Is the loss of being anonymous online really that big of loss?
In the epilogue Garfinkel states that:
"Today, many people live in two worlds: the online world and that of "real life." But this duality is quickly eroding."
I do not think this is that big of a loss. Mostly because if people need to have the duality, they usually have something to hide. I think that the online life, should just be as secure as the "real world. " I have one example to support why I think the online world should match that of real life.
From my time working at FDLE, I got to deal a good bit with the missing children's unit and while there I heard of many cases that the reason the child went missing is because they were solicited from online chat rooms, or instant messenger. If there were a way, not to have everyone registered as like "Andrew Elekes @ the world wide web" but to track them back to a computer serial number that I think would provide great protection to all on the internet.
I don't really have more of a solution to a problem like this, but wanted to put out a differing opinion to that of Garfinkel.
I think in the book he has skated the line between privacy and anonymity. Privacy to me means that I live at 112 Main Street and what I do behind close doors is my business. Anonymity means I can be who ever I want at 112 Main Street or any other address.
I feel the need to make the distinction because some of his plans to have consumers fight back by creating fake ids, and aliases will just hurt his cause for privacy. I think though he is right on track with the legal and public opinion approaches.
There is nothing that is going to stop the USA from becoming a database nation but hopefully it will be a secure one with individual rights.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Chapter 11
As expected Garfinkel brings it all together in this last chapter. Pretty much his view of the future can be summarized in this statement
"...today, our right to be free from intrusions is threatened both by terrorists with weapons ofmass destruction, and by our government, seeking to find and eliminate these terrorists. Our right to have private thoughts or conversations is threatened by governments, marketers, and the relentless instrumentation of our planet. Our personal histories are being laid open by insurance companies. [And]Our thoughts may one day be simulated, or at least stolen, by advanced computers. "
He really tries to bring home the argument that our privacy is on the line in this last chapter and calls for a Federal Privacy organization to regulate these areas of the economy in the United States.
Although Garfinkel does state that a Federal organization could be created for merely 5 million dollars; I think that it would be fairly useless unless the government would change the way it views privacy law and start enacting more laws that favor the individual. Otherwise it seems that the only thing this Federal organization would have to worry about is the fair credit reporting
Lastly, while I support a good number of ideas in this chapter I would like to discuss further his section on "Technology is Not Neutral" .
I believe that technology by itself is neutral. The developers behind the technology however are not. There is always a "back door" to computers or another way to get past the firewalls or passwords. This is probably because, unlike other areas, the development of technology is not really regulated. It is vastly driven by competition to get the newest, fastest, smallest, most efficient device to market and turn a profit fast and in this process corners are cut at the loss of the consumer. I do not think that the best way to control technologies "non-neutrality" is to regulate how software is programed or how technology is made but instead develop an agency that would certify organization or products on if they are truly consumer privacy enabled. This would be similar to the Energy Star rating or ISO 9000 certification. It would be an added step that consumers would have as protection without creating/adding to the bureaucracy of the American Government.
"...today, our right to be free from intrusions is threatened both by terrorists with weapons ofmass destruction, and by our government, seeking to find and eliminate these terrorists. Our right to have private thoughts or conversations is threatened by governments, marketers, and the relentless instrumentation of our planet. Our personal histories are being laid open by insurance companies. [And]Our thoughts may one day be simulated, or at least stolen, by advanced computers. "
He really tries to bring home the argument that our privacy is on the line in this last chapter and calls for a Federal Privacy organization to regulate these areas of the economy in the United States.
Although Garfinkel does state that a Federal organization could be created for merely 5 million dollars; I think that it would be fairly useless unless the government would change the way it views privacy law and start enacting more laws that favor the individual. Otherwise it seems that the only thing this Federal organization would have to worry about is the fair credit reporting
Lastly, while I support a good number of ideas in this chapter I would like to discuss further his section on "Technology is Not Neutral" .
