DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

According to WorkingForCharge:

Last month, the Pentagon announced that since 2002 it has secretly been compiling a database containing the personal information of tens of millions of Americans as young as 16 years of age. The database includes information such as Social Security numbers, height, weight, ethnicity, grade-point averages, e-mail addresses and phone numbers.

The custody and maintenance of this database has been contracted out to a private firm named BeNow. BeNow has no privacy policy posted to its website, nor a privacy or security officer listed on its management team.

The Defense Department now proposes a wide range of “routine uses” for this database, including disclosure of records contained in the database for functions wholly unrelated to recruitment. Although individuals can opt-out of recruitment solicitations, there is no way to opt-out of this enormous database as a whole.

Compilation of this database is not only a spooky invasion of our families’ privacy, it’s also a violation of the law. The Federal Privacy Act requires that government agencies accept public comment before new records systems are created — a requirement that was blatantly ignored in this case.

So, how long until this database gets compromised?

All it will take is a stolen laptop, or a misplaced backup tape, or a dishonest employee, or a couple of identity thieves posing as real customers, and the next thing you know there will be another headline about a few million names and addresses and social security numbers being made available to the highest bidder.

This sentence should make you nervous: “The custody and maintenance of this database has been contracted out to a private firm…” Love it or hate it, the military seems to be pretty good at maintaining security and keeping secrets. Sure, there are exceptions… but on the whole I have a lot less confidence in the ability of BeNow, a self-described “marketing services” company, to secure its assets.

There’s some great information on the Privacy Act of 1974, and the BeNow database, at the Electronic Privacy Information Clearinghouse site.

The latest batch of spring mix contained a bit more protein than I expected.

A recent piece of Cingular junkmail contained something I’ve never seen before: an opt-out notice. In boxed, boldface type, on the front page of the letter, it declares:

You can choose to stop receiving “prescreened” offers of credit from this and other companies by calling toll-free 1 (888) 567-8688. See PRESCREEN & OPT-OUT NOTICE on the other side for more information about prescreened offers.

What would possess a multinational telecom firm that relies (at least in part) on buying personal contact information to send out unsolicited and generally unwanted junkmail offers, to allow its victims to request that they stop? I have no idea, but I approve.

The telephone number belongs to the credit reporting agencies’ automated opt-out mechanism, which can also and probably more easily be accessed here: http://www.optoutprescreen.com

They’re now offering a lifetime opt-out. My fuzzy recollection is that in years past they offered only a 5-year term.

In any case, as despicable as I find it that these folks trade my personal information like kids trade baseball cards, I’m grateful they allow me to opt out at all, even if I have to keep doing it for every imaginable variation of my name, my wife’s name, the previous residents’ names, etc.

I’m also grateful that the junkmailers of the world have not yet discovered that we have a baby. (Sshhhh!)

A couple years ago I replaced the disk drive in my Powerbook. The new drive was bigger, faster, and quieter than the stock unit; it added 30% to my storage capacity and shaved about 20 seconds off the boot time. The original drive went into a FireWire enclosure, giving me a convenient and portable backup device. (GeekNote: it’s bus-powered, so I don’t even need to carry a power cable.)

When I replaced the drive, I wondered if I was voiding my warranty. Apple offers a fantastic extended warranty plan, which includes free two-way overnight shipping, including the box and tape, and I didn’t want to lose it. I figured at the time that I’d just swap the original drive back into the laptop, should I need to get a warranty repair.

The time for the warranty repair finally came: the LCD was getting dim. I went through the troublesome process of removing the disk drive from the laptop, and then attempted to pull the original drive — which I’d already backed up, erased, and done a fresh install of OS X onto — out of its home, the OWC Mercury On-The-Go FireWire Portable.

This case is unique in that it doesn’t split open. It’s seamless. The drive is inserted from one end, into rubberized tracks that act like tiny shock absorbers. The problem, I discovered, is that these rubber tracks only slide in one direction. My disk drive wouldn’t come back out.

The manual does warn about this: “The side rails are made of silicone rubber and once inserted, it is difficult to remove.” Sigh.

So, it’s a nice case, but beware if you think you’ll ever want your disk drive back.

Jon Carroll’s column today made me laugh out loud:

Very soon now, our nation will engage in one of its most festive and patriotic days of celebration. Picnics will be held, kids will race around, flags will be carried, fireworks will be set off. The day means many things to many people, but I like to think of it as a celebration of the First Amendment, particularly freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.

Sometimes I’m at the edge of tears when I see these Americans of all different races and religions and ages gathering together freely and openly. That’s when I feel the most patriotic, when people put aside their differences and come together for a giant party celebrating our commonality of purpose.

I refer, of course, to this Sunday, gay pride day.

W00t!