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- PRIVACY Forum Digest Friday, 13 September 1995 Volume 04 : Issue 22
-
- Moderated by Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com)
- Vortex Technology, Woodland Hills, CA, U.S.A.
-
- ===== PRIVACY FORUM =====
-
- The PRIVACY Forum digest is supported in part by the
- ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy,
- and the Data Services Division
- of MCI Communications Corporation.
-
-
- CONTENTS
- Privacy Brief (Lauren Weinstein; PRIVACY Forum Moderator)
- Re: SSNs for E-mail addresses! (Mark W. Eichin)
- Where Caller ID Is Headed (Beth Givens)
- Electronic road taxation in Singapore (Phil Agre)
- Announcement: Alert Mailing List (Christopher Klaus)
- National Privacy & Public Policy Symposium
- (RAKEROYD@csunet.ctstateu.edu)
-
- ------------------------------
- --- Happy Friday the 13th! ---
- ------------------------------
-
- *** Please include a RELEVANT "Subject:" line on all submissions! ***
- *** Submissions without them may be ignored! ***
-
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- The Internet PRIVACY Forum is a moderated digest for the discussion and
- analysis of issues relating to the general topic of privacy (both personal
- and collective) in the "information age" of the 1990's and beyond. The
- moderator will choose submissions for inclusion based on their relevance and
- content. Submissions will not be routinely acknowledged.
-
- All submissions should be addressed to "privacy@vortex.com" and must have
- RELEVANT "Subject:" lines; submissions without appropriate and relevant
- "Subject:" lines may be ignored. Excessive "signatures" on submissions are
- subject to editing. Subscriptions are by an automatic "listserv" system; for
- subscription information, please send a message consisting of the word
- "help" (quotes not included) in the BODY of a message to:
- "privacy-request@vortex.com". Mailing list problems should be reported to
- "list-maint@vortex.com".
-
- All messages included in this digest represent the views of their
- individual authors and all messages submitted must be appropriate to be
- distributable without limitations.
-
- The PRIVACY Forum archive, including all issues of the digest and all
- related materials, is available via anonymous FTP from site "ftp.vortex.com",
- in the "/privacy" directory. Use the FTP login "ftp" or "anonymous", and
- enter your e-mail address as the password. The typical "README" and "INDEX"
- files are available to guide you through the files available for FTP
- access. PRIVACY Forum materials may also be obtained automatically via
- e-mail through the listserv system. Please follow the instructions above
- for getting the listserv "help" information, which includes details
- regarding the "index" and "get" listserv commands, which are used to access
- the PRIVACY Forum archive. All PRIVACY Forum materials are available
- through the Internet Gopher system via a gopher server on site
- "gopher.vortex.com". Access to PRIVACY Forum materials is also available
- through the Internet World Wide Web (WWW) via the Vortex Technology WWW
- server at the URL: "http://www.vortex.com".
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- VOLUME 04, ISSUE 22
-
- Quote for the day:
-
- "It's much too dangerous to jump through
- the fire with your clothes on."
-
- -- Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee)
- "The Wicker Man" (1973)
-
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- Privacy Brief (Lauren Weinstein; PRIVACY Forum Moderator)
-
- ---
-
- The federal appeals court in Denver has ruled that it is unconstitutional
- for police to scan homes with heat-sensing equipment in an attempt to detect
- suspected criminal activity, without a warrant. The case involved the use of
- infrared imaging equipment where marijuana growth within a home was
- suspected. In its 3 to 0 decision, the court also noted that four federal
- appeals courts in other circuits have ruled in exactly the opposite manner,
- which would appear to make the long-term impact of this decision somewhat
- questionable, to say the least. No evidence was suppressed in this case,
- since other valid grounds for a search warrant, which were not related to
- the thermal imaging, were found to be valid.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: Sat, 30 Sep 1995 12:05:28 -0400
- From: "Mark W. Eichin" <eichin@cygnus.com>
- Subject: Re: SSNs for E-mail addresses!
-
- I was once told that Bell Atlantic used a compressed form of SSN (==
- Employee ID number) as part of the email address. (Perhaps they still
- do, though I've seen more normal addresses as well.) I don't recall
- the exact encoding, but I note that a 9 digit number easily fits in 7
- lower case characters or if you allow numbers as well, 6 characters.
- (I believe they use the latter with a prefix, though if you break up
- the pieces, 999-99-9999 could encode as 11-c1-hz1 if 0->a, 25->z,
- 26->0 through 36->9.)
-
- And of course just about everyone has their email address printed on
- their business card...