I believe that technology by itself is neutral. The developers behind the technology however are not. There is always a "back door" to computers or another way to get past the firewalls or passwords. This is probably because, unlike other areas, the development of technology is not really regulated. It is vastly driven by competition to get the newest, fastest, smallest, most efficient device to market and turn a profit fast and in this process corners are cut at the loss of the consumer. I do not think that the best way to control technologies "non-neutrality" is to regulate how software is programed or how technology is made but instead develop an agency that would certify organization or products on if they are truly consumer privacy enabled. This would be similar to the Energy Star rating or ISO 9000 certification. It would be an added step that consumers would have as protection without creating/adding to the bureaucracy of the American Government.
Chapter 10
The picture Garfinkel paints in this chapter to me is quiet scary. The comparison between the arguments for human aviation and development of AI is also interesting. Looking back today we would think human aviation, we were just behind the ball on it. Today aviation is a normal part of existence especially in business culture. To where we automatically feel it's a requirement to travel and not an added benefit.I personally hope that I do not live to see the development of AI. It seems to Matrix like to where we could all be enslaved by out creation. And just to be a conspiracy theorist and somewhat historian, it wouldn't be the first time that human's greatest creation was it's downfall. Look at the Roman Empire, the Roman's use of roads ended up aiding the barbarian raids on the city. It would not seem to weird for AI to be downfall of the great computers we created. I do think that AI is possible especially after the Quantum computing presenation this semester. I only hope that if it does happen it is under our control still as a second class citizen, and that we can always pull the plug.
Lastly, one thing I do not mind and has been quiet successful in business is technology that mimics AI. Such technologies were shown in the Disney groups presentation. This is were I think there is a good possibility for growth, and return on investment. Such technologies can help bring fictional characters to life and which we can interact with. What do yall think?
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Chapter 9
With all the different aspects that can be posted about this chapter from terrorism to thought crime I would like just to respond to two questions Garfinkel poses in this chapter.
This book and hence this chapter was published in January 2000 and a secondary version (paperback) was published in January 2001. I preface my post with this because I'm going to talk about how hindsight is 20/20 in relation to his questions posed in this chapter in relation to the terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001.
The two questions he poses are: 1) Is it possible to prevent future incidents of terrorism by systematically monitoring all potential terrorist and imprisoning them before they can strike? 2) And, if so, are such measures worth the cost?
1) The extent of the incidents prevented since September 11th will never be known to the U.S. public mostly because we truly don't want to know. Every now and then we here a plot was thwarted and inside we are thankful, and go about our day to day business.
The amount of monitoring now available to law enforcement agencies to deal with terrorism is quiet scary but at the cost of "freedom" we as Americans have made that sacrifice to insure stability for ourselves and for our way of life.
2) Are the measures worth the cost? It's funny that this question is posed because in my finance class over the summer we discusses this same thing. How much is too much spending on the Defense budget. The teacher posed an interesting solution, since thinking term of economic and finance and said "No limit". I have to agree with him in this area. The United States of America is still (may not be for too longer) the strongest world economy and to maintain our way of life and freedom, there is no expenditure that we would not be willing to pay up. Stability of our government and economy is what drives American economic success. (Quick summary on this point Market effects economy, Fed effects market, Fed is backed by full taxing authority of US Government). And lastly there is nothing that we wouldn't do to insure this freedom.
There is a bunch of other arguements that can be made off this point (just war, no weapons of mass destruction) The only point I want to make is that America will always try to pursue protection for its citizen and sometimes at the citizens cost.
This book and hence this chapter was published in January 2000 and a secondary version (paperback) was published in January 2001. I preface my post with this because I'm going to talk about how hindsight is 20/20 in relation to his questions posed in this chapter in relation to the terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001.
The two questions he poses are: 1) Is it possible to prevent future incidents of terrorism by systematically monitoring all potential terrorist and imprisoning them before they can strike? 2) And, if so, are such measures worth the cost?
1) The extent of the incidents prevented since September 11th will never be known to the U.S. public mostly because we truly don't want to know. Every now and then we here a plot was thwarted and inside we are thankful, and go about our day to day business.
