The Death of Privacy 304
Debra D'Agostino writes, "Why don't companies care about privacy? Because there's not enough money to be made from securing sensitive customer information, says Jeff Rothfeder in an article posted recently at CIO Insight. Furthermore, there's not enough money to be lost in privacy breaches for companies to care. 'Most companies claim that privacy is a priority — chiefly because they believe consumers are more willing to do repeat business with them if personal information is carefully handled,' he writes. 'But in reality, many companies are woefully inept at protecting privacy.'"
I felt a great disturbance in the /., (Score:5, Funny)
as if millions of voices suddenly cried out 'DUH!' and were suddenly modded down.
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http://www.google.com/search?q=confidential+%22do+ not+distribute%22+site%3A.gov [google.com]
http://www.google.com/search?q=confidential+%22do+ not+distribute%22+site%3A.mil [google.com]
Why is this surprising? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why is this surprising? (Score:4, Insightful)
Coming from a country where most of the major infrastructure (electricity, telephone, water... etc) is owned by the goverment,
I can tell you one thing for certain - Capitalism is an increadible proccess optimizer. A competitive market's benifits overcome it's limitations by several orders of a magnitude.
If that's what you fought the cold war for
Re:Why is this surprising? (Score:5, Insightful)
The EU has much better privacy laws in this regard and it is correct to impose this if I as a consumer have no choice in what info I have to give out to even get service.
It disturbs me on how much damage that can be done to someone simply by knowing their SSN and a few pieces of publicly verifiable data.
questions by Rad Shack (Score:2)
it always astounds me how much info people give out @ radio shack's checkout - i tell them to fuck off unless they want to lose a sale
Yeap, Rad Shack is so inquisitive. When I buy something there, which isn't often, and they start asking all those questions I just say they don't need it. I won't join or get a membership in any of the video rental places like Blockbuster because they want to do a credit check. They don't need that, all they need is to know you can pay.
FalconRe: (Score:3, Interesting)
at a local retailer, the policy is that there is a reduced price for people who pony up all the personal info. usually it's about 2% or less. and the staff are pushy about it!
my response is to pull a $1.25 (or whatever the discount they're offering me is) and ask the cashier if s/he will give me their home phone number and address for the money in my hand. when they reply 'no' i say 'we
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At a standard sale the most you will be asked for is zip (and only if the associate is a good one and doesn't just clear the screen like most do).
Returns/service plans(yes, I know, garbage)/instalations/etc do require name/addy, and the only one where there is a question about giving it out is for returns, and for that? you will find mor
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Except for things like health care, education, police, fire protection, transport infrastructure. Leave them up to a "competitive market" and you get a healthy, educated aristocracy living in fear of a mass of peons. Uncontrolled capitalism is worse than inefficient socialism.
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Did I say we did? But some (as the post I was replying to) seem to advocate going that way.
Re:Why is this surprising? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is true only when competition allowed to occur. The standard m.o. seems to be that existng monopolies do whatever they can to raise the barrier of entry for competing entities - either through protectionist legislation or other means. The latest blight on this landscape exists in the form of software patents, but there are others - for instance, the extension of the copyright.
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Ah, but when you have patents or copyrights, you have, by definition, government intervention in the markets, specifically, the granting of monopolies on certain things, and not free markets at all. Can't the free market find a better solution to the problem than these government granted monopolies?
all the best,
drew
(da idea man)
Communism vs crony Capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
Since then, we've been on a long descent into crony capitalism in which corporations receive billions of dollars in welfare / bankruptcy bailouts while single parents are demonized as the destruction of society. Corporation lobbyist dollars and campaign contributions now trump votes and letters/calls from regular citizens. Corporations pollute our waters and air and aren't held liable to the people they make sick or even kill. Corporations buy politicians and laws at will, and they're getting more and more efficient at brushing aside the will of the majority.
In America, the rich are now glorified and the poor are demonized. This is absolutely positively a direct contradiction to America's much vaunted "Judeo Christian" values.
There is no God any more in the eyes of corporate America... only money.
Corporations trade your personal information and the free trade of your private information is essential to their bottom line, even more surely than free mp3's are desired by the common terrori^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hmp3 pirate. If corporations - specifically marketers - could have it their way, all your transactions and whereabouts would be public information.
The old evil empire was communism, which sacrificed individuals to the state.
