Re: USENET on a tape, and future privacy

From jerry@terminus.us.dell.com Sun Dec 12 00:06:31 1993

	You are talking about thousands of dollars of cost to do such a
	search.

Sorry, I do searches like that all the time for "serious" candidates.
Takes me no more than 10 minutes to set up the criteria, and an hour or
so on an airplane to browse the output.  Granted, I don't search a year
(hey, if a candidate is a jerk on the net, they'll show up more than a
few times in just a month's worth ...), but your "it's in the noise"
statement is naive.

/jordan

writes Jordan Hayes:
>Takes me no more than 10 minutes to set up the criteria, and an hour or
>so on an airplane to browse the output.  Granted, I don't search a year
>(hey, if a candidate is a jerk on the net, they'll show up more than a
>few times in just a month's worth ...), but your "it's in the noise"
>statement is naive.
>
>/jordan
>

I agree.  The signal to noise is high, but grep is fast and, if you were
determined many layers of filtering could be added to inhance the
"resolution" of the search.  

My concern is that it is becoming more and more common for people to 
"grow up" on the net, many people I know of started quite young, and
a determined opponent (as I'll call the snooper) could, concieveably
search your entire posting history.

Lets say that the (kind, benevolant, of course) Government is considering
indicting you on charges of conspiracy to do something illegal, but are 
unsure if there is enough evidence to connect you to the crime.  Or, 
let's say that they believe you have had a long-involved role in 
inciting the breaking of a law.  They (the government, remember -- big 
computers, nearly unlimited people and time) could look for anything 
relating you to inciting or bacoming involved in things that could even
be construde as close to illegal.

Bottom line is that we need to watch our backs, but I don't want to lapse
into a fit of Detweilerian paranoia (sorry, just had to take that jab ;-)

-nate

-- 
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| Nate Sammons  nate@VIS.ColoState.Edu  (303) 491-1578                  |
|   Colorado State University -- Computer Visualization Laboratory      |
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