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 13:13:29 -0700 (PDT)
- From: Beth Givens <bgivens@pwa.acusd.edu>
- Subject: Where Caller ID Is Headed
-
- Thanks to the many readers of this forum who have responded to my
- recent posting asking how Caller ID works in your states. (FYI,
- California is one of only two states which does not now have Caller
- ID, although it is likely to be offered here in the coming months.)
- The information you have provided is most useful.
-
- You might be interested in a recent Caller ID story from Missouri.
- Southwestern Bell, the major local telephone company in that state,
- recently announced a new service called Caller Intellidata, which
- would be available to businesses. It is essentially "an
- embellishment of Caller ID," according to Jerri Stroud, a reporter
- for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She described the service in
- stories appearing October 5 and 6, 1995. Here are excerpts:
-
- "The new service would package the Caller ID information with the
- caller's address and demographic information compiled by Equifax
- Inc., a national credit reporting and information service....
-
- "Bell proposes to sell businesses monthly reports about their
- callers. The reports would include the date and time of each call,
- the caller's name, telephone number, street address, city, state,
- nine-digit zip code and whether the number is a resident or
- business....
-
- "The company would also give businesses a statistical profile of
- their customers as a group, using demographic information from
- Equifax...The information would include income, lifestyle,
- education, neighborhood and other information from census reports.
- A Bell spokesman said the demographic information cannot be tied to
- a specific caller..."
-
- The Public Counsel for Missouri, Martha Hogerty, objected to the
- service, saying that it "smacks of Big Brother." She said
- "Consumers should not be forced to become statistics in a marketing
- study merely by placing a telephone call." She called the service
- "an abuse of the company's local telephone monopoly."
-
- The next day Southwestern Bell withdrew its plans and said it would
- reintroduce Intellidata after the regulators have a chance to
- understand it better.
-
- Apparently Caller Intellidata is already in place in other
- Southwestern Bell cities: Houston and Austin, Texas, and Wichita
- and Topeka, Kansas.
-
- It should be noted that phone customers in the state of Missouri do
- not have the ability to use Per Line Blocking for their outgoing
- telephone numbers, only Per Call Blocking. This means that for each
- call they make, they must dial *67 before dialing the phone number
- in order to prevent their calling number ID from being transmitted
- to the display device of the call recipient.
-
- In most other states, phone customers can sign up for Per Line
- Blocking, which automatically blocks every number from being
- delivered. Customers can unblock the number by entering another
- code before dialing the number.
-
- Southwestern Bell's use of Caller ID data in its Caller Intellidata
- service is, I believe, a good indicator of what is yet to come on
- a much larger scale. This type of transaction-generated data is far
- too lucrative for business marketing applications to be allowed to
- be limited strictly to billing purposes.
-
- One of the many things that concerns me about the proposed
- Southwestern Bell use of Caller ID data is that phone customers
- were apparently not going to be notified about the proposed usage.
- Nor were they going to be given the opportunity to opt-out of such
- usage. In addition, they do not even have the ability to put the
- Per Line Blocking feature on their phone line.
-
- Beth Givens Voice: 619-260-4160
- Project Director Fax: 619-298-5681
- Privacy Rights Clearinghouse Hotline (Calif. only):
- Center for Public Interest Law 800-773-7748
- University of San Diego 619-298-3396 (elsewhere)
- 5998 Alcala Park e-mail: bgivens@acusd.edu
- San Diego, CA 92110
-
- [ In a phone conversation Beth and I had recently regarding
- this "service", a couple of other interesting points were
- discussed. First, while we assume that customers with
- non-published telephone numbers are protected from having
- their addresses disclosed by the telco, this is not made
- clear from available information regarding the service.
- Beth pointed out that such a service, at least in terms of
- the telephone company releasing customer addresses, would
- probably not be possible to such an extent in areas (such
- as California) where more stringent regulations concerning
- the release of customer information have been put into
- place. However, it is still possible that a great deal of
- information, much of it probably "stale" (inaccurate through
- age) might be tied to customer phone numbers through third
- party sources.
- -- MODERATOR ]
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 09:49:39 +0100
- From: agre@laforia.ibp.fr
- (AGRE Phil 44.27.71.39 Professeur invite d'A Collinot)
- Subject: electronic road taxation in Singapore
-
- The International Herald Tribune reports that the government of Singapore
- has awarded a S$197 million (US$140 million) contract to Philips Singapore,
- Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Miyoshi Electronics, and its own Singapore
- Technologies group to build the first phase of an electronic system for
- automatic collection of taxes ("tolls") aimed at regulating demand for the
- country's road capacity. The full reference is:
-
- Michael Richardson, Singapore moves toward electronic tolls for vehicles,
- International Herald Tribune, 10 October 1995, page 4.
