The Privatization of Blacklists

Eric Cordian emc at artifact.psychedelic.net
Wed Mar 14 23:20:27 PST 2001


One of the more fascinating aspects of the Internet is the ability of
small groups of motivated individuals to create the types of privacy
intrusions that used to be the exclusive domain of governments, law
enforcement, and credit bureaus.

Gone are the early days when the Net was solely government, business, and
educational users, and people spouted their opinions on abortion, gun
control, child porn, and drug dealing under their real names, and proudly
signed them with their corporate logos.

On today's Net, saying anything too controversial, that gores the ox of
even a small group of zealots, is enough to get you on a list on someone's
Web site, and letters written trying to terminate your housing,
employment, and social life, by people pretending to be "concerned
citizens."  Such "Virtual Communities" of axe-grinders can form almost
instantaneously, from disparate bored housewives and wannabe vigilantes,
and wield collective power that used to be reserved to the powerful and
well-organized.

Woe be it to him who publicly offends cat-lovers, rabid feminists,
smokers, or Scientologists, and lets his IP be traced.

Indeed, as the Surveilance State approaches, it is apparent that most of
its tentacles are corporate, not government, with citizen units trading
privacy for convenience in droves.

Enter RepCheck, an amusing Internet startup created back in December, and
acting as a clearing house of gossip and other information on private
individuals.

                  http://www.repcheck.com/

RepCheck is a simple idea.  RepCheck is free.  RepCheck is a database of
individuals' reputations, which anyone may add to or access.  Employers,
landlords, prospective business partners, and others, may check the social
and business dealings of anyone through the site, and anyone may leave
information on anyone else when the site is visited.

You must join to access the database, and in doing so, you agree to a
Terms of Service which says that you recognize that RepCheck is merely a
distributor of information provided by Third Parties, and has no
responsibility for any content, and that should you ever have a legal
dispute with the site, you agree to resolve it by binding arbitration.

You are also invited to give RepCheck the email addresses of several dozen
of your closest friends, so they can say nice things about you, and in
order to prevent "Identity Theft", RepCheck wants a working credit card
number and expiration date, which "they promise never to charge to."

(I vaguely remember some porn sites doing this for age verification and
then billing tens of millions of dollars in bogus charges a while ago,
BTW.)

So all you have to do to defend your reputation, is send all your friends
to the site, credit card numbers in hand, and recurse this process with
your friends' friends, your friends' friends' friends, an arbitrary number
of levels deep.

Kind of like Make Money Fast with credit card numbers and Reputation
Capital, instead of email messages and $5. :)

And, like most such pyramid schemes, the lemings pile on in droves.  A
leading computer magazine reports that within 2 weeks of opening its
servers, RepCheck had garnered 25,000 happy users, and presumedly a
working credit card number from each.  (Which they promise never to bill
to, of course.)

The US Government is prohibited from warehousing information on how
individual citizens exercise their First Amendment rights, except as part
of a legitimate criminal investigation.  Credit bureaus only disseminate
to their subscribers, and don't contain unedited comments on what your
neighbors think of you.  Police files are generally not public knowlege
until you are arrested and convicted of something.

There are no such restrictions on how private individuals or companies
accumulate or distribute non-credit information, however.  No requirements
on what can be said.  No procedures for correcting erroneous information.  
No laws that unverifiable information must be removed.  No laws that say
how your landlord or employer can use such information.

Big Brother can certainly use RepCheck too, when looking for individuals
having non-mainstream political or sexual views.  Even individuals the
government would have no legal right to keep files on.  Individuals who
have broken no laws, and don't hang out with people who do.

Is RepCheck the wave of the future, when everyones skeletons in the
closet, as recited by their neighbors and business associates, are no more
than a mouse click away from everyone else on the planet?

Anonymity just became a whole lot more important.

-- 
Eric Michael Cordian 0+
O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division
"Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"





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