The amount of monitoring now available to law enforcement agencies to deal with terrorism is quiet scary but at the cost of "freedom" we as Americans have made that sacrifice to insure stability for ourselves and for our way of life.
2) Are the measures worth the cost? It's funny that this question is posed because in my finance class over the summer we discusses this same thing. How much is too much spending on the Defense budget. The teacher posed an interesting solution, since thinking term of economic and finance and said "No limit". I have to agree with him in this area. The United States of America is still (may not be for too longer) the strongest world economy and to maintain our way of life and freedom, there is no expenditure that we would not be willing to pay up. Stability of our government and economy is what drives American economic success. (Quick summary on this point Market effects economy, Fed effects market, Fed is backed by full taxing authority of US Government). And lastly there is nothing that we wouldn't do to insure this freedom.
There is a bunch of other arguements that can be made off this point (just war, no weapons of mass destruction) The only point I want to make is that America will always try to pursue protection for its citizen and sometimes at the citizens cost.
Chapter 8
Okay, in my opinion up until this chapter Garfinkel has been on a role talking about how people can steal information, different types of information and future scenarios of what can be done with peoples information.
This chapter was a snoozefest I had to push my way through it. That's why this post will be somewhat shorter.
He makes and reiterates one important point that companies don't really have "you information" when it comes to marketing. They have information about you. I don't really own the fact that I am a 22 year old male who likes to play guitar, that's just information about me. And truly I agree with this position even though it stinks and in fact I've supported this notion in some database work I've done.
About a year ago I decided to help out my old campus ministry by updating their database they used to track students, alumni, and donors. (It turned into a big project, now I've been helping out other campus ministries across the Eastern Coast) But anyways, It tracks pledges and fullfilments, tax reporting, which students belong to which parents and donors (and what type of relationship) it also tracks what types of appeals they have given to. Needless to say this has increased the amount of money they collect on a year to year basis.
While we designed it though, all in Microsoft Access, we came across one crucial question. How Long would we keep information for? We went back and forth talking about archiving after 5-7 years or removing people from the call lists after a period of time. And we finally said forget it lets just keep all of it and organize it by date. The idea was that we collected all this information might as well keep it and put it to good use and if need be to clean up the database we'll worry about that every 5 years or so.
I think companies have the same approach if we go through the trouble of collecting others informations we're going to keep it for as long as we can. Hence why so many people still get mail not addressed to them where others have lived before them.
Anyways turned out not to be a short post at all. To wrap up, GO NOLES BEAT GATORS.
This chapter was a snoozefest I had to push my way through it. That's why this post will be somewhat shorter.
He makes and reiterates one important point that companies don't really have "you information" when it comes to marketing. They have information about you. I don't really own the fact that I am a 22 year old male who likes to play guitar, that's just information about me. And truly I agree with this position even though it stinks and in fact I've supported this notion in some database work I've done.
About a year ago I decided to help out my old campus ministry by updating their database they used to track students, alumni, and donors. (It turned into a big project, now I've been helping out other campus ministries across the Eastern Coast) But anyways, It tracks pledges and fullfilments, tax reporting, which students belong to which parents and donors (and what type of relationship) it also tracks what types of appeals they have given to. Needless to say this has increased the amount of money they collect on a year to year basis.
While we designed it though, all in Microsoft Access, we came across one crucial question. How Long would we keep information for? We went back and forth talking about archiving after 5-7 years or removing people from the call lists after a period of time. And we finally said forget it lets just keep all of it and organize it by date. The idea was that we collected all this information might as well keep it and put it to good use and if need be to clean up the database we'll worry about that every 5 years or so.
I think companies have the same approach if we go through the trouble of collecting others informations we're going to keep it for as long as we can. Hence why so many people still get mail not addressed to them where others have lived before them.
Anyways turned out not to be a short post at all. To wrap up, GO NOLES BEAT GATORS.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Chapter 7
This chapter was jam packed full of good information but my favorite two sections that I want to discuss further are Love Me, Love My Purchases and Taking Direction Against Direct Marketing.
