[humorix] Guest Editorial: Big Brother Is Blind

[James Baughn <jbaughn@ldd.net>]

Guest Editorial: Big Brother Is Blind
Written May 9, 2002 by Anonymous

[Editor's Note: The following opinion piece does not
necessarily reflect the viewpoints of Humorix.  In fact,
we're sure that it doesn't.]

Everywhere I turn, geeks are complaining about the lack of
privacy online and offline. The FBI wants to read their
files, spammers want to snatch their email addresses, Big
Evil Corporations want to know their beverage preferences,
and Small Evil Companies want to plant spyware on their
computers.

But is the privacy situation really that bad?  Even though
corporations have probably collected megabytes of
information about me, they continue to send me junk mail
advertising "feminine hygiene products". At the same time,
I receive an average of 52.3 pieces of spam each days
advertising "penis enlargement" (mine is already long
enough, thank you very much).

Meanwhile, the US Federal government, which undoubtedly has
the world's largest Beowulf cluster of privacy-invading
database servers, is entirely clueless. They hand out
student visas to dead terrorists.  They strip-search three
year olds at airports but let adults that fit terrorist
profiles waltz through.  They spend $30 mailing out an
income tax bill for one cent.

So the FBI, CIA, NSA, ATF, DEA, IRS, and other three-letter
wonders  constantly invade your privacy. What's the big
deal?  If this is Big Brother, he must be deaf and blind
with an IQ of 58.  

Even with cookies, web bugs, spyware, and other online
privacy-invading schemes, corporations still haven't been
able to capitalize on their terabyte database of collected
information.  Sure, they might know that you're a man, but
that won't stop them from advertising yeast infection
medications to you.  Oh, their database might show that
you're lactose intolerant, but that won't prevent them from
mailing out grocery store flyers promoting special
discounts on Monterrey Jack. Yeah, they probably know that
you only run Windows, but that won't stop CompUSSR from
mailing out circulars offering computers that only come
pre-installed with Windows.

I once made the mistake of posting a comment to an obscure
Usenet group with my real email address.  As a result, I
get an average of 1000 spam messages per day.  And yet, not
one single mailing has ever been relevant to me.  I don't
want a home loan, I don't want to run a background check on
my neighbor's second cousin, I don't need debt
consultation, I don't even want to know about human growth
hormones, I don't want to gamble my life savings away at
some offshore Internet casino, I don't need toner
cartridges, and I certainly don't want to kill my boss and
throw away the alarm clock (I run my own small business
that manufactures alarm clocks).  

Thousands of spammers know my email address, but they don't
know a darned thing about me.  I wish they _would_ invade
my privacy and realize that I will never, ever be
interested in any of their "products" (I use that term
loosely) -- then maybe they would leave me alone!

In conclusion, government and corporations invade our
privacy, but they don't actually use any of the information
they collect, so there's really nothing to worry about.  A
deaf and blind Big Brother sitting in front of a computer
with access to terabytes of personal information is still a
deaf and blind Big Brother.  

Let's move on and find another more important issue to
direct our slactivism towards.
--
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