Capitalism fails miserably when it crosses the "profits over people" line, as it sacrifices the individual to the corporation.
What saves the Western world is DEMOCRACY, far more than capitalism. And when DEMOCRACY is threatened, as it is being threatened by the corporate state right now, neither capitalism nor communism can save you.
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In America, the rich are now glorified and the poor are demonized. This is absolutely positively a direct contradiction to America's much vaunted "Judeo Christian" values.
If the poor were glorified, the rich would then be respectable? Just asking...
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Which is why we are all called 'consumers' and 'market groups' rather than.. gasp.. PEOPLE.
If our humanity can be rejected, we can be made into some static quantity to be counted and controlled. And that's what wealth-builders really want.. because humans with rights and desires are an unstable element. How dare your humanity get in the way of wealth!
Gah..
Capitalism's benefits. (Score:5, Interesting)
The practical upshot of this was that companies such as Enron were able to stop spending money on some power plants and reap a much higher profit off of the others. For the consumers this meant that even as they faced surging utility bills (as much as 300% increases) they also were forced to deal with "rolling blackouts". The Government of California meanwhile felt its hands were tied and could do nothing to ensure that power was available to its citizens and thus that the essential infrastructure of the economy was running.
Incidentally all of this occurred just before a nasty recall election that booted the governor and brought the Gubernator into office, in part on the grounds that he would do better on the economy.
Just to forestall the obvious comments out the free market consider the cost of competition. If we are to presume that such excesses as I have described above will be checked by the action of the free market we face two problems.
Firstly the cost of getting into competition is extreme. Nuclear power plants don't grow on trees and neither do millions of miles of electrical lines. Infrastructural utilities are, in many ways, immune to competition because of the immense cost of investement and the infeasability of running multiple parallel infrastructure. Picture having multiple distinct road systems, power lines, sewers, or water systems. Picture the difficulty of switching from one system to another. Simple physical space and cost limitations make that infeasible.
Secondly, it was the free market that made that gouging possible. By having a free market on KwH pricing and opening up all aspects to competition and thus making the little intentional blackout scheme profitable.
To put it another way, do you want to pay the "market rate" for garbage removal?
Or, What security do you have when your elected officials can't guarantee the flow of water?
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Most monopolies will tend to be crap at running things
They're often good at generating revenue though.
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If there's a modicum of competition, that might keep the very large private entity somewhat in check. If there is none, then the large private company is no better than a government, and quite likely worse since they are operating under a profit motive.
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You know it wasn't actually a war, right?
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Re:Why is this surprising? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because companies are able to externalize costs, meaning that the cost is paid by others. The trick is to make them internalize costs, via legislation if necessary -- if I suffer losses because they don't protect my info, they should pay the entire cost for my time, money, and inconvenience.
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This would work for plenty of corporate-caused ills today, e.g., pollution. For anyone who complains that this is "socialism", remember: companies are effectively socializing the risks and costs of doing busine
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Um, no. Our economic system is based on the idea of economic freedom -- which does include the freedom for people and organisations to pursue "profit at all costs" (as long as it's within the law).
The alternative is government bureacrats deciding what the economy should do and -- how shall I put it politely? -- the historic record of such guidance isn't stellar.
Re:Why is this surprising? (Score:5, Informative)
Why do I envision a future society in which any kind of concern for privacy will be treated as a signal you have something to hide?
Oh, of course... that's because I'm paranoid.
My bad.
Supply-and-demand principle is ok in most respects, but if sheeple get used to their privacy being... well, public - it might become too late.
But I'm just paranoid. Don't mind me.
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Ah, yes, I see the source of the misunderstanding.
I do not live in the USA, but in an undeveloped backwater country called Croatia.
I have practically no-one in my immediate vicinity hunting for private information because here it really is worth almost nothing.
well, duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, duh. Does he have any other brilliant insights? Like that there's not enough money to be made from decent working conditions, proper financial disclosures, or from protecting the environment?
That's why we have laws and penalties. What we need is stiffer penalties for privacy violations by companies. And, unlike child pornographers and murderers, who tend to be insensitive to the potential penalties, companies really do respond to penalties that hurt the bottom line.
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Are they really violations? It sounds like this one company just didn't think their cunning plan all the way through. Don't most of them now have a clause that allows them to modify the privacy policy at will without informing the customers, and that continued use of the service is a de facto acceptance of the new terms?
