32 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981
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The Telecom Digest for July 7, 2014
Volume 32 : Issue 53 : "text" Format
====== 32 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2013 06:31:40 +0000 (UTC)
From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Nest's Smarter Home
Message-ID: <kgmtkc$13uc$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>
In article <20130228045306.GA16122@telecom.csail.mit.edu>,
Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> wrote:
>I once saw an article in a local paper about how the police had
>acquired infra-red detectors to locate "grow" lamps so that they could
>arrest marijuana home-grow operations.
Which, thanks to the fourth-amendment hawks on the Supreme Court, they
have not been able to use for the past dozen years, at least for the
purpose of gathering evidence about activities taking place in private
homes. Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001). However, the
rationale used in the opinion of the court by Justice Scalia (joined
by Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ.) seems rather strained to
me.
You can read the Wikipedia article about the case, which includes
references to the full text and background information, at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States
.
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wollman@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2013 12:42:02 -0500
From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Nest's Smarter Home
Message-ID: <20130228174201.GA17407@telecom.csail.mit.edu>
On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 at 06:31:40AM +0000, Garrett Wollman wrote:
> In article <20130228045306.GA16122@telecom.csail.mit.edu>,
> Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> wrote:
>
> >I once saw an article in a local paper about how the police had
> >acquired infra-red detectors to locate "grow" lamps so that they could
> >arrest marijuana home-grow operations.
>
> Which, thanks to the fourth-amendment hawks on the Supreme Court, they
> have not been able to use for the past dozen years, at least for the
> purpose of gathering evidence about activities taking place in private
> homes. Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001). However, the
> rationale used in the opinion of the court by Justice Scalia (joined
> by Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ.) seems rather strained to
> me.
The real question isn't about grow lamps (which are easily confused
with space heaters on an IR scan), but about how it is becoming harder
and harder to maintain any sort of privcay in an interconnected
world. In the case of Smith v. Maryland, [442 U.S. 735 (1979)], SCOTUS
held that police could obtain "pen register" data, A.K.A. "Local Usage
Details", without a search warrant. That kind of data is used for
"traffic" research, an investigative and military intelligence
technique which is able to divine the locations of key players in an
organization based on the number and destination of each call.
In the United States, although police are expected to obtain a warrant
to actually "tap" a line, i.e., to record people speaking on phone
calls for use as evidence in prosecutions, they are not required to do
so before requisitioning the "LUDs" from a phone company. I was a
Systems Analyst in the department which produced such records, and I
can attest from personal knowlege that the procedure was both
efficient and commonly used.
The problem, to my mind, is that when bureaucrats get their hands on a
fragment of a picture, they tend to make up the missing pieces instead
just accepting that they are missing. While it might be interesting to
a prosecutor to know that my phone was used to call the home of a
child who was arrested for dealing illegal drugs, I doubt the forces
of justice would be willing to accept that I am friends with the
child's parents. Moreover, their left-leaning politics are a matter of
public record, and the fact that I had any contact with them could
be used against me during investigations for security clearances, or
as "background" information sent to hiring managers for even mundane
civil-service jobs.
In short, be it "hot spots" in homes or "questionable" calling
patterns on my phone records, data can be misued, and it's important
to keep not only our houses secure from unreasonable searches, but
also our public lives.
I wonder if Justice Scalia will draw another "firm but also bright"
line around the databases which have been assembled over the past
twenty years: those files, many located on servers in foreign
countries, contain the social maps that reveal the political and
commercial terrain of my son's friends and family.
FWIW. YMMV.
Bill
--
Bill Horne
(Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly)
I've been up and down this highway, far as my eyes can see
No matter how fast I run, I can never seem to get away from me
- Jackson Browne
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