-
- Such systems have raised significant civil liberties concerns because, unless
- care is taken in their design, they can lead to the creation of electronic
- records of drivers' movements. The article does not comment on the civil
- liberties aspects of the Singapore system or on the Singapore government's
- highly controversial record on privacy and other civil liberties issues. It
- does say that the "smart cards", which "will be slotted into small holders
- mounted inside the windshield", will be debit cards from which "charges will
- be deducted from credit stored in the cards" by means of interactions with
- "electronic scanners mounted on gantries leading to congested areas and busy
- highways". It does not say how compliance with the system will be enforced.
-
- Nonetheless, the system does create one clearly ominous precedent: these cards
- will be "installed on *all* of Singapore's 650,000 motor vehicles" (emphasis
- added). This kind of coercion is needed, for all practical purposes, to
- implement an electronic road-use taxation system, also known by the somewhat
- misleading term "congestion pricing". Transportation officials in the United
- States have repeatedly asserted that such systems in this country will be
- "voluntary", yet moves toward congestion pricing are under way in several
- parts of the country. It is not at all clear how these two trends will
- be reconciled -- unless, of course, submitting to electronic monitoring of
- one's road travel is "voluntary" in just the same sense that driving a car at
- all is voluntary. In any event, the developments in Singapore redouble the
- urgent need to develop, implement, and standardize technologies for anonymous
- electronic toll collection systems.
-
- Phil Agre
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 16:13:20 +1494730 (PDT)
- From: Christopher Klaus <cklaus@iss.net>
- Subject: Announcement: Alert Mailing List
-
- Announcing a new security mailing list - The Alert.
-
- The Alert will be covering the following topics:
-
- - Security Product Announcements
- - Updates to Security Products
- - New Vulnerabilities found
- - New Security Frequently Asked Question files.
- - New Intruder Techniques and Awareness
-
- To join, send e-mail to request-alert@iss.net and, in the text of your message
- (not the subject line), write:
-
-
- subscribe alert
-
- To remove, send e-mail to request-alert@iss.net and, in the text of your message
- (not the subject line), write:
-
- unsubscribe alert
-
- This is a moderated list in the effort to keep the noise to a minimal and
- provide quality security information.
-
- If your site is interested in network security, we put out several
- FAQes (Frequently Asked Question) that cover the following main areas
- of topic:
-
- Vendor Contacts
- - Who is the security contacts at IBM, HP, Dec, Motorola, etc.
- - Web page at: http://iss.net/iss/vendor.html
-
- Patches
- - List of all security related patches catergorized by OS type.
- - Web page at: http://iss.net/iss/patch.html
-
- Compromise
- - Check list of things to do if your machines are compromised.
- - Web page at: http://iss.net/iss/compromise.html
-
- Anonymous FTP Security
- - How to correctly set up FTP and check for vulnerabilities.
- - Web page at: http://iss.net/iss/anonftp.html
-
- Sniffers
- - What they are. How they work. How to detect them. And solutions.
- - Web page: http://iss.net/iss/sniff.html
-
- Security Mailing Lists
- - A comprehensive list of security mailing lists.
- - Web page: http://iss.net/iss/maillist.html
-
-
- If possible, it might be a good idea for you to add links to the above
- web pages on your own Web server and point people who need to know
- some of the network security issues to the web page. It is
- possible to point to all of the FAQ pages at:
-
- http://iss.net/iss/faq.html
-
- --
- Christopher William Klaus Voice: (770)441-2531. Fax: (770)441-2431
- Internet Security Systems, Inc. "Internet Scanner lets you find
- 2000 Miller Court West, Norcross, GA 30071 your network security holes
- Web: http://iss.net/ Email: cklaus@iss.net before the hackers do."
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 19:12:50 -0400 (EDT)
- From: RAKEROYD@csunet.ctstateu.edu
- Subject: National Privacy & Public Policy Symposium -- Registration Form
-
- NATIONAL PRIVACY AND PUBLIC POLICY SYMPOSIUM
-
- HISTORY IN THE MAKING -- Privacy is a vague concept that has assumed an
- increasingly important role in many areas of national debate. From questions
- of abortion and crime prevention to international commerce and emerging
- technologies, policy-makers are confronting ever more and difficult choices
- involving the sanctity of the person on the one hand, and societal efficiency
- on the other. Yet privacy has neither been studied nor defined comprehensively
- to address both traditional relationships and the many new ones produced by a
- rapidly evolving society.
-
- The Connecticut Foundation for Open Government, Inc. ("CFOG"), a tax exempt,
- non-profit corporation, is sponsoring a first-ever symposium to effectively
- remedy this omission. The ultimate goal of the symposium is to create a
- comprehensive definition of "privacy," tailored to contemporary and foreseeable
- needs, that can be used in formulating public policy on a broad range of
- privacy-related issues. To meet this goal, the symposium for the first time
- will bring together some of the best minds and leading experts from a host of
- disciplines to explore and discuss the many complex issues that ought to be
- considered in a comprehensive definition.
-
- THE PROGRAM -- The program will consist of plenary sessions, focused panels and
- featured speakers. Participants represent a broad spectrum of perspectives and
- backgrounds. The first plenary session will present a social and legal history
- of privacy. This will provide the intellectual setting for consideration of a
- new and comprehensive definition of privacy. In addition to featured speakers
- at some meals, there will also be a series of concurrent panel discussions
- covering an array of disciplines in which privacy issues are a significant
- concern. The disciplines and key privacy issues that will be discussed include:
-
- Bio-technology and Medicine Info. and Communications Technologies
- ! Euthanasia and prolongation of life
- ! "Information superhighway"
- ! Genetic engineering and testing ! "Smart cards"
- ! Medical "smart cards" ! Transmitting personal information
- ! Physician-patient relationship ! Wiring car, home and person
-
- Business Journalism
- ! Credit and customer information ! Primacy of privacy or news
- ! Direct and targeted advertising ! Privacy and "live" journalism
- ! Employee drug testing ! Private and public figures
- ! Institutional security ! Public places and private property
-
- Economics of Information Law
- ! Accurate, secure personal data ! Future of the tort law of privacy
- ! Computer matching ! Government and the family
- ! Databases: too much information? ! Government and one's body
- ! Use and ownership of personal data ! Government and one's home and
- property
-
- Gov. Information Practices and FOI National Security and Law Enforcement
- ! Accurate, secure personal data ! "Clipper chip"
- ! Collecting and revealing personal ! Criminal history information
- data ! Electronic "bugging" and surveillance
- ! Privacy rights of the deceased ! Intelligence dossiers and databases
- ! Social security numbers
-
- The final plenary session will consist of reports by each panel chairperson and
- a moderated discussion that will attempt to synthesize the various issues and
- positions into a comprehensive definition of privacy.
-
- The Symposium Reporter will prepare a final report which will include the
- history of privacy, pre-symposium papers for each panel, a summary of the final
- plenary session, an analysis of the work of the symposium, and a comprehensive
- definition of privacy.
-
- THE FACULTY
-
- Moderator -- Claire L. Gaudiani, Ph.D. Dr. Gaudiani is the President of
- Connecticut College, a prestigious liberal arts college located in New London,
- CT. She has become widely known as an advocate of global civic virtues. She
- was responsible for Connecticut College's sponsorship of the first
- International Conference on Ethics in Government held in Washington in 1994.
- Most recently she participated in the United Nations Summit on Global Social
- Development in Copenhagen. Dr. Gaudiani has an expertise in public policy
- development, a knowledge of the concepts of privacy and the facility to lead a
- diverse group of exceptionally able people in a structured, yet open, discourse.
-
- Privacy Scholar -- Professor Alan F. Westin. Professor Westin is Professor of
- Public Law and Government at Columbia University. He is perhaps the preeminent
- scholar of privacy in the United States, having specialized for four decades in
- the social, ethical and legal impacts of information on individuals,
- organizations and society. He also maintains a continuing special interest in
- medical confidentiality and health-information-systems privacy issues. Among
- his many publications, Professor Westin's award-winning book Privacy and
- Freedom is considered the leading work in its field. Professor Westin is the
- founder and Publisher of Privacy and American Business, a non-profit bi-monthly
- national report and information service and is senior advisor and consultant to
- numerous government panels and national and multi-national companies.
-
- Reporter -- Harry A. Hammitt. Mr. Hammitt is both a lawyer and a journalist.
- He is Publisher and Editor of Access Reports and is internationally recognized
- as a leading expert in the field of information access and privacy.
