Privacy for Sale: How Computerization Has Made Everyone's Private Life an Open SecretPrivacy for Sale is a startling expose and analysis of the demise of privacy in the age of the computer. The proliferation of computerized files containing the intimate details of our private lives--our financial data, medical history, employment records, and on and on--means that practically everything there is to know about any of us is available. Whether it's our driving records, our travel habits, the medications we take, or whom we call on the telephone, it's all on file somewhere. As is what we buy and borrow every time we use a credit card. Privacy for Sale takes readers inside the information industry and introduces us to the people who profit from the data explosion: the Big Three credit bureaus, the superbureaus (wholesalers of the credit industry), the direct marketers, and the information underground, where anything and everything is available for the right price. No one's privacy is safe, not even that of celebrities. (Mr. Rothfeder reveals how easily he was able to obtain personal data about Vice President Dan Quayle and how, with a little more difficulty, he was able to tap information about Dan Rather.). The government offers us little protection: Some of our most important privacy laws are twenty years old and predate the desktop computer revolution. Worse yet, the government itself is infected by data mania and is creating new computer systems monthly to track virtually every aspect of our lives. This revealing--and alarming--book explains what we must do, as individuals and as a nation, to begin to regain control of our private lives. |
From inside the book
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Page 107
... Ted Darling's wife , and the couple's address and telephone number . ( My keyboard input is in bold ; the text in plain type is queries and responses from the computer . ) Looking for Last name : Darling First name : Ted Region ...
... Ted Darling's wife , and the couple's address and telephone number . ( My keyboard input is in bold ; the text in plain type is queries and responses from the computer . ) Looking for Last name : Darling First name : Ted Region ...
Page 108
... Darling First name : Ted Address : 21 Flagstone Road Scarsdale , NY 10583 Press [ cr ] to continue Response ... HEADER REQUEST / TRW Ted Darling 21 Flagstone Road Scarsdale , NY 10583 914-472 - XXXX Spouse : Alice Social Sec . No : 073 ...
... Darling First name : Ted Address : 21 Flagstone Road Scarsdale , NY 10583 Press [ cr ] to continue Response ... HEADER REQUEST / TRW Ted Darling 21 Flagstone Road Scarsdale , NY 10583 914-472 - XXXX Spouse : Alice Social Sec . No : 073 ...
Page 110
... Ted's sister lives in Detroit ; and that Alice's employer , John McLaughlin ... Ted and Alice face - to - face : the Darlings are black . But the com- puter ... Darling . “ People that can get personal infor- mation like that so easily ...
... Ted's sister lives in Detroit ; and that Alice's employer , John McLaughlin ... Ted and Alice face - to - face : the Darlings are black . But the com- puter ... Darling . “ People that can get personal infor- mation like that so easily ...
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activities agencies American arrest asked attorney bank Bardo bill Branch Business Week Califano companies computer matching computerized confidential consumers Corcoran corporate credit bureaus credit card credit data credit files credit grantors credit industry credit report crime criminal customers databanks databases Denise Davis direct marketers dozens Duke electronic employers Equifax FCRA federal Federal Trade Commission FinCEN hiring illegal individuals information resellers Internal Revenue Service IRSC John Branch Koenig law enforcement Lesnick lives look Mark Koenig medical records Michael Danvers million Murray NCIC obtained Office percent personal information phone number police Privacy Act privacy advocates private investigators protect Rather's requested anonymity Robert says selling Service Social Security number someone sources superbureau surveillance Ted Darling telephone number tell there's tion told virtually What's workers