Scary Mining
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Scary Mining
How'd you like to find out your wife was pregnant from the grocer? Or maybe that a close one was bingeing on diet pills? Or some other "secret" from a stranger. It's possible as this article on data mining shows. Certainly some innocent coupons aren't likely to clue you in, but what if it wasn't so passive?
I truly believe that most people are good. They're honest, hard working, thoughtful, and respectful people that don't go out of their way to hurt anyone. However I also think that there are some bad people in the world. People that would invade your privacy and spy on you if they thought it would earn a few dollars.
It's kind of sad to think that way, but with the amount of SPAM, phishing, and outright deceit I see on the Internet, I have no doubt that there are people looking for new ways to target their sales pitch to you. Or even blackmail you as I've seen with a few worms floating around the ether, encrypting files and holding hard drives hostage.
Data mining is a powerful tool, but like any other tool, its use for positive or negative purposes is up to the individual or corporation wielding the tool.
I think that we've evolved slightly in business from the robber barons of the early twentieth century. There are some companies today that truly care about their employees and even the environment, spending their profits on projects and people to make the world a better place. Certainly I think Google's solar power experiment is a case of this. Now we just need businesses to evolve a bit more and ensure their ethics stand well above the blind pursuit of profit as well.
Steve Jones
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(Hate to be the cynic, but that's what I do best...)
Steiger's Law simply put: (Sooner or later) Any organization will always evolve to the point that its existence is more important than the purpose for which it was created.
Whether company, country, non-profit, or otherwise, I know of no exceptions. Corporations at least have an out in that they're supposed to make money. (And don't forget the google/china stuff).
As for the datamining, the only way to avoid it is for the individual to not give the information out in the first place, but too late for that now. (Have you signed the HIPPA form at your pharmacist/doctor's/dentist's office? There's no option on the form for "I do not consent" to the doctor passing on the information.--but I wrote it in before signing.)
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I had to read that twice to make sure you said "from the grocer" rather than "by the grocer".
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...me too...thought it was a change from the usual mailman ones...
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!** -
I always contend that I never provide anything in written form that I wouldn't say aloud to a stranger in a crowded room, and I carried that to the Internet. When I have been asked for information I feel goes too far, I simply browse away from the page. Nothing's worth the trouble. It's a simple solution that should work....
But last year I found out that my bank had been faxing my personal information to some guy in New Jersey (I'm Canadian). I found out not from my bank, who he has contacted without result a dozen times, but him. He called me personally, to assure me he shredded it all, but to suggest I let them know I'm unhappy because he was getting nowhere. This guy had, in fact, called over 700 people on his own time, because like most people he is honest. But it makes you wonder.
And what it makes me really wonder is whether companies on a whole are too large now to be expected to follow any standards, and perhaps if it has come time to arbitrarily threaten companies (like my bank, which is pampered by the government here) with division once they begin to behave as if they are above common law and common sense. I would also contend that in many ways, at least in business, the situation is far worse than the days when robber barons ruled. At least then you knew who was twirling their moustache; today, you face a solid wall of resistance to even crack most corporate legal barriers when you have a serious problem.
Every week you hear about unsecured information, given in faith in secure environments, like the debacle at the university in California. A hacker had 1 year to play with critical personal data? No one noticed? And, sadly, no one will take responsibility. A few good PR teams do not extend blanket coverage to the vast majority of businesses worldwide that have one central mantra -- profit at any cost.
Thankfully, I do agree with the editorial in one regard: people still are individually pretty most often honest. That probably says more about the species than anything else, and does give hope.
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I think the biggest part of the problem falls back to the fact that individuals are for the most part smart, but crowds/groups are stupid. An individual will think things through, and is willing to change their mind... unless they're part of a group, at which point they become inclined to blindly follow, and defend, because after all, their group is good, and made sure to think things through...
People again and again jump to the defense of profiling, or mining, always saying "If you aren't doing anything wrong, then what do you have to worry about". Why? almost always because it's their group doing the profiling, or mining, and they know their group is good, so they would never wrongly target anyone. It's not the act of mining that bothers me, it's the precident that is set. When it's OK to mine looking for certain trends in e-mail that indicate someone may go postal, then it's by association OK to eventually find the people who just happen to be predisposed to vote for the other guy. That's not democracy, that's 1984 style communism, and once we start down into that pit, it is very hard to turn around, and come back out. I just don't think that is a risk worth taking.
Statistically, what are the chances I'll be injured by some form of terrorism? probably akin to my chances of falling out of bed, and breaking my neck (hey, it's more likely then getting struck by lightening). I'm willing to take that tiny increased risk so long as I don't need to worry about how what I say or do might somehow flag me as someone who is potentially going to be the next to snap, particularly, when that sets me up to eventually be flagged as someone who might vote for the other guy...
ok, I think I just flagged myself about 8 times there...
</paranoid delusional rant>
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"Now we just need businesses to evolve a bit more and ensure their ethics stand well above the blind pursuit of profit as well"
Chicken or egg?
Government or business fixes corruption and graft first?
One will follow the other but it is hard to determine who is in the lead right now. Pick your favorite corruption story from the past year and none of them will be about how a government agency or private business helped 100,000 people get better lives by going against it's current practice of shafting its customer or taxpayer in the process.
I still have my letter from the VA telling me of the data breech. 30 year old data is still a threat.
I also found it ironic that the linked article to the Google story produced a pop-up box warning that some element on that Webpage was trying to gain access to something outside of the browser control. I didn't write it down but choose to answer it with a no. I could not reproduce it so some cookie must be installed.
Data mining 101.
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When reading the article it reminded me of the movie "Minority Report" where data mining goes so far as to predict who will commit murders. The police can arrest the murderer before the murder occurs.
Aunt Kathi Data Platform MVP
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