[svfig-open] It's 1984 (a few years late)

[Kevin Appert]

I think we need professional "viewers with alarm".  They could go through 
the paper and "view with alarm" the more alarming stories.
Do we have them already?  TV pundits?  The Center for "Science" in the 
Public Interest?  And so on...
Here's a start of things to be alarmed about if you're looking for a gig:

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Gov't Proposes Massive Homeless Tracking System

Posted by michael on Tuesday August 19, @04:12PM
from the bagged-and-tagged dept.
Chris Hoofnagle writes "The Dept. of Housing and Urban Development is 
proposing a massive system of tracking for homeless people
and others who are served by shelters and care centers. The system will 
track people by their SSN, and will collect health (HIV,
pregnancy) and mental information. Secret Service and national security 
agents can gain access to the database by just asking for it!
EPIC has released a fact sheet on HMIS, and the public can comment on the 
guidelines until September 22, 2003, but no electronic
comments are being accepted."

  Your Rights Online : Microsoft Tracking Behavior of Newsgroup Posters
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/19/1714226&mode=thread&tid=103&tid=158&tid=99

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Posted by timothy on Wednesday August 20, @02:29PM
from the target-market dept.
theodp writes "Ever get the feeling your Usenet newsgroup list is being 
watched? By Microsoft? If so, consider yourself right. An
interesting but troubling CNET interview with Microsoft's in-house 
sociologist goes into how the software giant is keeping a close eye
on newsgroups and other public e-mail lists, tracking and rating 
contributors' social habits and determining "people who the system
has shown to have value." Those concerned that it's not a good idea for 
computers to track their belongings and whereabouts are advised that they 
may ultimately have to fragment their identities, keeping multiple IDs and 
e-mail addresses."
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/03/08/20/1254232.shtml?tid=109&tid=126&tid=158&tid=187&tid=95&tid=99



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ED FOSTER'S GRIPELOG
The Reader Advocate Column
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Will the Blaster Worm Make Windows Updates Mandatory?

Thursday, August 21, 2003
By Ed Foster

It's a depressing irony, but the creep who wrote the Blaster worm may very 
well have done Microsoft a tremendous favor.  After all, what better 
argument could the folks in Redmond have been handed to do what they've 
always wanted to do - namely, force users to accept automatic Windows updates.

[[[ it goes on like that.  If you want, I'll email you the whole thing or 
you can read it at http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/section/Columns.]]]