At 12:27 PM -0400 9/20/00, Declan McCullagh wrote:

Peter, this deal was inked by Wired magazine's marketing folks, and I have precisely zero contact with them. In other words, I have no clue, but can probably forward you in the right direction. --Declan

I guess this really does mark the transmogrification of "Wired" into a Panopticon-friendly corporatocracy. (Not that I ever expected otherwise of a company driven by glossy ads. The crypto and anarchy stuff is just a hint of danger to increase the sex appeal so more ads can be sold.)

At 12:15 9/20/2000 -0400, Peter Trei wrote:

...

Well, well well, this is interesting....

Along with my most recent issue of Wired (yes, I subscribe) I got a a little box containing a 'CueCat'. This is a barcode scanner shaped like a stylized kittycat, made by Digital Convergence. ...

Well, it turns out that it does a little more than just point my browser at an advertiser's site. It apparently also sends a per-device serial number (bound to my registration, including the usual sacrifice of personal data) along with the barcode data, back to Digital Convergence.

...

DC thus gets to build a profile of my interests, bound to the name, address, etc I provided at registration.

Sounds like another chance for "mixes" at physical meetings. Put your Cue Cat in a bowl with a bunch of others. Of course, folks may not want more physical spam arriving in their mailboxes. Or provide false addresses. Perhaps the addresses of Cue Cat or Wired staff?

...

DC does have a moderately good privacy policy stated on their web page, and claims they will never voluntarily release per-person data to third parties.

Being able to fake sincerity is essential to operating in the modern Internet business environment. Platitudes about customer privacy are necessary. Remember eToys. BTW, I just flipped through a copy of "Wired" in one of our bookstores. First time I've done so in a couple of years. Still dominated by ads, and blurbs on "cool stuff" that doesn't look very interesting to me. When "Wired" came out, it was heavily criticized for its "ransom note" style, and its clutter and visual confusion. Interestingly, now the very news stands themselves have become exemplars of this visual confusion: go into any "Borders" or "Barnes and Noble" and see literally 1500 magazines crowding the shelves. A dozen magazines on skateboarding, several dozen on "style".... magazines for women, for persons of peircing, for transgendered pizza deliverypersons, for any conceivable group. The whole news stand looks like a ransom note. --Tim May -- ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.