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They are violations of privacy. They may not yet be a violation of privacy laws, but hopefully we can change that.
Re:well, duh (Score:4, Insightful)
and why exactly whould the government (willingly) create laws against that when they can make such handy use of the corperate data collection?
and since the vast majority of the people simply don't seem to care, the government won't be force to create/enforce such laws.
Legislate it! (Score:2)
But there are two problems I can see with this approach.
First, it would likely be years before the courts sorted out the lawsuits and we would know whether the law would really have any teeth.
Second, given our government's track record WRT respecting privacy the last century, do they really care, and can we trust them?
And this all assu
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And which corporation would want to be the first to fight it? That alone would cost a significant chunk of change, so it would be a deterrent.
Second, given our government's track record WRT respecting privacy the last century, do they really care, and can we trust them?
Are you saying they'd make a law that said "You can't have breaches unless you give all your inform
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Maybe this is why you don't care about unreasonable laws... because this statement is completely untrue.
Corporations have all the rights of an individual, except that they're completely immune from prosecution (the company can continue to exist and do business; only its officers can be criminally charged.. but not civilly, as the corporation shields them from t
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And, unlike child pornographers and murderers, who tend to be insensitive to the potential penalties, companies really do respond to penalties that hurt the bottom line.
Exactly. We need a few rounds of truly hard-core lawsuits to smack these companies into line.
It isn't like your info can just be used once. It's permanent damaage that has been done. Do you get a new SSN? No. Do you get a new mother's maiden name? No. A new birth date? Obviously not. Credit cards and bank accounts can be close
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Unfortunately, because of corporate charters, most companies can do things that would land an individual person in jail for a very long time.
If an individual did the same thing as the Sony Rootkit, he would be faced with hard jail time.
Where as Sony just got a slap on the wrist and no one... Not a single developer, intern, manager, or CEO went to jail or even were placed in court.
We need a better sys
Consumers don't care about their privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Most Consumers, barely consider privacy implications when purchasing software or signing up for services.
Most Consumers, will easily hand out their personal information when signing up to a service, as long as it does a good job at providing it.
See for instance, GMail.
A privacy nightmare, yet it's a damn good web-mail service.
Most people won't bother with privacy. period.
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yes, but it has barely any real personal info. the extent of the real stuff is the province i live in. they try looking up any of the other stuff, and they'll be chasing a spectre.
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That said, I like gmail, and for some reason...I blindly trust google to not screw up too bad.
Re:Consumers don't care about their privacy (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess it depends on what you're sending in e-mail.
In a lot of my e-mail threads, it is sometimes eerie to see the targeted ads which are coming up. Some of them are just way off the mark, and it's not clear why there are there. But many of them seem to cut through the chaff and actually figure out what the e-mail conversation is about.
That can be a little un-nerving, but on balance I still use my gmail accounts for quite a few things.
Cheers
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I kind of envision it as a script that grabs all the nouns, sends them with an XMLHttpRequest to some server code, and gets back ads in an iframe. But I definitely haven't poked around.
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I wonder how much of the "voluntarily" provided customer info consists of the following: Fu H. Kew 44 Noe Street Ware, MA 02666 e-mail: spammers@must.die.com
Re:Consumers don't care about their privacy (Score:5, Interesting)
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Considering the aforementioned webmail services also provide automatic spam filtering, I'd say they certainly do. A computer program scanning your email for keywords is a computer program scanning your email for keywords - whether the purpose be delivering targetted advertising to you or deciding if said email is spam or not makes no difference. I don't see why everyone thinks privacy is so much worse with gmail. It's not. It's equally bad
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Re:Consumers don't care about their privacy (Score:4, Insightful)
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It does, but it's only going to encrypt the communication between two endpoints. Mail often travels through several point-to-point connections. Unless all of these use encryption, the message is going to be sent in the clear somewhere. Also, in any place it's going to be stored, it will be stored in the clear, usually including one or more insecure PCs. PGP encryption rocks...except that the vast majority of people don't use PGP.
Your password may also be stored in the clear in a loca
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Sounds like an education problem to me. Maybe it's time to call for more "truth in labelling" laws, any company that collects such information from a consumer must put a label on all of their forms: "We do not guarantee that the information you provide will remain secret. The surgeon general has determined that the release of this information may lead to ruined credit, stolen houses, and terrorists using your name on
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Yes... but AFAIK not many, say, highschools in the world teach their students proper netiquette, let alone protecting their privacy. And it should be taught in schools, as it is almost as important as literacy, and way more immediately important than much of the stuff learned there.
