Are you tired of being under surveillance?

[tripelix]

Never in the time of human existence has each detail of our daily lives been under such constant scrutiny. Many may think that by making these statements I would be protesting over only my own government. Indeed the revelations made by Edward Snowden over the NSA programs are a valid concern. It is not though setting the price of goods and limiting the opportunities of millions like those of corporate interests. The countless corporate entities monitoring practically all of our actions is the real shared problem we face. It seems that the idea of our privacy was somehow lost.

If you are under 40 you only know of life with surveillance, it hasn’t always been this way. And really it doesn’t need to be this way either.

I’ve written a book, but that’s not why I am posting here. I need help, I have a website that I hope to list every company that is stealing our information and selling it. Trust me it is a big list. I have done part of the work and I invite you to take a look. HTTP://itsmyinfo.org

If you like youtube videos check out the videos page on the site, look for Congressional Testimony. It’s the third video down on the left.

If you are interested in giving me please let me know.

Thanks

Trip

Tripelix (@) outlook.com

[THCMinister]

Is is just me or is it funny that the pen name Trip elix AKA William Murray is listed as writing fiction as opposed to non-fiction?

[digip]

Is is just me or is it funny that the pen name Trip elix AKA William Murray is listed as writing fiction as opposed to non-fiction?

Or that "Triple IX" is 999 and when upside down is 666..../derp

In all seriousness though, the surveillance state is not just governments these days(although all governments have spied on their people long before the USA even existed). Public, private, and many other data collections stores exist these days, with people themselves using technology to spy on others. To answer the ops thread question, yes, I'm tired of it, but also trying to do something about it in some form which I'll post about soon as I 1, get it working to some extent, and 2 have free time to actually work on it more...

[tripelix]

Is is just me or is it funny that the pen name Trip elix AKA William Murray is listed as writing fiction as opposed to non-fiction?

its Trip Elix llc just for calcification dgs on names anymore homes already visited

[tripelix]

Or that "Triple IX" is 999 and when upside down is 666..../derp

In all seriousness though, the surveillance state is not just governments these days(although all governments have spied on their people long before the USA even existed). Public, private, and many other data collections stores exist these days, with people themselves using technology to spy on others. To answer the ops thread question, yes, I'm tired of it, but also trying to do something about it in some form which I'll post about soon as I 1, get it working to some extent, and 2 have free time to actually work on it more...

its xxx you can give me a hand if you would like to expose list brokers every company that sells their mailing list check out http://lists.nextmark.com its not all of them but would put a dent in the list.

[digip]

I was more or less being facetious, but I do take security and personal data integrity very serious. Places like MailChimp's data bases, would be ripe hunting grounds for someone looking to harvest identities for example, how we change the way we think about storage and protecting our data, or ways in which we let sites use and gather it in the first place, such as advertisers, its a different ball game in the digital age when literally everything we do online is some sort of analytic metric that is being gathered, parsed and used for any number of purposes, from selling us penis pumps, to spying on our surfing habits, what we do both on and offline, from 4square, to facebook, stores that track our cell phone data between chains, geographic data collection, to tying it all together to see the mesh of our daily activity, people are doing it and making correlations to who and what we are/do, and we have to always be conscious of this fact - all your data are belong to anyone who wants to use it.

[cooper]

Let me start with saying that your website looks like shit in Firefox.

Moving on to the actual topic, my big issue with these sorts of endeavors is what's the point?

So you end up with a list of companies that *someone* *somewhere* claims has sold their mailing list. It's ridiculously easy to get on the list, even when a company shouldn't be, and impossible to get off. As time progresses the chance of a company to appear on the list approaches 100% so why even make a list?

Here's a thought: IF YOU DON'T WANT YOUR INFORMATION OUT THERE, DON'T PUT IT THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE!

And what does the selling of customer info have to do with "being under surveillance"? In the context of most people here that means abbreviated government branches taking a keen interest in your online activities without you knowing about it. While the distinction is subtle, at least with a corporation there's a big-ass disclaimer somewhere which you agreed with (seriously, when was the last time you read the ToS for anything?) so you have some idea of what was coming and for the really bad transgressions there's someone for you to sue. Good luck trying that with the government.

