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Date: 22/4/00 11:26 PM
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Point, click, submit
You are being watched and categorized more than any time in human
history.
By nessie
http://www.sfbg.com/nessie/16.html
WE ARE BEING watched, tracked, and monitored as never before in all
of
history. A virtual mania for electronic snooping has infected the
corporate-government complex. In part it is a trait of the breed, but in
part it is being driven by some of the remarkable technological
innovations
of the last few decades. Himmler would have traded his saluting arm for a
fraction of the dossier-building abilities employed by even so pedestrian
an organization as DoubleClick.
DoubleClick? What's that?
If you're on a Wintel box, use Find File to look for a file called
"cookies.txt". If you're on a Mac, look for a file called "MagicCookie".
Use a text editor to open the file and take a look. If you've been
doing
any browsing, the odds are about 80/20 that you'll find a cookie in there
from someplace called doubleclick.net. If you're like most people, you've
never gone to a site called doubleclick.net. So how did they give you a
cookie? After all, according to the specs published by Netscape, the idea
of the cookie is to make a more efficient connection between the server
that delivers the cookie and the client machine that receives it. But if
you have never connected to doubleclick.net, why the cookie?
For that matter, what is a cookie in the first place? A cookie is a
small
file that a Web server places on your hard drive that is used to identify
you and/or track your movements. A cookie cannot be used to get data from
your hard drive. It can't get your e-mail address. Nor can it steal
sensitive information about you. Some early implementations of Java and
JavaScript did allow people to do this. In theory at least, for the most
part these security leaks have been plugged. But a cookie can be used to
track where you go on a particular site. This site tracking can be easily
done without using cookies. Using cookies just makes the job easier and
the
data collected a little more consistent. But, alas, that's not all.
Unfortunately, the original intent of the cookie has been subverted by
some unscrupulous people. They have found a way to use this process to
actually track your movements across the Web. They accomplish this by
surreptitiously planting their cookies and then retrieving them in such a
way that allows them to build extremely detailed profiles of your
personal
interests, your spending habits, and your lifestyle in general.
Originally cookies were only found in the text portion of a Web page.
That was then. Cookies can also be placed on graphic files. This allows
online banner advertising companies to place a cookie right in their
banner
itself. Typically, banners are sent, not from the server you are
visiting,
but from the banner ad company's server. Thus that server can continually
monitor a user's movement across the Web. It's easy to see what this
leads
to when one or several banner-ad companies place ads on numerous Web
sites.
For more information on cookies, click here
http://www.junkbusters.com/ht/en/cookies.html and here
http://www.cookiecentral.com/.
Then there are the Global Unique Identifiers, or GUIDs. They are
essentially digital fingerprints. There are several different ways to
generate a GUID, but they all function in basically the same manner. A
unique identity number is assigned to your computer, tattooed on its
forearm so to speak, and used to monitor certain activities on your
computer. As eminent security analyst Richard Smith
http://www.sfbg.com/nessie/smith.html , has noted.
http://www.byte.com/features/1999/03/win98priv.html
This fingerprinting scheme could be used (or misused) to trace the
origin of document files. For example, if a whistle-blower leaked a Word
document to the press about a company or government agency, the Ethernet
address might be used to track the document back to the author.
Then there's your Media Access Control, or MAC, a 12-digit
identification
number used in networking. Every Ethernet card has a unique and permanent
MAC address. Microsoft has placed MAC addresses within Word documents and
within GUIDs.
Then there's Web bugs. A Web bug is a graphic image used to monitor who
is reading a Web page or e-mail message. It is often transparent and only
one pixel large, i.e., the size of a dot. A Web bug is not necessarily
invisible. Any graphic on a Web page that is used for monitoring purposes
can be considered a Web Bug. When they are made to be invisible it is to
hide the fact that monitoring is taking place. For more on Web bugs,
click
here. http://www.tiac.net/users/smiths/privacy/wbfaq.htm
Faceless entities surreptitiously monitor your activities, online and
elsewhere. To some this may appear hardly worth fretting over. The worst
thing most people imagine is that corporations will use this information
to
devise advertising campaigns, targeted toward specific groups or
individuals. Most people trust the corporate-government complex and
willingly allow it to act as a sort of surrogate parent. They see nothing
wrong with being tracked from cradle to grave, herded like livestock,
thought for as if they were children, and experimented on without their
knowledge or consent. This is a serious mistake. Sooner or later it will
come home to roost.
