Building Anonymous-Friendly Computer Libraries? 301
H310iSe writes "Listening to NPR today and caught a story on All Things Considered about how the FBI has demanded information on borrowing and browsing habits, including computer seizures, from 85 libraries since Sept. 11 (utilizing their new-found powers from the PATRIOT act). Similar stories (which don't require RealAudio) are here and here. The American Librarian Association is providing information for librarians to help deal with this, and it seems heavily tilted towards supporting individuals' rights to privacy. It seems like the Slashdot crowd could come up with a great library computer setup that would protect anonymity (I'm thinking about things like creating a RAM disk and loading the OS onto it). How about ways to enable people to borrow books anonymously without opening the door to large-scale theft? I bet if we offered a packaged, free, easy to install Safe Browsing computer or Anonymous Checkout program, libraries across the U.S. would enthusiastically embrace it." According to the articles, these checks can be made for any reason, not just for suspected terrorism. It seems that if the American people are going to protect their rights, they are going to have to do so actively. Is the idea presented above, feasible? How would you improve upon it?
interesting... (Score:3, Insightful)
RAM disk good for keeping the OS clean (Score:2, Insightful)
If the browser history were filled with porn, if the computer were infected with a virus, or if a keystroke logger were installed, everything could be cleaned up with just a reboot. (The keystroke logging thing happens more often than you would think on public machines.)
An OS that boots from read-only media (like some CD-based Linux distros) would accomplish the same thing.
Go Back... (Score:2, Insightful)
They tout it as being ideal for cyber-cafes and libraries.
Unlike GoBack's normal working state, where a detailed history of the drive's activity is maintained, when Auto-Revert is enabled, no history is kept after a revert; all that's left is the "clean state."
Sounds ideal for preventing authoritarian agencies from snooping on their citizen's web surfing habits.
Why? (Score:3, Funny)
Privacy So Important? (Score:1, Troll)
The people who built the propane bombs that thankfully didn't kill anyone at Columbine got their info off the internet. Kevin Mitnick was able to escape justice by using anonymous chat rooms. No doubt there are terrorists using it to communicate as we speak. I just don't think that your paranoia about what someone might find out about your computer habits justifies the risks that have to be taken.
Why not just accept that what you look at might be known by someone else? If you aren't trying to make bombs or Anthrax or anything, you'll be fine. To do otherwise is to put your own wants above the lives of others.
Re:Privacy So Important? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. I'm sorry; yes, Mr. Anonymous Coward. I cherish my freedom, as you apparently cherish your anonymity. The price of having freedom is allowing other people to have it, too. You apparently believe that freedom is really just the freedom for all of us to be exactly like you. If we don't want to do anything that you don't like, we'll do fine. Because so many people are fucking morons, that means letting them have the freedom to saturate the airwaves with the Backstreet Boys, or the freedom to learn about explosives. We have to accept these dangers as simply the cost of doing business.
Just as my right to privacy is important enough to justify the fact that that privacy WILL be used by someone somewhere to take lives, my right to due process and a fair trial is important enough to justify the fact that due process and fair trials will end up allowing dome "detainees" to go free.
Re:Privacy So Important? (Score:2)
That's exactly the point. As someone posting anonymously, you should understand the value people place on freedoms. I'm anonymous here, too- just try to email me- you can't.
I want to be able to act freely, to do as I please without cops looking over my shoulder all day, without every store I go to collecting data on me to be used against me by marketers, cops or people who just don't like me. Wanting to live and let live involves accepting the risk that some peoples' actions will be perfectly legal up until they unload a gun in a subway car or a fast food joint.
I'll live with that. The only way you can live a life of perfect safety is pretty damn boring. Government spying and "detaining" doesn't allow any of us much of a life.
Re:Privacy So Important? (Score:2)
By this same logic we could stop murder by putting a tax on knives and guns. Criminals use whatever means are available to do what they want to do. If you want to battle terror, your best bet is to start addressing where the motivation for it comes from (which is actually a complicated issue and could take you a lot of research). You won't get anywhere by changing library policy.
Re:Privacy So Important? (Score:2)
Given the general interest among US citizens about Islam, terrorism, and methods of terroism that has been shown through the packed classes on all three at colleges and the huge amount of hits that such websites are getting, I seriously doubt that we can say that that privacy WILL be used to take lives. What the Justice Department is doing here is policing the freedom of information and stifling an interest in the unknown and relevant. If there's a piece of evidence that will prove that someone is a terrorist, it won't be found in what books they checked out or what website they went to in the local library. And if such evidence were admissable in court, then a whole lot of curious, middle class white Americans would be heading for the slammer.
Not so much for hardcopy books... (Score:1)
If their software doesn't keep records -- which they won't have to, as "overdue" downloads remove themselves -- there is nothing to subpoena.
That said, my borrowing habits are innocuous enough that I'm having trouble mustering a lot of outrage over this whole business.
Re:Not so much for hardcopy books... (Score:2)
They're innocuous right now. Wait until your favorite author publicly supports something unpopular. Wait until these records become even more public; you'll be looking for a job and the interviewer won't like your taste in books. You could get turned down for a mortgage because the bank sees you return books late sometimes.
I don't go to the library- I buy a lot of used books. My borrowing habits are about as innocuous as you can get, not being on their records. I've still got outrage enough to spare. Wake up and muster some yourself.
Building (Score:1)
Dead Man's Switch? (Score:2, Interesting)
Anonymous Checkout? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Anonymous Checkout? (Score:2)
Just purge records (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just purge records (Score:2, Interesting)
if you build it.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Patriot Act, indeed. If you want to be a patriot these days, go vote in November and boot these current idiots out of power.
Are you sure it's a computer problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
Respect for the anonymity of the library patron (at a minimum) needs to be codified in law. Otherwise, at any point the government can stop funding libraries that don't track patrons (like McCain's initiative that flew through Congress mandating web surfing filters) or worse.
If all these conditions are met, then if the libraries refused to use proxy logs or anything of the sort, and set up network PCs that ghosted themselves from a server (preferably with Linux) every time a patron logs out to fight trojan loaders and such, then things would go pretty well. But I don't think that it's the technology that's at issue.
Our librarian is pretty cool about these things, by the way, and probably would go for setting up something along these lines if she thought it'd be worth the investment. It wouldn't be, however, because there's still a lot of other variables that prevent such a setup from presenting anything other than a false sense of security.
anonymous borrowing (Score:4, Insightful)
The only problem I see with this is that some people might not be able to come up with the deposit -- they could use the old, non-anonymous system.
Re:anonymous borrowing (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, so anonymity is the privilege of the wealthy, and not the right of the people? How equitable.
Re:anonymous borrowing (Score:2)
Re:anonymous borrowing (Score:3, Interesting)
Simple. I suggest we don't loan books to strangers. I wasn't the one advocating anonymous borrowing. Personally I think the solution is for libraries to just destroy borrowing records after the book is returned. I have no problem with libraries keeping historical data on how many times a book was borrowed, but there's no reason they should keep individual borrowing histories. And from other comments, it appears as though many libraries already use that policy. Anonymous borrowing is totally unnecessary.