What people just fail to grasp is that FREE SERVICES AREN'T! Nothing's for free. The internet has NOT changed this fact, even though everybody seems to think so.

• Your online email account is NOT free.
• Facebook is NOT free.
• All of Google's services are NOT free.

You're paying in kind - your personal information is the currency. When you're complaining about companies taking your information and running with it, you're actually defrauding them. They provided you with a free service or an almost impossibly low price for a good. They need to make a profit to stay afloat so the terms of service you have to agree to says they can sell your info. All you care about is getting the service or the lowest price possible for something and you swiftly agree to the ToS assuming it'll be fine. Then you discover you get all sorts of crap in the mail and you bring on the hate to the corporation in question when they did nothing you didn't explicitly agree to let them do.

Google is a big corporation, yes? I'm sure everybody can agree with me on that. How much money do you think it takes to run something like that? All those data centers, all those computers, all that electricity, all that staff, all those fun 'I wonder if we can ...' projects, Youtube, Android, ChromeOS... All that shit costs money. Where do you expect them to get that money from? Out of thin air since it's on the internet? Really?

Companies worldwide give Google all that money and you can rest assured that they want something in return. So Google pays with the only currency it has: THEIR DATA. And no, that's not a typo. It's *THEIR* data. You agreed that they could have it and do with it what they wanted in return for that free webmail and a near-unlimited supply of cute cat videos. It seemed like a good deal at the time. Why are you complaining now?

That was Google, but the same holds true for any other company providing something for an almost impossible fee. Did you really think WhatsApp was free? Really? It wasn't free to the company that made it. They had to hire developers to make the app, servers, network capacity... And you didn't have to pay them a dime to use it. Does that sound feasible to you? The mark of a sound, prosperous corporation doing its best to make it in the world? Are you really that naive?

So, in conclusion: If you value your privacy, don't use any service which a corporation provides for free (even if you take a paid account, your information will be added to the lot. Guaranteed). If you feel you must, be particularly aware what information you provide and assume it'll become public knowledge. It's a good assumption to make on pretty much *ANYTHING* you do online. Do what the military does - provide information on a need-to-know basis. And if you're asked to provide information they shouldn't need to know, don't give it. If it's required, walk away. Either that, or bend over for your corporate masters, and hope they use some lube this time.

Edited February 3, 2015 by Cooper

[digip]

TL;DR - As you said bottom line, free internet isn't free, and people need to know this but most don't care or even worry and take for granted until they see it used against them in some manner, by which time, too late to educate end users on how to protect themselves in the digital age.

Let me start with saying that your website looks like shit in Firefox.

Same in any browser. Didn't paste your whole quote though as its very long but I can to some extent agree with you on all points you made, which is why I think we need to be concious of what we do online and how we use our devices, protect our digital identities, etc.

Example, I took a survey once that stated it was completely anonymous(knowing it was probably bunk) and even read the terms, as such never stated it would be used or sold to third parties(or affiliates) and tested this out. This was years ago, when I went by the moniker "crackhead" and I filled out all the info they asked for(which in itself was more or less them phishing). It was a Yahoo survey for feedback and you would get a free magazine for your survey. So I did this, and as such, filled in my name and address as Mr. Crack Head. I then started to recieve all kinds of junk mail, including a credit card offer in the name of "Mr. Crack Head". This was probably around 1998-99 time period.

The internet is not free, and everything we do is tracked, even when we agree to do something and their terms state they won't sell or reuse it, the chances of it being stolen, if not down right lied to, bought out by another company where the data, is no longer under the original TOS, to some extent, everything we do, is used by someone, from advertisers, to social sites, to these forums for example. Hak5 sponsors need to know how many views they get on videos for if its worth selling ads on their show, which I am fine with and all for. Not everything we do is completely evil in that sense, but what I don't like is that no matter what site you visit these days, there are so many built in trackers that create data pools on us, that we never have the option to opt-in or out of.