The points that Garfinkel makes in Love Me , Love My Purchases are quiet interesting. He talks about how watching the behavior of customers by tracking their transactions using customer cards can be used to increase sales and by what mechanism sales can be increased by. An example mentioned would be whether a 10 cents or 50 cent coupon triggers more coupon sales. They also use this technology and information to distinguish more profitable customers from less and give more perks to more profitable customers.
A great example of this today is the very popular CVS card. From personally having this customer rewards card, I think it is the best free customer card service compared with others in business. The CVS card gives actual CVS dollars back for purchase in store. However, I usually only buy milk and stuff on clearance there and while they started out giving me large rewards such as 3 dollar coupons once a month, they have now withdrawn to dollar and $10 off a purchase of $50 or more. (However recently I did work the system when getting a $17 antibiotic prescription and had a coupon for a $25 gift card with transfer of a prescription, talk about a good deal). I do know some people who really benefit from the CVS card but they usually have prescriptions at CVS and are definitely the best customers for the business.
As for Taking Direction Against Direct Marketing, I think Garfinkel paints a possible view of the future with all the different and new forms of junk advertising that will be available by using databases and other forms of IT. However, I think after a while people will be desensitized to it as the individual he portrays seems to be very offended by all the marketing. Out of the four alternatives to taking direction against direct marketing I think alternatives 2 and 4 are the most realistic. Mostly because society responds well to public opinion and legal coverage. Which do yall think were the best?
The points that Garfinkel makes in Love Me , Love My Purchases are quiet interesting. He talks about how watching the behavior of customers by tracking their transactions using customer cards can be used to increase sales and by what mechanism sales can be increased by. An example mentioned would be whether a 10 cents or 50 cent coupon triggers more coupon sales. They also use this technology and information to distinguish more profitable customers from less and give more perks to more profitable customers.
A great example of this today is the very popular CVS card. From personally having this customer rewards card, I think it is the best free customer card service compared with others in business. The CVS card gives actual CVS dollars back for purchase in store. However, I usually only buy milk and stuff on clearance there and while they started out giving me large rewards such as 3 dollar coupons once a month, they have now withdrawn to dollar and $10 off a purchase of $50 or more. (However recently I did work the system when getting a $17 antibiotic prescription and had a coupon for a $25 gift card with transfer of a prescription, talk about a good deal). I do know some people who really benefit from the CVS card but they usually have prescriptions at CVS and are definitely the best customers for the business.
As for Taking Direction Against Direct Marketing, I think Garfinkel paints a possible view of the future with all the different and new forms of junk advertising that will be available by using databases and other forms of IT. However, I think after a while people will be desensitized to it as the individual he portrays seems to be very offended by all the marketing. Out of the four alternatives to taking direction against direct marketing I think alternatives 2 and 4 are the most realistic. Mostly because society responds well to public opinion and legal coverage. Which do yall think were the best?
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Chapter 6
First Technology is awesome, it’s 65 degrees out, clear skies, and I’m chilling out under a tree writing this post.
I really hope that then the situation has changed then because it would be sad that if this is the case. That someone else has more rights or can obtain rights to your records faster than you can.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Chapter 5
The insight Garfinkel gives in Chapter 5 is a nice expansion on a commonly held feeling. That although nobody likes surveillance technology, it is a an accepted nuisance. Most people, I think, feel it is necessary not because they would do something wrong under surveillance and get caught but because of the "other guy". I think most people don't mind, at least I don't, being video taped in a store if it's used for consumer purchasing behavior or surveillance and is then archive later. It's when it becomes tracking that people mind it. (Ex. managers go back and say "Oh Ms. Smith always comes in on Tuesdays, and Fridays that get kind of weird in my opinion)
On a side note I like to mess with the cameras, and occasionally way wink or make a face just so some guy who has to watch them gets a quick laugh, and it kind of makes me feel that "Hey you're watching me? I'm watching you watch me. Anyways....
