Ross's TCPA paper

Barney Wolff barney at tp.databus.com
Sat Jun 29 23:08:07 PDT 2002


On Sat, Jun 29, 2002 at 10:03:33PM -0700, bear wrote:
> ...
> >I won't give up the right NOT to do business with anonymous customers,
> >or anyone else with whom I choose not to do business.
> 
> A few years ago merchants were equally adamant and believed
> equally in the rightness of maintaining their "right" to not
> do business with blacks, chicanos, irish, and women.  It'll
> pass as people wake up and smell the coffee.  Unfortunately
> that won't be until after at least a decade of really vicious
> abuses of private data by merchants who believe in their
> god-given right to snoop on their customers.

The trouble I have with this is that I'm not only a consumer, I'm
also a merchant, selling my own professional services.  And I just
will not, ever, perform services for an anonymous client.  That's
my choice, and the gov't will take it away only when they can pry
it from my cold dead fingers. :)  It's not that I hate my govt,
although I liked it a whole lot better before 1/20/01, but I will
not risk aiding and abetting criminality, even if I can pretend I
don't know I'm doing it.

Oh by the way, last time you visited your favorite kinky sex shop,
didn't you notice the surveillance camera in the corner?  And didn't
you see the cashier at your ${house_of_worship} last ${sabbath}?

The right to anonymity seems to be a new one, not a traditional one
that we're about to lose.  It may be a needed defense against the
ever-increasing ability to correlate data.  All I'm really railing
against is the notion that just because I'm selling something I MUST
accept your anonymity.

> ...
> I don't see any way that DRM addresses the privacy concern
> of database linking.  Especially since I expect database
> linking to be done using specialized software that doesn't
> have to get inspected by anybody with a motive to prevent it,

I certainly agree that DRM cannot protect privacy violation by a
user with access rights.

The whole issue of database correlation and anonymity was insightfully
explored by Heinlein in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" in 1966.

-- 
Barney Wolff
I never met a computer I didn't like.





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