Re:anonymous borrowing (Score:2)
I've never worked at a library that kept the records for long. But most books aren't checked out very often. Sensitive books are mostly read in the library so your record could easily be kept for 10-15 years even if they only keep a record of the last person that checked out the book. I shelved Mien Kampf every 6 months or so but it hadn't been checked out in years. I was only one page out of 4 in the branch so it was read every 6 weeks or so.
They kept the last person checking out the book in case it was reported damaged by the next patron. Of course an expiration date on that would have made sense since you can't claim someone who had the book two years ago damaged it. But libraries subsist on donations and usually a stipend for salaries, and sometimes building maintenance. Large city libraries purchase books, but them smaller ones rent them or get the donated. If you ever checked out a book with a green label it was probably rented. Sometimes this is just the new fiction.
Unless it's a large city library the tech department is probably funded by grants from private foundations. Sometimes they get some government money from sending books to a scanning and pulping operations, but only if they have enough rare books that it's worth the effort. Their buildings are usually something that was condemned or abandoned. If it's an East coast and nice looking that's explained by the robber barons that established them a while back. The foundation is generally bankrupt but may still restrict the actions of the library for good or ill.
The library is unfortunately a dying institution. They can't even lend out software. And their efforts to offers to lend scanned books online can only apply to books printed before 1850-1925 depending on when the author died. Hours are constantly cut back in even the wealthiest library systems. By now there should be 24-7 libraries.
If I ever fund a library it will be open 24-7, foundation supported and have not be allowed to accept any operating funds from any government.
Re:anonymous borrowing (Score:2)
Preach it brother! It's just like those super-scary GPS equipped cell phones that they're always using to track poor people. I consider myself lucky that I'm wealthy enough to use land lines and pay phones.
Re:anonymous borrowing (Score:2)
No one is forcing you to use those super-scary GPS equipped cell phones. If you don't like it, use a pay phone. No one is forcing you to use your platinum credit card. If you don't like it, use cash. And so on. On the other hand, many poor people can't afford to drive the 8 mile-per-gallon SUV that they don't have to the local Barnes and Noble and sip cappuccinos and buy a hundred dollars worth of books. For these people, a free library is their only chance to read (and that is, after all, the point of a free library - to give everyone the opportunity to read for free). Everyone on
Re:anonymous borrowing (Score:2)
Some businesses do not accept cash anymore, or very reluctantly. Try renting a car or getting a hotel room with only cash. How about paying for a resaurant meal with a cheque?
Re:anonymous borrowing (Score:2)
I have NEVER encountered a business that does not accept cash. As for renting a car or getting a hotel room, I have, with cash, no problem.
How about paying for a res[t]aurant meal with a cheque?
Checks aren't anonymous. And besides, I understand why businesses are reluctant to accept checks. You never know if one will bounce (as opposed to credit cards, which nowadays are verified instantly).
Re:anonymous borrowing (Score:2)
Oh, so anonymity is the privilege of the wealthy, and not the right of the people? How equitable.
For anyone reading
The library user goes into the system as having borrowed a book, the title is irrelevant, but the item has a due/popularity/price index that is used as the basis for calculating late fees and damages and this index is assigned to the non-anonymous part of the library users account. So in the event of lateness or default then the user can be charged but the actual book remains anonymous. The library can then use it's catlogue system to detect which books are missing from its deposit and replace them. The netting of the cash from the defaulting system and the cost of replacing books should be zero within reasonable tolerance.
This leaves one problem, borrowing a high index book and returning a low index book, wearing the fine and selling the high index book for a relative profit. Well, this is a bit trickier, but certainly the system could ensure that high index book borrowed == high index book returned which would help enourmously and you could go further by encoding the title of the book in a write only cypher with the borrower holding the key, that way the return could be managed exactly without identifying information about the borrower being available (this last bit is probably unnecessary given the way libraries actually work.
Using this approach, libraries can still record the statistics about borrowing habits from the catalogue, they just can't track who did what.
Admittedly the risk here is that the anonymous library user who legitimately loses or damages a high index book might be paying more to replace it (since the index would be inexact to protect correlation between price and title) but that _is_ a reasonable price to pay for anonymity since you know it to start with and it is only for exceptional cases.
Re:anonymous borrowing (Score:2)
How can it be determined who is a qualified patron if that patron is to remain anonymous?
well (Score:5, Interesting)
My mother has been a librarin for over thirty years at various places of business, including private corporations, public libraries and at colleges and universities and from listening to her, I believe it is the general sentiment of the ALA to protect their reader's privacy. If you all take a moment to recall, it was the librarians who fought the most against COPPA because of they inherent censorship created by the requirements.
What does happen, however, is libraries will outsource their searching services because they don't have enough money or manpower to handle the computer equipment themselves. When that happens, the business they outsource to may not have the same ideas in their head concerning privacy and censorship and will start storing this. Unless libraries get more funding, it's likely that outsourcing will continue and records will be saved.
Re:well (Score:2)
The main system that kept track of circulation for the whole library also kept all requests. And it gets worse. I shouldn't have known that; it was outside my employee privileges, but several reference librarians kept the username and password posted on post-it notes, and being able to look up my own circulation record via telnet (or tnvt3270 or whatever it was) was way too convenient. From that point, looking up someone else's circ records was often way too interesting.... oh, and did I mention that the library used your SSN as a unique ID?
Anyway, the point is, the system saved ALL your information, and it was fairly easy to get to it. If we were counting on practices of libraries to preserve anonyminity, I wouldn't feel all that secure....
As one that works in a Library Systems Office ... (Score:3, Informative)
While not completely secure, we clear the web browser cache and history each time the browser loads (and it closes itself after 10 minutes of inactivity o further help this along).
We also remove the contents of "My Documents" and then the Recycling Bin each morning before the library opens. This is all done via scripts of course.
Granted this isn't the best solution, as the info could still be retrieved, but between not requiring login's (there-fore not knowning where anyone that comes into the library was sitting) and deleting as much as we can, as often as we can it should help.
Re:As one that works in a Library Systems Office . (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:As one that works in a Library Systems Office . (Score:2, Insightful)
Good crack? (Score:2)
As for running your entire OS in a ramdisk...yea...sure...that's...great. I don't know about you, but I sure as hell wouldn't pass any mileage that simply wanted to put 3GB of ram in every public computer. All so that the entire OS can run in a RAM disk so that we can have a false sense of anonymity on those machines. If the FBI wants to see where a computer has been, they will find out. Yes, if they turn off the machine, everything is lost. But this will only get them once or twice. They aren't fucking idiots. They will catch on, and start going to the library's isp instead and plugging a nifty little black box between the library and the internet. "Wow, look! I can see every packet going in or out of that building. How nice!"
Three words: Waste of money.
STFU, whiner! (Score:2)
You can run an entire OS from RAM. Miniature Linux installations are available for free download on the WWW. They require under 50Mb of HD space, so what makes you think that it wouldn't fit in RAM? You don't need a power installation - just a GUI, a database, and a network connection to ghost the machine.
