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From: cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: The end of privacy... and so what comes next?
Message-ID: <63567@bbn.BBN.COM>
Date: 5 Apr 91 13:51:46 GMT
References: <63473@bbn.BBN.COM> <6750017@hp-vcd.HP.COM>
Sender: news@bbn.com
Lines: 64

johne@hp-vcd.HP.COM (John Eaton) writes:

}<<<
}<   1) privacy is just a cloak for illegal activity  [i.e., trading
}------
}Yea, and the fifth amendment only serves to protect the guilty. Lets
}get rid of that while we are at it.

I think you haven't been watching the current SC very closely.  bit by
bit, decision by decision, they're doing *just* that.  Not to menion
the 4th and 6th, too.


}< 2) A non-private world could be VERY convenient: just call Domino's,
}< the person answers the phone, and without my having said anything says
}< "Hi Mr. Cosell, just the usual tonight?". 
}----------
}Or if some punks break into you house and steal your checkbook they can
}call your bank and find out how much money you have in it.

Ah, but if you had just bought your "person ID" box, you could get a
readout of exactly WHO the punks were and so the miscreants can be
easily caught and thrown behind bars, where they belong.  And what do
you have to hide in your checking account, anyway?  Is there some deep
dark secret entangled in the rather dull data point of the current
balance of your account?


}< 3) Most of the data we bitch about is, and has always been, 'public'
}< anyway.  Again, going back to the caller-id debate, to be sure in the
}----------
}It may have been available to the public but no one had the computing
}resources available to collect and analyze the information. Today you
}can combine databases from different sources and learn a great deal
}about someone from their buying habits....

BINGO!  That's exactly the point:  But the anti-privacy folk can argue
that it all worked *just*fine* without that particular datum being
protected, and if anyone cared [and clearly you need only worry about
the folks that CARE:  security by obscurity is no security at all,
after all] they could always have gotten the info _anyway_.  Can it
really make sense to say that a database that is already perfectly
legal is OK, but one that merges two perfectly-legal databases might
NOT be?


}Suppose your name makes it on a mailing list of "Sex Perverts who
}spend more than $2,000 a year on porno mags". You suddenly start
}getting a mailbox full of offers and you have no idea of where this
}list is, how your name got there or how you can get it removed.

That happens now: so what do you do about it now?  All I have to do is
start ordering stuff in your name with your address ...  you'll get the
mysterious package, of course, and it'll cost me a tiny bit to actually
BUY something in your name [although often just simple inquiries will
do the job], but once the direct-marketers get that info _they'll_ take
it from there.  And I can keep doing it... maybe we should take the
caller-id arugments and extend them: I've already made the case that
their arguments would do much better to argue for knocker-id, and I
mentioned above person-presence-ID, so let's go after "letter mailer
ID".  Who needs anonymity through the mails ANYWAY?


  /Bernie\