3 July 2003

From: Tarapia Tapioco <comesefosse@ntani.firenze.linux.it>
To: jya@pipeline.com
Subject: Telemarketing Opt Out Trojan Horse
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2003 06:55:58 +0200 (CEST)

At first I was puzzled why President Bush gave an informercial from the White House lawn about the new telemarketing opt-out list.  It seems like an obscure topic.  Wasn't his address overkill, followed as it was by the chairmen of both the FTC and FCC?  Just a few heads shy of a cabinet meeting!

The answer dawned on me after walking through the on-line sign-up.  This scheme is a Trojan horse to harvest our email identities!  The sign-up requires an email address with your phone number.

I talked to a computer friend about it and she said that there was ZERO technical need for e-mail contact.  She said the only "ethical" reason would be to prevent 'spoofing' as she called it.  But then: "Well, really, anyone could file your phone number on the system using their own e-mail, so it doesn't even prevent spoofing.  If that were the goal they would just program a computer call your telephone number and ask you to press 1 to confirm or 2 to reject."  She concluded they must have some other reason for requiring e-mail contact.  She also said that someone at Central Intelligence could easily wait for the data bank to fill up and then copy it to his computer in a few minutes over the government net.  No one would be the wiser.

Do the math for yourself.  They claim 108 sign-ups per second.  That works out to 9.3 million people every 24 hours.  What kind of monster data bank is this?

What really clinched it for me was remembering what another friend showed me at www.postalwatch.org a couple years ago.  The postmaster general had issued new regulations for those little independent mail drops you can rent.  The regulations required mom 'n pop proprietors to collect data for the government - two forms of ID for each box, plus official questions about business or personal use.  (Papers, please!)  There was also some kind of insane new address format requirement.  All this was before TIPS assigned the meter reader, mail carrier, and garbage man to spy on you.

Well, when the regulations came down against HUGE opposition, the postmaster was speaking in public about collecting email addresses and tying them to physical addresses and phone numbers.  To better serve us, sure! - while destroying mom 'n pop.  Hmm.  Lately we have lying Pointdexter with his "undead" pet project TIA - or what was the latest revised name for it?  These people are nothing if not persistent!

Connecting the dots I am guessing that Daddy Bush has friends at command central tapping into all these data banks.  Eventually we will all be chipped and barcoded, won't we.  The total awareness harvest has begun.  Alex Jones has some interesting facts about Walmart and the RFID situation - evidently an FBI connection there.  Nocards.org is good, too.

Let your listeners know that they should not fall into the trap like me.  Think before you give ANY information to the government, especially in electronic form, where it goes zap! into the data banks.  And boycott Walmart - you are supporting slave labor anyhow, forget the RFID.

Isn't it strange how the government can track everything we do with computers, but won't let us see how the computers are used to count our votes during elections?