Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!know!slug!wex From: wex@dali.pws.bull.com (Buckaroo Banzai) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Lotus Marketplace Message-ID: Date: 26 Nov 90 23:09:57 GMT References: <1990Nov18.224340.3041@agate.berkeley.edu> <48514@cornell.UUCP> <4960@rsiatl.UUCP> <17478@shlump.nac.dec.com> <1990Nov22.081955.4127@looking.on.ca> <1990Nov23.133632.15712@com50.c2s.mn.org> <1990Nov23.201651.980@looking.on Sender: news@pws.bull.com Organization: Bull Worldwide Information Systems Inc. Lines: 62 Nntp-Posting-Host: dali.pws.bull.com In-reply-to: brad@looking.on.ca's message of 23 Nov 90 20:16:51 GMT In article <1990Nov23.201651.980@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes: You can ban databases all you want, but you will never be able to stop somebody in (purely as an example) Taiwan from collecting a database of "really neat private facts about U.S. citizens." [...] The best we can do, if we want to, is regulate how they are used. Which means that we don't regulate what you can store on your own computer at all -- which I like, but rather what you do with it after you take it off. Perhaps accepting the goldfish bowl is the only answer. Not at all. My personal alternative is to attempt to become a "blank." That is, even though I can't disappear myself from all records everywhere, I can continually confuse and obfuscate. Markov Chaney is my role model. Example behaviors: - deliberately refrain from correcting misinformation. Use different names for yourself and, when you get tired of one variation, start marking it "deceased" and sending the junk mail back. - propagate wrong information. It's a crime to lie to the Feds, but all the card companies can do is take away my card (which they don't because they make enough money off me). - Lie. Tell pollsters the wrong info. Fill out warranty cards with bizarre info. Take every survey you can, and give inconsistent answers (particularly to the questions they're going to index on, like age, number of household members). - sign your cats up for things. As long as it comes to your P.O. box, what do you care who it's addressed to? Make up creative life histories for them and have them purchase things. - have duplicates of those things which are used to keep noxious records. Two Avis Wizard numbers are better than one. - stay within the law, but take advantage of the loopholes. For example, if you're owed a refund and don't mind waiting, file your tax returns >6 months late. Guess what time window the IRS uses for searches and try to fall outside that window. File your state and federal returns >6 months apart. - start a company. It doesn't have to do anything, nor ever make or lose a cent. It just has to create chaff in the computerized systems. Sign your company up for lots of freebies. If you're energetic, register many names for your company ("Foo-Bar, trading as Barfyou"); names that are easily misspelled as each other are best. - refuse to give out information to people who don't deserve (or have a legal right) to have it. If they get insistent, give them wrong information. I've put more bogus SSNs on non-government forms than I can remember. Enough for today. I'm off to sow more confusion. SLAM! -- --Alan Wexelblat phone: (508)294-7485 Bull Worldwide Information Systems internet: wex@pws.bull.com "SCO is the Milli Vanilli of operating systems."