Don't lie to the marketers or Feds! from ZDNET

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/print/971215/264108.html

>For Social Security Number, the EPIC page recommends using
>a number, which won't be reprinted here, used on "sample"
>cards decades ago. The figuring: "Most clerks probably
>won't recognize it as a fake" and it won't interfere with
>other Social Security numbers.
>
>For addresses, the EPIC page suggests using hometown parks,
>city halls and police stations. It specifically suggests
>the address of Comiskey Park in Chicago. Makes one wonder
>how White Sox officials feel about the prospect of getting
>extra junk mail and spam really destined for disciples of
>EPIC's peculiar freedom of information act. What crime
>against the common good did Jerry Reinsdorf commit except
>to sign Albert Belle to an ungodly contract undermining
>baseball owner solidity against rising salaries?
>
>For telephone numbers, the recommendation is
>1-202-224-3121. That turns out to be the switchboard of the
>U.S. Congress. If this is intended to send some sort of
>message to solons about the loss of control of personal
>information, it's likely to be wholly lost. The only people
>it will punish are operators handling incoming calls at the
>Capitol. They will only regard the extra calls as more
>wrong number calls they have to handle. They will have no
>way to figure out that this is some sort of subgrassroots
>effort to gum up the works. And they will certainly have no
>way to provide statistics to Congress on the result.
>
>The EPIC page is, in that last case, urging Americans to
>waste taxpayer dollars, for no clear purpose.
>
>On a larger scale, the EPIC document only exacerbates the
>issue it tries to solve. The answer to the loss of control
>of personal information on the Internet is not to
>contribute instead to a boom in unreliable data.
>