Re: Another Year, Another Volume of the Digest

but I do hope there will be another 25 years of this

> publication, whoever is maintaining it at that point in time.

Congratulations and thanks to Pat for maintaining the Digest for so many years. It's a lot more work than it appears.

Probably not, as we will all have implanted chips in our brains by that time making telephones obsolete.

Sorry to be such a downer on New Year's eve. Ok, maybe I'm being too paranoid, but the continuing loss of personal privacy in order to "protect us" has me worried. It doesn't seem to concern anyone else. Indeed, the technies of the world appear to love it because it means lucrative employment opportunities. Lockheed Martin, a major defense contractor, has a big contract for "security" devices for the NYC transit system.

In the name of "security", we allow BOTH the government and private sector (our employers, our mortgager and landlords, our credit cards and banks) to collect all sorts of personal information. It wasn't bad when this stuff was stuffed away in a filing cabinet on paper or even on an old clunky mainframe. But now the stuff is always available on-line in compatible formats, easily shared.

Supposedly this information is for business use only. But sooner or later someone or some other company or govt agency looks eagerly at the mass of data. We don't want terrorists running around, do we? We don't want perverts running around, do we? We don't want drug dealers. We don't want drug users. We don't want deadbeats. We don't want troublemakers. And so on.

Verizon (nee Bell Telephone) announced it is reporting payment promptness to credit bureaus. They used to keep that strictly private.

Each and every one of us at one point or another made a mistake in our lives. Often we got drunk and did something stupid. Maybe we took the weed or sold it. Or, we lost our temper and got into a fist fight at work. Perhaps we stole something. Somewhere that offense is recorded. Maybe it's still only on paper. But if they can convert the entire New York Times to machine readable form, they can convert anything quickly and easily. That little mishap way back in college or high school really is part of your "permanent record".

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hancock4
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