"If the FBI wants to see where a computer has been, they will find out. Yes, if they turn off the machine, everything is lost. But this will only get them once or twice. They aren't fucking idiots."
Whether you're an idiot or not, you can't just magically extract all the data from some RAM after it's been turned off. It's physical law. It's math. It's not an issue of IQ points.
"They will catch on, and start going to the library's isp instead and plugging a nifty little black box between the library and the internet."
Libraries do not need an Internet connection to look up databases for books. This can be done across an intranet, with no access to an ISP or the outside world whatsoever. To break into that and run a packet sniffer, the FBI agent would have to be sitting on the premises, where they could easily be seen.
Re:STFU, whiner! (Score:2)
I'll start out with the issue of an OS not fitting into RAM. I don't know about your area, but in my area the libraries could give less of a shit about linux on their public access PCs. Realistically, the PCs aren't there in order to show the world that linux is a great solution for everyday problems, the PCs are there to provide a simple service. Word processing and internet access. PERIOD. There is a reason why those boxes are Wintel machines. Mainly because it is what 90% of the desktop computer using population is familiar with. Yes, linux would solve this problem quite nicely, but I can guarantee you that any proposal suggesting the use of linux would get a lot of "what the hell is leenux?" going on in the background, following by some light chuckling. When people go to the library to use the computers, they expect to use MS office, and surf the net. Sorry, but that is the extent of it. Yes, there is openoffice, and I agree that mozilla kicks the shit out of IE. But the fact remains, OpenOffice isn't MS Office, and mozilla is still plagued by plenty of IE only websites.
Now for a few direct rebuttals:
No where did I ever mention that an FBI agent would gain access to data on powered down RAM. The IQ reference was in regards to them shutting the machine off to begin with. Like I said, they aren't fucking idiots. If they lose the logs once to a RAM disk, you can bet they won't make that mistake again. Next time they'll simply leave it on, or as I said, tap the network at the ISP.
And I don't know where you got the idea that I was referring to book checkout logs when I was talking about tapping at the ISP. I would sure as hell hope that any library with half a mind wouldn't use a public network to service their internal database transactions. However, even if the logs were the target of the search, they could just simply walk up to the machine hosting the database and fuss all they wanted to while the librarians called their bosses to explain how the FBI just walked in with a search warrant. And if you've read my previous post, you'll remember that you can't have both accountability and anonymity. The two are mututually exclusive. No amount of fancy encryption is ever going to change that. Please think before you flame. I don't post crap, so I don't expect crap in return.
Re:STFU, whiner! (Score:2)
Like many people have already said, some libraries already throw away information on items checked out once they are checked back in. So accountability only lasts as long as you have the item.
So privacy of what you check out isn't really a big problem to solve. The biggest problem are the computers they keep for public use. There are plenty of ways to solve this, but I don't see any of them using Windows. Which pretty much makes them useless to libraries, since Windows is exactly what the public wants. Maybe you could put up a single "secure" machine that ran Linux off a RAM disk and performed the autoreboot I mentioned earlier. But I highly doubt we'll ever see a library with no public MS machines in the next 10 years.
Anyhow, nice chattin with ya. Hope I didn't stir up any hatred.
Re:STFU, whiner! (Score:2)
That's beside the point anyway. Patrons frequently use the library terminals for things they can't find in the dead-tree collection. This does require an internet connection.
Here's an idea: Many libraries are on reasonably fast connections. Someone needs to create a small ram-based Linux distribution in a DOS executable. Something like Loadlin packed with a kernel image and filesystem image.
Then place this distro on a server with some carefully-scripted web pages which exploit flaws in IE to run the package. This is because the library probably runs Windows security software that prevents the user from easily downloading and running arbitrary programs.
The library patron walks up to the computer, and punches in the URL of this distro. The thing downloads, IE is tricked into running it, and the library's computer is now running a real OS from RAM.
Build in whatever freedom and paranoia you want: Perhaps the kernel shuffles things around in RAM every few seconds to prevent memory cell persistence. Perhaps the browsing is done via a secure tunnel to prevent the feds from simply Carnivoring the library's pipe. Perhaps this system meets other similar systems (gnutella-style?) on the net and they proxy each other's data (Freedom.net-style) to make things hard to trace. Perhaps the screen font is Tempest-annoying.
When the patron is finished, the distro wipes memory and reboots, back into the library's Windows for the next person to come along.
Of course such a distro would also be used by lame crackers with nothing better to do than attack websites from the library. *sigh*
Re:STFU, whiner! (Score:2)
Your second idea is interesting, something I was thinking about - IBM did something called crowds that were basically a peer-to-peer proxy program that would send requests randomly to proxy servers (other nodes on the network) - if a bunch of libraries ran this desktop they'd all be peer'd proxies for eachother, sending encrypted requests through several hops before it goes to the internet. The only way it could be traced to a source is if you could hack the proxies - you'd have to hack a good number of them record the NAT and keys in real time to trace who'se sending what.
At least i think that's how it works. I like the idea of creating a huge national library network of peers - you could run your own gnutella-like network to encourage information sharing between libraries, etc.
Re:Good crack? (Score:2)
One of the problems being addressed is the dragnet style of evidence collection. This collects large amounts of data that has absolutely nothing to do with the stated case and, frankly, is a lot more likely to be abused once its in the hands of the agency in question and out of site of those who would be more inclined to safeguard it (ie: the libraries). Long-term detailed records and discrete data left behind on individual workstations are perfect sources for this kind of data collection.
A ramdisk-based workstation would help limit the amount of data available during a sweep. It would force an investigative agency to be a lot more targeted in its activites (perhapse more on a time-critical scale than overall scope) and it would limit collateral data that could be used outside the scope of the specific investigation. It could even render these workstations as useless sources of intelligence and limit the damage done by these overly broad laws.
Re:Good crack? (Score:2)
A basic familiarity of forensic ideas is necessary if you are to preserve data in the event of a major break-in that causes a large economic loss. It's not something only for cops.
There have been ongoing discussions about how to preserve the integrity of live data, it seems the consensus is that the best you can do is document every move you make, and use industry standard tools.
In the case of a break-in where a big loss of money is involved and charges might be pressed, it seems it's best for the admin of the server to just take as few steps as necessary to preserve the integrity of the network, and to document everything.
It's tricky business from what I gather of lurking there.
Re:Good crack? (Score:2)
That's like saying the best way to avoid a government raid on your cult compound is to build bigger walls. I think Waco shows otherwise. If they government wants to get you, and they have the legal grounds to do it, no technical measure will stand in their way.
Don't remove the books (Score:2, Informative)
Act on it! (Score:3, Interesting)
Says the article poster:
Of course you have to be active about protecting your rights. If you let someone else "protect" your rights for you, you let that third party decide which right you have (i.e. which rights that someone will defend for you).
Methinks that instead of looking for technological solutions that will take a while to implement, we would be better off making a big deal of this issue. The more the general public knows about how FBI snoops into library records (about other things), the more stringent the public outcry.
