Personality BS (was: Should we oppose the Data Superhighway/NII?)

["Alan (Gesture Man) Wexelblat" <wex@media.mit.edu>]

Hunh.  Doug, I'm sorry to oppose you on this, but I think that the sort of
bullshit pry-into-your-personal-life stuff that companies are resorting to
these days is *exactly* the sort of stuff that cypherpunks would want
stopped!

Have you ever had to take one of these tests?  Have you seen the questions
they ask?  I have been handed a test (in an all-too-recent interview) and
after looking at the test I told them flat-out I would not take the test and
if they hired people based on it then I wouldn't work at their company.

[The questions have to do with all kinds of shit like "Have you ever had a
homosexual experience?" and "Have you ever shoplifted anything?" and "How
do you feel about XXX?".  Totally unrelated to my job skills.]

Of course, they reacted with the same sort of shock and surprise that I got
from Texas Instruments when I told *them* I wouldn't piss into their cup on
demand and that they could shove *that* job.  No one had ever even objected
to taking the test before, let alone to the fact that the company keeps the
database of all the answers of all the applicants ever.  (Unencrypted, on a
PC in the president's office, as it happened.)

It's a total load of crap and should be illegal.  I, for one, am glad the
gov't is telling its contractors NOT to do that.

Sorry this is so strident, but I see cryptography and privacy-enhancement as
technological branches of the same tree as this stuff.  Appropriate data in
appropriate places, and nothing more.

--Alan Wexelblat, Reality Hacker, Author, and Cyberspace Bard
Media Lab - Advanced Human Interface Group	wex@media.mit.edu
Voice: 617-258-9168, Pager: 617-945-1842	PUBLIC KEY available by request
Try not to have a good time ... This is supposed to be educational.