Privacy lost, anytime, anywhere

The loss of privacy is on the fast track, and the Internet is an all too willing co-conspirator. At every turn, more and more of the details of our public and private lives are in some way made “fit” for online consumption. The range is staggering, the results and ramifications unpredictable. When some enterprising individual put the state of Oregon’s entire Department of Motor Vehicles records into a searchable Web site, the residents of Oregon went ballistic. Seems not everyone was pleased their neighbor could, with a few mouse clicks, discover how many speeding tickets or drunk driving violations they had. The public hueand-cry swiftly traveled downhill, and the Web site was junked. From Texas comes word of a Web site (http://www.publiclink. com) allowing anyone to search the state’s 17 million registered drivers—by drivers license number and by license plate. A lawyer in Dallas, where the company running the site is headquartered, reports on an Internet mailing list that the company plans to take the concept national. And there are now whispers of several states planning to put their sex-offender databases on the Web. Kansas already has three