[LINK] Surveillance in extremis

[Kim Holburn]

On 2006 Aug 28, at 5:12 PM, Howard Lowndes wrote:
> Jan Whitaker wrote:
>> At 10:26 AM 28/08/2006, you wrote:
>>> stick to the facts Ma'am...my source on the ground in Ryde has  
>>> passed on a copy of the local paper
>> I hope you weren't suggesting that I was stating any facts or even  
>> attempting to. I don't live in Ryde, or even NSW! :-)
>> BTW, these tags are being used in Ireland as well. One of our  
>> Aust. Privacy Board members just sent a note that it is being  
>> called 'bin brother' there
>>> Just saw a paper here in Galway reporting that 500,000 Irish  
>>> rubbish bins (wheely bins) have been implanted with sensor chips  
>>> from a German company, with no discussion by most councils which  
>>> went along with it. Why? For efficiency, to reduce neighbour  
>>> disputes, and potentially to monitor how much recycling you are  
>>> doing. Privacy advocates noted potential to hack into the related  
>>> remote database and track who is home by changes in rubbish  
>>> volume etc. Being called "Bin Brother".
>> so I'm not alone in my concern.
>
> It's about time privacy advocates stopped drawing very long bows  
> and realised that not all databases run on Microsoft, and that many  
> databases can be made very secure.

I don't think Microsoft is the issue here.  It is possible to make  
even Microsoft databases secure (for example: by not connecting them  
to a network) and it is possible to make even enterprise grade  
databases insecure.

The key is
1) have people been told what's happening,
2) what are the privacy policies in place in the council and  
contractors concerned,
3) are all the concerned parties technically competent to adhere to  
the privacy policies.
4) Look over there is a wookie!  What was your question again?
5) Only terrorists would object to this, are you a terrorist?

That said this is rubbish bins for goodness sake.  Does it really  
matter?  What's the worst case scenario here?  Someone in the council  
could weigh your rubbish?

Kim

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Kim Holburn
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                           -- Lloyd Biggle, Jr. Analog, Apr 1961