Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Privacy and the Shotgun Approach to Databases

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About a week ago I got a letter addressed to me, from some distant purveyor of goodness knows what. The odd thing was that my current addy was correct, but it had the addition of Apt 4. This used to be the case when I lived in San Francisco, but out in the foothills of the old west, I am located on a ranch I own, no apartments here at all, just a ranch house.

Today I got a letter addressed to;

Alicia Freeman Lewin
(my rural address)

It was for a high school reunion, at a high school I'd never heard of in Southern California.

Now my ex wife of 32 years (Alicia Freeman), who's charming second husband Ronald Lewin died about six years ago, does exist, but never at this address.

Somewhere along the line some programmer rigged the system to find the faintest sort of connection possible, and then issued a letter. For all I know all her ex byfriends and goodness knows who else got invites as well. I would say that this kind of data mining as gone a bit too far...

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