From:    Ammond Shadowcraft                     Area: Metaphysical
To:      All                                    27 Apr 92 13:48:00
Subject: Corrupt the databases...               UpdReq 

Corrupt.1
Today, the 27th of April 1992, I had an interesting but disturbing
experience.
Being at the mall I dropped by COST CUTTERS (family hair salon) to
get a quick trim of what little hair I have left. As I walked up to
the counter three CC employees had surrounded their brand-new
computerized cash register. I could see that these people had little
training for this device. This caused me to wait until they arrived
at a consensus decision on some minor problem.
Looking at me one of the employees asked me to fill out a small form
with my name and address. Naturally I refused to fill out the form.
This seemed to surprise the employees just a little.
Another employee asked another how to enter my business into the
computer without the requested form. They didn't know. Another
employee told me that 'we are on the computer now. The last four
digits of your phone number is the log number on the receipt.' I
refused by replying that I didn't need to be in their data base and
would take my business elsewhere. Off I went to lunch.
After lunch I thought about clarifying the issue just for the
record. Trotting down to the store I walked up to a woman (an
assistant manager) and asked her if she wanted a second chance at
getting my business. I hadn't seen her before but she apparently had
heard something from the other employees. She replied that she had
no way to enter my business into the computer with out my name and
phone number.
"Look," I said, "I don't want to be in your data base, I don't want
to be in anyone else's database either. Now I want a haircut and you
want my money. What's it gonna' be?"
"Sorry I can't."
"Whose the manager here?"
"I'm one of them."
"Where's the other?"
"She's not here. But let me call someone and get some help."
After making two calls she found out that she could put any name and
number she wanted into the computer. With that I became Bob with a
number that wasn't my own and got my haircut from a very
appreciative woman who seemed to like my idea of not being in the
database.
Upon leaving I was offered the receipt. "Does it have a name on it?
"Yeah, Bob."
"That isn't my name." and I walked off.
There are over 1700 federal and state agencies which collect
information of citizens. I can't even guess how many thousands of
private organizations collect data on customers. With all this there
is almost no way to evaluate and correct information in these many
thousands of databases all around the world.  
 

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From:    Ammond Shadowcraft                     Area: Metaphysical
To:      All                                    27 Apr 92 13:49:00
Subject: corrupt the Databases...               UpdReq 

Corrupt.2
Think of all the junk mail every citizen gets? How many forests are
destroyed because of junk mail? Too many I would guess. So I get to
recycle all this junk mail (which costs me money just to take it to
the people who will handle it just because not many will).
To remedy this I propose that we handle the situation a little
differently. When a business just isn't flexible enough to handle
the refusenik, then a different tack is called for.
Lie.
It's fun. I suddenly become Harvard T. Hillbert (the English
spelling with two ls please), whose address just happens to be a
local recycling business. The challenge is to remember who you are
for 30 or so minutes and not loose your cool.
There are also many hundreds of businesses which collect social
security numbers (against some state and federal laws). In Colorado
there is now an option (it was mandatory before) to put your SSN on
your drivers license.  I refused that too. But where state or
federal agencies are NOT concerned, then lie. My SSN suddenly
becomes 815-33-0000 and my phone number 666-0000.
Sooner or latter the collecting agencies will have a significant
unknown percentage of their databases corrupted and will spend
thousands of bucks either recycling junk mail for us or getting it
back from the Postal Service. Either way, we win. Trees are saved,
though some fuel is expended, but the collectors of data will
eventually get the message that their moving targets don't want to
be identified.
Enjoy being someone else for once!  
 

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