gmail initiations

[Oren Beck]

Brian Densmore wrote:

> Actually, I think that Phoenician's post was aimed at my
> tongue-in-cheek email and not yours. By the way the
> Freedom of Information Act doesn't entitle you to get
> information on other people's information such as
> SSNs or tax returns, unless that person is a public official.
> On top of which they are "supposed" to black out certain
> parts of those documents which you can get, like SSN's.
> Or were you not referring to the FOIA? But what bother's
> me the most is that counties sell my information to political
> candidates.  But that's another rant. entirely.
> 
>     -----Original Message-----
>     *From:* Allen Darrah
> 
>     Well I don't want anyone to steal my money, so no.  And the
>     government already has my social security # of course because they
>     gave it to me and then can get my pin at any time so really nothing
>     I do online isn't able to be discovered anyway so why worry about
>     it?  And no, I'm really not worried about privacy. 
> 
>     Not to mention:  if anyone in here wanted to they could go to their
>     local court house and file some paperwork and get my social anyway
>     along with a ton of other information.  I could do the same to all
>     of you.  Fun, isn't it?  This thing called free information? 
>     Everyone wants everything to be free (owned property of, say,
>     Microsoft, or some music artist) except for what few things we
>     "think" we own, like the number branded on us when we're born. 
>     Well, that # is on loan anyway.  If you think you have ever actually
>     "owned" anything in your life, especially your privacy, then you're
>     just silly and you probably already know that, you just never
>     thought of it.
> 
>     So the bottom line is:  if somebody out there wants to read my
>     e-mails and has the ability to do it then that's great.  Whatever
>     free e-mail service I use isn't going to have any effect on somebody
>     who's skillful enough to crack, say, Hotmail's e-mail systems in the
>     first place.  I don't know any launch codes or have knowledge of
>     who's going to win the Super Bowl so I'll bet nobody is all that
>     interested anyway.  My e-mails consist of me finding out if we're
>     all going to play some D&D on Saturday night or something similarly
>     inane  Especially the government.  Anything they want to know about
>     me, or you, they already know; more importantly, they couldn't care
>     less.
> 
Phrase that last line as SHOULD  NOT know absent due process - the 
caring part denotes the sanity or lack of same .
And what you invoke about  _ability_  to read one's electronic data 
stores does not correlate to it being GOOD .
Yah - no secrets can exist beyond one's skull in a society willing to do 
whatever it needs to for preventing secrets .
Promoting such a social agenda may shorten the life expectancy of twits 
doing so too abrasively .
John Brunner raised the query of what you get for what you surrender as 
a catchphrase .
" The systems that keep you from cheating on taxes make sure the crash 
cart has your blood type on it WELL ? "

The bill of rights explicitly states some of the conceptual reasons for 
privacy violations  being unwise .
I clarify the data mining issue as ASSOCIATIVE data Vs UN-associated 
data . One Breakpoint of concern .
Either it's a tabulating of N# looked at the website of concern or YOU 
by NAME did .
One Harmless datum of a Odometer style page views incrementing alone is 
hardly a concern .
The persons wanting  OTHER data that makes it" YOU" did <Blank>  are 
likely  NOT harmless !

The concept of David Brin's " Transparent Society  "

http://www.davidbrin.com/tschp1.html

Addresses the tale of 2 cities - creepily evocative of the Open Source 
worldview Vs Microsoft EULA As bill of rights .
Details that the Public persons need to while in Public employ willfully 
forfeit  balanced against an ethos of the privacy cloaking rules that 
the PRIVATE citizens are granted inviolate WHERE PROPER .

Public money has the string of public access and privacy is secured by 
private funding one's life .
That simple concept has a mundane corollary in Missouri fishing law. If 
my wife gets fish from the DNR we in exchange surrender right of access 
refusal . Where if we do NOT take any fish from DNR we can refuse 
service to anyone .
The Gmail social contract seems to me an adherence in kind to that 
concept . TANSTAAFL .
Free per se is oxymoronic in much of social interactions as even the 
Copyleft/Gpl/Creative Commons ALL impart restrictions .   By my humble 
take common law should allow a full refund of what you paid to Google 
for their service . And the same sum for damages to your privacy .

To be deadly blunt - Gmail et al that wish to "use" communicated 
information as a revenue stream need to be transparent in how and where 
that will be and after a " Read and understood " is agreeed to by ALL 
parties .
Absent such informed consent Evil indeed is afoot here . The core issues 
are  INFORMED and UNDERSTOOD.

Were Gmail to cloak the usages of mined data as Microsoft cloaks the 
innumerable privacy violations caused in the Windows environment the 
term " Evil " arguably would be quite justified . In an OS where one is 
mislead to believe a file deletion renders the file "erased" only to 
find later that " Delete "  causes multiple redundantly hidden copies to 
be cached in multiple locations on your HD- Gmail becomes the minority 
worry !  Ignorantia Nhil Excusat ?

Oren Beck

www.campdownunder.com

That which an age feels to be evil is usually an untimely afterecho of 
that which was formerly felt to be good - the atavism of an older ideal. 
- Nietzsche