I'm sure a ton of people feel contrary to what I feel about being video taped but just to support this point a little more. A couple of times he uses example especially of high crime areas where, people were not upset about being video taped in public to reduce crime rates but were upset because they were not put in the worst parts of town where the crime rates are high. This is a true point and a sad realization; quick story to support. In the spring semester we did a market study of two shopping centers one in the higher end part of town and one south of the railroad tracks. While the higher end one had more surveillance and better stores, the crime rate was also lower. However the one in the higher crime area of town had way less surveillance and also had may dime bags sitting around on the property.
Now who needs more protection in this scenario the higher end stores loosing a sale to a teenager or twenty year old lifting an outfit. Or the property management company who is letting drug deals go down on their property?
Anyways I've hit my word requirement for this one but wanted to give you two links. First Jenni Cam interview on Letterman: (She is now out of the webcam watching business) Here's her statement
"I really am enjoying my privacy now. I don't have a web page; I don't have a MySpace page. It's a completely different feeling, and I think I'm enjoying it."
Here's the JenniCam interview link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVVPSEVQMzI
And lastly, when Google Street View started getting street level pictures for it's new product it caught a bunch of situation that make you feel "holy cow Big Brother is watching me". Here's the link, check out the breaking and entering picture and below is a picture of the van they use to get these images, just looks like a family on vacation with a luggage rack right?
http://www.onmylist.com/category/miscellaneous/Best_Pictures_from_Google_Streetview_1
On a side note I like to mess with the cameras, and occasionally way wink or make a face just so some guy who has to watch them gets a quick laugh, and it kind of makes me feel that "Hey you're watching me? I'm watching you watch me. Anyways....
I'm sure a ton of people feel contrary to what I feel about being video taped but just to support this point a little more. A couple of times he uses example especially of high crime areas where, people were not upset about being video taped in public to reduce crime rates but were upset because they were not put in the worst parts of town where the crime rates are high. This is a true point and a sad realization; quick story to support. In the spring semester we did a market study of two shopping centers one in the higher end part of town and one south of the railroad tracks. While the higher end one had more surveillance and better stores, the crime rate was also lower. However the one in the higher crime area of town had way less surveillance and also had may dime bags sitting around on the property.
Now who needs more protection in this scenario the higher end stores loosing a sale to a teenager or twenty year old lifting an outfit. Or the property management company who is letting drug deals go down on their property?
Anyways I've hit my word requirement for this one but wanted to give you two links. First Jenni Cam interview on Letterman: (She is now out of the webcam watching business) Here's her statement
"I really am enjoying my privacy now. I don't have a web page; I don't have a MySpace page. It's a completely different feeling, and I think I'm enjoying it."
Here's the JenniCam interview link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVVPSEVQMzI
And lastly, when Google Street View started getting street level pictures for it's new product it caught a bunch of situation that make you feel "holy cow Big Brother is watching me". Here's the link, check out the breaking and entering picture and below is a picture of the van they use to get these images, just looks like a family on vacation with a luggage rack right?
http://www.onmylist.com/category/miscellaneous/Best_Pictures_from_Google_Streetview_1
Chapter 4
This chapter I thought brought together so many aspects of things we talked about this semester in class, from the ethical side to RFID technology. One thing it really made me think about was how on a daily basis I create a paper trail now personally, I really don't care about the paper trail because I integrate not only my Credit Cards but also my bank accounts with Quicken and it helps to track expenses and to stay on a budget for myself and my family. But I think one thing Garfinkel does not go into a depth is in this area:
Pretty much everyone today on a daily basis create the same paper trail with debit and credit cards as well as other forms of spending or ID's. An FSU card is a great example for freshman on campus. For most of these freshman it is their dorm key, laundry and soda card, meal plan card, student ID, library card and debit card. All these freshman go about their business on campus thinking presumably that they are receiving value added services; having only to worry about their single card. Comparing this to myself and others that use Quicken or even just like the reward features of credit cards. It not like people don't get value or convenience in return for their information, they get these features and in return credit card companies as well as other IT firms such as EZ-pass get their information.