I am not saying drop the search for a technical solution, I am saying a lot of policies can be balanced through social means rather than actively fought through some kind of enforcement tool (e.g., technology).
Cash up front (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not an ideal solution, since libraries should be in the practice of lending books for free, but it would work.
Re:Cash up front (Score:4, Insightful)
Scenario: Poor kid doing a term paper. A smart, ambitious kid, and he needs some relatively obscure books. Cash value may be $100/per for academic stuff. So now this kid must come up with $300 cash to write his paper. It doesn't matter if he's going to get it back - he just doesn't have it to give.
And the system can't be "opt-in". That means the well-off get to be anonymous, while the poor get tracked.
Lord knows I think the ACLU is a bunch of busibodies, but they'd have a fit over this one, and rightfully so.
Re:Cash up front (Score:2)
What this idea would do is allow the wealthy to research in the comfort of their own home, whereas the poor would have to take notes and do the work at the library.
Re:Cash up front (Score:2, Informative)
[ checking books out for a cash deposit ]
There's a very real drawback to doing this: many important works are out of print (and will stay that way until they enter the public domain -- but that's a different rant) and cannot be had at any price unless you can locate a used copy. If I found a library that would lend me -- anonymously! -- a book which I'd spent a year trying to find for, say, a $50 deposit, the temptation simply to "buy" it that way would be tremendous. Unless the deposit were made so onerous that no one could consider its payment an acceptable price to acquire the work, the system would fail. And if the deposit were that onerous, books would not circulate.
Re:Cash up front (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm a librarian and I see a few problems with the anonymous checkout idea. The library at which I work does not keep records of what someone has checked out in the past as long as fines have been paid, but we do keep information on books currently checked out and books that have been returned overdue with fines, until those fines have been paid.
This serves two purposes: to protect the library and to protect the patron. In a perfect world the system you lay out might work, but occasionally libraries make mistakes and sometimes people make mistakes or try to take advantage of the system.
On the patron side: If a book is returned on time, but somehow never gets properly scanned, it may show up as not having been returned. Often patrons cannot or will not return books during open hours, so they will use the book drop. Also having to stand in line at the checkout desk to have a deposit return would at least double the amount of people in line at the desk, meaning longer waits, and perhaps higher taxes to pay for more personnel to deal with twice as many transactions. If the library makes a mistake and the book is returned and not checked-in but reshelved, there will be no way to prove that the book was in fact returned. The patron would have no ground to stand on in stating that the book is in fact on the shelf or checked out to someone else or some such thing, as there would be no record they had checked out that book in the first place. Merely a deposit.
It might be possible to barcode cards and then input prices on the cards at checkout and then check cards inserted into the books on a patron's record, but in addition to taking more time, there would be no record of shelf status for the book (is this book checked out, withdrawn, missing, etc.) meaning anytime someone would want to see if something was one the shelf they would have to go and look, defeating much of the purpose of computer-based catalog systems.
On the library side: In addition to some of the above points (which in many cases would be negatives for patrons and libraries), there are always a group of people out there who wish to abuse the system. A case in point is our printing policy. We do not typically charge per page on printing from public machines, and we used to have signs merely saying "The library reserves the right to charge for excessive printing." 95% of persons using the computers printed reasonable amounts. However, a small percentage would consistently come in the library and print out reams of stuff. We eventually started enforcing that policy, and eventually changed it to the current policy which is 30 pages free, pages 31+ 10 cents a page and printing. But the same contingent still likes coming multiple times during the day, trying to sneak out without paying, printing without doing a preview getting lots of stuff they don't want and hiding the undesired pages, etc. It's a pain. I'm hoping to develop some system for counting pages printed (perhaps running all print jobs through a central server) but with Win98 machines this seems to be an expensive and not-too-easy task.
At any rate, I have no doubt that people would check out single materials, for instance, and then come back on a different day and try walking out with different stuff and say, "hey it's checked out on my record" and there might be no way aside from anecdotal evidence of the circulation staff to prove otherwise. People wouldn't remember what they had checked out. People wouldn't remember what they owned fines on. I'm sure the system could probably be undermined many different ways, while now we can say, "You have X checked out, and X is overdue." and if we are wrong the patron can try to prove otherwise.
Perhaps the most reasonable solution to get this kind of thing to work might be to check out the card to a patron with a price input at check-out and the book checked out to a dummy (non-existant) checkout patron, but that would essentially double work and add an awful lot of hassle, and might have other problems I haven't considered (I don't actually work in circulation, and most of the time the people that work in circulation technically aren't librarians (they don't have a library science degree) but clerks or para-professionals).
I have doubts that this kind of thing is really worth it in the end. If someone is that protective of their privacy that they can't stand to have a book linked with their record for the 3 weeks they have it checked out, maybe they'd be better off just reading it in the building or buying a copy with cash somewhere.
Already happens (Score:2)
If you want to steal things that are readily tradeable for cash, you've got a lot of options. Anything that can go to a pawn shop, for example.
Libraries in America (Score:5, Interesting)
Ironically, the new government policies for our libraries seem to have, now, deteriorated our privacy. And the ad is, now, an excellent demonstration of how the current administration has run amok.
PSA's ad, "Library [streamos.com]" is in realmedia format. And, no. America is no longer America.
Re:Libraries in America (Score:2)
You've done nothing illegal. Nothing 'deviant'. Nothing thats going to get you on the cover of a popular tabloid. Nothing your neighbours might go 'tsk' and whisper about. You don't drop litter, swear, or look at porn on the internet. You're not 'guilty' of smoking, drinking, or sex before marriage. You don't speed, you've never inhaled, and your only knowledge of a 'hooker' is from watching Rugby (obscure English sport) on the telly.
So, what the fuck do you care if the feds see that you borrowed a copy of 'Popular DIY' last weekend?
Or is your desire for 'privacy' just a misplaced sense of rebellion against the state because you're a bit anal and have no other way to vent your displeasure about 'the system'?
DISCLAIMER: I'm English. The idea^h^h^h^hinevitability of having to live with identity cards and the state tracking is very real here. And yet, it seems very few people have a problem with it. We can see the benefits. A reduction in crime, the possibility of being able to pay tax online and such securely, and whatever else we think up, is GOOD. OK, so Tony Blair might be able to tell what I was doing this weekend. SO WHAT?
Re:Libraries in America (Score:2)
Stop being so paranoid for pities sake.
RAMdisk != privacy (Score:2)
That said, I still think a RAMdisk based system is a good one, the computers could be booted from a boot image on the network or even from a locked CD drive and then run completely from RAM. While it offers no protection from Carnivore, it does protect people's information from other people who come to the computer later and snoop for e-mail addresses, account information, and the like. Lets not forget to try to get libraries to close this door just because the shadow government can still get our private information.
The NPR story made claims that the government could somehow link information between a user's sessions. The reference was to someone who looked up information about atomic energy and then came back later and looked up something about the Koran. Unless they have logs of who used the terminal and when, how can they make such a link? Do they just assume that the person doing the Koran lookup must be the same evil doer as the person who previously committed the heinous deed of reading about atomic energy?
