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To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (103051)	4/29/2000 10:08:00 AM
From: TimF	Respond to of 186894

RE: I've got a better idea. I'm typing this on my Pentium III. Want to know what my processor's serial number is? If the "privacy lunatics" are right, you should have no trouble using that serial number to access my real name, credit card info, home address, etc. Tenchusatsu Your not connected to her computer. The correct people to ask would be the people who run SI. I do agree with you however that to much is made out of the Pentium III's supposed privacy concerns. Web masters can examine your IP address, and your NIC (if you are using one) has a unique MAC address. The Pentium III's broadcast of its serial number can at least be disabled. Tim

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (103051)	5/1/2000 5:24:00 AM
From: Amy J	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Hi Ten, RE: privacy. I have an even better idea : ) Please click on this URL: whathappenswheniclickhere.com There's a strong chance the website registrant could get everything you mentioned except for a credit card #. (I'm joking about the URL above, but am serious about the security implications which exist, of which some I'll list some below:) If a person hears some rather loud sounds from their hard disk, then they may have their TCP/IP settings configured so their entire hard disk is exposed to anyone on the Internet. In fact, a large phone company is being sued for this by a lawyer who was shocked to find out his hard disk (and all his files on his hard disk) were exposed for anyone to take, through his DSL connection. Unrelated to the above issue, but involving this same large phone company, this company's technicians enter a person's full name when configuring a DSL installation, which means you'll be sending out your full name with those packets even if you use an alias. The average consumer isn't going to know this. In fact, even if you don't have a DSL connection, a person's real name can be picked up even when folks use aliases when transmitting from certain environments (and I won't not get into the details here). Back to the PSN issue, a simple mapping between the PSN and name could yield the individual e-shopping behavior by a potentially unauthorized entity. However, Clinton (not your fav) recently has proposed legislation to restrict dissemination of user information from entering into the hands of "unauthorized" entities, in addition to restricting the dissemination of information between insurance companies, banks, and financial institutions that house databases (whose interests cross-conflict for the consumer). Most likely these will not pass because of the current congressional leaders. This could be a loss for the consumer, and possibly even for high-tech too, because if these rules were in place, I think some advancements could have been made quicker, since proper legislation could have been pointed to as a protection of the consumers' rights. It would not have stopped a bad site from gathering and sharing information they have no business gathering & sharing, but these laws at least would have made it illegal to do so, so that legitimate websites/etailers could share with consumer authorized entities. In a public forum, Janet Reno asked a lot of business owners in the high-tech community to hand over some of their intellectual property pertaining to security & viruses, to her office so the USA could beef up security measures. Without much in-depth look, the request appeared to lack an understanding of the relationship between Intellectual Property and Revenue, and the motivation to innovate. It also appeared to lack some basic software industry knowledge and financial business modeling. The proposal essentially was asking the high-tech community to be one big shareware program for the DOJ. I was quite surprised. Having said that, it's still the wild west out there on the Internet - lots of potholes, and us folks in the high-tech community need to feel responsible to fix this up, but in ways which are motivating for the shareholders (investors and employees) to support the development of innovation in the industry, but the DOJ's consistent proposals for folks to turn their code into shareware and for asking companies to release their IP, just isn't the right way (for a capitalistic country) and does not support innovation. This is America - freedom to innovate? Amy J