I do like how Garfinkel at the end of the chapter states that their alternatives to the EZ-pass features. Stating that an automatic withdrawal feature would protect consumers even more. This idea of anonymous purchasing is something I see a couple of companies really taking a hold of. Two being paypal which has been in this for a long hall, and secondly Google checkout. I'm not sure about paypal but I know Google checkout says they will not sell your spending habits to third parties. This is what I think the future is companies like this, that protect it's customer's which I guess you can say is a new form of value added services.
Pretty much everyone today on a daily basis create the same paper trail with debit and credit cards as well as other forms of spending or ID's. An FSU card is a great example for freshman on campus. For most of these freshman it is their dorm key, laundry and soda card, meal plan card, student ID, library card and debit card. All these freshman go about their business on campus thinking presumably that they are receiving value added services; having only to worry about their single card. Comparing this to myself and others that use Quicken or even just like the reward features of credit cards. It not like people don't get value or convenience in return for their information, they get these features and in return credit card companies as well as other IT firms such as EZ-pass get their information.
I do like how Garfinkel at the end of the chapter states that their alternatives to the EZ-pass features. Stating that an automatic withdrawal feature would protect consumers even more. This idea of anonymous purchasing is something I see a couple of companies really taking a hold of. Two being paypal which has been in this for a long hall, and secondly Google checkout. I'm not sure about paypal but I know Google checkout says they will not sell your spending habits to third parties. This is what I think the future is companies like this, that protect it's customer's which I guess you can say is a new form of value added services.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Chapter 3
I'm pretty glad I waited to start reading this chapter until after my wife and I had our daughter. This is because of the indentification of infants and now I can post a picture of her. I was pretty amazed about the efficiency of the hospital operation in making sure that our daughter was actually our daughter. As soon as she was born, and possibly slightly before, they tagged Kassie (my wife) and I with matching hospital bracelets with a certain ID code that both Kassie, I, and our baby Mary Olivia had. Then whenever they took the baby to the nursery or other for shots and brought her back to us, they let asked to see our wrist and then match it to our bracelet. Another cool thing, beside matching the baby that they did at TMH, was that attached to her umbilical cord was an small computer chip with a device that communicated to the hospital location system (kind of like the dots commericial, the can tell where you are with one of these things on within the building or if you have left). Lastly, we accidentally ran into a problem with this device as they forgot to take it off as we were leaving Friday night, and the thought we were stealing our own child but this was quickly, and easily corrected.
The second thing I liked about this chapter was the Bertillion system of identifying criminals and how I've still seen it in use today. First, if you go onto the Florida Department of Corrections website and do a search on inmates you can see a description on inmate profiles of what identifying marks the criminals have on their bodies. This ranges from tattoos to scars. Also, from when I worked at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement I noticed a great deal of these types of features being implemented into new forms of Law Enforcement support software. Some of these features include having actual photos of the individuals, and their identifying marks on their profile on the FCIC/NCIC databases (Florida Criminal Information Center and National Criminal Information Center).
Lastly, right before I left FDLE I began working on a part of FALCON, which I think a group presented as part of their IT in the news. But it was pretty need with the amount of efficiency we will be able to identify individuals. Cops will be able to carry easy to hold fingerprint readers equiped with a palm type computer that communicates back to FDLE headquarters where a match is made quickly, the term Rapid ID is used for this technology. But I think this is pretty neat, do I see privacy issues yes, but I definitely see more pluses than minuses with a system like this. What do yall think?
Chapter 2
The aspect I found most interesting about this chapter was that social security numbers were stated as a non-effeicent way of coming up with a primary indentificaiton number for people. First, always thought just because it was the norm that it was correct. However, the thought that it doesn't use a check digit or a hash number is kind of disturbing. Pretty much every bank account or credit card uses these features and you would think that the number we use to label every United States Citizen would have theses types of security features. Secondly, I found it interesting that the social securtiy number kind of evolved and was mandated by the government to become a primary key for all, that may be another reason why so many people want to keep social security (I say get rid of it or privatize but that's a totally other blog). That it would eliminate a tracking system for citizens activities.
