Collection of personal info

[Rob Lowry]

> Which tells me how serious you really are about your privacy.  You have 
> made a decision here about how much trouble privacy is worth to you, 
> which is "not much."

If I were single, it would be a lot easier to just start making up names 
and living under assumed aliases.. but with a wife and two kids, I have 
to follow the rules a bit more.. 

My privacy is worth variable amounts depending on who has access to it.. 
I certainly do not care if anyone on this list knows who I am or not, as 
it is something I voluntarily chose to join. Selling info about me, 
without notifying me before hand is another situation altogether. Even 
the magazines I subscribe to have notices that my name may be sold.. and 
the mags that don't have such a warning, but sell my name anyways, get 
cancelled as soon as I discover it. Far easier to stop by the local PC 
store and buy it a week later than to have mounds of junk mail piling up.

> I hear people bitch about privacy endlessly.  Privacy helps those who 
> help themselves to privacy.  I think Mr. May was precisely correct in saying 
> that it is so much easier and simpler for one to rely on self privacy 
> insurance rather than government privacy insurance.

Again, you both are correct, and perhaps I was overstating my position in 
regards to the TRW/etc. groups.. I have a tendancy to do so. Each of us 
has the responsibility to monitor the activities in our lives, both 
directly and indirectly. Whether this is watching our spending to make 
sure we do no overcharge, or encrypting mail to keep in secure, we need 
to be aware of what we are doing, and the reactions of others as a result 
of our actions. In this case, the action is spending money on credit, and 
the reaction is being monitored by credit agencies. My solution was to 
get rid of all the credit cards 4 years ago.. my credit history is 
trashed in part do to very low activity over the last 4 years, and of 
course, the side effect of maxing out 4 cards.

-stepping off soapbox and looking for the next topic..-