Reply #24: RNC bragged about datamining.....Govt does it too... No protection anyway

[EVDebs]

As you can see from who've they given the datamining jobs to (ChoicePoint , the company Greg Palast reveals was behind the FL vote purge of blacks and had a similar scheme in Latin America exposed) they already got caught with loose-ness in handling the data securely, with bank customers being warned their identities were at risk of being stolen.

If the Government ITSELF was in charge of this and assured the security on US soil, this TIA project might have flown. Now it's been privatized and the data is spread to the wind to the four corners of the world. Anyone in India, at the many real estate loan processing 'back offices' where loan files are readily accessable, can see US citizen's full financial histories complete with SS#s, credit card #s and, well, you get the picture. It's all there. They SAY it's protected but it really isn't:

""...Alan Paller, director of research at the Bethesda, Md.-based SANS Institute, said the California law is probably necessary because of the kinds of crime that are occurring. A group in Russia and Ukraine has been acquiring customer data, extorting money to prevent its release and then selling it anyway. Paller believes some companies are paying off the extortionists in an attempt to contain the damage.""

California leads way on ID theft legislation
http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2002/0,4814,7672...

So it looks like if the private firms can't secure the data, the federal government ought to step in with some protections against abuse.

BTW, Microsoft's NSA backdoor:

Expert disputes charge of Windows backdoor
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9909/13/backdoor.idg/

""But respected cryptographer Bruce Schneier, president of Counterpane Systems, a Minneapolis-based cryptography and security consultancy, noted that if the NSA wanted to compromise Microsoft's CryptoAPI, which supports the encryption of data in Windows programs, there are easier ways. The NSA could convince the company to divulge the secret-key portion of its signature key, for example; get Microsoft to sign an NSA-compromised security module; or install a module other than CryptoAPI to break encryption strategies."

Easier ways indeed ! "You have no privacy. Get over it." --Scott McNeely, CEO, Sun Microsystems. Sorry Scott, there is still a Constitution to defend, whether BushCo does it or not.