-
- Panel Chairpersons -- Thomas Blanton, Executive Director, National Security
- Archives (National Security and Law Enforcement); Anne Wells Branscomb, Center
- for Information Policy Research, Harvard University (Economics of Information);
- Ann Cavoukian, Assistant Commissioner for Privacy, Ontario, Canada
- (Bio-technology and Medicine); Robert Gellman, privacy and information policy
- consultant (Government Information Practices and Freedom of Information);
- Janlori Goldman, Deputy Director, Center for Technology and Democracy
- (Business); Victor Kovner, partner, Lankenau, Kovner and Kurtz (Law); Paul Evan
- Peters, Executive Director, Coalition for Networked Information (Information
- and Communications Technologies); and Herbert Strentz, Professor, Drake
- University School of Journalism and Mass Communication(Journalism).
-
- Panelists Include -- Alan Adler, Attorney, Cohn & Marks; Edward Appel, chief of
- counterintelligence, National Security Council; Kathleen A. Callaghan, former
- Dir., Hawaii Office of Information Practices; James X. Dempsey, Dpty. Dir.,
- Center for National Security Studies; Mark Effron, V.P. and News Director, WFSB
- TV; Ralph G. Elliot, Attorney, Tyler Cooper & Alcorn; John Fanning, Policy
- Analyst, Public Health Service; John A. Ford, V.P., Equifax, Inc.; Robert J.
- Freeman, Ex. Dir., N.Y. State Committee on Open Government; Gerald Gates,
- Chair, Privacy Group, National Information Infrastructure Advisory Committee;
- Gerald R. Green, Professor of Economics, Harvard University; Jane Kirtley, Ex.
- Dir., Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press; Steven Levy, Fellow,
- Freedom Forum Media Studies Center, Columbia University; David Malkin, MD,
- Hospital for Sick Children Foundation; Kate Martin, Ex. Dir., Center for
- National Security Studies; Roger G. Noll, Professor of Economics, Stanford
- University; Barbara A. Petersen, Ex. Dir., Florida First Amendment Foundation;
- Robert Ellis Smith, Publisher, Privacy Journal; George B. Trubow, Professor of
- Law, John Marshall Law School; Hal Varian, Dean and Professor of Economics,
- University of California at Berkeley; Tom Wright, Information and Privacy
- Commissioner, Ontario.
-
- Featured Speakers -- U.S. Senator Joseph I. Lieberman; Francis Aldhouse, Deputy
- Data Protection Registrar, United Kingdom; Vice President Albert Gore (invited).
-
- WHEN, WHERE AND HOW -- The symposium will be held on Friday, November 3 and
- Saturday, November 4 (until noon) 1995 at the Aetna Life and Casualty Company's
- Conference Center and Home office, a world-class facility in Hartford, CT. The
- approximately 400 people who will attend the symposium will represent a virtual
- "Who's Who" of business, information and communications technologies, the
- medical, health care, legal and journalism professions, academia and government.
-
- -----------------------------------------------------------------
- REGISTRATION FORM
- Complete and Return to:
- National Privacy a
- d Public Policy Symposium
- 18-20 Trinity Street, First Floor
- Hartford, Connecticut 06106
-
-
- (Name) (Mailing Address)
-
- (Title) (City, State, Zip Code)
-
- (Organization) (Telephone and Fax Numbers)
-
- Check the Appropriate Box(es)
-
- [ ] Please register me for the symposium; make checks payable to CFOG.*
-
- List in order of preference the designation letters (A-H) listed below of the
- three concurrent panels you would most like to attend. Depending on response,
- it is possible that some registrants' first choices cannot be honored. All
- decisions will be made based on the date of receipt of registration. Every
- attempt, however, will be made to honor each registrant's first choice. You
- will be notified in the event your first choice cannot be honored.
-
- [ ] First Choice [ ] Second Choice [ ] Third Choice
-
- Panel Selections
-
- (A) Bio-technology and Medicine (E) Info. and Communications Technologies
- (B) Business (F) Journalism
- (C) Economics of Information (G) Law
- (D) Gov. Information Practices and FOI (H) National Security and Law Enforcement
-
- [ ] I cannot attend, but would like to obtain symposium publications and/or
- tape recordings.
-
- *The registration fee is $350 (U.S.) and must be enclosed with this form to
- confirm your registration. The fee covers attendance at the symposium, all
- printed publications and the cost of two breakfasts, one lunch, and one
- reception (cash bar) and dinner. Full refunds will be made for cancellations
- received before October 25, 1995. A service charge of $50 (U.S.) will be
- assessed for any cancellation made between October 25, 1995 and November 2,
- 1995. No refunds can be made thereafter.
-
- The Aetna Conference Center has a number of comfortable and convenient rooms
- available at reasonable rates. If you are interested in booking a room at the
- conference center, please call Pam Sakow at (203) 236-6034.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- End of PRIVACY Forum Digest 04.22
- ************************
-