Example. I use google-analytics on my site for metrics. Google gathers that data for me for site owners to modify and create better sites. Google however harvests this data as well though which they use to correlate data amongst all other sites using google-analytics. This helps them better target people for their ad services. Their ad service has its own harvester, and between the two correlates data, yada, yada, we all know this. You may agree to visit my site, but not agree to participate in the gathering of data by google's analytics or ads on my site(and I'm the same way when I visit other peoples site and why I generally disable everything when visiting a site so most they can grab from me is general browser stuff we can't control other than spoofing user-agents, etc). I use VPN services, modified browser settings, disabled OS settings, and other things in a conscious effort to limit my footprint other than what I have to since there is no way to have complete anonymity.

It's the nature of the beast that we really don't have control in a lot of sense other than to never get online, but that's just it - how do you use the internet, while being in control of your personal data. If we have to lie and defraund companies with our data we give them, then well, do this. If you plan to do online banking, well, you have to abide by their rules and TOS, and as such, make that choice to use their service, shopping site, etc. Metrics used on these sites come with disclaimers like you get with paper TOS and privacy notices from your CC companies; they will share it with affiliates and you have to send something in writing to opt out of what they allow you, to leave out, but even then, you aren't allowed to block everything. Online, it's worse because we often can't read a TOS before agreeing to not have our data gathered before using a site, since to read their TOS(usually a link at the footer or privacy notice), you first have to visit the site in general, which puts all your data in their hands from inception, like walking into a store at the mall, only the salesperson knows nothing about you yet in the physical world until you hand them your credit card, unless you pay in cash. There is no pay in cash model for the working internet, where we can choose to still use a service, while not giving them the CC details of who we are so to speak.

I think adding to lists that sell your info, probably not going to change much of anything though. Its YOUR responsibility to an extent how you put your info out there, and that's where I agree with you since people need to educate themselves on how the use of things on the internet works, and always be conscious of what they say, how they identify themselves, and where they visit places online and off since they often crossover in physical and digital dived's today, closing that gap between unknown patron, to "John Smith has arrived at 12:30pm on Feb 03, 2015".

[tripelix]

TL;DR - As you said bottom line, free internet isn't free, and people need to know this but most don't care or even worry and take for granted until they see it used against them in some manner, by which time, too late to educate end users on how to protect themselves in the digital age.

Cooper, on 03 Feb 2015 - 03:25 AM, said:

Let me start with saying that your website looks like shit in Firefox.

What does it look like to you can you shoot me a screen shot? Do you do design? it not my forte and it was my first attempt at html5 it may be the issue.

I agree, you both made great points. Google and Facebook no mater how much you want them to be, are not the internet. They occupy a couple of ports and a few addresses. Our life however spans beyond the internet. Much of the information about us is stolen from us. The information is then sold and a profile is made from your actions. Anyone can buy the information no hacking needed. Do you know about licence plate scanning by the police? Did you know that the data is for sale?

What i am after is creating a list of list brokers. The names of magazines and trade groups that sell the customer and membership lists. Inside of them will be some survey companies and a few like DataLogix and Exact Data who buys information from Acxiom. Though my research I think there will be about 1500 or so of the actual companies in the list selling business. Most of the magazine industry is dead at this point hopefully I can put the last nail in the coffin for the ones that are marketing the customer lists.

Personally I don't care what people post on Facebook,I do care when the data is used systemically against them.

Did you look at the lists under data brokers? Do you know of any companies to add?

here is an old video on youtube

Watch it, the only thing she gets wrong is she puts the various industries lumped together. That is why i want to create the lists of who does what.

[cooper]

TL;DR

This is YOUR topic. I'm not at all surprised others are unwilling to read what I had to say, but for you to do so I consider to be rather rude.

until they see it used against them in some manner, by which time, too late to educate end users on how to protect themselves in the digital age.

