Life as a Spectator Sport

A couple of weeks ago, my mother suggested the family use the MyFamily.com site to share family news. I was lukewarm about the idea, partly because MyFamily is owned by Ancestry.com, with whom I've had a bad experience, and partly because when I tried to sign in to the site, I was asked for my full name, my complete address and other information I didn't care to share with them. In the end, I had to decline to participate, and request that other family members not post personal information about me or my children on the site. I suspect I'm being seen as completely paranoid.

Maybe. But Ancestry.com is collecting personal information about hundreds of thousands of people, voluntarily provided by these people in family and similar forums (they also host high school class sites). The potential for misuse is vast. "But you have to log in with a user name and password," I was told. No one else can read the family's posts. C'mon, folk. If Citibank can be hacked into and thousands of credit card records stolen, does anyone really think Ancestry.com is secure?

But that's not the point. I don't think I ever successfully communicated the fact that what I'm leery of is not someone looking specifically for information on me. If the government wants to find me, if someone in the government already suspects liz at life-as-a-spectator-sport of some nefarious activity, it would take a knowledgable person about 90 seconds flat to identify me.

What I do worry about is data mining. Data mining is the practice of subjecting vast quantities of data to sophisticated filters and relationship algorithms to identify patterns. Wikipedia's article on data mining is a good basic introduction. For example:

[A] widely used (though hypothetical) example is that of a very large North American chain of supermarkets. Through intensive analysis of the transactions and the goods bought over a period of time, analysts found that beers and diapers were often bought together. Though explaining this interrelation might be difficult, taking advantage of it, on the other hand, should not be hard (e.g. placing the high-profit diapers next to the high-profit beers).

And while the article says the example is "hypothetical," perhaps it answers the question of why the baby items are only one aisle removed from the beer and wine in virtually every Wal-mart.

That's an extremely basic example of data mining. The primary use in business right now seems to be "scoring" one's customers--that is, identifying which customers are the most profitable for a company and fine-tuning the company's marketing to acquire more of those customers' dollars. The federal government also uses data mining. In fact, it is alleged that data mining allowed the government to identify Mohammed Atta and other terrorists more than a year before the 9/11 attacks.

Now the federal government is going after one almost unbelievably vast archive of data--Google's records of search words and phrases. The government has ordered Google to reveal all the queries from June 1 to July 31, 2005. If you used Google during those months, a record of your search still exists. CNN also has an article.

Did you search for "gay movies"? How about a search for "slash" fan fiction? You might be looking for pornography. That's what the Justice Department says it's trying to find, people looking for pornography.

Let's get a little more creative, though. Once the government is in possession of the records, what is to stop them from looking for other things? Did you look up "Al Quaeda" or "Osama Bin Laden" for a school assignment? You might be a terrorist. Will your telephone records indicate that you make numerous overseas phone calls? Uh-oh. How about if one of the people you frequently email is part of the an internet development group that just happens to include middle eastern countries? Now you are no longer a faceless record in some vast database. You've suddenly joined a very much smaller group of "people of interest" (especially if you have a broadband internet connection that allows your computer to be specifically identified).

Is that paranoid? Damn straight, and rightfully so. Google refused to cooperate, for which I applaud them. The Justice Department then subpoenaed the records. Google says they won't hand them over. The case will likely go back to the Supreme Court, and who is likely to be the newest addition to the court? The man who crafted much of the Bush administration's thinking on the supremacy of the president, the so-called "unitary" executive. Anyone who thinks their search records are safe once that happens is hiding their head in the sand.

So no, thanks, I'm not going to knowingly and deliberately add to anyone's potential list of information about me. Google is resisting the government's unlawful and unconstitutional demand (remember that inconvenient amendment about unreasonable searches?) But Google's site says they comply with government directives, and if the Supreme Court says they have to turn over the records, I'm sure they will.

To keep the record straight, I have no use for anyone who attempts to draw kids into pornography. But filtering huge numbers of search records to see who matches certain criteria is not the way to stop pornography. We already have laws against pornography in the US, and well-established legal procedures to move against people who break those laws. Perusing query records from millions of searches is unconstitutional and illegal.

But Toto, this doesn't look very much like America nowadays, and nothing surprises me any more.

The template is set to display 10 posts. To see all the posts for this month, click on the month name in the Archive section

This site is a member of WebRing. To browse visit here.

RSS Feed PERSONAL Send email to liz at life-as-a-spectator-sport.com Home I'm a mother, grandmother, a computer professional, Democrat, Christian. I welcome politely worded comments and email, my spam filter throws the rest away, so don't bother to flame me WHY 'LIFE AS A SPECTATOR SPORT' "If you're lucky not to live in the gutters of a slum, but still can't afford to take vacations in the Alps, you're part of that enormous middle class who lives life through the medium of the television, further separated from "real" life by air conditioner, by automobile, by dishwasher, microwave and ice-in-the-door refrigerator, by automatic washer and dryer, and all the other appliances and conveniences that make it possible for America to live life at second hand. I'm not sure why Americans decided that televised drama was better than the real thing, that cardboard microwave food containers were an adequate substitute for real dishes, and their contents for real food, or that cooking, dishwashing and face-to-face conversation wasn't worth the effort and time it required. Someone fed this nation a plastic crate of out-of-season tomatoes and told us it was life and we took them at their word, and we're so much the poorer for it that it's hard to know where to start to list the shortcomings." I wrote this a couple of years ago, but I have to admit it's much less amusing than I thought it would be to see the artifical construct falling apart. THE NON-ELECTRIC HOME Cleaning, 1 Cleaning, 2 Cleaning, 3 KNITTING BLOGS Extravayarnza Knitting Heretic Mind of Winter Pie Knits Persistent Illusion See Eunny Knit The Keyboard Biologist Taleweaver's Ramblings TECHnitting Wendy Knits FINISHED PROJECTS -------FINISHED IN 2006------- Peruvian Cap Tutti-Frutti Socks Shelley's Socks Carol's Socks -------FINISHED IN 2007------- Chain Link Socks Baby Surprise Jacket Valerie & Friend Baby Bonnet Rainbow Baby Socks Girls Pixie Hood Mitred Square Heart Red & White Socks Coffee Cup Pot Holder Nubbins Dishcloth Garterlac Dishcloth Suede Booties Kate's Socks Norwegian Sweet Baby Cap Half Thumbless Mittens Red Mittens for Akkol -------FINISHED IN 2008------- SELF-RELIANCE AND THE FUTURE -- Blogs and websites -- Causubon's Book Club Orlov Food Storage Made Easy From the Wilderness In the Wake Listening to Katrina Survival Topics The Modern Homestead The Oil Drum Notes from a Hillside Farm -- Mailing Lists -- 12vdc Power Living on the Land Rainwater Refrigeration Alternatives Old Ways of Living POLITICAL BLOGS and SITES The political sites have moved BOOKS I'M READING How to Grow More Vegetables, etc. Small Scale Grain Raising ARCHIVES February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 August 2008 July 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002