Re:Carnivore? (Score:2)
Carnivore is not limited to SMTP packets (if it was it would be defeated by all the web based mail readers). It can capture any and all IP traffic, so it can reconstruct anything a monitored site does on the Internet. No, it can't capture information off of a computer, but one does not go to a library to store information onto their hard drive. Anything on the hard drive of interest would have been sent over the Internet, either to or form another location: E-mail, user/passwords (even a /. login), news stories, stories about evil doers who think they are entitled to "rights" after peeking at an anti-government site, and so on.
It's been a while since I did this, but at some libraries I believe it's necessary to "unlock" a computer by somehow presenting your library card or some similar token, and so they could in fact know who was at which terminal.....
Clearly this is a needless action to take at a library. I can see the need to present your card when checking out a book, as it gives them some level of expectation that the book might be returned. But I've never had to present a library card at a library to read a book on site. I can read books in just about any public or university library in this country without a card, I just can't check them out. Why should I have to show a card to use an Internet terminal? The only reason seems to be to track people's usage. If they are doing this then we are hardly going to convince them to boot to RAM disk to protect people's privacy.
They might also look for things like what signin you used when you were checking your webmail...
And again, Carnivore will get that, a RAM disk will not provide privacy.
Re:Carnivore? (Score:2)
Re:Carnivore? (Score:2)
Much like sending post cards through the mail, it's hard to keep much private from ISP/FBI snooping.
One time pads are the obvious first choice for encryption (I don't trust that the FBI and their cohorts can't read PGP). That still can give away a lot of information, like who you are in contact with. While it might be considered an abuse of resources (no worse than most use of Usenet though), I would consider posting an encrypted private message to a binary newsgroup that I knew my contact was monitoring. One should be able to disguise it so that it looks like a stray file segment to the casual user. With a interesting subject line you should even be able to entice enough people to download it that our friends in the government who protect our rights wouldn't likely be able to find who downloaded it, even if they were monitoring all ISP (he would be lost in the crowd). Very short messages might even be stored in the file header, good luck sorting through the list of all people who downloaded those! Of course, if they see you pick up a response they would have an IP address they could backtrack on, so responses, if needed, might have to consider alternate forms of subterfuge.
Clearly there are ways, which should make it clear that Carnivore is more about snooping on honest citizens than it is about spying on terrorists who are taking precautions.
Technological Solutions (Score:2, Interesting)
Legislation is the answer. Not happy with a law? Last I heard America was a Democracy of sorts -- let's get out there and use the classic techniques for creating change. Vote. Write. Talk. Protest. Rage.
Or has the wealth we enjoy in North America made us too complacent?
My Addition To The Pot (Score:3, Insightful)
Anonymous Checkout (Score:2)
Another method would be to give a "library card voucher" to every new resident, and allow them to obtain a card with the voucher, using some sort of random hat draw or something. Have some type of card trading system in the library, where people can trade cards, reliably knowing that each card has no books on it. (Scan cards, it tells you, "No books are checked out." You then randomly decide whether or not to exchange cards.) Of course, if you lose your card, you're screwed. This method would require a bit more honesty than today's libraries. IOW, it's susceptible to many of the same no-return attacks as modern libraries, (Borrow books, and never use the card again. Not much they can do about that either way.) But the fact that it can be traced back to you seems to encourage honesty, regardless of the library enforcing returns with external mechanisms. IOW, being anonymous increases dishonesty.
The best method seems to be to delete the records of a patron's borrowed books as soon as they are returned.
As I read more and more of these (Score:2)
There seems to be two main assumptions when dealing with privacy:
1) X can't be trusted. With X being any group other than the privacy group advocating something.
2) X needs to insure our privacy.
In all honesty, these two beliefs are mutally exclusive. If you can't trust the government or the corporations or anyone else (and I'll agree that you probably can't), then stop looking for a method for them to insure your privacy.
The only solution to insure your privacy is to insure than no external entity is capable of tracking you. In the case of libraries, this means NOT checking books out. It means paying with cash everywhere. It means no phone service, credit cards, charge cards, discount cards, banking accounts, driver's license, car, or anything else that involves filling out an application or showing any form of identification.
And even that isn't a safe bet. You have to also not allow your face to be seen in public, where a camera can record you in a specific location at a specific time.
It's simply too easy to track data. Giving outside agencies method to quit tracking your data only works if you trust those agencies.
Maybe a better solution is to make all, or at least as much of the data as possible, public. After all, the problem is the ability of someone to use data about you in a method you don't approve of. Another solution to that is to level the playing field. When spammers and telemarketers can't hide behind a wall of anonymity any more than you, when goverment officials have all their dirty little secrets made public, then perhaps we'll see a change in behavior.
But as long as some groups have access to information that everyone else doesn't have, you'll have the same problem over and over. Either you need to insure your privacy yourself of you need to insure that they have no pricacy either.
To make a difference (Score:3, Insightful)
Libraries are not run or operated by the Federal Government, at least in the United States. They are run by local government, paid for my the local library district's taxpayers.
Show up to the library board meetings, bring your friends with you. Ask them what they think about these issues, and what they are doing to keep a balance between needed record keeping and just letting Project TIPS or the Homeland Security department grep through records for "nuclear weapon" or "anthrax."
You can make a difference! Most people it seems lately take no interested in local / town / area governments, but that is where the normal citizen can make the MOST difference!
Preventing finding out who the terrorist ........ (Score:2)
Information and who's accessing it....
So as many may be trying to rationalize invasion of privacy by thinking only of terrorism excuses, perhaps there is the other side of the coin as to what the feds may be looking for......like those assessing information in order to see the truth:
take a look at this: World Meters [osearth.com]
Take a good look at the different meters! Then look at this: What the World Wants [osearth.com]
We have the technology and we have the funds to make good things happen.
So why is it not happening? You want to fight about it?
Assuming you don't want to fight about it, that fighting is not the goal or main desire of people, then there must be something else, something bigger that is the problem. You know, considering annual world military spending is $780 billion dollars (US) and to solve the major world humanitarian problems only needs 1/3 of that....
The problem has to be more than something under a trillion dollars.
A CIA Fact Sheet on Indonesia -- see the religion percentages (88% muslim). [cia.gov]
OK, (given the above muslim population of indonesia): from the pbs trillion dollar bet article: [pbs.org]
"In the summer of 1997, across Thailand, property prices plummeted. This sparked a panic that swept through Asia. As banks went bust from Japan to Indonesia, people took to the streets - events so improbable they had never been included in anyone's models."
and in Indonesia May 1998: [go.com]
"Sources all over Asia tell Uscher that Asians know about local corruption but believe America is taking advantage of the situation to grab Asian markets and Asian wealth."
and (read the article!!!) another article from CNN: [cnn.com]
"The austerity measures were a condition of the International Monetary Fund's $43 billion aid package to bail out the southeast Asian nation. "
World Bank wanted to help Indonesia out but charge interest (usery) entrapment???? Funny how China is the only country who did not participate in this stock game and are better off then the rest of us for not doing so.....
