Buying a 'dissenting' book could put you on the map! You must read this

[BR_Parkway]

to see just how simply your already public data can be used to round up those who disagree with those in power.

http://www.applefritter.com/bannedbooks

<snip>

If some results look suspiciously low, it's probably because in many cases I searched for a specific ISBN while the book is available in multiple formats. Only the first page of each user's wishlist was downloaded. Books are always added to the front of the wishlist which pushes older titles off the first page, so there is also a slight bias in favor of newer books.

It is possible for users to associate a shipping address with their wishlists, so that others can order them gifts. Though the full address is hidden, city and state remain visible. I already have first and last name. With this information, I can do a Yahoo People Search to obtain an exact street address and phone number. Viewing the wishlists that contained Apple I Replica Creation, I found that all four provided the user's city and state. Of these four, one was a common name that produced multiple hits in his town, two were unlisted (although one of them was in the Intelius database which I opted not to pay for), and the final individual was present on Yahoo People. So I sent him a signed copy and thanked him for his interest.

Thanks to Google Maps (and many similar services) a street address is all we need to get a satellite image of a person's home. Tempted as I was to provide satellite images of the homes of the search subjects, it just seemed a bit extreme even for this article. Instead, I opted only to pinpoint the centers of the towns in which they live. So at least you'll know that there's somebody in your community reading Critical Thinking or some other dangerous text.

<snip>

In under 4 hours, he downloads over a quarter million Amazon book wishlists, searches through them for various titles that might be considered subversive, plots them to their GPS coordinates and displays them on an interactive Google map - all from info that is in the public domain! By a guy who may still be in college, running a pair of 5 year old spare computers.

Just imagine what a fully funded government operation with the ability to peak into much more remote corners knows about you. It's a must read, and is easy to follow along, even if you skip over the geekspeak parts.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

1. That is scary as hell.

They must have some case file on me.

DU, Bartcop, Salon, Bluelight.nu, Erowid.org...

[EFerrari]

2. I keep saying we should each mail in a few pounds of paper

and give these guys something to do.

A list of every book you own or have ever read. A list of every person you know or have ever thought about. Phone records since you were 16. You pet's vet records. Your kid's last holiday play script. Your lawn mower manual.

You get the idea.

[mom cat]

8. I'll go put some freeper titles in my wishlist! Do they read real books?

[i miss america]

10. Ha! Check this out ...

Someone with a wonderful sense of humor got here first ...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/registry.html/104-0396264-4251958?%5Fencoding=UTF8&type=wishlist&id=3VEICWEHW44GQ

:rofl:

[Lochloosa]

12. You should start a thread on this one. It's deserves it's own.

:woohoo:

[AnneD]

14. Got my day off to a great start.

:rofl:

[atommom]

17. Speling is very impotent!

:rofl:

[FreedomAngel82]

32. And family values!

[BR_Parkway]

18. Thank you for posting that - It cheered me up!

[mom cat]

21. That was well worth the time ... Thanks!

[johnaries]

26. "Free Cocaine"!

:rofl:

[EFerrari]

20. Depends what you mean by real. This one comes to mind:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1595230092.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

[malaise]

3. I don't give a flying fugg

No government is going to tell me what books to read.

[NMMNG]

4. Nothing is private anymore

Especially now with Dumbya and his cronies working to tap into everything we do, no matter how tightly we close our blinds.


I'll make it easier for you peepers. I recently borrowed 1984 (my copy is packed away) and The Handmaid's Tale from the public library. I also own Slaughterhouse Five, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, What Liberal Media?, The Catcher in the Rye and a whole slew of other subversive books. Deal with it.

[hfojvt]

5. I just checked

I do not have a wishlist.

[acmavm]

6. Well since it's a list of books I guess that mean's blivet won't ever make

the map.

[Crayson]

7. Data Mining... lets flood the mine and drown them

There's tons of data out there about every person.
Just enter your name into google and it will turn up something most certainly (sports, social events, anything you took part once).
And there is all the data you FREELY give away by creating freemail accounts, forum logins, online shopping, everything that adds to your convenience actually STORES DATA about you.

Just an idea:
---------------
Since you'll not be able to stop data mining I wonder how long it will take before we see the first "virtual person bots".
Software that simulates persons and opens accounts and does some stuff online and SPAMS databases with fake personalities.

I mean: who is the most anonymous guy in the US? I'd guess it's "John Smith".
Now imagine a Bot that crawls the internet and lays traces off hundred people with YOUR name but totally different personality profiles all over the world.
One visiting christian homepages, one reading forums of the china communist party, one volouteering at the local retirement home.
Tons of "good" and "bad" behavior in tons of places.
Of course you'd have to run that bot from different IP addresses and so on.

