Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 14:15:49 EST Errors-To: Comp-privacy Error Handler From: Computer Privacy Digest Moderator To: Comp-privacy@PICA.ARMY.MIL Subject: Computer Privacy Digest V3#059 Computer Privacy Digest Mon, 18 Oct 93 Volume 3 : Issue: 059 Today's Topics: Moderator: Dennis G. Rears Drop/Add requests Re: Digital Detective At Your Service Re: Digital Detective At Your Service Re: Digital Detective At Your Service Re: Digital Detective At Your Service Re: Digital Detective At Your Service Re: Clinton Health Care Plan Notice, Advisory and Disclaimer on Lists and Groups Re: Notice, Advisory and Disclaimer on Lists and Groups 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 [129.139.160.133]. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 12:55:33 EDT From: Computer Privacy List Moderator Subject: Drop/Add requests Recently I have received a number of drop/add requests that have been sent to as opposed to . There is is a major difference on where the two aliases are sent to and processed. It is extremely difficult for me to handle drop/add requests sent to the address. As such I will no longer handle change/drop requests sent to the comp-privacy address. They will go to the bit bucket. Any add requests will be returned to the sender requesting they send to the right address. dennis ------------------------------ From: Mike Brokowski Newsgroups: comp.society.privacy Subject: Re: Digital Detective At Your Service Date: 14 Oct 1993 21:55:08 GMT Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston IL USA Originator: brokow@merle.acns.nwu.edu In article , wrote: > DIGITAL DETECTIVE [...] > >If you want a credit bureau report on someone, I repeat: you must >send a signed statement (by fax is okay) stating that you have a >bonafide, legal reason for this information. Spouses are *not* >legally entitled to the credit bureau file of their 'other half' >without permission. Is faxing a signature really okay? I am certain that I have seen multiple statements (here and elsewhere) to the effect that signatures sent by facsimile are not legally binding. Does this vary by state or something? Mike Brokowski brokowski@nwu.edu ------------------------------ Newsgroups: comp.society.privacy,alt.privacy,misc.consumers,misc.legal,misc.misc From: Richard Roda Subject: Re: Digital Detective At Your Service Organization: North Carolina State University, Project Eos Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1993 04:26:05 GMT In article CHRISTIAN S MORLEY writes: >Is it just me or does anyone else find this service a tad frightening? The only reason that I don't find it frightening is that I already know that privacy is a sad joke with the current databases floating around... One of the reasons I support unbreakable crypto: it isn't very useful for a database if it is intercepted. -- -- Richard E. Roda | PGP 2.3 Public key by mail Disclaimer:------------------------------------------------------------ | The opinons expressed above are those of a green alien who spoke to | | me in a vision. They do not necessarly represent the views of NCSU | | or any other person, dead or alive, or of any entity on Earth. | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Newsgroups: comp.society.privacy,alt.privacy,misc.consumers,misc.legal,misc.misc From: Bernie Cosell Subject: Re: Digital Detective At Your Service Reply-To: cosell@world.std.com Organization: Fantasy Farm Fibers Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1993 05:04:32 GMT In article , CHRISTIAN S MORLEY writes: } Is it just me or does anyone else find this service a tad frightening? Might just be you, but it depends on what you find frightening. Is it: 1) that there is *that*much* information about you floating around in the publicly accessible records, 2) that there are services that will collect that information and make it available to others, or 3) that there is a service that'll make the information available to *you*. Pat's notice is only of the existence of a (3). Several people have pointed out that there are lots of similar services [under item (2)] and that all only begins to scratch the surface of the truly astounding amount of "public" information about you that is available for someone willing to look hard enough. I find (1) a bit frightening [it is the grist for the alt.privacy and comp.society.privacy mills]. As for Pat's service, why do you find it frightening? Denying the existence of the information won't make it go away. /Bernie\ -- Bernie Cosell cosell@world.std.com Fantasy Farm Fibers, Pearisburg, VA (703) 921-2358 ------------------------------ Newsgroups: comp.society.privacy,alt.privacy,misc.consumers,misc.legal,misc.misc From: Ron Mura Subject: Re: Digital Detective At Your Service Organization: The World Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1993 14:01:21 GMT In article Larry Kolodney writes: > > >These databases are being made available to anyone who wishes to have > >access to them. The charges are simply being passed along, 'at cost' > >based on what I am paying. > > I find this hard to believe. The costs that were posted in the rest > of this article were far in excess to what I pay for similar services > from a commercial vendor. In particular, my vendor does nationwide > SS# searches for $10-15 a shot, not the $60 this guy is asking. Besides the cost, I'm curious about the availability of the data. If this information is so readily available (at least to those who know how to get it), why hasn't some enterprising outfit exploited it more to make money? Why doesn't America OnLine or some such service let you type in an SSN and get a report right back to the screen? -- - Ron Mura, Boston, Massachusetts rmura@world.std.com ------------------------------ From: Charles W Van Keuren Newsgroups: comp.society.privacy,alt.privacy,misc.consumers,misc.legal,misc.misc Subject: Re: Digital Detective At Your Service Date: 15 Oct 93 18:54:31 GMT Followup-To: comp.society.privacy Organization: University of Pittsburgh While we're discussing the cost of