Date: Sat, 14 Nov 92 15:21:05 EST Errors-To: Comp-privacy Error Handler From: Computer Privacy Digest Moderator To: Comp-privacy@PICA.ARMY.MIL Subject: Computer Privacy Digest V1#100 Computer Privacy Digest Sat, 14 Nov 92 Volume 1 : Issue: 100 Today's Topics: Moderator: Dennis G. Rears Re: Posting grades by SSN RE: Re: Blockbuster announces plan to use data from video rentals Re: Clinton/Gore consumer bill of rights Technophiliacs magnetic strips on driver's licenses Re: Computer Privacy Digest V1#096 Re: Clinton Endorses Right to Information Privacy The Computer Privacy Digest is a forum for discussion on the effect of technology on privacy. The digest is moderated and gatewayed into the USENET newsgroup comp.society.privacy (Moderated). Submissions should be sent to comp-privacy@pica.army.mil and administrative requests to comp-privacy-request@pica.army.mil. Back issues are available via anonymous ftp on ftp.pica.army.mil [129.139.160.200]. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dorothy Klein Subject: Re: Posting grades by SSN Date: 11 Nov 92 17:20:09 GMT Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. The current status of SSN use by Rutgers University is that the judge acknowledged that it's a serious breach of security, but bought the university's argument that it'd be too difficult to change the computer system. So all the professors and TAs have been told not to post grades by SSNs or to circulate the rosters the university gives us with everyone's SSN. I'm a TA, and this schizophrenia over when students should use their 6-digit, university-assigned "student #" aka "billing number" and when they have to use their "ID#" which is their SSN is really confusing. Their tests are by 6-digit, but I'll have to match the exams with their SSNs to report the grades at the end of the semester. The university droids still demand SSNs from everyone at the drop of a hat, and get really nasty when you refuse. To get the university to use anything other than SSN, you have to file a request in writing, giving your SSN and your 6-digit#. After a few months, you can use "000-your6digit#" in the SSN field for most university purposes. Why they didn't just give everyone left-zeroes should be explained to the judge, IMHO. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 11:26:36 -0700 From: Richard Thomsen Subject: RE: Re: Blockbuster announces plan to use data from video rentals mellon@ncd.com writes: >Needless to say, Blockbuster does not get my business. If you don't like >their business practices, whether they have to do with privacy issues or >censorship issues, I suggest that you vote with your pocketbook. :'> This is an interesting comment. Because a company does not rent out movies that you want to see, this is "censorship?" I thought this was a newsgroup about privacy. What about the privacy of the company, and its right to rent what it wants? Why does it have to rent what you want? Richard Thomsen rgt@lanl.gov ------------------------------ From: elee@bonnie.ics.uci.edu Subject: Re: Clinton/Gore consumer bill of rights Date: 12 Nov 92 20:38:55 GMT In reading the bboard, I came across Bill Ranck's posting discussing the Clinton/Gore consumer bill of rights. The bill states that the government should protect people from the marketing of goods that they consider harzardous. Bill goes on to state, in effect, "Who is the government to judge what is safe or not?" I agree entirely. There are issues to be elaborated here. First of all, I think that products shouldn't be restricted from potential buyers. They should be labelled, and potentially dangerous items such as tobacco should be sold with a warning. The fact is, we must draw the line between protecting consumers from truly dangerous items (on the extreme end, things like plutonium should not be sold) to items which may only be slightly harmful (skis, since skiing is potentially dangerous). We must place some responsibility on the consumer and give the consumer the credit by assuming he will know what he is doing. If we do not do this, fewer people will be confident that they know what they are doing, and the world will just become more benign. Eric J. Lee John Tillquist's section, M 9:00-9:50 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 21:35:53 +0100 From: Dennis Wier Subject: Technophiliacs An Introduction to Technophiliacs Anonymous (By Dennis R. Wier ) The same Truth has many forms. Technophiliacs Anonymous is a fellowship of persons and institutions who desire to stop their addiction to technology. Technophiliacs Anonymous is supported entirely through contributions of its membership and is free to all those who need it. To counter the destructive consequences of addiction to technology we draw on these resources: 1. We use our personal willingness to stop our addictive behavior on a daily basis. 2. We use the support of the fellowship of Technophiliacs Anonymous to increase our capacity to stop our addiction. 3. We practice the principles of Technophiliacs Anonymous to recognize and properly respond to addictive behavior. 