[LisaLynne]

9. I agree. They don't have enough people to ...

decipher as much info as they get. I think the point we need to drive home is that if they are wasting their limited resources on what books people are reading, they are not paying enough attention to people who, say, are taking flying lessons without learning to land, for example. If they have no better clues about how to track down the so-called "sleeper cells" in this country than to check what all Americans are reading, then we're in big trouble. I think even most conservatives could eventually understand that.

Of course, then, there are the uber cons who think to read is to hate America ...

[klook]

16. Excellent idea, which I've been practicing for years

Whenever I have to identify myself to a web site, I use a disposable forwarding address. I also give them widly inaccurate demographic information whenever possible. I especially like to tell them I'm a 103-year-old woman from a rural area, because that's the least desirable demographic for marketers.

Until 2002, Radio Shack asked for customers' name, address, and phone number for every purchase! They'd tell you it was required if you wanted to return an item, but of course that was BS. I finally got tired of protesting and just gave them fake info. I'm responsible for probably 20 or 30 different fake entries in their database over the years. Apparently quite a few other customers did the same thing--not to mention the ill will this generated among the buying public--so they finally wised up and dropped the practice.

In a way, though, I kind of miss giving them a name and address so absurd it was a real challenge not to laugh.

[Deja Q]

11. Damn. I shouldn't have bought "America's Moral Crisis" for my relatives

for xmas last year. :eyes:

It takes LITTLE for anybody to determine what we are.

The real question is, do they think we're capable of change?

[Neil Lisst]

13. buying 1984 gets you ON the list!

I can imagine that buying 1984 would get one's name kept.

[leftofthedial]

15. a fully funded government program led by the bush crime gang

could probably do that in about 4 years.


privacy is dead. has been for a generation. the corpse is now just rotting in the sun.

[grasswire]

19. buy books locally and pay cash

Thanks for posting this. It's an encouragement to change Internet habits.

[glitch]

22. Then I am on it many times over. nt

:P

[dysfunctional press]

23. same here-

if amazon's telling, i'm listed a number of times.

[Pachamama]

25. It's more than just having a "Wishlist"-Any record of Amazon sales & items

shipped to you are in a database that could be datamined....

LOL! I've probably got every book on the "banned list" that the Repukes would consider to mark a political dissident....

I think one has to assume these days that they know everything....from the books you buy/read, to where you have donated money and which causes, to whether you like your Starbucks Latte caffeinated or prefer Peet's Coffee and what you buy everytime you go to Costco or Safeway. They know your whereabouts based on purchases of gas and goods and toll booth radio signals. More modern cars and your GPS and even your cell phone give off signals. Airplane ticket records etc....

When they want to come after people, they got all the details and "profiles" that they need....And I'm sure that we are all on them....

And you know what? I don't give a flying FUCHeney...I will continue to buy, read and speak out as I have done....

[dysfunctional press]

30. i've got at least a couple dozen on my shelves-

but i don't do coffee of any kind, no cellphone and an older auto- so no gps.

and i'm not going to say how many guns in the house- but when they come- they better come fast and heavy.

[kimpossible]

24. You can (and should) make your wishlist private

Go into "edit your wishlist" and you'll get the option to choose

This list will be viewable by:
Anyone who searches for me.
Only people I have invited with the "Share this list" feature.
Only me.

If you pick "only people I've invited", then you'll be able to share it with your friends but it won't be publicly searchable.

[rucky]

27. Or we could use this technology to find like-minded people

in our community, and ORGANIZE.

[EVDebs]

28. TIA and RFIDs and background checks...the new domestic terror

campaign against dissenters to the BushCo world order

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2025401

BTW, Plamegate and the NSA spying domestically all relate back to a pre-9/11 event at the NSA itself

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=463162&mesg_id=466614

...the 'policy shift' they wish to keep a secret is the smoking gun.

[Javaman]

29. This is why I keep my list off of Amazon.

I search for it on Amazon then buy it on Barnes & Noble (a blue company)

[FreedomAngel82]

31. Oh wow

Do they get you just for ordering the book or even just viewing? I have bought a few democratic books lately this past year (Al Franken's new one and Jimmy Carter).

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

33. I heard a story on NPR from a librarian who'd been asked to provide names

of people who checked out books about Bin Laden.

This was before the NS letters etc and NSA spying, I guess from what she said. And she managed to avoid handing the info over.

And I thought I was bein' silly when I bought Pet'r B'rgen's book H'ly War Inc about Bin Laden. I felt nervous that it might be viewed as suspicious.

Of course I was an antiwar person in the Nixon VN era, and back then we all pretty much assumed we were being surveilled in one way or another. And had an FBI file.