And at that point it doesn't matter anymore. It's out there. You can't un-release that info. So they're fucked. Deal with it.

Making a list of companies for them or you to blame for that situation isn't going to help anybody.

I agree, you both made great points. Google and Facebook no mater how much you want them to be, are not the internet.

Who the hell suggested otherwise? They were examples.

Much of the information about us is stolen from us.

Right. Just like taxes.

Will you go back and read what I wrote. Not glance over it, READ the damned thing.

Do you know about licence plate scanning by the police? Did you know that the data is for sale?

Do you work for Fox News? You have an interesting way of ordering facts to suggest an inflammatory though incorrect conclusion.

Yes, I know about it. Yes, such data is for sale. No, it's not the police's data that's being sold. That's done by private companies who drive around with similar scanners.

Do I care? No.

All they have is the location of my car. They know it's the same car. They don't know it's MY car. I lease my car, so before they reach me they need to go through the lease company. Good luck with that. Also, because I lease, I get a new car every 4 or so years. If I was in any way bothered by someone other than the police knowing where my car is, I'd take off or cover up the plates once I park.

What i am after is creating a list of list brokers. The names of magazines and trade groups [blablabla] hopefully I can put the last nail in the coffin for the ones that are marketing the customer lists.

So you keep saying. Please explain to me, in excruciating detail, how the act of making a list will achieve anything.

Here's a hint: They already have this data. They're selling it because they don't have any money, or are unscrupulous enough to sell it, ToS be damned.

Do you expect to shame them into not selling that data anymore? When was the last time you heard the owner of a company in that business exclaim "I'd rather go bankrupt than sell my customer info".

Personally I don't care what people post on Facebook, I do care when the data is used systemically against them.

I don't think "systemically" means what you think it means.

As for your quote here, I don't give a shit. Really. Not a toss.

I try to educate people, but people have a right to be complete and utter morons. Many, MANY people choose to exercise that right, and I respect that. But they get to suffer the consequences which include me calling them stupid sheep for doing that moronic thing in the first place.

Like that bimbo in the video you posted trying to keep her emotions in check (puh-lease) as she describes the sold info lists as list of rape victims, police officers and people with a specific ethnicity to name a few. If those people didn't want anybody else to know about that shit DON'T PUT IT ON THE FUCKING INTERNET. I have absolutely ZERO SYMPATHY for these rape victims having their info sold. None whatsoever.

I may be heartless in their eyes, but they're the idiot. Being raped, horrible as that is, does not give you an Idiot Exemption Card, valid for the next X days.

Did you look at the lists under data brokers? Do you know of any companies to add?

Sorry, I don't do witch hunts. Pick up a Yellow Pages or something and just add any company you can find. It'll be just as worth while since I don't believe for a second you're going to verify even a single one of them.

[tripelix]

This is YOUR topic. I'm not at all surprised others are unwilling to read what I had to say, but for you to do so I consider to be rather rude.

Cooper I am not trying to be rude. Your profile says you are in the Netherlands and I am sure that law in your country is different from the United States. I agree with many of your points and I agree with a lot of what you say. We do differ on opinion on people that are victims of rape and other that can not help themselves.. I think it is the responsibility of everyone to protect the helpless. On the net if you possess the ability to protect others you should. I am not a fan of f** everybody I can, just because I can.

In the U.S. there is not a privacy law. My focus is U.S. based and what companies do here is different from your country. The data from police cars in the United States is for sale and it is the police scanning the plates. I was not aware that others do that where you live. It illegal in many places in the United States to hide your licence plate when the car is parked.As for your data it is also different here. I really don’t know what companies collect where you live. In the United States all of it is for sale with enough money here you can buy anything. I have used to be in the information business i know where and how to buy just about anything.

The list of brokers and other lists will be used in a project that my book describes. The book also has its focus on United States legal issues.

I want the list of mailing list brokers to advise people in the United States where the junk mail comes from. this is so they can opt out or perhaps file legal action ageist them. If I am not mistaken you don’t have these lists, it is illegal. The names and home addresses of your police and military personnel are not for open sale in your country.