The chapter also highlighted two other aspects of which I have short neat stories about that kind of bring it to the real world. These two aspects are identity theft and individuals suffering from miss information/keying errors especially by the government.
First identity theft, my wife and I were on our honeymoon last December and were staying at a hotel in Orlando. We checked in went up to our room and started watching tv, and about two hours later we got a call from someone saying that there was a credit card error on check in and then just needed my number to get rechecked in. The individual that called knew my name and I thought it sounded legitimate but I did say to him "Okay, I'll come down and do it." but he said it's easy to do over the phone so I go over to get my credit card and call the front desk on the other room line and sure enough the other guy hears this phone call and hangs up. Thank God for being cautious and some of my undergrad ISM and AIS classes.
Secondly, this is quick one, because of a keying error and goverment databases not "talking to each other " I was registered with a wrong social under selective service, it is now fixed, but it was like this for the last 5 years and I did not notice until I got a job this year. Whew, thank God there wasn't a draft, I could have been hit with draft dodging possibly.
Citibank Identity theft commericial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy5jiYWuNKo&feature=related
The chapter also highlighted two other aspects of which I have short neat stories about that kind of bring it to the real world. These two aspects are identity theft and individuals suffering from miss information/keying errors especially by the government.
First identity theft, my wife and I were on our honeymoon last December and were staying at a hotel in Orlando. We checked in went up to our room and started watching tv, and about two hours later we got a call from someone saying that there was a credit card error on check in and then just needed my number to get rechecked in. The individual that called knew my name and I thought it sounded legitimate but I did say to him "Okay, I'll come down and do it." but he said it's easy to do over the phone so I go over to get my credit card and call the front desk on the other room line and sure enough the other guy hears this phone call and hangs up. Thank God for being cautious and some of my undergrad ISM and AIS classes.
Secondly, this is quick one, because of a keying error and goverment databases not "talking to each other " I was registered with a wrong social under selective service, it is now fixed, but it was like this for the last 5 years and I did not notice until I got a job this year. Whew, thank God there wasn't a draft, I could have been hit with draft dodging possibly.
Citibank Identity theft commericial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy5jiYWuNKo&feature=related
Chapter 1
I felt that chapter one was more of a definition and history lesson in privacy. The two aspects of this chapter I found most interesting were the comparison of the privacy movement to the environmental movement and how Garfinkel defines privacy. First how Garfinkel truly broadly defines privacy to mean just not the "kooks" off in the woods but as being about "self-possession, autonomy, and integrity" and is ultimately "the power of the individual", He then goes into a couple of examples of how privacy is stopping good people who maybe screw up once to not do things because of being in the public eye. I feel that this sense of always being watched really affects people, although today it is hidden as people receiving value added services, such as credit card purchasing and online purchasing. People maybe affected in a positive way such as with more precise products built to meet their needs or in a negative way with stolen identity.
Second, the comparison of environmental to privacy movement. Pretty much what I gather he is getting at here is that this is as big if not a bigger issue than the environmental issue of the 1970's. However, it will not see as much change until public opinion changes about it. I feel that the only thing that would provide for ample privacy protection would be a disaster that affected the credit reporting bureau where thousands of people's data was taken and people suffered an actual economic loss; not just a credit reporting loss. Maybe then we would see legistlation that makes credit bureaus responsible for losses of their customers due to indentity theft from the bureaus not confirming transactions.
Second, the comparison of environmental to privacy movement. Pretty much what I gather he is getting at here is that this is as big if not a bigger issue than the environmental issue of the 1970's. However, it will not see as much change until public opinion changes about it. I feel that the only thing that would provide for ample privacy protection would be a disaster that affected the credit reporting bureau where thousands of people's data was taken and people suffered an actual economic loss; not just a credit reporting loss. Maybe then we would see legistlation that makes credit bureaus responsible for losses of their customers due to indentity theft from the bureaus not confirming transactions.
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