Do You own a GMail account? (Score:2)
Sure I do.
But I take care to only use it for things I don't deem too important.
The fact I'm just a student makes it even easier; talking about exams, DND and insider jokes, along with correspondence with certain teachers just isn't all too important for me to bother with encryption or whatever.
And, of course, I have an alternate account or two for certain other matters. Those contain no personal information whatsoever.
Poor security, but still... sufficient.
If a tree falls in the woods, and no one cares... (Score:2, Insightful)
Ob. Scott McNealy (Score:5, Insightful)
While I think he's right about the privacy part, I have no intention of getting over it, now or ever.
People don't understand privacy (Score:2, Interesting)
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There's no need, we already know.
You have to make companies liable. (Score:2, Informative)
It's the consequences (Score:2)
The Author needs to realize... (Score:2, Interesting)
The company only protects information from the consumer that protects their assets.
If the author really wants privacy then he will have to pay a lot more than what he is currently paying for certain services. A lot of service companies sell certain types of information to other companies for profit so that way their consumer won't have to pay a higher fee.
If people keep wanting to bu
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Not really, grasshopper (Score:2)
Privacy laws? Check. Companies around here have to be responsible with user data and are explicitly forbidden from selling it around. Guess what? It didn't really cause much of an economic impact. Chances are I can get a c
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Real social security and employee/union rights? Check. Nope, it _didn't_ bankrupt the economy, it _didn't_ push whole countries into corruption and poverty, and it _didn't_ cause half the country to give up work and mooch off social security.
While the European laws making it harder for employers to fire employees may not of harmed those employers they do make it harder for someone to start their own business if they need to hire one or mor eemployees. Say I want to start a restaurant and I need to hire
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E.g., let me assure you that you _can_ fire people. I don't know what America
End-to-end encryption (Score:2)
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didn't you read Dan Brown ? (Score:2)
Any encryption can be broken given an NSA computer
All except one. And that was a nasty, er good, one as it threatened to make everything available.
FalconMeh (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider this particular case: I used to work at a company that had a very large call center staffed. The call center, from the business perspective, was a cost liability only. It provided no income.
One might argue that it's job is the maintain income by satisfying customers, but as it turned out our customer turnover and return rate was so high that it actually benefited us to ABUSE customers to make them get off the phone. Simple economics showed that it cost us more to help people than to chase them away, so, with the exception of a handful of particularly loyal buyers, we did just that. We enacted policies that basically encouraged our "service" reps to force people off the phone as fast as possible (either service them in under two and half minutes, or lose your job). We didn't staff the call center that well because if you don't show the abandonment numbers, you can make yourself look really good by pointing out how fast you handled the actual calls that come through. And if someone gets angry enough to cancel, just do it and don't worry about it, because three other suckers will be attracted by the low price "deals" to replace him.
Until consumers wise up and stop chasing bargains to whatever poor quality store has them and starts demanding a return of actual service and respect, they're not going to get any of their demands met and they're not going to get any respect. Simple matter of economics: it costs them less to abuse consumers because nobody cares about the overall product, including service, they just think "value" starts and stops at "lowest price".
Consumers get the level of service, privacy, etc. they pay for, and since all they care about is how little they pay, that's how little of each of those things they get.
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This is why customer reviews are such a great idea. Before you sign up with any service, STFW for what people who've tried the service are saying. If it's a nightmare, signing up with it is one mistake you don't have to make anymore.
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Easy Solution (Score:4, Interesting)
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I agree with you that it would be better to prevent leaking data than to catch those responsible after the fact, but you're asking the impossible. Data will be leaked (willingly or un
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To give an example everyone has heard of, take prohibition in the 1920s. The U.S. government banned alcoholic beverages... but since there still existed a huge demand for alcoholic beverages, and since there was an huge financial incentive to provide those beverages, it created an entire underground economy. Not only did alcohol consumption grow, but the ill effects were a lo
Not surprising (Score:3, Insightful)
Another problem mentioned in the article is when a company goes out of business, they no longer have any financial incentive to keep your records private- it's not like they will lose your business if you find out. While this is illegal (now) if it violates their privacy policy, there can still be strong financial incentives to sell personal data.