Those of us who think for ourselves find it scary to contemplate how
such
an intimate knowledge of our personal preferences and private activities
might eventually be used to brand each of us as members of a particular
group. Imagine, for example, one day being denied health insurance
because
your care provider had access to records of your family's grocery
shopping
habits and concluded on the basis of what you ate and drank that you were
not a good financial risk. Sound farfetched? Think again. What happens if
the corporation that owns your grocery shopping records merges with the
corporation that owns your health insurance provider? What if you try a
different insurance provider only to discover that (surprise!) insurance
providers pool data? The short version is you're Still Out of Luck (SOL).
This is not an unrealistic scenario. Mergers are the order of the day.
Early last year DoubleClick Inc. announced a $1 billion merger with
Abacus
Direct Corporation. Abacus is a major catalog buying-behavior database
manager.
The combination of DoubleClick's Internet presence and ability to use
cookies to follow users around the Internet and Abacus's vast consumer
database allows the new merged company, which operates under the name of
DoubleClick Inc., to merge an Internet user's online habits with their
real
world habits and identity. For DoubleClick's customers this means the
ability to "provide highly efficient, targeted and measurable marketing
and
advertising solutions through the Internet and other media." For
consumers
this represents an unprecedented level of monitoring. A lengthy
discussion
of this topic, including both general and technical viewpoints, is
available (here).
http://www.slashdot.org/yro/99/10/22/0249212.shtml
- Richard Smith, Clamor February 2000
It gets worse. On Feb. 17, 2000 APB.com
http://www.apbnews.com/newscenter/internetcrime/2000/02/17/doubleclick0217_
01.html
reported that both federal and New York-state authorities had launched
separate inquiries into whether DoubleClick improperly amassed personal
details about Internet users. Given law enforcement's long, sordid
history
of abusing the privacy of innocent citizens, it is difficult to imagine
such inquiries not involving a long hard look
http://www.sfbg.com/nessie/boundless.html
For that matter, go to APB.com's main page and check out the site's
search engine. Ask it about DoubleClick. You'll have a very educational
experience. Another good way to get up to speed on this stuff is to set
your browser to ask you before it lets a server set a cookie. When a
server
tries to set a cookie a dialogue box will appear on the screen. Pay
special
attention to the part where it tells you how long the cookie will last.
Sometimes it tells you. Sometimes it doesn't. Some cookies last for
decades.
Of course you don't have to be online to be under surveillance. If you
shop, if you drive, if you use public transportation, you could be under
surveillance at any time. Just going for a walk is enough in some places
http://wearcam.org/darkglass.html
to warrant a video of your activity being transmitted to remote
location,
recorded, and analyzed, all "for your protection" of course.
According to the Boston Globe
http://www.deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,150015975,00.html
artificial intelligence face-recognition software on the market since
1997
has set your face well on its way to becoming your official
"fingerprint."
In the all-too-near future you'll use it for accessing ATM machines,
entering the workplace, checking in at airline ticketing counters, and
even
for getting into your own computer. And a lot of people will go along
with
this without thinking twice.
Imagine the ease of no longer having to remember and punch in a series
of
numbers to prove to the world
http://www.sfbg.com/nessie/proof.html
that you are who you say you are. Instead you will turn your face toward
a
closed-circuit TV camera. In less than a second face-recognition software
will scan your features while it electronically riffles through millions
of
stored "faceprints" to find the proper match and signal an OK or flash a
warning sign that the face its scanning isn't yours. It sounds like
science
fiction, something out of Philip K. Dick perhaps, or maybe William Gibson.
Think again. This is now.
Fix the date firmly in your mind. Now consider that this technology
has
military applications, intelligence applications, and law enforcement
applications. Ergo, it is safe to assume that the military, the
intelligence community, and law enforcement was by whom and for whom this
technology was developed in the first place. It is also safe to assume
that, like most such technology, the version now available to the public
is
decades out of date. What are they using today that we won't hear about
for
another 20 or 30 years? Whatever it is, it's state of the art. Of that we
can be certain.
