Friday, December 30, 2005

NAMMIS

Pooh's Law: "Never Assume Malice when Mere Incompentence would Suffice".

It's not just active COINTELPRO style political spying, it's dumbass stuff like this:
A document on the Justice Department Executive Office for Immigration Review's site listed the name and Social Security number of a woman involved in a 2003 immigration review case. Other searches of the site yielded more Social Security numbers and identifying information.
But if l33t haXors don't Pwn my SSN and what not, the terrorists win.

Edit: RIA informs me that the last line doesn't really make sense. I guess I agree. I mean to say that if you want me to 'trust you' with my privacy, you have to not make it obvious that said privacy is a joke to you. The two stories are related only in they demonstrate a certainly carelessness that I find unsettling. Hopefully that clarifies things...

4 comments:

reader_iam said...

I missed this one, Pooh, and was going to link to tonight, but in reading my post title (the translation of your L337-speak) again, I want to confirm what you meant and/or ask for clarification.

By my understanding:

"if l33t haXors don't Pwn my SSN ..." = "If elite hackors don't dominate my SSN ..." [Emphasis added.]

Did you mean to have the "don't" there?

If yes, can you elaborate?

Thanks.

Is that what you meant to say?

reader_iam said...

"hackers," not "hackors," of course ...

reader_iam said...

I know "Pwn" is "own," but the "my" addition makes it "dominate," right?

In any case, that doesn't affect my request for clarification.

Pooh said...

I'm not really sure what I meant. It made sense to me at the time. Now, not so much...