Computer Privacy Digest Wed, 03 Aug 94 Volume 5 : Issue: 016 Today's Topics: Moderator: Leonard P. Levine Bank Account Numbers Unsolicited Advertisements in the Mailbox Anonymous Posting: How to do it? Help with eMail Privacy Cases Re: Credit Card Opt Out? Re: Questions about using "discussion list" membership lists Re: SSN Required by Sprint in U.S. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Housekeeping information is located at the end of this Digest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: sherry@meaddata.com (Sherry White) Date: 01 Aug 1994 20:02:26 GMT Subject: Bank Account Numbers Organization: Mead Data Central, Dayton OH I never felt that I should hide my bank account number because I felt the only thing one could do with it was deposit money into my account. Then I was told that when a company direct deposit your check into the accout they have the previledge to deduct money as well. They say it's incase a mistake is made and needs correction. Could someone e-mail me and tell me what else can be done with my bank account number. -- ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// // Just live for the moment. Sherry White // // Worry about tomorrow when it comes. Mead Data Central // // Changing my Latitude // // will chang my Attitude. // ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ------------------------------ From: cristy@eplrx7.es.duPont.com (Cristy) Date: 03 Aug 1994 14:16:40 GMT Subject: Unsolicited Advertisements in the Mailbox Organization: DuPont Central Research & Development I frequently find unsolicited advertisements in my mailbox. These advertisements are not delivered by the postman but by people that go from box to box and pop them in. I understand this is against postoffice regulations. Can anyone cite the regulation? What are my options to try to get this stopped. I consider this a privacy issue because people I do not know are going in my mailbox. I have no way of knowing whether they are in fact reading or taking any mail that may already be there... -- cristy@dupont.com ------------------------------ From: kkh2@cornell.edu (K Hindall) Date: 03 Aug 1994 10:30:22 +0400 Subject: Anonymous Posting: How to do it? Organization: Cornell University I hope this is not off-topic or something that everyone on the planet knows how to do. I am attempting to post anonymously to a group and am having no success. A document on the group says to send an e-mail request to help@anon.penet.fi and that you will receive an automated response which will explain how it works. I have sent 3 such messages in the past 2 days and have not received any response. I've tried to see if it is accessible via ftp or gopher and am having no luck there either. Obviously it's rather pointless to post to that group and ask for help, so I thought that this group might be the appropriate place to seek assistance. If not, can you suggest a group that would be more appropriate? -- K Hindall kkh2@cornell.edu ------------------------------ From: John Gray Date: 03 Aug 94 12:27:30 EDT Subject: Help with eMail Privacy Cases I am an IS manager looking to write a eMail privacy policy for my company. I've gotten some good stuff from the Electronic Messaging Association, but would like to review some recent or pending court cases. Can anyone shed some light on current cases regarding privacy issues relating to electronic documents and messages? Thanks in advance for any information. If there is a FAQ containing any of this info, please indicate where I might find it. -- John Gray Maine Yankee Wiscasset, Maine (207) 882 - 5160 grayj@mipps.myapc.com ------------------------------ From: mike@camphq.fidonet.org (Mike Bray) Date: 01 Aug 94 01:19:27 EDT Subject: Re: Credit Card Opt Out? Beth Givens recently said to us in the computer privacy group: The proposed amendments to the Fair Credit Reporting Act would require credit *reporting* companies to offer consumers an opt-out from solicitations generated from their files, a requirement that California passed into law last year. One has always been able to opt-out in this manner. ...if they know how to do it. Just ring up TRW at (800) 527-3933 and tell them what you want. TRW will in turn pass your request to Equifax and also to Trans Union. California's new opt out law is aimed at credit *card* companies. A similar law passed last year in California was aimed at credit *reporting* companies. Both laws give *California* consumers some measure of control over the use of their personal information for "junk mail" solications based on the transactional information generated from credit transactions. One could always opt-out of this nonsense too, but again, only if they knew to ask. Just ring up all your credit card companies and tell them "no more junk mail and no more phone calls!" Some credit card companies even have the ability to eliminate the inserts and the special "tear-the-offer-off-the-back-before-mailing" types of envelopes. In general, we see the ability to control the use of one's *transaction generated information* as being one of the key privacy issues to be debated as the so-called information superhighway is developed. Agreed! -- Mike Bray mike@camphq.fidonet.org (or) ...!apple!camphq!mike ------------------------------ From: John Palkovic Date: 01 Aug 1994 08:42:02 GMT Subject: Re: Questions about using "discussion list" membership lists It seems worth mentioning that if the computer serving the email list is on the internet running sendmail, it is usually possible to query the sendmail daemon remotely via telnet and have it print out all the email addresses on the list. -- palkovic@desy.de Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, Relativity Engineering "I ask each of you to be intolerant of creeping bureaucracy." - Bob Wilson finger for PGP public key. MIME and PGP mail welcome ------------------------------ From: dunn@nlm.nih.gov (Joe Dunn) Date: 01 Aug 94 18:16:00 GMT Subject: Re: SSN Required by Sprint in U.S. Organization: NLM/NCBI Blout@aol.com writes: I recently called Sprint here in the United States to get one of their voice activated phone cards. I was asked for my SSN number, to be used as my calling card number. I asked the gentleman who was helping me if it was required; I indicated that I did not like to give it out because I felt it infringed on my privacy. He said that Sprint required my SSN in order to issue a voice activated phone card; I could have a regular card without giving my SSN. Well, I worked on this project for Sprint and feel pretty confident that there is no privacy issue involved in this one. From what I remember though, there was provisions to give a number to someone who did not have a SSN. The SSN is used by the system for several reasons. To get adequate voice sample to verify your voice while at the same time not reject you because it doesn't recognize your voice. To facilitate this, the 800 number you call to gain access to the system is determined by your SSN. In that way if it misidentifies a digit, it can decide, that number should not be dialing this 800 number. You don't get billed for some- elses calls because of misidentified numbers. The number has to be easily remember by you. When you receive your calling card from Sprint, it tells you to speak a digit plus your SSN. In that way you can carry around your calling card and not worry about losing it and being usable by someone who finds it. If Sprint were to assign you a number, rather than your SSN, you would carry around that card until you memorized the number or to remember the 800 number to dial. Using your SSN protects you and Sprint from someone using your card to make calls that they can't bill you for. The card does not have your SSN printed on it. By the way, I'm not advocating using Sprint. I don't work for Sprint, nor do I use Sprint long distance. Just defending a legitimate use of a SSN. -- Joe ------------------------------ The Computer Privacy Digest is a forum for discussion on the effect of technology on privacy or vice versa. The digest is moderated and gatewayed into the USENET newsgroup comp.society.privacy (Moderated). Submissions should be sent to comp-privacy@uwm.edu and administrative requests to comp-privacy-request@uwm.edu. Back issues are available via anonymous ftp on ftp.cs.uwm.edu [129.89.9.18]. Login as "ftp" with password "yourid@yoursite". The archives are in the directory "pub/comp-privacy". People with gopher capability can access the library at gopher.cs.uwm.edu. Mosaic users will find it at gopher://gopher.cs.uwm.edu. Archives are also held at ftp.pica.army.mil [129.139.160.133]. End of Computer Privacy Digest V5 #016 ******************************