Loss of Privacy

If you’ve ever wanted to know just what is out there in the numerous databases, The Consumerist has a detailed list so that you can perform a complete background check on yourself.

Now you can know what Big Brother knows about you and get access to the same dirt everyone from your boss, landlord, insurance agent, to your favorite casino has on you. Here is a comprehenisve list of websites and phone numbers for most of the “specialty” consumer reports, like your employment, rental, and check writing history. Be sure to check them out and correct any errors, before a crisis hits.

Unfortunately, many of the places on the list are also not free.

When looking at the list that The Consumerist has compiled, it’s a little scary and nerve-wrecking to know that ChoicePoint is on that list. They were caught selling information to criminal organizations in the past, which doesn’t leave me thinking my data is very secure.

LexisNexus won’t let you opt-out unless you are lucky enough to be a politician, work in law enforcement, have filed an identity theft crime report or have a restraining order on file somewhere. Those of us that are not luck cannot stop them from spying on us.

Having a database of prescription drug purchase history also seems like some sort of privacy violation as well. Ingenix is part of UnitedHealth Group. UnitedHealth Group owns UnitedHealthcare, the second-largest insurer in the nation. The Medical Information Bureau (MIB) is also very scary.

It is also likely that many of these companies buy and sell their information amongst one another. There is also far more detail about you in these databases than you could ever dream of and there’s no way to opt out and very difficult to protect your own information.

O Grande Irmão Sempre Observa – The Big Brother Always Watches from Felipe Astolfi on Vimeo.

After betraying the Party, Winston, lives his last days of imprisonment and torture. Based in the book 1984, by George Orwell.

Written, Directed, Filmed and Acted by:
Felipe Astolfi
Felipe Kaizer

2005 @ PUC-Rio Graduation

From boing boing:

I’m a Brazilian graphic/motion designer and I made this video for college in 2005 with friend: a short movie about 1984 with sock puppets. I took some time to translate and making the subtitles it but finally is done. At the last months on a Media class in college, Felipe Kaizer and I, like the other students, were asked to do a small video. When we were discussing the subject, I was at that time enthusiastic about puppets, suggested, as a joke, a puppet film based on George Orwell’s 1984. Kaizer took the idea very seriously, because somehow the mean to show that history sounded appropriate; as puppets were associated to children’s play they could turn into a disguised and powerful way to present terror, becoming a ‘bait’ for those who thought they were just going to laugh and have fun. Puppets may remind us about that immemorial time when inanimated objects became sacred and alive, as gods in ancient cultures, inspiring us terror as they reveal a distorted human behavior (a caricature, owner of a magic and almost inhuman voice), or remind us someone who refuses to die. Curiously some televisions ads at that time were also using puppets to sell a variety of products.

We wrote the script, the storyboard, and prepared the puppets. All scenes were shot at my home and at my parents (the number of one of them was 101), and we were sure that was the right choice. The production should seem amateur, like a home-video made by kids who tried very hard to do it right. The first impression should provoke disdain and scorn, and then discomfort as the video goes on; the soundtrack included some amazing Aphex Twin tracks. We also thought home objects, such as the gloves and socks we already had, would contribute to the richness of the video, considering that we didn’t design those objects, so as they were found on the ‘crime scene’. We let the environment decide a lot of things for us — the telescreen images were shots from the television’s screen, for example –, and we edited the storyboard during the shots, adapting speech lines and shooting angles. Me and Kaizer did all the characters and shootings by ourselves, except one time when we needed a fifth hand and our friend Aline Jobim did one of the prison guards. In December (I think) the video was presented among others. The effect was precisely what we expected: people immediately laugh, and then slowly ceased until they were absolutely quiet and still, watching the puppets’ action. As you remember, it doesn’t have a happy end.



The public is now being courted to play a new “game” in which individual citizens in the UK will be watching CCTV cameras and be monetarily rewarded for reporting crime.  Internet Eyes is the name of the game and it is hoped that British citizens will enjoy participating.

Viewers are anonymously monitoring random video feeds streamed from privately owned establishments.  At no time can Viewers designate or control the video feeds they receive and the locations of the feeds are not disclosed.

The instant a Viewer monitors an event, an alert can be sent directly to the owner of that live camera feed. The alert is sent along with a screen grab, identifying the image you have observed. Only the first alert received by the camera owner is accepted.

The camera owner will then feedback (rate) the result of the alert. Their feedback is converted into points and entered into a Viewers monthly league table. At the end of each month the highest scoring Viewer will receive the reward money; this could be split in the event of a tie.

Viewers register for free with no recurring fees. Each Viewer has 3 x alerts per month allocated to their account for free. Viewers are able to ‘top up’ their alerts through PayPal if they so desire. The free allocations of alerts are limited to prevent system abuse.

There are many questions about this system.  If you flag something as suspicious and you get a point, who gets notified?  Does the business find out immediately or do they call the police?  If they want you to watch numerous feeds, how quickly will your three false alarms trigger a banning?

This system is ripe for abuse and, I suspect, many pranks will be pulled via Internet Eyes.

…businessman Tony Morgan, a former restaurant owner, said it would give local businesses protection against petty criminals, and act as a deterrent once ‘Internet Eyes patrol here’ signs are prominently displayed.

He will charge those who use the service, which could eventually include local authorities and even police forces as well as shop owners, £20 a week per camera to have their CCTV included on the site – amounting to thousands each year.

Ah, so it’s a protection racket masquerading as a crime prevention tool.  You pay money for a system that might work.  You get people to watch, who might be the magical monthly winner.  Then, you sit at home, collect all that cash and claim that you’re doing good for the community.

I know that, if I were a criminal, I would be interested in such a system as well.  I can join as a player, watch the cameras, and plot my crimes.  It doesn’t matter if the feeds are anonymously sent.  If you know the area, you can still plot out crimes.

The other problem is that this appears more of a conditioning tool, getting people used to being watched all the time.  As it stands, although there are millions of cameras in the UK, only one in a thousand is watched.  Now, if they make a game out of it, more cameras are watched, but people don’t take it seriously.  Eventually, the “gamers” will become regular employees and, by then, it will be too late to complain about your privacy.

I’m starting to have Fahrenheit 451 flashbacks now.

According to Wikileaks, big brother is coming soon to Switzerland.

These confidential documents detail information on an official program for centralized, real-time, interception of Internet traffic in Switzerland.

You can download the file from here [zip file], or one of the other many mirrors listed in the article.