On Mon, 13 Nov 1995 18:49:43 -0500 Mario Rups said:
>Poster:       Carl Reimann <[log in to unmask]>
>
>>Subject:      iaf.net - what's the beef?
>
>The beef is that the addresses (with place & snailmail address of employer,
>or at any rate of account) were gathered without consent or even
>notification.
 
  So what?  Even though you don't use a sig with that info as many of us
do, the "place of employment" is easily figured out from brook.edu, and
from public sources.
 
>find us (yes, I know, one can look this sort of thing up, too, but I don't
>really like the idea of making it *easy* for a bloody-minded listmember
 
   Is this paranoia?  Or what?  Why should you worry about members of lists?
If running a list is that risky, why do so many of us do it?
 
>Even if the names@addresses are taken from reviews, what this means is that
>the only way you can keep from this sort of public exposure (as it were;
>I'm overstating slightly, but, then, I'm just the tiniest tad irritated
>about this whole thing) is never to join a list and never to post to a
>list, which seems to me a bit stifling.  Joining a list and/or posting does
>NOT imply consent to be made part of someone's public database in the way
>IAF has done.
 
   Come on, Mario....posting to a list is much like writing a letter to
the editor of the local paper, or a professional journal.  Those too let
thousands of folks know who you are, what you think, and so forth.
 
>as I've said above, and you know ahead of time about the directory in the
>first place.  With the phone company, it's open and aboveboard and
>voluntary and you know about it.  With IAF, it comes as a complete
>surprise, and you have to go to extra trouble to undo what they've done.
 
  It is only a complete surprise because it is new.  And if you object to
this do you object to spiders like lycos.com grabbing info on all your
web pages?  What will I learn if I search Mario Rups on lycos?  Maybe I'll
just find you in a campus directory.....
 
>I fully agree that it's a good service.  However, being part of that
>service should be voluntary, not unwitting.  If I hadn't been on this list,
>I'd possibly never have known about IAF and my inclusion in their db, and
>that strikes me as not being *right*.
 
   Once again, it is new.  All the folks on commercial providers are very
familiar with the concept of a searchable database....and our directories
are on the web....and if some don't know it, I just can't get excited
about it.
>
>Yes, but those people with whom you correspond can legitimately *ask* you
>where you work.
 
  Do you really think that ANYone who has a little research skill can't
find that out even if you NEVER post to the web?  Give cops, private eyes,
etc, etc, a bit more credit than that.....
 
cyclops
 
  Dan Lester, Network Information Coordinator
  Albertsons Library, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho 83725 USA
  [log in to unmask]             http://cyclops.idbsu.edu/
  How can one fool make another wise?  Kansas, "No One Together," 1979