At 11:38 PM 2/27/00 -0500, STIGLIC Anton wrote:
>> You teach *little kids* not to give out personal info to cold
>> calls over the phone. You can teach overgizmo'd proles too.
>
>Well, that's easily said, but not so easily done. Little kid
>Joe gets a Unix school account. He sees that you can put some
>info in your finger sig, so he puts his phone number.
Hey, some people publish their real names and addresses
in phone books. Others don't. Security vs. convenience,
always.
Its up to Joe to consider his threat model.
My point is that people are clearly capable of thinking about
their exposure. They have for generations.
Cultures learn; they learn through seeing failures, usually.
Humans are especially good at reasoning about social exchanges, btw.
>He thinks it's a good idea because he sees this as a good way
>for fellow class mates to get in touch with him.
Assuming his classmates aren't hostile to him...
>Joe then goes and surfs the Web,
Oh, you mean his Unix system was networked? Well then
why the fsck are you running finger-service for the world?
>little Joe has no idea that
>when he goes to foo.com, foo.com logs his e-mail adress, IP
>and other stuff. Then foo.com collaborates with BigBrother.com
>who associates little Joe's phone number to his e-mail adress by
>quering his finger.
>Need another example? There are plenty.
>In real life, when little Joe goes to a grocery store, if the
>clerk asks him for his phone number, we won't give it (because
>his parents taught him well). When someone calls him on the
>phone and asks for some personal information, we won't give it.
>When he is surfing the Web he simply has no idea someone is
>traking him and accumulating info about him.
He and the makers of browsers and other apps will go through
some learning. You have to stalk and kill a movie star
before you get press..
>How many people do you think are aware of all this tracking?
More and more.
>How many people do you think know that every message posted do a news
>group is archieved, forever?
Everyone, nowadays.
In '86, when I started posting, it was only an abstract suspicion. Now,
however, its well known --and deja lets
you search by author. So folks see that messages
are archived, and then understand why nyms are useful.
They read a few stories about browsers or OS's or MSWord
leaking their meat-names, and get a clue.