Where the US bailout was only (pbs article):
"We expect that they're going to explain to the members of this Committee why the Federal Reserve has organized the $3.5 billion bail-out for billionaires, why Americans should be worried about the gambling practices of the Wall Street elite"
And there is Something Else [neo-tech.com] I have run across for that timeline as well (making the "trillion dollar bet" just icing on this cake?):
(note: overall I find information from this resource to be integratingly correct enough to be both useful and insightful, though with a touch of blind bias towards capitalism, though it does try not to be blindly biased, it is to subjective to capitalism to completely avoid it.)
"During the 1993-1999 bubble era of false economic progress, many CEOs, executives, employers, employees, even customers adopted the scams of clintonian-era politicians, lawyers, journalists, academics to become increasingly dishonest, corrupt, even criminal. The bubble-building, stock-market fraud began when Chairman Alan Greenspan clintonized the
Federal Reserve. He signaled that politicization by blatantly breaking a time-honored apolitical precedent when he sat as a special guest in the president's box during Clinton s first State-of-the-Union address. Greenspan, the former acolyte of capitalism-champion Ayn Rand, then married a socialist/clintonian journalist. His drive to create a Clinton-boosting, economic boom -- a high-tech bubble economy -- escalated from that point. He with Robert Rubin and Bill Clinton artificially increased the value of the dollar, relentlessly increased the M-3 money supply, recklessly created sloshing liquidity, and pied pipered consumers and corporations into bankrupting debt. He engineered those cancerous long-term policies to continually fuel the equity markets for baleful political ends and unearned glory.
The bubble burst in early 2000 causing losses of four-trillion dollars. After several sharp bear-market rallies, those equity losses launched a long-term economic decline -- the feared L-shaped recession or worse."
Oh yeah and this 5 year stock market link comparing the DOW with the S&P and most important the NASDAQ. [yahoo.com] Where you can tell where the money went and also know what the dot coms were all about.
Given the above
From theCBS article on the NSA (National Security Agency) total system failure: [cbs.com]
"In January 2000, Gen. Mike Hayden, the director of the NSA, received a call from the agency's watch officer alerting him that all of its computers had crashed."
In that same article (in fact in the previous paragraph):
"A phone call intercepted by the NSA is often the first warning that a terrorist such as Osama bin Laden is planning an attack against Americans. To find that threatening phone call, email or radio transmission among the billions made daily, the NSA relies on rooms of supercomputers."
The date of this CBS article is Aug 29, 2001.
Do you really think maybe Y2K brought the systems all down? For what is supposed to be the top spy agency in the US? (they don't say what caused the three and a half day crash.)
Or do you perhaps see a simpler Truth to the matter, such as:
Stock market gamblers and Gov. screwed up the world economy so bad and especially for muslims that the NSA had damn good reason to KNOW what was going to happen and that they needed an excuse for their total inability to deal with it.
*And then there is this, how might Afghanistan participate in global* *humanitarian issues:* [doe.gov]
And the Bill of Rights [cornell.edu]
How about now? Do you want to fight now? And if you were an Afghan Muslim, instead of a US citizen?
Targets....White House for it's political control over Pentagon military backed control over World Trade Center
We taught them how to do it, How to fight smart, how to learn what they need to know and where they can get supplies (anthrax, planes, etc..) from us to use against us....... then we lite a bon fire under their ass to motivate them into action while we turned our backs to intelligence....played ignorant......so they could more easily do it.
And Ted Turner (CNN) said something about the attack being an act of desparation. Which he later apologized for.....because of why?
How? (Score:2, Informative)
The fundamental problem with this is that an anonymous checkout system would mean that the library would have no way of getting their books back. Not that a lot of people are out to steal books from public libraries, but I know that if there weren't a fine for returning it late, I would probably put my borrowed books down some place and forget that they were borrowed and not mine. After two weeks of this, they usually give me a call reminding me that the books actually belong to them.
Now picture a world where they can't call me, and when I check out a book, they have no idea that I have quite a few sitting in my apartment waiting to be brought back. Multiply that by the number of people checking out books, and the nations libraries would soon be depleted.
Another thing, I know quite a few people who work in libraries, and they tend not to enthusiastically embrace anything. Especially anything that even sounds like it might require having to re-enter every book in their collection to a new database, and unfortunately they equate the people I know equate "new software" with "new database:. Of course this view is probably a little bit skewed because I'm used to pivcking around small libraries in sleepy towns in the sticks.
Anonymising library loan records (Score:3, Interesting)
The other type of ticket was the 'Fiction Token'. This was a simple, mass-produced plastic card, identical to every other plastic card, which was simply exchanged for fiction titles. You take a book, you give 'em a token. You return the book, they give you a token back, but not the same one. There's no way to track who has what.
This was all removed in the name of efficiency some years back. The current system uses barcodes in books, and barcoded member cards, tying all books to borrowers present and past. Any librarian can browse through your borrowing history, or the history of a book, almost instantaneously.
So, take a backward step for privacy. Replace your lendng libraries computer system with cardboard wallets. When a book is loaned, you do have the borrowers details, but ONLY while the borrower has the item. This allows you to chase borrowers who have not returned items. Once the item is returned, you lose the association. Simple, private, and virtually idiot-proof too. The system doesn't even need electricity. For low value items, such as paperback books, issue 'fiction tokens'. Borrowers get, say, four tokens, and if they want more, they pay the average cost of a paperback for one. Keep a log of who has how many tokens, but nothing more than that. This will catch abuses, but not provide any tracking. Librarians: You're in the library business, not the espionage business! Do your community a favour, and take a step backwards.
I'm I the only one... (Score:2)
The answer to make sure they weren't spying was to create open-source ones, duuuuuh.
The crypto for anon checkout is already done... (Score:4, Informative)
This system handles the daily mechanics of such a digital library, but it needs an external hook to get a user into the system called an "isa-person" certificate (a cert that you could only get one of, probably biometric, that is a hard link to your meatspace identity) which is used as the stick to prevent people from walking away with your books. If someone checks out books and does not return them they get a negative mark on their isa-person cert that will follow them to around until it is cleared. A deposit of cash, as others have suggested, would probably serve an equivalent purpose.
If you really want a secure, anonymous digital system it is probably going to end up working something like NetFlix. You apply for an anonymous id and put down a cash deposit, the anon id lets you borrow titles with certain restrictions, when you are finished with the account you cancel your subscription and get your deposit back.
Jim
[Chaum90] David Chaum: Showing credentials without identification: Transferring signatures between unconditionally unlinkable pseudonyms; Auscrypt '90, LNCS 453, Springer-Verlag, Berlin 1990, 246-264.
Anonymous even when a book is checked out (Score:2)
Downside, the library can't tell how much the book is worth when it is lost. If you record the value along with the hash, it could theoretically be used to figure out the exact book. To fix this, only the value "range" is recorded, and the maximum is charged if the book is loss. For example, the book is in the "Under $10 range". If lost, you own $10 to the library, even if the book only cost $7.