finding info... In the summer of '92 I was watching one of the 10 bazillion AM TV talk shows. The topic was one of those "long lost sisters (brothers, parent and kid) are reunited" things. Then a guest came out who ran a detective service which specialized in finding "lost" people. He almost spoke with amusement at how easy most of his cases were. Most usually involved making a few phone calls, often to driver registration. (I didn't know this was legal...anyone?) Anyway, he said that as long as you know where to look, it shouldn't take more than a day and a very small amount of resources to find out someone's address in the US. He wrote a book telling of his techniques. I think it mighta just had a name like "How to Find Anybody". Anybody know the book of which I speak? Regardless, before you cough up $$$ to pay for a person-finding service, look for the book or a similar source. -chuck ------------------------------ From: cscott@NeoSoft.com (Clint Scott) Subject: Re: Clinton Health Care Plan Organization: NeoSoft Communications Services -- (713) 684-5900 Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1993 16:28:31 GMT Worse than not knowing your allergies is the possibility of not being able to obtain medical care. Think of this as as back door approach to the illegal alien getting taxpayer funded health care. I suspect that the "card" is the first step. When fraud is rampant, a more secure method must be devised. This method cannot require the individual to use a password because the time when medical care is ESSENTIAL is when the person is unconscienous (or something of that spelling). This would negate the effectiveness of a password known only to the individual. In this case, the light at the end of the tunnel is indeed a train. clint cscott@sugar.neosoft.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1993 01:12:58 -0400 (EDT) From: "Tansin A. Darcos & Company" <0005066432@mcimail.com> Subject: Notice, Advisory and Disclaimer on Lists and Groups Notice, Advisory and Disclaimer: Be advised that when you subscribe to a Bitnet or in some cases, Internet mailing list, if the list is public, unless you say otherwise, anyone on Internet can find out who subscribes to that list. If the mailing software makes a mistake, it may hand someone the entire list of all subscribers even if your identity is not supposed to be disclosed. If you send ('post') a message (or a reply to an earlier message) to the mailing list's publication address (or post a message to a newsgroup), you are consenting to give your message (and with your Personal Name and E-Mail address) publicly to everyone who subscribes to it. This may include remailing services that "explode" a message, news group exchangers that post messages to or from Usenet News Groups to/from mailing lists, archivers that store messages, and even to processors that copy all public messages to CD-ROM. Rumor has it the U.S. National Security Agency has computers that monitor Internet mailing lists and news groups looking for "suspicious messages" as well. By posting a message to a list, the chances are good to excellent that your message will be stored permanently. Readers may copy your message to their own disk storage for reference or sites may archive messages posted to newsgroups and mailing lists, and some sites route Internet messages to printers or fax machines. Some people may repost your message to a different group even despite any request on your part or without your consent, if they think more (other) people should see it. While under most countries laws copyright exists from the moment of creation, assume anything you post on a news group or mailing list will be treated as if it is in the public domain. The managers and operators of a list or newsgroup have no capability to control this and by posting a message you are essentially consenting to having your message be around potentially forever. Be advised also that under both major international copyright treaties (Universal and Berne) someone may copy your message as part of theirs in order to quote it to respond to it; this is legal, is an integral part of the Internet culture, and there is no right under law you can have to prevent it even if you were to explicitly claim copyright on your message. Also, any claims or statements made in a message should be taken only as the personal opinion of the writer (without regard to the organization their messages come from) unless they explicitly declare this to be the position of a company or organization. If you have something personal to say in response to someone, be absolutely certain your message is sent only in private mail to them. You should assume that anything you write in a public message should be considered in the same light as if it was going to be printed on the front page of the {International Herald Tribune}, {New York Times} or {Jerusalem Post}. Please Feel Free to recirculate this notice. Paul Robinson, Tansin A. Darcos & Company October 18, 1993 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 12:59:33 EDT From: Computer Privacy List Moderator Subject: Re: Notice, Advisory and Disclaimer on Lists and Groups Paul Robinson writes: >Notice, Advisory and Disclaimer: > > Be advised that when you subscribe to a Bitnet or in some cases, >Internet mailing list, if the list is public, unless you say otherwise, >anyone on Internet can find out who subscribes to that list. If >the mailing software makes a mistake, it may hand someone the entire >list of all subscribers even if your identity is not supposed to >be disclosed. This is not true for the comp-privacy email list. The only people who can find out who is on this list are those people who have an account on fender.pica.army.mil. The real list name for comp-privacy is not comp-privacy and is not publicized. Even if people know what the real alias was it would not help them find out who is on this. I would agree with everything else he wrote. I just think it is common knowledge. dennis End of Computer Privacy Digest V3 #059 ******************************