Of course, what the article doesn't mention is that many web companies have "privacy policies" that bascially say "anything you tell us may be used against you- we have the right to sell or reveal your personal information in any way we feel like". Once you give information to them, everyone can find out about it.
Death of Piracy! (Score:3, Funny)
oh. Death of privacy. Nevermind, no big deal.
"information" age (Score:5, Interesting)
This article states the obvious, if you pass your data on to a company for the purpose of say making a transaction they are going to try and hold on to that data, because it has additional value.
The fact is that information about people, is worth a lot of money, not so much names, postal and email addresses (although it has some in a certain context) but data that includes demographic information or any other information that can be used to deduce trends or intentions, (like age, sex, income, health information, credit and spending history, even complaints).
Without a rigorous and enforceable framework to regulate the use and transfer of this information it is going to be used in whatever manner ensures maximum profit for the company, be that keeping the data secret and using it in house to "add value" and so that you continue to trade with them or spreading it far and wide to generate some cash quickly.
What is needed are real penalties for intentional and accidental information disclosures, after all if data has a value and its yours then surely you are entitled to be reimbursed if it is compromised, but that will probably never happen, especially given the complexity of identifying the leaks.
In addition the line FTA: "...offering these records to the highest bidder, despite an online privacy policy that explicitly stated the company would never share customer data with any third party" proves the point that regardless of what an online or other privacy policy might state it is just that, a policy, usually subject to change, and more over not a guarantee to the customer (unless it is described as such and you don't see that all that often)
As an example, I recently started getting a huge amount of junk mail (the old kind that comes through the letter box) mainly offering credit cards and other credit facilities, it was badly targeted (offering products aimed at people with bad debt, corporate entities, people with good credit, and people over 60).
I managed to speak to 4 of the more prominent companies (international banks) and a smaller number of the smaller firms to ascertain the original source of the data, it turns out that the finance companies making these offers where inter sharing data massively, leading to a web of sources. My search lasted just over two months of calling and writing (asking people to remove the data as I went along) that ultimately ended with a major credit reference agency (one of the 2 Major UK agencies), who I have never dealt with directly, but who were used for a credit check when I recently purchased a mobile phone through a very large and reputable telecoms provider.
It turns out that the credit reference agency ticked the little box on their computer system that said that I consented to the sharing of my data (something that I make a point of not doing and doubly so as I hadn't dealt with them directly...). They have offered to stop sharing my data, but that is all, and of course the "damage" is already done. All a bit late really as once your data is out there its out there forever, or until you move or your details change enough to make it useless.
So there really is no real way of protecting your data any more, and one mistake by you or someone else and you are stuffed. The only thing I can suggest is changing your name, address, phone number, email address and possibly your gender about every 12 months....
Ironic? (Score:2)
I faily to see the irony. Health care related businesses are a smaller subset of the economy than the subset of those who deal with European companies and
In any quest (Score:2)
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This didn't work in Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards. Please explain.
Privacy should become a dirty word.... (Score:4, Funny)
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Also, your point about the false sense of security is a very good one.
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Asking the wrong question... (Score:3, Insightful)
However, the important thing to find out is whether or not this can be acheived without significant risk of discovery to the enquirer. This is a tough question for a commissioned third party to answer, as they have carte blanche. I dunno about the US but, in the UK, the answer is usually: no.
Anyone who works with sensitive or private data (especially when it relates to children or vulnerable adults) has it so heavily drummed into them that security is crucial, that it has become part of the culture (which, of course, is the point).
Obviously there are breaches and slips, and people are not always challenged when they should be. However, these occurrences are infrequent, irregular and - most importantly - unpredictable. You couldn't approach a company/authority/whatever with a cunning ploy to discover data that worked last time and be sure of not getting caught out this time. It's not worth the risk, and employees are getting more savvy every day.
The absolute worst kinds of data integrity slip-up are from fucking sloppy work by people using info systems. I worked in HR for a while, and ended up maintaining the personnel data system (for about 7,500 peeps - and it was a shit piece of software). I discovered that one or two staff members were using the software incorrectly and, frankly, in a totally incompetent fashion, because they couldn't be bothered to use the proper routines. I wish I could've made that impossible, but it wasn't my software.
