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<HTML> <head><TITLE>PRIVACY Forum Archive Document - (priv.08.19) </TITLE></head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" link="#0000ff" vlink="#660099" alink="#ff0000"> <table border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 width=100%> <tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffcc" width=30%> <table border=0 cellpadding=4 cellspacing=0 width=100%> <tr> <td> <center> <a href="/reality.html"><img src="/spkr1.gif" border=0 align=middle></a> <font size=-1 face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>RealAudio</b></font><br> A Moment of Sanity & Fun!<br> <font size=-1 face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>VORTEX REALITY REPORT</b><br> <font color="#ff0000"><b>& UNREALITY TRIVIA QUIZ!</b></font> </font><br> <table border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 width=100%> <tr> <td> <center> <table border=0 cellpadding=4 cellspacing=0> <tr> <td> <b> <a href="/reality.html"><i>LISTEN</i> or <i>INFO!</i></a></td> </b> </tr> </table> </center> </td> </tr> </table> </center> </td> </tr> </table> </td> <td align=center> <font size=+2><b>PRIVACY Forum Archive Document</b></font><br> <A href="/privacy"><h3>PRIVACY Forum Home Page</h3></A><p> <A href="http://www.vortex.com"><h4><i>Vortex Technology Home Page</i></h4></A><p> <A href="/privmedia"><h4>Radio, Television, and Press Contact Information</h4></A><p> </td> </tr> </table> <hr> <pre> PRIVACY Forum Digest Sunday, 12 December 1999 Volume 08 : Issue 19 (http://www.vortex.com/privacy/priv.08.19) Moderated by Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com) Vortex Technology, Woodland Hills, CA, U.S.A. http://www.vortex.com ===== PRIVACY FORUM ===== ------------------------------------------------------------------- The PRIVACY Forum is supported in part by the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) Committee on Computers and Public Policy, Cable & Wireless USA, Cisco Systems, Inc., and Telos Systems. - - - These organizations do not operate or control the PRIVACY Forum in any manner, and their support does not imply agreement on their part with nor responsibility for any materials posted on or related to the PRIVACY Forum. ------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS "Copier" IDs Coming Soon to Consumer Printers and Copiers? (Lauren Weinstein; PRIVACY Forum Moderator) Your Doctor: Healer or Policeman? (Lauren Weinstein; PRIVACY Forum Moderator) *** Please include a RELEVANT "Subject:" line on all submissions! *** *** Submissions without them may be ignored! *** ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Internet PRIVACY Forum is a moderated digest for the discussion and analysis of issues relating to the general topic of privacy (both personal and collective) in the "information age" of the 1990's and beyond. The moderator will choose submissions for inclusion based on their relevance and content. Submissions will not be routinely acknowledged. All submissions should be addressed to "privacy@vortex.com" and must have RELEVANT "Subject:" lines; submissions without appropriate and relevant "Subject:" lines may be ignored. Excessive "signatures" on submissions are subject to editing. 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Please follow the instructions above for getting the list server "help" information, which includes details regarding the "index" and "get" list server commands, which are used to access the PRIVACY Forum archive. All PRIVACY Forum materials are available through the Internet Gopher system via a gopher server on site "gopher.vortex.com". Access to PRIVACY Forum materials is also available through the Internet World Wide Web (WWW) via the Vortex Technology WWW server at the URL: "http://www.vortex.com"; full keyword searching of all PRIVACY Forum files is available via WWW access. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- VOLUME 08, ISSUE 19 Quote for the day: "Would you like one of my flowers?" -- Maria (Marilyn Harris) "Frankenstein" (Universal; 1931) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 12 Dec 99 09:43 PST From: lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein; PRIVACY Forum Moderator) Subject: "Copier" IDs Coming Soon to Consumer Printers? Greetings. In my recent special report, "IDs in Color Copies" (http://www.vortex.com/privacy/priv.08.18), I related Xerox's confirmation of "invisible" IDs embedded repeatedly in the background "noise" of xerographic color copies and prints, from both Xerox-produced machines and those of other manufacturers. Included ostensibly as an anti-counterfeiting measure, these are produced through "steganographic" (hiding in plain sight) encoding techniques. This technology appears to be similar in a broad sense to (but clearly not identical with), Xerox's commercial "DataGlyphs" encoding system (see Xerox's material regarding DataGlyphs at: http://www.xerox.com/xsis/dataglph.htm). Response to my report has been very strong, mostly from people