4. We develop our perceptions and awareness of the correct use of technology by the regular practice of meditation. 5. We support the efforts of those who expose the hidden side effects of any technological activity. Technophiliacs Anonymous is not affiliated with any other organization, movement or cause, either religious or secular. What is a Technophiliac? The word technophiliac is a newly coined word and it means "having a pathological love of technology." We use this new word to imply that the love is a dysfunction of some kind. We are all technophiliacs in the sense that we as a society are dependent on the wide-spread use of technology --such as electricity, cars, telephone, TV, computers and many other forms. We need to seriously ask ourselves if this dependence helps or hurts our human relationships. We need to constantly examine this dependence to see if the hidden-side effects of technological dependence are destructive to our families, society or environment. Are You A Technophiliac? Has the use of technology improved or worsened your financial condition, health, relationships with friends and family, relationships with your mate or lover, relationship with your self? How many hours a day do you watch television, work on a computer, operate technical equipment, talk on the telephone, tinker with your car? Add those hours up. Is your total use of technology an indication of your addictive relationship to technology? Now honestly look at your human relationships with the planet, your environment your family and your inner self: do you know what phase the Moon is in right now? do you know which way the seasonal clouds are moving and their shapes? can you comfortably walk alone in the woods at night without a flashlight? do you know the type of earth around your house? do you tell your children stories, or do you let them watch TV so they leave you alone? are you aware of environmental stress through your personal sensitivity to the behavior of local animals and plants? Do you choose to spend time on your computer or watching TV or talking on the telephone or tinkering with your car or with other technology rather than being with your mate or children? Long-term focused awareness on technology or on technological matters to the exclusion of natural or human relationships indicates a life profoundly out of balance. The cumulative effect of many lives out of balance creates a world-wide disaster with profound effects on the environment, social and group interactions, institutional and political behavior, human and family values and ethics, interpersonal relationships, and physical and psychological health, with immense costs in all areas. What is Technophiliacs Anonymous? Technophiliacs Anonymous is a multi-faceted fellowship based on a desire to know the hidden side-effects of technology, to popularize the awareness of the hidden side-effects of technology on our social, psychological, economic and spiritual beings, and to counter the destructive consequences of technological addiction. With established meetings in many cities in the United States and abroad, this self-help fellowship is open to anyone, and any institution, who suffers from a compulsive need to use technology, and those desperately attached to a specific technology such as the telephone, the computer, the television, the automobile, etc. Technological addiction also includes a pathological interest in destructive, coercive and invasive technologies. What all members have in common is the realization that the compulsive attachment to technology has become increasingly destructive to all areas of their lives -- family, career, environment, society and political institutions. Technophiliacs Anonymous welcomes the participation of anyone directly involved in technology or directly affected by technology --either beneficially or otherwise, or in the government, or in the spiritual areas corned with the subtle effects of technology. We especially welcome the participation of human potential workers and facilitators. We seek to understand, and to make known to all, how technology, generally and specifically, affects our spiritual, mental, emotional, physical, economic, political and social lives, and to cure, whenever possible, the deleterious effects of technology; and to learn, by sharing information, the correct ways to manage our lives for the continued benefits of life-supporting technology without subjecting ourselves to the hidden malevolent side-effects. Technophiliacs Anonymous was first begun in June, 1988 in Berkeley by Dennis R. Wier, who realized that technological dependency was affecting life in the same ways as chemical, alcohol and love addictions, but not only were the deleterious effects felt in personal lives, but also in ecological, political and spiritual realms. Thus, what may be said of a personal addiction to a technology also may be said in a global way as well, that is, one side effect of our addiction to automobiles causes air pollution, one side effect of our addiction to telephones causes separation between people, one side effect of