disinformation | information wants to be sold

Welcome to Disinformation | July 06, 2003

Abuse Your Illusions - the follow-up to Everything You Know Is Wrong & You Are Being Lied To is in the store and every bit as essential. The long-awaited Disinformation DVD is in too!
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U.S. Weighs Military Intervention in Liberia
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What The European Papers Say
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Violence Mars Nigerian Strikes
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Religion in the News: June 2003
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information wants to be sold
by You Think I'm Putting My By-line On This? (Screwyou@disinfo.com) - October 18, 2000

It may take a day or two, but if I know your name I can find out your home phone number. I can find out your Social Security number. Bank balance? No problem. Driving record? Piece of cake. What stocks, bonds and securities you own? Shall I list them alphabetically or according to market value? There is no privacy in the Electronic Age. What used to require tedious searches at county clerk's offices or knowing someone at the Phone Company (back when there was only one) can now be had by anyone, almost instantly, for a price.

In 1996 the massive legal research database Lexis-Nexis began the 'P-Trak Personal Locater' file and began selling user information anyone with the cash to pay for. Originally included in the package were names, mothers' maiden names, addresses and even Social Security numbers.

Thanks to having thousands of lawyers as clients, the company quickly stopped handing out SS numbers, but the floodgates had already been opened. Other services jumped on the bandwagon. TRW moved online, allowing people instant access to their own credit card reports and for the unscrupulous, other people's reports as well.

The end of privacy has only just begun. Local and state governments are shifting their records online. Real estate holdings, financial assets, driving record and certain aspects of your criminal record may already be available to anyone able to spell your last name and guess your zipcode. The US federal government ended a service that allowed people to check out their Social Security earnings and benefits; it hadn't occurred to anyone that someone might use the site to retrieve someone else's information.

It gets even worse. Many web-sites, especially ones involved in e-commerce, insert "cookies" (a small data-packet) onto a user's computer for later retrieval. Mostly this is used for user identification ("Hi Bob, welcome to ChunkyButts.com") and user tracking. Since many web-sites use banner ads provided by relatively few companies, the banner ad firms can read a large number of sites' cookies (though not those cookies provided by other companies). After you finish up with ChunkyButts.com, Bob, you might find yourself at amazon.com being greeted with banner ads for books on anal sex, Catholic Guilt and the History of Sigmoidoscopy if both sites use the same banner ad firm. Personal information placed on web-sites can also be recorded in this manner. Ever buy anything online with a credit card? From a company like Disinfo? (The Headshop is safe. Really.) Microsoft recently purchased 'Link Exchange', one of the largest banner ad firms. Hundreds of thousands of small web-sites use 'Link Exchange' banners, and that means many users that can be identified tracked and eventually assimilated by Gates of Borg.

Illegal breeches of privacy include hacking into servers to extract personal information; setting up phony web-sites to collect information from potential shoppers who never receive that organic soap or pair of leather panties; and the theft of an entire identity. Once I have your Social Security number, I can get ID, bank accounts and South Korean mail order brides, all in your name. And you get to pay for it for me.

Online information technical loopholes are only half the story; the other half is more pernicious. Information is now a commodity, but it isn't one that is also individual private property. Instead, information commodities are functionally owned by data storing corporate entities that will sell anything to anyone if the price is right. How much is your privacy worth in the Information Economy? About US$50 to companies who specialize in selling your personal information. Click on the links below and find out more . . .about me!

Building A Web You Can Believe In. TRUSTe
An organization committed to helping web publishers and web users 'deal' with privacy on the Internet. Note, not 'retain' privacy, just deal with it. TRUSTe runs a certification program; sites certified by TRUSTe have privacy policies and stand by them. Of course, the privacy policy that site has can still stink to high heaven, and some of them apparently do.

Privacy In Cyberspace
A series of law student papers on privacy in something called 'cyberspace.' I wonder what that is? Some of the information is already dated, some of it is evergreen. The page itself is a good example of keeping it simple. Worth a look, but be careful not to trip and fall on the puddles of naivete.

Lost And Found In Cyberspace: Informational Privacy In The Age Of The Internet
A very well researched article from the 'San Diego Law Review' journal by Susan E. Grindin, featuring an excellent bibliography. This article examines a wide variety of threats to privacy and examines the basis of the right to privacy in common law. Loses a pyramid for using the nonsensical term "cyberspace" which won't mean anything until I can bodily enter your computer to steal your Social Security number. Let us pretend this word doesn't exist.

Your Life As An Open Book: Has Technology Rendered Personal Privacy Virtually Obsolete?
A law journal article by Sandra Byrd Petersen that is a very good survey of current legal theory on information privacy and case law on privacy rights. However, it sees information privacy as a legislative, rather than as an ultimately economic issue, and thus provides a series of half-answers. Legislating info-brokers in the US won't stop the worldwide flow of information commodities on the Internet.

Is TRUSTe Trustworthy?
Gee, I guess not. Long story short: TRUSTe says GeoCities (a server for and sewer of free web-pages), has a good privacy policy and sticks by it. This 'privacy policy' includes the collection and release of personal information including "name, street address, e-mail address, interests, GeoCities neighbourhood, and the broader personal information (e.g., level of education, occupation and marital status)." With privacy policies like this, who needs curtains on their windows?

45 Revealing Searches
Featured in 'Forbes' magazine, this is one of the many firms ready to sell your personal information. And what do you know? It is a member of 'Link Exchange' too! Check out the Free Searches page to begin your life as an info-grubbing bastard today!

High Stakes In Cyberspace
The web-page of the 'Frontline' episode dealing with World Wide Web advertising. A lot of good information, along with (perhaps not surprisingly) some PBS-style advertising in the form of a links page.

Electronic Privacy Information Center
The white hats on the electronic frontier, this organization is working to preserve privacy on the Internet. Unfortunately, they should be working to reclaim our privacy on the Internet. EPIC also watches governmental nasties like the National Security Agency's rumoured Project ECHELON, the highly secretive government program that reads your e-mail before you do.

Disinformation Dossier On Project ECHELON
Check out the Disinformation dossier on Project ECHELON.

Disinformation Dossier On The Cashless Society
Check out the Disinformation Dossier on the Cashless Society.

Disinformation Dossier On Identity Theft
Check out the Disinformation dossier on Identity Theft.

Disinformation Dossier On National ID Cards
Check out the Disinformation dossier on National ID Cards.

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