Database Nation The Death of Privacy in the 21st Century Also by Simson Garfinkel Architects of the Information Society (edited by Hal Abelson) Stopping Spam (coauthored with Alan Schwartz) Web Security & Commerce (with Gene Spafford) Practical UNIX & Internet Security (coauthored with Gene Spafford) PGP: Pretty Good Privacy The UNIX-HATERS Handbook (with Daniel Weise and Steven Strassmann) NeXTSTEP Programming (coauthored with Michael Mahoney) Practical UNIX Security (coauthored with Gene Spafford) Database Nation The Death of Privacy in the 21st Century Simson Garfinkel Beijing • Cambridge • Farnham • Kưln • Paris • Sebastopol • Taipei • Tokyo Database Nation: The Death of Privacy in the 21st Century by Simson Garfinkel Copyright  2000 O'Reilly & Associates, Inc All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Cover photograph of eye  John Feingersh/Stock Market Published by O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., 101 Morris Street, Sebastopol, CA 95472 Editor: Deborah Russell Production Editor: Madeleine Newell Cover Designer: Hanna Dyer Printing History: January 2000: First Edition Nutshell Handbook, the Nutshell Handbook logo, and the O'Reilly logo are registered trademarks of O'Reilly & Associates, Inc Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks Where those designations appear in this book, and O'Reilly & Associates, Inc was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in caps or initial caps While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Garfinkel, Simson Database nation: the death of privacy in the 21st century / Simson Garfinkel p cm Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 1-56592-653-6 (alk paper) Privacy, Right of United States Computer security United States I Title JC596.2U5 G37 2000 323.44'8'0973 dc21 99-058637 For Sonia who will be 55 in 2048 Contents Privacy Under Attack Database Nation 13 Absolute Identification 37 What did you Today? 69 The View from above 93 To know your Future 125 Buy Now! 155 Who Owns your Information? 177 Kooks and Terrorists 209 10 Excuse Me, but are you Human? 241 11 Privacy Now! 257 Annotated Bibliography and Notes 273 Acknowledgments 293 Index 299 Chapter One Privacy Under Attack You wake to the sound of a ringing telephone—but how could that happen? Several months ago, you reprogrammed your home telephone system so the phone would never ring before the civilized hour of 8:00 a.m But it's barely 6:45 a.m Who could be calling at this time? More importantly, who was able to bypass your phone's programming? You pick up the telephone receiver, then slam it down a moment later It's one of those marketing machines playing a prerecorded message Computerized telemarketing calls have been illegal within the United States for more than a decade now, but ever since international long-distance prices dropped below 10 cents a minute, calls have been pouring in to North America from all over the world And they're nearly all marketing calls—hence the popularity of programmable phones today What's troubling you now is how this call got past the filters you set up Later on, you'll discover how: the company that sold you the phone created an undocumented "back door"; last week, the phone codes were sold in an online auction Because you weren't paying attention, you lost the chance to buy back your privacy Oops Now that you're awake, you decide to go through yesterday's mail There's a letter from the neighborhood hospital you visited last month "We're pleased that our emergency room could serve you in your time of need," the letter begins "As you know, our fees (based on our agreement with your HMO) not cover the cost of treatment To make up the difference, a number of hospitals have started selling patient records to medical researchers and consumer marketing firms Rather than mimic this distasteful behavior, we have decided to ask you to help us make up the difference We are recommending a tax-deductible contribution of $275 to help defray the cost of your visit." The veiled threat isn't empty, but you decide you don't really care who finds out about your sprained wrist You fold the letter in half and drop it into your shredder Also into the shredder goes a trio of low-interest credit card offers ... with Gene Spafford) Database Nation The Death of Privacy in the 21st Century Simson Garfinkel Beijing • Cambridge • Farnham • Kưln • Paris • Sebastopol • Taipei • Tokyo Database Nation: The Death... benefits Accurate statistics could be created quickly and precisely from the nation' s data By building a single national database, the government could track down and stamp out the misspelled names... O'Reilly & Associates, Inc Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks Where those designations appear in this book, and O'Reilly