who were unaware of the existence of these copier IDs. At least one person continued to doubt that the IDs were real--sometimes it's difficult to prove an "urban legend" as actually true! In my report, I speculated about the eventual implementation of such ID tracking systems within inexpensive consumer copying and printing equipment. Readers who might have doubted the likelihood of that eventuality may be interested in: http://www.bep.treas.gov/countdeterrent.htm which is a U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing "Request for Proposals" regarding (among other things) implementation of tracing systems for devices such as inexpensive and ubiquitous inkjet printers, to encode system identification in any output. It would seem that the time for a public airing of the complex issues surrounding these systems is already upon us! --Lauren-- lauren@vortex.com Lauren Weinstein Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com Co-Founder, PFIR: People for Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Dec 99 10:37 PST From: lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein; PRIVACY Forum Moderator) Subject: Your Doctor: Healer or Policeman? Greetings. Should your doctor's tools of the trade, such as stethoscope, blood pressure meter, and other sundry tools, be supplemented with the addition of handcuffs? Some AMA delegates seem to think so. At last Tuesday's meeting of the AMA (American Medical Association), a majority of the delegates voted in a change to the AMA's ethical guidelines, with potentially far-reaching ramifications. The change modifies the guidelines to permit (some would say encourage) doctors to notify state Department of Motor Vehicles officials if their patients appear to be "risky drivers" in various manners. On its face, many might say that this seems reasonable--get the dangerous drivers off the road. But the devil is always in the details. While alcoholism and senile dementia are specifically mentioned as two examples to justify the prioritizing of public safety over patient confidentiality, the risks of such a policy should be obvious. Exactly how are such determinations to be made by doctors? Is every person diagnosed as an alcoholic a risk? For that matter, a range of other conditions can impair driving ability. Users of antihistamines may become drowsy. An ear infection could cause dizziness. Diabetics who misjudge their insulin could faint. The list is almost endless. Since individual doctors will be making these decisions, a lack of uniformity regarding who gets reported for which "impairment" seems very likely. This seems to be a *major* change in the AMA's ethical guidelines, which up to now have only sanctioned reporting of this sort in cases such as direct threats of serious bodily harm against individuals, knife and gunshot wounds, and certain communicable diseases (AMA Ethical Guidelines Section E-5.05). It's interesting to note that this section (before the recent change) does not appear to include reporting of drug abuse (other sections encourage doctors to direct such individuals to treatment programs). Presumably drug abusers (however one might choose to define them, including abusers of either illegal or legally prescribed drugs) would also fall into the category of "impaired" drivers requiring reporting to authorities, opening up a range of legal complexities. Nobody wants truly impaired drivers on the road. More frequent testing of some categories of drivers (based on driving record, age, etc.) at license renewal time would seem to be one prudent measure. But the new AMA policy seems to be a slippery slope indeed. It might well have the major result of discouraging people from seeking medical help, which could lead to minor conditions becoming much more serious, where they perhaps could truly become significant public health or safety concerns. The current (prior to this recently voted change) AMA policy concerning patient confidentiality can be viewed at: http://www.ama-assn.org/physlegl/legal/patient.htm Also, the entire "AMA PolicyFinder" (again, prior to the recent change) is, at least for now, downloadable for Windows users as a searchable database, from: http://enet.ama-assn.org/public/policyf/ama_a99.exe It's fascinating reading. Coming soon to the PRIVACY Forum: Will calls to reduce medical mistakes result in major increases in medical database abuses? Stay tuned. --Lauren-- lauren@vortex.com Lauren Weinstein Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com Co-Founder, PFIR: People for Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy ------------------------------ End of PRIVACY Forum Digest 08.19 ************************ </pre> <hr> <center> <A href="/privacy"><h3>PRIVACY Forum Home Page</h3></A><p> <A href="http://www.vortex.com"><h4><i>Vortex Technology Home Page</i></h4></A><p> <A href="/privmedia"><h4>Radio, Television, and Press Contact Information</h4></A><p> </center> <p> <font size=-2>Copyright © 2000 Vortex Technology. All Rights Reserved.</font> </body> </HTML>