:
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?
Well, to be honest, when I read the subject line, I figured it was
more spam about C1AL1S... ;-)
The particular bit of information availability that's bother me of
late is the FEC database of campaign contributions, which is now
regularly used by political parties and the administration to screen
individuals, which is the reverse of the original intent, I think...
rather than say, "Candidate Joe gets a lot of money from small
businesses owners, so he may be influenced toward their issues" we
see, "Citizen Jane gave money to Kerry, I don't think we want her
representing the U.S. on that delegation." It has certainly chilled
my interest in donating money to political groups and candidates.
Regarding information collection on individuals and their actions,
the phrase that occurred to me the other day is "robotic
panopticon"... there are now so many automated feeds of information
on individuals that they're beginning to overlap, or becoming
sufficiently rich that individuals can be extracted by exclusion,
that, when necessary, one can assemble a near continuous history of
most anyone, across a variety of issues, or for various purposes.
Robotic in the sense that there's no way anyone could, a la the East
German Stasi, organize enough humans to keep tabs on all this, but
fear not, it's all recorded against the possibility that someone will
trigger interest.
Ross
----
Ross Stapleton-Gray, Ph.D.
Stapleton-Gray & Associates, Inc.
http://www.stapleton-gray.com
http://www.sortingdoor.com
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