more on A missing package

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Ross Stapleton-Gray <ross () stapleton-gray com>
Date: November 8, 2005 12:42:23 AM EST
To: dave () farber net, EEkid () aol com
Subject: Re: [IP] A missing package

At 08:04 PM 11/7/2005, EEkid () aol com 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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