our addiction to television causes loss of awareness through induction of trance, one side effect of our addiction to computers causes loss of judgement and cognitive abilities. There are other, more hidden and more sinister side effects of technological addiction. Co-Dependency If a technophiliac is addicted to technology there are those around him or her who are co-dependent. Co-dependents may not be addicted to technology but they derive important benefits from the addiction. Manufacturers of alcoholic beverages are co-dependent to alcoholics in different ways than a person in a close personal relationship with an alcoholic is co-dependent, but both are co-dependent in that their common behavior supports the continued addiction of the alcoholic. A technophiliac has the same problem. Manufacturers of the newest computers are co-dependent with the technophiliac. And, if the technophiliac is highly paid, those persons dependent financially on the technophiliac psychologically support his dependence even though it may be personally destructive to the technophiliac. One of the differences between AA, SLAA and Technophiliacs Anonymous is that many institutions --government, educational and business --support and encourage technological addiction because they are not aware of the hidden side-effect of technological addiction. It is possible to make a change in awareness. A change in awareness will help bring about an important social change. Some years ago, cigarette smoking was socially acceptable and tolerated if not encouraged by many social institutions. Smoking was generally tolerated as a common and nearly harmless bad habit. Now, with greater social awareness of the dangers of cigarette smoking, society is now attempting to reduce cigarette addiction by prohibiting smoking in public places and requiring manufacturers to place health warning messages on tobacco products. It may seem that technological addiction is a trivial and unimportant matter compared to the more obvious and important issue of cigarette smoking; yet, technological addiction has greater consequences for us all the longer we ignore it. Technophiliacs are not the only victims of their addiction, but their creations often are at the root of important and world-wide dangers and all of us become victims. Beneficial social changes came about because of increased social awareness of the dangers of the hidden side-effects of tobacco addiction, and the same social awareness now extends to alcohol and drug addiction. The same social awareness is now beginning to be felt in environmental and ecological areas, because of PCB contaminations, acid rain, toxic waste treatment procedures, atmospheric pollution and other technological hidden side effects now making themselves known. It may become obvious that there is an increasing awareness of the hidden side effects to technological things we think are simple, are not. It is the position of Technophiliacs Anonymous that society needs to become aware of its dangerous addiction to technology and to begin to cope with its co-dependent issues, as well as the underlying and important hidden side effects. Because technological addiction is so pervasive and is encouraged by co-dependent governmental, educational, business and institutional entities, the members of Technophiliacs Anonymous include not only those who recognize their compulsive need for technology, and those with a desperate attachment to one specific form of technology, but also those leaders and visionaries who may conceive of the possibilities of a right relationship to technology. Why Technology Can Be Addicting The use of technology for the purpose of lessening pain or augmenting pleasure, by a person, institution, government or business who has lost control over the rate, frequency or duration of its use, and whose corporate or individual psychological, economic, social and spiritual life has become progressively unmanageable as a result is addicted to that technology. Technological addiction extends from teenagers addicted to television, to yuppie programmers making piles of money, to a military establishment addicted to acquiring newer, faster and more exotic destructive forces, to a government intent on knowing and controlling everything possible, to real estate agents with a perverted sense of "highest and best use." Technophiliacs Anonymous believe that an addiction exists not just because we need or use technology more than others, but because of the motive. A technophiliac uses technology to lessen the pain that comes from problems in other areas of life. Governmental and business institutions use technology to regulate and control life, a behavior which is typical of co-dependents. As we collectively or individually seek someone or something to 'take us away from all this,' we are really seeking to avoid reality altogether. We come to use a technology as a substitution for other satisfactions, to comfort ourselves for real or imagined needs, or to avoid or try to make unnecessary attending to a life that seems to give us too much pain. Even