I am not on a witch hunt the site lists mailing and email lists for sale. it provides the names of companies and some times who originated the list.

There are others that steal information too like the credit card merchant services in the United States. The banking laws in your country make it illegal to sell what you purchase and where. In the United States it is open season.

[tripelix]

Could someone send me a screen shot so i can fix the sit.e i don't know what you see to fix it.

[digip]

@cooper.. I think he was quoting me. I only prefixed my post with tl; dr in the event anyone didnt read my long post I summarized it at the top of my post...hope there isn't any confusion from that perspective

[cooper]

Fair enough. But please answer the following questions:

1. How does making that list prevent and/or stop this?

2. How will you verify what's on the list is accurate?

3. If people choose, of their own free will and in spite of your advice to the contrary, to create a facebook account and divulge all their personal info, what would you do to prevent them?

4. Regarding 3, who the hell are you do decide for them they shouldn't?

Edit:

5. Please provide a link for the US police selling the data they collect. I can find articles on companies selling the data to the police and literally anybody who wants it, but only the police (well, the DMV) can tie a name to a plate and the commercial companies can't do that. Frankly, even with the appalling state of privacy in the US I don't consider your allegation particularly plausible.

Edited February 3, 2015 by Cooper

[tripelix]

Fair enough. But please answer the following questions:

1. How does making that list prevent and/or stop this?

2. How will you verify what's on the list is accurate?

3. If people choose, of their own free will and in spite of your advice to the contrary, to create a facebook account and divulge all their personal info, what would you do to prevent them?

4. Regarding 3, who the hell are you do decide for them they shouldn't?

Cooper everyone on the site sells information it is the point of the site.

facebook google+ twitter redit Vk or anywhere else on the net should not disclose personal information especially security questions I tell people to change the answers at banks utilities and anywhere they place them. One service that provides security questions for number of sites sells the answers as a business practice. The site used to do business with a UK firm for dating i don't really know what they are up to now.

people can do what ever they want.

who I am is a writer and public speaker. You can find articles I wrote on the internet or in my blog.

I wrote a novel and part of the story is about information on the net. its name is "Extortionware a hacker tale"

I wanted to learn the publishing business so i wrote a novel about a hacker. The novel is available in 260 countries and in all ebook formats. Though the exercise I learned formatting, editing, distribution and promotion. The other reason I wrote the novel was that most of the fiction about hackers is bull shit.

My new book is non fiction "A Right to Property" focuses on U.S, issues around information sharing and government mishandling data. I hope to start a movement in the U.S. and change some of the crap that is going on here. The last chapter is 5 steps to effect change, The chapter includes a part on disrupting the list brokers. yes the same folks i am looking to list. It isn't out yet so i cant elaborate.

You seem like quite the advocate and you post here often. Perhaps you could elaborate with what is wrong with my site and give me pointers on how to make it more appealing. I really don't know what you see can you make a screen cap and send it to me?

[tripelix]

@cooper.. I think he was quoting me. I only prefixed my post with tl; dr in the event anyone didnt read my long post I summarized it at the top of my post...hope there isn't any confusion from that perspective

none on my part

[digip]

Fair enough. But please answer the following questions:

1. How does making that list prevent and/or stop this?

2. How will you verify what's on the list is accurate?

3. If people choose, of their own free will and in spite of your advice to the contrary, to create a facebook account and divulge all their personal info, what would you do to prevent them?

4. Regarding 3, who the hell are you do decide for them they shouldn't?

Edit:

5. Please provide a link for the US police selling the data they collect. I can find articles on companies selling the data to the police and literally anybody who wants it, but only the police (well, the DMV) can tie a name to a plate and the commercial companies can't do that. Frankly, even with the appalling state of privacy in the US I don't consider your allegation particularly plausible.