They had replaced the addresses of several employees with the addresses of several job applicants who happened to have the same name, because it hadn't crossed their minds that the personnel tables accessed by the applicant-processing module and the contracted-employees module might be the same. The result? I got a phone call from an irate HR manager asking why they had been returned a contract with payroll info, tax stuff etc from someone who had never worked for us with a note saying "not known at this address". Of course, the girl responsible tried to blame it on me, and got heavily bollocked shortly afterwards for being a dense fuckwit.
Glad I'm not working there anymore.
democracy breaks down at around 1e7 (Score:4, Insightful)
I've noticed that democratically controlled systems, or the corporate equivalent of "vote with your dollars," breaks down when the population gets between 1e7 and 1e8. Suddenly, the political parties have become somewhat desensitized or even immune to the feedback for their outrageous actions. Corporations can essentially ignore pretty much any sort of public relations fiasco, since a boycott can't possibly raise enough countervotes to seriously impact the bottom line.
Honestly, at this point, if you said that Sam Walton's heirs, the Olsen Twins, and Dick Cheney were found in a secret lovenest in an undisclosed location in Tora Bora, writing a draft of USAPATRIOT ACT III which says that shoplifters were terrorists and should be buried under a hill of depleted uranium razorblades, there would be a five day story on the news and a 1% drop in poll/profit numbers, then it would be off to the next "scandal."
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And don't forget the authority figures who would appear on TV deny
why should companies care? (Score:3, Interesting)
take frequent customer supermarket discounts. is your purchasing info really worth 15$/wk? mine isn't. i've recently had a building management company ask me for the transactional history of my chekcing account because i don't have a credit rating. thats right, 'don't have a credit rating.' i've lived outside of the US, where its illegal for companies to transfer personal information across borders. i don't have a credit card because i don't need one. why should i have to pay interest to spend my own money. a car rental company asked me for a second credit card because i was from out of state; why should i need a second one? because i owe that much money, and i'm therefore paying twice as much in interest payments just to buy things.
the future? forget the future, the present. the present is the matrix, as in the movie. except that instead of electricity you're providing goos and services. you're not batteries, but you are drones. and many of you continue to function in this role despite the fact that you know you're drones. you think that you're with the overseers of the drones. you're not. you're think you're better than all the poor people that buy used cars and use all the coupons they can. you're not.
when you can't speak your mind or they fire you, take away your credit cards and get you evicted, so that you can't rent another apartment, or a car, or anything else that requires that you possess a credit card in order to be considered a citizen, will you still be free, if in fact you ever were?
Privacy? (Score:2, Insightful)
If I tell my friend that I shoplifted, then it is no longer a secret - he can reveal it to whoever he wants, whenever he wants. Sure, I can make him promise not to do so, I can even make him sign a contract that penalises him if he shares the secret.
But none of that can *prevent* him from sharing the secret. And once he does so (due to malicious intent, due to carelessness or maybe because a supervillain tortured him), the secret is
Since when? (Score:2)
How long it would be needed for the privacy advocates to start realizing that the only way to secure your private information is to not give it way. Or in other words always question why company needs your private details.
Personally I still remember times before the dot.com boom, when shops were promising to help with choice of products, advices, etc - to improve the bleak internet shopping experience. And? It sucked back then - it suc
LOL Privacy? What's that? (Score:2)
The latest addition to Facebook, however, took t
No problemo (Score:2)
Todays irrelevent concern is tomorrows big earner. I roughly quote that foolish HP guy...
"what on earth would ordinary people want with computers", and extrapolate to
"what on earth would ordinary people wanty with privacy, we're 'protecting' them"
So yeah, keep it up guys, sooner or later some idealist bods will suddenly be the next crop of billionaires thanks to current short sightedness..
Customers don't care either (Score:3, Insightful)
Because most customers don't care about privacy. They'll yammer on about it when surveyed and will support legislation when they don't see it as costing them anything, but they won't do anything about it. If they did, the companies would damnsure care. A lot.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You misspelled pwned.
Re: (Score:2)
If a company knows they are putting their customers at risk with a product they are selling and don't fix it, they are liable for damages. Why make exceptions for services? When I pay for a service, I think it's reasonable that there are certain implied expectations; among those would be that information I
Re: (Score:2)
"40% of people who bought x also bought y"
You make an order with items on it. Simple counting of items as a cluster with no private information whatsoever. Harmful how?