Another downside, the library doesn't have a way of keeping track of which books need to be replaced. This isn't a good situation, but privacy overrides inventory tracking need. I think it's a fair trade-off. The library could implement an "inventory week". During that week, the actual ISBN is recorded when you borrow a book so they can do a proper inventory check. If you don't want that information recorded (even if purged when the book is returned), don't check anything out that week.
Re:Anonymous even when a book is checked out (Score:2)
Use a one-way hash such as MD5 on the ISBN as
a key. When you check out a book, only this
hash is recorded.
And then the FBI runs the ISBNs of all the books they find "interesting" through the hash and searchs for matches.
Another downside, the library doesn't have a
way of keeping track of which books need to be
replaced.
Sure they do. They can add the accession number of each book to a list of books in circulation as it is checked out. If you note only the week or even only the month it went out you'll be able to figure out when to give up hope of it coming back without giving the FBI any useful information.
I like your idea of "price classes", though. Try this: When you check out a book its price class is added to a list linked to your name. Appended to this is a hash of the accession number likely to be unique among the small number of books of a given class that can be checked out by any one client but far from unique across the entire collection. When you return the book the hash is recomputed and the book removed from the list. If you don't return the book the library levies fines and eventually compensation based on the price class. An adequate hash might be something as simple as the las few digits of the accession number.
Re:Anonymous even when a book is checked out (Score:2)
I was trying to come up with a method that did not require a deposit on the book. People with limited incomes have as much right to privacy as people with money.
Policy or Technology? (Score:2)
At Andersen, Worldcom and Enron, the technological solution to their "problems with anonymity and privacy" (document shredding) was illegal, even before there was evidence of wrongdoing. (Now I know this is slashdot, the home of the easily stretched bad analogy, so I'll right off state that I realize that their financial records are supposed to be available.)
When a planned, possibly conspiratorial crime/attack/etc. occurs, do you really want our law enforcement hobbled by an inability to unravel the methods, sources, and co-conspirators of the bad guys?
O/S in RAM (Score:2)
Knoppix [knopper.net] is what you need.
The perfect solution (Score:2)
Anonymous distributed networking. If and when enough people get to using it, network spying will be quite difficult indeed.
Re:I'm sorry.. (Score:5, Interesting)
government has no property it is not given by the people.
(this is true even in non democratic/republican forms of government. see Gandhi's writing on non-violent resistance for an interesting object lesson in this fact).
Re:I'm sorry.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Public Libraries are _public_ places, owned by the _people_. The people have a right to peacebly educate themselves, assemble, and petition government for greviences. They have a right to perform these activities anonymously, else they could be subject to harrassment by those individuals who currently control the government.
Remember in the turn of the century when black people had the right to vote, but had to do so publicly so that their owners knew how they voted and what they were up to at all times? This is called opression and we are quicly headed back to this stage... only this time it won't just be along ratial boundaries.
Re:I'm sorry.. (Score:2)
Re:I'm sorry.. (Score:2)
No, he's talking about the other turn of the century (the 2000 election in Florida).
(Sorry, bad joke.)
Re:I'm sorry.. (Score:2)
It's not Flamebait; it's Unintelligent.
My town thinks a library is an important thing to have, so we tax ourselves to fund one. I haven't seen any money filtering its way down from Washington to buy our books. Let Ashcroft search for borrowing records and browsing habits in the Library of Congress. That's the library owned by that government. He can stay out of my library, because my town owns it.
Where are you pulling this radar gun thing from?
_However_, when it comes to the FBI demanding book histories from stores like Borders, they can bugger off until they get a warrant.
You actually have less of a leg to stand on with book stores. They don't need a warrant, or even a subpoena. They could just ask. They could just walk in and seize it, claiming it's a terrorist related investigation. You don't own the bookstore, and if you signed up for their card club, you're asking them to collect information on you. It's their data, and they can sell it to anyone they want or give it to the FBI. They could sell it to the FBI. I hope you didn't buy a felafel cookbook, because then you're going to get detained. At least with your local library you can get the town to resist handing the info over to them. Borders probably made money selling you out.
Re:I'm sorry.. (Score:2)
How ironic, bookstores such as Borders are more likely to keep exactly the type of records, the FBI thinks it needs. Libraries, by way of contrast, really have no need to keep copious customer data profiles, and might even consider it unethical to do so.
The FBI can piss off. They don't need warrants to view reading records. They don't need to prosecute individuals based on their choice of reading material.
I'm even sorrier (Score:4, Insightful)
- While this is often true, so what? The rest areas in national parks are also owned by the government, but that doesn't mean they have the right to put webcams in the latrines.
-
Further, it isn't always true. Lots of private universities have libraries; there are a number of privately-owned museums with libraries attatched.
-
Finally, while it is true your bog-standard municipal library is owned by `the government', it isn't owned by the federal government; it's generally a service of the municipal government, paid for by municpal ratepayers. Why exactly, again, does the FBI have the right to get any information at all from the library just because both the FBI and the municipal library are owned by `the' government?
The Cato Institute [cato.org], a libertarian think-tank and about as right-wing an organization as you can imagine, a group I seldom have occasion to agree with, published a report [cato.org] on these sorts of issues entitled ``Preserving our Liberties While Fighting Terrorism'', which, in discussing exactly the sort of new powers like being able to search library records with no probable cause, says:Re:I'm sorry.. (Score:2)
Indeed, as you point out, a warrant is required for accessing most records, and a warrant has to be based on credible testimony, and a judge has to sign his name to it (a standard that is often enough abused, but...).
So a library simply being property of a municipality or charitable foundation is not enough to enable a completely free hand in records access.
Re:I'm sorry.. (Score:2)
I agree with your analysis of the traditional view and the US Constitution. However, states have repeatedly ceded their authority to the Federal Government. I blame the Federal Income tax. My state taxes are roughly one half that of my federal taxes. If the situation were reversed, the federal gov't wouldn't have nearly as much power over the state governments.
Re:I'm sorry.. (Score:2)
My state taxes are roughly one half that of my federal taxes. If the situation were reversed, the federal gov't wouldn't have nearly as much power over the state governments.
Be careful what you wish for: your state may take you at your word and quadruple its taxes.
Re:I'm sorry.. (Score:2)
Anyway, I think the politics and idea sound very similar to what you have in Austrailia. Although from your description, it sounds like you just pay one tax bill to the federal government, not two separate ones?
Survey says: the Declaration is Communist (Score:2)
Yep, that democracy thing is heavy stuff...
Re:It's really in our powers (Score:2)
Problem. If all parties who have a reasonable chance of winning are willing to invade our privacy, then no matter who you vote for, you're going to wind up in the shit. This is especially true if you have a system which effectively consists of 2 parties.
[OT] Why I don't vote (Score:2)
I don't know enough about the issues or the candidates.
I try to be informed, but I don't subscribe to a newspaper...I did once, but the newspaper's went unread because I really didn't have the time to read them (yet, I have time to post to slashdot, go figure).
I've picked up books from my college library, one about israel and palestine. It seemed like a good book introducing some of the issues that are happening over there. But I honestly never got beyond the first chapter. The book was kind of dense for someone with the typical American knowledge on foreign affairs.