1 - Doesn't really(but I see where he is going with it)

2 - We'd probably need a standardized body to regulate and monitor things, which if you've ever lived in the US and tried using the "Do not call" registry, its essentially useless and you're still powerless. You can report people, they get fined, but you yourself, get nothing for reporting them, and it doesn't stop the calls.

3 - I don't see where this comes into what he's categorizing so much as lets say you use facebook and DON'T put all your info in, there are like buttons on millions of sites that are essentially trackers. I use Deviant Art, and because of their TOS some stuff requires age verification, and for purchases of art, your CC details, so they have info on me. They essentially added my birthdate to my profile afterwards, which I only saw after updating personal info to use the site, but at least they gave me options to hide it on my profile page. They don't however give me the option to opt-out of sharing it, which if you look at the ad data(which may have changed in last few years) the advertisers still had in their URL, all your private profile info about you when you viewed the site, so dA shares this, while visitors can't see my bday or such, I can in the ad URL data, along with other info about me.

4 - I think that's the core of his posts which I'll get to in a sec..

5 - I don't have a link, but DMV reports and personal background checks are possible in the US and you can obtain nearly anything on anyone at large for the most part, either paying for it, or through side channels, ie: private investigators or black market people who work for companies with access. I worked for a Bank where an employee was selling ID info to foreign markets and such, and as a result, fired. It was kept on the down low, but I never heard of him being arrested. He was caught because they noticed files were being taken home by him and he said he had more "work" to do on client files, for which later the revealed he was selling identities and data to brokers who work around the law.

So, I think to summarize this whole thread, @tripelix is more or less looking for contributions to help write his book, which if enough people take interest after reading, raise enough awareness or anger amongst them, that hopefully will cause them to demand change or in some ways protest, activism, call their legislators for change, etc, since the list itself isn't going to do anything by itself, its data for his book, to make his argument, and give it to the people to let them know what is happening, who is doing what with their data, and maybe, people will become more aware and conscious of what they do, if anything, help educate those not in the know, about what really happens when your digital and physical lives intersect. Did I hit the mark anywhere @tripelix? This is more research data for the book than anything else at this point?

As for a screenshot, I think its not so much that the site isn't readable or broken, so much as it just needs a bit more of a professional touch to the layout and such. It's not the prettiest looking site. Click your blog link for example, and the image in the post is quite large with the text squeezed around it, shrink the image a bit, add some padding, change the fonts a bit, maybe style it a bit more with CSS adjustments to give it a bit more modern and responsive look. The info is there, the look just needs some love all around, from the drop down menu to the fonts, etc..

edit:Side tangent, my Hak5 profile was visited today by both a .mil and bank of america web site user. Just interesting to me, but even I to some extent do tracking on "all the things.."

Edited February 4, 2015 by digip

[overwraith]

As a programmer I will probably be asked to run queries on your data, as well as design queries for deriving useful info from your data, so hi there!

On that note did you hear that target some years ago managed to come up with a query that could determine which of their customers were pregnant at any given time? Basically pregnant chicks buy specific products like unscented lotion etc. Was a little bit creepy, but would so love to see what the query looks like.

Long live the technocracy!

Edited February 4, 2015 by overwraith

[barry99705]

Just throwing this out there. I saw a car running around a friends neighborhood with a plate scanner. Wasn't an unmarked police cruiser, I know which of them have the scanners(none in my areas). The only reason I noticed it was because it was just after sunset and I could see the IR led floodlights beside the cameras. Couple dudes in the car, passenger was running a laptop.

Edited February 4, 2015 by barry99705

[overwraith]

There's code out there for raspberry pi's and such that does license plate detection. Thought it would be cool to put a pi running the software on my car, and see who's who.

[digip]

OCR scanning license plates:

https://www.google.com/search?num=50&newwindow=1&site=&source=hp&q=ocr+scanning+license+plates&oq=ocr+scanning+license+plates&gs_l=hp.3...2746.10516.0.10780.30.24.1.2.2.0.277.3597.0j16j4.20.0.msedr...0...1c.1.61.hp..8.22.3500.IYVb3OcIQ-8

Lookups in the US(varies by state)

http://lifehacker.com/5900349/learn-the-identity-of-nearly-any-car-owner-with-their-license-plate-number-and-a-simple-google-search

UK: http://www.wikihow.com/Find-a-Vehicle's-Registered-Owner-Using-a-License-Plate-Number

etc..

