#stupid user

Im still going to get it checked by a pro. But at this point I'm fairly sure I'll be needing a new computer and that means I have lost everything, all that work, gone. If thats so then...while I have a bunch of other projects in mind but as for all the current projects...I dont know.

Macleans magazine’s cover story in November 2005 announced that then-Privacy Commissioner of Canada Jennifer Stoddart’s cellphone records had been obtained by them.

Now the FTC’s Chief Technologist, Lorrie Cranor, has had a similar experience -- someone impersonated her and was able to highjack her cellphone number and acquire two top-of-the-line iPhones. 

I was interested in learning where the theft had occurred and how much of my personal information was in the hands of the thief. Section 609(e) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act requires that companies provide business records related to identity theft to victims within 30 days of receiving a written request. So, following the template provided by Identitytheft.gov, I wrote a letter to my carrier requesting all records related to the fraudulent upgrades on my account. After about two months my carrier sent me the records. I learned that the thief had used a fake ID with my name and her photo. She had acquired the iPhones at a retail story in Ohio, hundreds of miles from where I live, and charged them to my account on an installment plan. It appears she did not actually make use of either phone, suggesting her intention was to sell them for a quick profit. As far as I’m aware the thief has not been caught and could be targeting others with this crime.

Imagine someone sends you a promotional calendar.  Do you pay any attention to it?

What if it has your name on it?

What if it has your picture on it?

Perks have long been a sales tactic.  At one end of the spectrum are the luxury items -- free tickets, expense account steak dinners and single malt, “training” sessions in exotic locations.  At the other end, there’s still a drive to differentiate, to promote, and to build relationships but instead of luxuries, they turn to personalization. 

When it comes to privacy, personalization can go tragically wrong. 

In the past week, we’ve seen a couple of egregious examples of personalization gone wrong – Office Max sending one of its customers promotional mail that included the address line “Daughter Killed in Car Crash”  and Bank of America offering a credit card to Lisa Is A Slut McIntire.   

It’s reminiscent of the revelations last year about how Target (and others) collect and analyze customer information, leading to situations where they are marketing to a profiled pregnant teenager before her father even knew she was pregnant!

Or how about when Wired UK sent out uber-personalized covers to selected subscribers and opinion makers, back in 2011.   One recipient’s personalized cover apparently included the following information:  name, age and birthdate, address, previous address, parents address and (apparently mined from his twitter account) the fact that he had met up with his ex-boyfriend earlier in the month. 

Thing is, we read these news stories or we hear about the incidents and they are intrusive and frightening but they are also distant.  Far removed from us.  Companies elsewhere profiling people we don’t know.    I’ve talked before about the stupid user, the way that line of thinking offloads responsibility onto the individual user rather than on the organization(s) who are exploiting the information – one of its other effects is the insidious way it encourages individuals to buy into it, to presume that a user whose privacy is invaded in this way has brought it upon themselves, has somehow “allowed” this to happen to them, a mindset that implicitly promises that the rest of us are still safe.  Simultaneously highlighting risks and reinforcing the stupid user mindset.

Of course, whether the companies are near or far, whether their victims are known to us or strangers shouldn’t matter.  Doesn’t matter, really.  Though that doesn’t change the fact that when the distance is bridged, when it’s someone or somewhere we know, it hits closer to home. 

This week, I talked to someone who received a calendar in the mail from a printing company with whom his organization had dealt in the past.   A simple promotion, but an opportunity to show off the company’s product and bring the company name to the forefront of a customer’s mind.    To raise their offering out of the ordinary, the company had personalized the calendar.  Again, a fairly simple idea – we’ve all seen the hats, the logo t-shirts and golf shirts, the monogrammed pens.  So this time, the company went one step further – they personalized the calendar not only with his name, but with a picture of him.  A picture that he says they must have gotten from his Facebook even though he’s not Facebook friends with anyone at the company. 

It’s not telling your parents that you’re pregnant.  Or mistakenly name-calling or revealing agonizing personal details in a label.  Nor is it splashing your personal information all over a magazine cover.   Indeed, he says it’s not that bad.  That he probably didn’t have strong enough privacy settings (or any privacy settings) on his photos. 

You see how insidious that stupid user thinking is?    An invasion of privacy and he’s already taking responsibility for it, bringing up the issue of privacy settings.  He doesn’t want to shame the company, make a complaint, or look for compensation.  Despite his discomfort with the invasion, he still holds himself accountable. 

LOL Whut?

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Before anybody gets butthurt, I can see this is a joke.