And I've heard arguments such as yours, that democracy requires a lot more people voting. But it almost seems to me that having uninformed people vote doesn't make the system more democratic. It just makes the system more arbitrary and more whimsical.
And the politics really gets in the way. For instance, trying to find political information online is difficult, since you can never really trust the source of information. Especially as we got closer to voting time, everyone starts putting up articles supporting their own personal political agendas, and people like me are the worse off, since the uninformed are not going to know much difference between truth and outright lie anyway.
The solution, of course, is to get information from a variety of sources. But then we are back to the same problem of lack of time. Especially with the vast number of candidates and issues we have to decide upon come voting time.
Another thing I've finally figured out. I've tried watching CNN or FoxNews for a while, so that hopefully I would get some insight into what is happening. It took me a while to figure out that I'm not just dumb, but the television station doesn't actually tell you enough of what is happening, and certainly provide almost no context of the issue. And the biggest waste of time are them talk shows where they have a number of "analysts" debating a certain topic. Usually the person hosting the show (who usually gets the most time speaking), either (a) doesn't under the issues anymore than I do or (b) has some political agenda of their own. And given that these shows are on most of the time, television is practically useless for getting information.
So it seems to me that voting isn't just something you do once every two years. Its almost a part time job to keep up with the issues, and then research your candidates. Maybe I'm exagerating. But without spending a good amount of time on this, many of us couldn't tell the difference between one candidate and the other.
It would be great if someone could post where they get thier information from. Is there an unbiased MiddleEast for Dummies book somewhere? Where do we get information about the various political candidates that doesn't come from the candidates themselves?
So I may not be voting this November either. Maybe the best way would be for me to get information on the local politics, and then vote for the local candidates. But I'll have to see.
Re:[OT] Why I don't vote (Score:2)
See the problem?
Re:I'll make it easy for you (Score:2)
Note what I said about the system becoming whimsical.
Also, I believe in public education and government regulation. So libretarians isn't the answer.
Neither is arbitrarily choosing third party candidates.
Re:It's really in our powers (Score:2)
You make some good points, but you are naive if you think the people have power to vote in who they want. I'm not a Republican or a Democrat nor do I believe in any of the other parties. Yet under the current system, I am forced to choose between them because of how the electoral college is run.
Originally, the electoral college meant that everyone voted for a person they thought was honorable, and that person would represent everyone by voting for who he/she thought was a good candidate for the office. Now they make it so everyone votes for a party in the college, and that party gets elected. The party chooses who to offer for the primaries. The politicians are just as answerable to their party as they are to the voters. Not to mention the fact that only the top two parties even have a decent chance at being elected.
The electoral college was meant to be a system which filters out extremists from entering office. Now it's being used to filter out non-Biparty members.
Yes, go out and vote, however realize that you aren't given many choices of who to vote for.
I wasn't talking about "wasted" votes (Score:2)
I wasn't bringing up the "wasted vote argument". I was saying that the voting process needs to be restored to the proper electoral college. The forced Biparty system only works for corrupt politicians and factional groups.
Re:It's really in our powers (Score:2)
You know, the surrealist film movement that took place in the early part of the 20th century in France spent a good deal of time focusing on the idea of revolutionary failure. One of their premises was that in any power struggle situation, the weaker side (practically, not ideologically) would have its strongest arguments assimilated by their oppposition. The effect was one where the side with more might could lay claim (and thus control)to the most persuasive arguments levied against them.
Yes, the "wasted votes" point is tired - but who tired it out? Who robbed the claim "the votes of the citizens *doesn't matter*, and somebody other than the public pulls the strings in a public election" of its impact?
I'll vote for who I believe in when a man I believe in can be voted for.
Re:My 2 cents (Score:2, Interesting)
I wonder how long it will be before it will be illegal to lend or sell books without ID and records kept!
Re:Bottom Line (Score:5, Insightful)
It's our responsibility as citizens to remain informed, that's the point of the whole "Informed Democracy" thing. Nowadays, we have the govt regularly telling us "You don't need to know these things, we'll know them for you."
Lets take the current anti-terrorism campaigns. If you oppose the way the detainments and trials (or lack thereof) are going on, then it behooves you to do research to be sure you know all the facts. But wait, our own presidents press secretary has been more than hinting that asking those kinds of questions is unamerican "in this time of war". So the feds raid your library and add you to the list. Next thing you know a friendly FBI team comes by your house, or place of employement because "they have concerns about your reading habits."
As another example, there are plenty of reasons to read up on bomb making, other then planning on actually making one. I'll ignore completely the concept that you might actually be hoping to get into a job involving pyrotechnics, or might be taking a class in it. But I've heard some extraordinary things come out of the mouths of officials about what a particular device built by someone could have done or not done. If I had no idea what the facts were, I'd have to take their word for it, and allow my opinion to be shaped by my own lack of knowledge.
Also, who says the Feds will protect that information right? What if a loved one is HIV positive, and you're researching it for them. Now the FBI has that you've been reading on that topic, and eventually that slips out, and eventually your insurance company gets hold of a 4th hand database, that implies you're hiding that you're hiv positive, and finds an excuse to cancel *your* insurance... Then just the concept that you might be dieing gets to the credit agencies, and all your creditors cancel your credit. Just because you read a book in the library.
Read John Varley's "Press Enter" for a view of a world taking to the logical end of this nibbling away by the "well, if you don't have anything to hide, why do you care?" folks...
Re:Be Courageous (Score:2, Interesting)
If enough people do this then it would be impossible for TPTB to know whether you really borrowed (and read) that book or just selected it randomly.
Similar techniques are used for making survey responses anonymous.
80N
Re:Does it really matter?! (Score:2)
you should expect political candidates to try to use checkout records to stir up controvesry over their rivals.
you should expect this information to be used against you if you are ever on trial, if for nothing else than to attempt to discredit your "character".
you should expect the govt to use it to determine the appropriate benefit amount for various programs (the same way insurance companies rate your lifestyle before determining policy rates).
you should expect the govt to track your every move, if you check out books that fall on their List.
if you're a minor, you should expect your parents to be notified if you are checking out books that aren't approved.
it's a rare occassion where the govt does not seek to excercise as much power as it can get.
-c
Re:from a systems librarian (Score:2)
First, all of our "private" information is
stored on the central server. We do not keep
any identifying data on the server past 30
days.
Why don't you delete it as soon as the book is returned?
As for any information stored on the public
access computers-- there is no way to tell who
used what computer on the client end.
Is there from the server end? If so, why?
Again, the usage records are all centralized and
secure.
Not against the FBI. For them the centralization is just an added convenience.
Re:from a systems librarian (Score:2)
You are sure confident in my (and my cohorts)
lack of ability.
I have no confidence at all in the willingness of the average librarian to risk a prison sentence for the sake of my privacy.
It only takes about 3 keystrokes to misplace a
log file. And we've been having alot of problems
with those back up tapes lately.
It's easy to say that now, but what will you do when you have four large, extremely aggressive men with guns standing over you?