gmail initiations

[Paul Taylor]

The Clinton Assault Weapon ban ends in 4 days. We'll be safe after a buying
spree, right? ;-) 

-----Original Message-----
From: kclug-bounces at kclug.org [mailto:kclug-bounces at kclug.org] On Behalf Of
Oren Beck
Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2004 9:15 PM
To: Brian Densmore
Cc: kclug at kclug.org
Subject: Re: gmail initiations

Brian Densmore wrote:

> Actually, I think that Phoenician's post was aimed at my 
> tongue-in-cheek email and not yours. By the way the Freedom of 
> Information Act doesn't entitle you to get information on other 
> people's information such as SSNs or tax returns, unless that person 
> is a public official.
> On top of which they are "supposed" to black out certain parts of 
> those documents which you can get, like SSN's.
> Or were you not referring to the FOIA? But what bother's me the most 
> is that counties sell my information to political candidates.  But 
> that's another rant. entirely.
> 
>     -----Original Message-----
>     *From:* Allen Darrah
> 
>     Well I don't want anyone to steal my money, so no.  And the
>     government already has my social security # of course because they
>     gave it to me and then can get my pin at any time so really nothing
>     I do online isn't able to be discovered anyway so why worry about
>     it?  And no, I'm really not worried about privacy. 
> 
>     Not to mention:  if anyone in here wanted to they could go to their
>     local court house and file some paperwork and get my social anyway
>     along with a ton of other information.  I could do the same to all
>     of you.  Fun, isn't it?  This thing called free information? 
>     Everyone wants everything to be free (owned property of, say,
>     Microsoft, or some music artist) except for what few things we
>     "think" we own, like the number branded on us when we're born. 
>     Well, that # is on loan anyway.  If you think you have ever actually
>     "owned" anything in your life, especially your privacy, then you're
>     just silly and you probably already know that, you just never
>     thought of it.
> 
>     So the bottom line is:  if somebody out there wants to read my
>     e-mails and has the ability to do it then that's great.  Whatever
>     free e-mail service I use isn't going to have any effect on somebody
>     who's skillful enough to crack, say, Hotmail's e-mail systems in the
>     first place.  I don't know any launch codes or have knowledge of
>     who's going to win the Super Bowl so I'll bet nobody is all that
>     interested anyway.  My e-mails consist of me finding out if we're
>     all going to play some D&D on Saturday night or something similarly
>     inane  Especially the government.  Anything they want to know about
>     me, or you, they already know; more importantly, they couldn't care
>     less.
> 
Phrase that last line as SHOULD  NOT know absent due process - the caring
part denotes the sanity or lack of same .
And what you invoke about  _ability_  to read one's electronic data stores
does not correlate to it being GOOD .
Yah - no secrets can exist beyond one's skull in a society willing to do
whatever it needs to for preventing secrets .
Promoting such a social agenda may shorten the life expectancy of twits
doing so too abrasively .
John Brunner raised the query of what you get for what you surrender as a
catchphrase .
" The systems that keep you from cheating on taxes make sure the crash cart
has your blood type on it WELL ? "

The bill of rights explicitly states some of the conceptual reasons for
privacy violations  being unwise .
I clarify the data mining issue as ASSOCIATIVE data Vs UN-associated data .
One Breakpoint of concern .
Either it's a tabulating of N# looked at the website of concern or YOU by
NAME did .
One Harmless datum of a Odometer style page views incrementing alone is
hardly a concern .
The persons wanting  OTHER data that makes it" YOU" did <Blank>  are likely
NOT harmless !

The concept of David Brin's " Transparent Society  "

http://www.davidbrin.com/tschp1.html

Addresses the tale of 2 cities - creepily evocative of the Open Source
worldview Vs Microsoft EULA As bill of rights .
Details that the Public persons need to while in Public employ willfully
forfeit  balanced against an ethos of the privacy cloaking rules that the
PRIVATE citizens are granted inviolate WHERE PROPER .

Public money has the string of public access and privacy is secured by
private funding one's life .
That simple concept has a mundane corollary in Missouri fishing law. If my
wife gets fish from the DNR we in exchange surrender right of access refusal
. Where if we do NOT take any fish from DNR we can refuse service to anyone
.
The Gmail social contract seems to me an adherence in kind to that concept .
TANSTAAFL .
Free per se is oxymoronic in much of social interactions as even the 
Copyleft/Gpl/Creative Commons ALL impart restrictions .   By my humble 
take common law should allow a full refund of what you paid to Google for
their service . And the same sum for damages to your privacy .

To be deadly blunt - Gmail et al that wish to "use" communicated information
as a revenue stream need to be transparent in how and where that will be and
after a " Read and understood " is agreeed to by ALL parties .
Absent such informed consent Evil indeed is afoot here . The core issues are
INFORMED and UNDERSTOOD.

Were Gmail to cloak the usages of mined data as Microsoft cloaks the
innumerable privacy violations caused in the Windows environment the term "
Evil " arguably would be quite justified . In an OS where one is mislead to
believe a file deletion renders the file "erased" only to find later that "
Delete "  causes multiple redundantly hidden copies to be cached in multiple
locations on your HD- Gmail becomes the minority worry !  Ignorantia Nhil
Excusat ?

Oren Beck

www.campdownunder.com

That which an age feels to be evil is usually an untimely afterecho of that
which was formerly felt to be good - the atavism of an older ideal. 
- Nietzsche



_______________________________________________
Kclug mailing list
Kclug at kclug.org
http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug