Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!cunixf.cc.columbia.edu!cs.columbia.edu!abrams From: abrams@cs.columbia.edu (Steven Abrams) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Post Office plans to sell address databases. Message-ID: Date: 18 Dec 90 19:10:27 GMT References: <13103@milton.u.washington.edu> <1990Dec17.210616.3399@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> Sender: news@cs.columbia.edu (The Daily News) Distribution: comp Organization: Columbia University Department of Computer Science Lines: 22 In-Reply-To: gl8f@astsun.astro.Virginia.EDU's message of 17 Dec 90 21:06:16 GMT In article <1990Dec17.210616.3399@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> gl8f@astsun.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) writes: >But you've missed the point that it's now easy to look at that >information in bulk -- "Where are the over-65 rich widows in my >neighborhood?" Finding that out used to be a laborious task; it seems >Lotus allows you to do it in just a few keystrokes. Amazing what >online information can be used for. Is this sufficient reason for making databases illegal? This is almost along the lines of the "guns don't kill people" type of argument, with the major exception that there is nothing implicitly dangerous about data. ~~~Steve -- /************************************************* * *Steven Abrams abrams@cs.columbia.edu * **************************************************/ #include #include