From: Rick Smith <smith@sctc.com>
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 1996 13:54:06 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Secrecy: My life as a nym. (Was: nym blown?)
Message-ID: <199611122141.PAA27619@shade.sctc.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Hal Finney wrote:

: Are there other measures which parents could take while their children are
: young to get them off to a good start, privacy-wise?

I doubt it's ever too late to start. Sure, it seems as if old, crufty
bits sit on the 'Net just waiting to embarass us ("oh, yeah, maybe I
*did* post to alt.naughty.stuff 'way back then...") but there *is*
such a thing as bit rot and perhaps it really is our friend after all.

The first question, always, when evaluating security measures is to
ask "What are you trying to protect?"

This gets really weird when you don't know what the threats really
are, which is true of this situation. I don't really see "privacy"
itself as something you can pursue as an absolute objective. I think
Black Unicorn's tale illustrates this well -- he doesn't try for
non-existence, instead he describes a series of well reasoned and
consistent steps. Basically, though, it has to be a personal choice.
So it's hard to judge perfectly for another, even your own kids.

IMHO you have to find a reasonable balance for your kids. The problem
is that you don't want your kids to disappear -- there are times they
will WANT their records found. The problem is to make verification
easy when they're directly involved and difficult otherwise.

The basic and obvious rule to most of us is to control the SSN and
don't give out a correct one except when absolutely necessary.  One of
the banks in Minneapolis refuses to pay interest at all if you don't
have your SSN on file.

I toyed with the idea of manipulating birthdates, but it wasn't clear
what the benefit was. Also, it required my wife's help, and I'll defer
to Tim May's recent discussion of his'n'her anarchy if you wonder why
this might be an impediment. If the kids know their "real" birthdate
they'll *always* report it to their teachers. And if it's consistently
incorrect in school records, then what does it mean for it to be
different?

When faced with peculiar situations I try to choose a disclosure that
meets whatever the immediate requirements are but doesn't make it easy
to automatically match up records. Often the best you can do is reduce
certainty and increase the likelihood of multiple matches with other
records. It doesn't hurt if you last name is Smith here in the U.S.A.

Rick.
smith@sctc.com