Fwd: Jim Bell Trial: Fourth Day (fwd)

[Alan Olsen]

On Tue, 10 Apr 2001, Bill Stewart wrote:

> >On the matter of Bell using Oregon DMV databases:  Gordon stated that DMV
> >access is not legal for non-commercial use, noting that both Oregon state
> >and federal law restricted their use.
> 
> At least for a while, the Oregon DMV sold their database on CDROMs.
> Then somebody upset them by putting one of the CDROMs on the web :-)
> The web version didn't let you look up by name, just by license plate,
> but Senator Mark Hatfield wife's license plate is AAA111 or 111AAA,
> I forget which, and doing a relatively complete search was pretty trivial.

The way they changed the access to the data was pretty sleezy too.

That list was purchaced by any company that wanted to do direct marketing
to you via the mail and ghod who knows who else.  They wrote the rules so
that the marketing droids could still get the list, but the common folk
could not.  (You had to show a "need" to get the list.)

It used to be that you sent them some trivial amount ($50, if I remember
correctly) and a couple of 9-track tapes and you got the list.  Then
someone posted the list to the web and people got all freaked about it.
(Much more so than when the information was used to stalk and kill someone
famous.)

I guess the World Wide Web *is* the Fourth Horseman(tm)...

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