Edited February 4, 2015 by digip

[overwraith]

My college made me take an ethics class. We read the book "A Gift of Fire" 4th edition by Sara Baase. Was interesting, and kinda along the same lines as what you are going with. The teacher provided a bunch of links each week about current events that had to do with this information state. Unfortunately there were so many that I would not have been able to record them all.

[tripelix]

@digip The book is written it doesn't go into the brokers very heavy. You don't need them to make the point that a lot of the information is stolen and it ends up on the internet. Actually it is to help with the site and you are right letting people know what is going on. The data on the site is not perfect I can not find half of the marketing companies that put trackers on websites either. Someone pays for them but some of them are really hard to sort out.

The lists brokers is kind of an easy one but the way that site is laid out you have to hand review the flipen thing. I was hoping that someone would like to look too. Everybody there is in the list business expect for the ones selling space in other media. magazine inserts are also advertised there.

Thanks for the heads up on the site and the blog I really need to post there again soon its hard posting different stuff in two blogs. maybe later in the week.

[tripelix]

@barry99705 are you in the U.S.? if so what state? I know that some repo guys have the gear and look for cars and scan plates for extra cash.

[cooper]

OCR scanning license plates

[...]

etc..

My point isn't that it isn't possible or even happening as I write this. My point is that it's not the police who is doing it. That may not matter to you, but I think it's a pretty big deal.

Only the government can take nothing more than a license plate and tie your whole identity to it because they have access to a database that can link the two. If a private entity (i.e. non-government) can request a lookup it still means someone has to fork over a fee to get the data which will be a snapshot in time. There's a financial barrier, small as it may be, that's going to prevent anybody from looking up my car on a whim. Maybe if I drove a really expensive car people would be sufficiently enticed to look me up so they have an idea of where I park my car, allowing it to get stolen, but I'm confident this paid for DMV lookup results in someone's info ending up on a list somewhere too, so I would have some recourse here. And thankfully I never had to compensate for physical shortcomings by buying a snazzy car.

The way things currently are there's nothing stopping anybody from standing on a streetcorner and jotting down the license plate of every passing car. All that's happening now is that commercial companies are automating the task and offering the collected data for a fee. The consequence is that unless you already have been targeted you're just a sequence of numbers in a system. For many people this is already bad enough and I can see why. If you have a political rally somewhere and the government wants to come down on the people who attended that rally they could use the info to discover which cars that normally aren't in that area suddenly were present for the duration of the rally and with that have a pretty good idea of at least a fair chunk of who decided to attend. There's a small section of false positives so if there's a second rally, preferably elsewhere but still within the same city they can take those 2 collections, grab the plates that are in both sets and have a decent degree of certainty. The problem with complaining about this is they don't need the plate scanners for this. If anything that's actually less reliable than their existing alternatives. Such as cell phone towers. Rather than targeting the car of people missing those who chose to carpool, take public transport or simply walk to the venue, they would have each individual and their efforts are only thwarted by people using prepaid phones.

Back to the plates. It's dirt-cheap to have this kit installed and the commercial companies selling this data are making sufficient amounts of money off of it, obviously. So why hire people to drive around when there are people who just that for a living, equip them with the hardware and have do the work for you? I'm surprised cab companies aren't approached by them yet. Those people reach a lot more nooks and crannies of a city than a tow truck typically does I'd suspect.

I also don't quite understand the big fear of Big Data. The concept of Big Data as I see it is to take an enormous data set and reduce it to a handful of numbers that you consider meaningful. In my admittedly limited experience Big Data is a pretty decent one-way hash - individual info goes in, cumulative info comes out and there's no way to take that cumulative product and deduce the individual info from it. You're a raindrop and all they end up seeing is the river.