Then there are the low-flying telescope satellites. You've heard about
the Hubble
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2000/16/index.html
telescope. The Hubble telescope looks up at the great universe beyond.
Other orbiting telescopes look not up but down at us. About them we don't
hear quite so much. Still less of what we hear
http://cnn.com/2000/US/04/12/spies.speak/index.html
is true. But they're up there watching us all right, no doubt about it.
And
we paid their way. If they can spot a golf ball from nine miles up,
imagine
what they can do with your face. Go outside. Look up. Smile. Wave. Does
some government surveillence computer somewhere instantly recieve and
identify your image? It can if it wants to.
In some places just being an employee makes one a suspected criminal
and
the subject of increasingly sophisticated investigation. Pinhole video
cameras less than one inch square are hidden in lockers, clocks,
computers,
phones, and (presumably) watercoolers. They have even been found in
employee washrooms. There is something structurally wrong with a society
in
which ordinary people who have done nothing wrong are routinely
investigated as if they were criminals. Yet that is ever more the trend.
Even in his most paranoid moments, Orwell never imagined a world where
bladder inspections were a prerequisite to employment. But it's come to
that. And it's getting worse.
Even our DNA, the very essence of what makes us who we are, is coming
under surveillance. April 6, the Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0004/06/pageone/pageone10.html
announced that the police would ask the entire male adult population of
the
northwestern town of Wee Waa to undergo a voluntary DNA saliva test, in
what police hope will solve the bashing and rape of a 93-year-old woman
16
months ago.
The move is unprecedented in Australian criminal investigation. It
comes
in the absence of legal powers that can compel those questioned by police
about a crime to submit to a DNA blood test. Needless to say, the
government is working up a legal framework for a compulsory, national DNA
database of criminals. Under one plan, the police would only be able to
take saliva samples from prisoners convicted for crimes that carry a
minimum sentence of five years. Under another plan it would include
people
convicted for petty offenses. If the first stages of this egregious
incursion are successfully implemented, it is only a matter of time until
people are willing to accept being DNA tagged at birth.
It is painfully obvious by now that Australia's recent draconian gun
control legislation, which disarmed millions of law-abiding citizens, has
led to a dramatic rise http://www.ssaa.org.au/ilasep98.html
in the level of crime. Has it also led to the beginning of a terminal
decline in the civil liberties of Australian citizens? Or are both
phenomena part of the same syndrome? Time will tell.
We live in a burgeoning virtual panopticon.
http://is.gseis.ucla.edu/impact/f96/Projects/dengberg/index.html
The political implications of such power are staggering. During the
occupation of Tienemien Square the government set up video surveillance
of
the entire area. The demonstrators didn't take the hint. When the
clampdown
came, nearly all the leaders were arrested. Only a handful escaped.
Surveillance technology has become far more sophisticated since then, and
far wider spread.
The death of anonymity strikes a foreboding chill into organized
political dissidence the world over. The more technologically advanced
the
country, the scarier it is to be a leader of resistance.
Oh sure, the drug squad may kick a lot of wrong doors. They even kill
a
few people at it now and then. But when the clampdown comes, rest assured
that the New World Order's snatch squads won't be so clumsy. They will
know
exactly where every leader lives and exactly what (s)he looks like.
Sooner
or later the clampdown will come, make no mistake about it. Do not
mistake
the velvet glove for the iron fist inside. When the glove comes off, the
fist comes down, then devil take the hindmost. The current economic
bubble
is long overdue to burst. With economic stability will go political
stability. This pattern has gone on on every continent for millennia.
There
is no sound reason to believe it should come to an end in our lifetimes.
At
least we shouldn't bet our lives on it doing so. We probably shouldn't
bet
the farm, either.
This does not mean we should not resist. We have no choice but to
resist.
If we do not choose to resist we shall soon have no choices at all. They
will all be made for us. But if we predicate the success of our
resistance
on having leaders, our resistance shall fail for sure.
The nessie files runs alternate Mondays. To discuss this column in
altcity, our virtual community, click here
http://www.altcity.com/mesgIdx.asp?DISCUSSION_ID=26&PAGE=1
Copyright ? 1994-99 San Francisco Bay Guardian.
[Forwarded For Information Purposes Only - Not Necessarily Endorsed By
The Sender - A.K. Pritchard]
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