[PLUG] OT: information security...

["mike.h" <mike.h@stemik.com>]

Since many Pluggers are interested in security issues, I thought some of you
might find this article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette interesting. Here's
a snip:

"Her own research has shown that 87 percent of the U.S. population can be
uniquely identified based just on gender, birth date and five-digit ZIP
code. In one study, she found that by linking medical records -- stripped of
names but including gender, birth dates and ZIP codes -- gathered by a
governmental group, with voter registration records for Cambridge, Mass.,
she was able to identify the medical records of 97 percent of the 55,000
voters."

--Byron Spice, Post-Gazette Science Editor, referring to Latanya Sweeney,
director of the Data Privacy Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University

http://www.postgazette.com/nation/20030328snoopingnat4p4.asp

mike
_____________________
mike.h@acm.org
mike.h@stemik.com

GNUPG public key (ASCII armored):
http://www.stemik.com/~mike.h/mike.h.asc

"Democracy is the worst form of government,
except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
 -Winston Churchill

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