The Privacy Podcast

Despite data breach notification laws across the country, many breaches just simply go unreported. We need changes in our legal systems to help shape market forces in behalf of privacy. SSNBreach.org was designed to help push market forces in favor of privacy.

Senator Benjamin Cardin has been kind enough to respond to my objections after a disturbing run-in with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in March, 2007. After months of prodding in my behalf, his office finally received a letter from DHS that purported to address my case. In reality, the letter was a complete side-step of the issues, which is not really surprising. So, I made a couple of direct requests to the Senator.

In late June, 2007 I discovered almost 200 files with personal information for 200,000 Louisianans, including 163,000 Social Security Numbers. The files were on a Louisiana State Board of Regents website that appeared to be an internal network, placed online without passwords in some areas. I am working with the Liberty Coalition to launch SSNBreach.org, where affected individuals can search for their names to find out if they were affected by this, or future information breach.

When people say, "I have nothing to hide," they really mean, "I am not ashamed of anything." The truth is, we all have a lot to hide, and shame is just one of many reasons to keep information private or confidential. Having something to hide is not an admission of guilt, and it does not mean you have anything to be ashamed of. We keep Social Security Numbers private not because we are ashamed of the number, but because we fear identity theft. Sometimes medical conditions remain confidential because others may react irrationally to them. Privacy is the recognition that individuals and institutions act unreasonably and irresponsibly to the detriment of individuals and society, when in possession of truthful facts. Humans are biased.

In the context of a recent international trip, this podcast is about three things: First, the authority of the Department of Homeland Security to track the movement of United States citizens once they arrive in the country. Second, useless security tactics that harm freedom of movement and privacy without increasing security, and third, a growing culture of lawlessness and intimidation, as a result of expanding executive power, in the name of National Security.

Long before Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones hit the screen as intergalactic secret agents, the MIB was amassing storehouses of medical information. The Medical Information Bureau maintains a sort of Medical Credit Report on roughly 20% of the United States Population.

Though most colleges and universities no longer use the Social Security Number as the Student ID, financial, lending, and some hold-out colleges regrettably use the SSN as a convenient, but unnecessary identifying number. Because of the sensitive nature of the SSN, a few states, including New York, have outlawed placing the Social Security Number on official University documents, including transcripts; professionals and government officials uniformly warn of the dangers of disseminating a SSN. Notwithstanding, a student's name, Social Security Number, and birth date appears on a distinct minority of nationally ranked school's transcripts and students are not given the option to hide this sensitive information.

Identity thieves use many tactics to gather sensitive personal information. Some check your mailbox. Others dumpster-dive. But now a more sophisticated identity thief might be found slowly cruising medical park parking lots with a laptop. This episode explores the risks to your medical and personal data when your family doctor sets up a wireless network improperly.

We trust private organizations and corporations with massive amounts of private data on a regular basis. While recognizing a vague moral obligation to protect their members, many organizations take only minimal steps to protect privacy. The reason is simple: Privacy violations are low-cost, and low-risk. This episode explores one case study of overcoming internal organizational inertia in favor of privacy.

If the Education Department Secretary, Margaret Spellings, has her way, next year every college student across America will be forced to participate in the largest student surveillance program in the history of the country. Whether students have Federal loans or not, they will be forced to hand over SSN, DOB, location, courses, majors, GPA, and a host of other very sensitive data to a centralized federal database. The goal: Create more accurate college rankings for parents, students, and congress. This database will also be available to congress and the Department of Homeland Security for fighting terrorism. Regardless of the intent, this program is a cure that is worse than the disease.

Imagine a world without privacy. In this not-so-fictitious world, explore realistic scenarios of how cutting the wrong person off in traffic could get you arrested, how calling overseas can land you on a terrorism watch list, or buying a gallon of milk could threaten your credit. With standing on both sides of the political ideological divide, it is surprising that Privacy does not get more political traction, especially in this charged election season. Despite the government and private sector affirmatively eroding privacy rights of large classes of people, privacy has not yet caught on as a major social movement. Privacy advocates must spur a debate about what role privacy should play in our democratic society.

Now that you have graduated from high school, your text messages are probably a bit more sophisticated than: cya l8r @ Strbks lol :-P g2g. …or perhaps not. As it turns out, people text message about just about everything—from confidential business arrangements, to extramarital affairs. Where do all of those text messages go? Well, nowhere. They stay right on your cell phone… even after you have deleted them, and sold your phone to someone else. http://www.aarontitus.net/privacy/

Repeat after me: The internet is NOT a fuzzy cloud. The "fuzzy cloud" picture was developed by a group of wannabe techies who were looking for job security by keeping the rest of us in the dark. The internet is an actual, real-life wire, actually buried in the ground. It might be fiber optics or copper, but the internet is simply a wire. You are now smarter than 25% of your peers- which makes this an extremely efficient podcast. Armed with this understanding, you will be able to sort out the real and bogus threats to privacy online. http://www.aarontitus.net/privacy/

Perhaps you've actually taken time to read a so-called "privacy policy" or two. If you've read closely, you might have noticed that most privacy policies are more akin to "waivers," than a guarantee of rights. The usual result is Junk mail. This podcast will discusses how to avoid common privacy policy snares and junk mail.

Part Three of three parts exploring Identity Security at our Nation’s Universities.