the humble electric light, used to provide illumination at night to read, has become a substitution for other satisfactions such as observing the night, and it comforts us in driving away the mysterious darkness, and helps us avoid our own thoughts, those same thoughts we need to think in order to keep our life in balance. Even the electric light has the side effect of keeping our life out of balance in very subtle ways. The cumulative effect of millions of lives out of balance causes disastrous effects over the entire planet. More technology is not the answer. In our addiction to technology it seems as though the power lies elsewhere, and that our lives are being destroyed by forces and tensions that cannot be denied and by problems that cannot be escaped. For the technophiliac, closeness to others has become increasingly rare and difficult. It is easier for the technophiliac to have a relationship with his car, television or computer than with his mate, his children, or his neighbors. Within an institution, it may be easier for an institutional technophiliac to buy more computers, hire more consultants, process more data faster, make heavier reports, create ever more sophisticated military hardware, than to have a real and meaningful relationship with its clients, citizens or employees. What can you do if you admit, however reluctantly, that technological addiction might be the problem, instead of lack of 'enough' or the 'right kind' of technology? The Road to Recovery The road to recovery starts with an awareness of the existence of the problem. To get aware that technological addiction is the problem, try this experiment: turn off all your electricity for five days. Most technological devices depend on electricity in order to work. If the changes you go through during the five days are not painful, but "business as usual," then you are not addicted to technology. However, if the changes are painful, frightening, or perhaps so difficult that you cannot finish the five days, then you are a technophiliac. The beginning is simple, but not easy. The admission of powerlessness has to be coupled with a readiness to break the addictive pattern -- to stay away from all technology for long periods of time. This withdrawal from the addictive use of technology generally brings symptoms just as physical and as painful as the withdrawal from drugs or alcohol. On our own the tension would be too much, the temptation to indulge just one more time would be unbearable, and the belief that there could be another way to live would weaken. First we find a sense of wholeness and dignity within ourselves. Even while working with technology we need to keep balanced and at some distance from it. To find wholeness within ourselves we first must know that part of us which is human and then to explore the intimate and mysterious relationship we have with the planet. Meetings For information on meetings in your area, please write to us and we will send you a local meeting schedule or give you information on organizing a local chapter. Evolving A Proper Relationship The hard questions cannot be ignored. The most difficult questions are ultimately the most important because they represent those aspects of life which we tend to ignore or deny. In place of facing these difficult questions which are different questions for each one of us, we create substitute problems, such as technical problems, as symbols for our own internal processes. There is the mistaken belief that by solving these technical problems somehow the more difficult questions will also be solved. Technology can be known in many ways which will enhance our relationship with ourselves and with the universe. The proper relationship with technology is a distant and cautious one. Without spiritual protection in place, dealing with any technology ultimately is damaging to us. Any other relationship ultimately damages our spiritual, social, environmental and psychological life. Developing spiritual protection is a life-long continuous practice which is helped by meditation in all of its forms. The support of others in a community devoted to personal awareness and growth lays the foundation for right social action and planetary unity. How you can help If you want to help in a real way to popularize these concepts, please discuss these ideas with your friends and the media, send pertinent newspaper clippings, cartoons to us and write us for any information. Help us start a chapter in your area. We will appear on TV and talk on the radio about these concepts. Write for helpful details, but ultimately the power, benefits and responsibility is yours. --- Comments on the above are welcome by e-mail. Yes, I am ALWAYS on my computer! Dennis ------------------------------ End of body part 2 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Nov 92 09:34:13 MST From: Tom Wicklund Subject: magnetic strips on driver's licenses In Doctor Math wri\tes: >The state of California is now issuing laminated plastic drivers licenses >with a magnetic strip on the back. When using terminals at the DMV, you >have to swipe your card through to identify yourself. This would seem to >provide an adequate amount of authentication. So I steal a driver's license, find a lost one, or rummage through the trash at DMV for a license turned in for renewal. It doesn't seem to provide much help. In Jim Budler writes: >Of course, since my drivers license now has a mag stripe on the back, >how long is it before the grocery store starts swiping it through the >cash register to validate a check? This seems rather dangerous. The store clerks will quickly get into the habit of swiping the license through the register without looking at the picture or signature. It's one step further to being able to steal a checkbook and wallet and use them in relative safety without worrying about an ID. Of course this type of problem also exists even when people are supposed to look at pictures. I knew somebody at IBM who spent a full day wearing a badge with a picture of a teddy bear on it. ------------------------------ From: Doctor Math Subject: Re: Computer Privacy Digest V1#096 Organization: University of Notre Dame Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 17:34:19 GMT In article jimb@silvlis.com (Jim Budler) writes: > [ new plastic drivers' licenses in California ] >Of course, since my drivers license now has a mag stripe on the back, >how long is it before the grocery store starts swiping it through the >cash register to validate a check? Probably not very long - this is seen as one of the great new uses of this new style of drivers' license. That and little terminals in cop cars that have a magstripe reader and use packet radio to display any information that the officer might need to know about you after you're pulled over. I heard a rumor that MADD was behind this movement; perhaps it's the first step in a national database? In any case, I remember reading something about the magstripe being useful for other authentication purposes (such as check validation) in the newspaper.. I imagine it will find its way into liquor stores to be used for age verification, since the magstripe would be "harder" to forge.. ------------------------------ From: Flint Pellett Subject: Re: Clinton Endorses Right to Information Privacy Date: 13 Nov 92 17:51:51 GMT Organization: Global Information Systems Technology Inc., Savoy, IL ranck@joesbar.cc.vt.edu (Wm. L. Ranck) writes: >CPSR (cpsr@csli.stanford.edu) wrote: >: >: Excerpts from - Clinton/Gore Campaign Pledges Strong Consumer >: Protections; Blasts Bush/Quayle Record - Oct. 26 >: >: * * * >: A Clinton/Gore Consumer Bill of Rights will include: >: >: 1. The Right to Safety - To be protected against the >: marketing of goods which are hazardous to health or >: life. >While the other stuff on the list doesn't bother me this one sure does. >Basically it says that the government knows what is good for me and will >not let me decide. How long till this results in making alcohol and >tobacco illegal? How long till it makes "dangerous" recreational activity >illegal? "Sorry, skis and ski poles are dangerous, you can't buy them >anymore." > If a product is possibly dangerous then requiring some reasonable labeling >is fine, but to "protect" the public from what is considered dangerous is >not. Good grief. While it is probably true that our government does far too much in the vein of trying to protect us from ourselves, (making certain drugs illegal, rather than just giving us all the facts and letting us make informed decisions on our own), that has little if anything to do with the one sentence above which you've blown up into a whole paragraph of paranoia. A lot of times products which everyone thinks are perfectly safe may not be. If a company is making really cheap toasters and 1 in 3 people who buy one end up getting an electric shock (or worse) from them, I for one want my government doing something about it. You want a warning label on all the new ones saying "Warning: one person in ten who has bought this toaster has been electrocuted?" What about the thousands of people out there who already have these unsafe toasters, but don't know it? There are also times when we need to be protected from each other. For example, if a farmer finds a chemical that kills weeds really well, there is a lot of incentive for him/her to use it to improve the crops. If we find out that it also causes cancer, it isn't going to be enough that the government stick a warning label on it, because a lot of people would put on masks to protect themselves and use it anyway, and tough luck for their neighbors or the people in the city downwind. The thought that the government might outlaw skis is pretty ridiculous. You might try re-reading that sentence and try to figure out how you possibly could have inferred that it was implying anything of the sort. -- Flint Pellett, Global Information Systems Technology, Inc. 100 Trade Centre Drive, Suite 301, Champaign, IL 61820 (217) 352-1165 uunet!gistdev!flint or flint@gistdev.gist.com ------------------------------ End of Computer Privacy Digest V1 #100 ******************************