Big Brother Watching?
 

Went to the Pike at Long Beach,blah blah blah yada yada yada, no option but to valet the family car. The attendant ask for my last name, writes down part of the license plate, but what peaks my interest is when he scans the vin plate from the door with an IOS device. I proceed to ask him why does he need to do that, he tells me that it just takes the make and model info from the vin plate. If it's to keep track of the vehicle while in their possession, then what's the reason for writing down the plate#? I kind of understand why the last name thing. Now the scanning, that's a lot of data!

Put all things together and you have a perfect formula for big brother to intrude into our private lives.
1. License plate.
2. Last name.
3. Vin scan.
The only thing missing is race, or nationality,(or is it)! So, what say you?!?!?

How about stores that scan your driver's license when you buy alcohol?

If the NSA/FBI/CIA were to propose a program where everyone's interpersonal contacts and their daily activities were to be gathered up into a huge database, people would scream bloody murder. Yet they give all that info willingly to Mark Zuckerburg and Facebook.

That's ridiculous.

And Google probably knows all that info already. When they start selling their compiled data on people (and they will) it's going to be a multi-billion dollar schytestorm.

It sounds like a good plan to print up some bar codes of your own. Change your car to come up as a 918 on the scanner.

I know tampering with a VIN is illegal but messing with bar codes should still be legal.

You could legally 'cover' it with a fakey. Nobody's business otherwise and should the time come to sell or trade-in, remove the faux.

In the matter of the OP, you could refuse but no doubt that would create some riff between party's.

After somebody filed my taxes for me this year using my name and social #, I've pretty much resigned myself to the idea that all our info is out there already. They also scan my driver's license when I buy Advil Sinus as well - big crime detterrent! ;-) At this point, car Vin# is not that much of a big deal, i bet someone already hacked Hagerty or Allstate, but I understand your surprise, I'd never heard of that before. I think what saves us is that we are in 100s of databases but there isn't one giant DB that consolidates all this info (probably) - working in IT I know that even within one organizations systems and DB are too crap to talk to one another, so that gives me some hope ;-)

There's entirely too much PPI info on the web as it is....

I would say you've got nothing to worry about...that information is table stakes

"Big Brother" already has all of that information, more, and can literally red what you're reading over your shoulder anytime, any place, if they want.

Yea.

↑↑↑ THIS ↑↑↑

I once worked with an old Russian guy who simply couldn't understand today's obsession with social media. He said that the KGB would've given anything for a thing like this back in the day. They spent countless millions of rubles and invested huge amounts of time trying to gather just the type of information that people are now giving away for free to social media sites.

I met an Electrician who was, recently, in charge of wiring a Google plant. He said there was a large part of the building no one had access to, was guarded at all times and fenced off from the rest of the plant. Other people were involved in the wiring of this part of the plant. One day a stream of black vans came rolling in with electronic equipment. He suspected that the vans were NSA delivering servers. Would not surprise me.

I would say scan UR VIN in case car is lost\stolen. Kind of proves what they took possession of. Anyone walking by your car in public could see the VIN. Not really private info?

^^^ BIL who installs drives says the same thing

The cat was out of the bag a long time ago...when they started building the mega-centers and nobody gave a damn.
(Actually I gave a little peep.)
I won't buy Google thermostats or cars or cellphone software. I vote with my small wallet.

"Don't be evil, because we are watching everything you do."
(except for wall street, fort knox, and the real crimes of the century)

The back-door exploits are in every piece of hardware out there.
NSA’s ANT Division Catalog of Exploits for Nearly Every Major Software/Hardware/Firmware | LeakSource

The next phase is social manipulation.
Divide and conquer.
The steering of 'democracy' by a very small elite organization who have all the buttons and knobs.
Spy Agency's Secret Plans to Foster Online "Conformity" and "Obedience" Exposed | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community

I just got insurance on a new vehicle. Gave State Farm agent the VIN and blam, she told me what I had, including 4x4, Crew cab etc.

We basically created the infrastructure for Big Brother. I thought 1984 was far fetched back in the day. Now not any more. We carry screens, microphones, tracking devices with us at any time. And the computing power is there now ... a totalitarian regime would have a field day. Does have a field day, actually, in other countries. Let's just hope folks stay straight this side of the ocean.

G

I think that is a simple VIN lookup and normal for an insurance company.
Identifying a vehicle before issuing a covering policy.
I'm a skeptical person, but I wouldn't want stolen cars etc being easily put on the road.


The problem I have is with Progressive with tiered rates dependent on tracking devices.

I could give U the same info from a VIN back in the mid '70's. No computer involved, just a big 3 ring binder. Each of the 17 digits tell a story, only the last few are sequential.

I am a bit surprised that there has not been a thread on “big data” and what it all means. There have been some good national media articles on this topic. In short the goal is not use the collected and mined info for our benefit but rather against us. Did anyone read the New York Post article on the new secret national database containing our personal data? Data from this parking lot would fit in nicely.

I gave up when they asked for everything to become a naturalized citizen. Probably knows how many spoons I have too.

I won't be surprised if they have my DNA. There was a required medical exam.

And they probably have tied my screen name to my real name by now.

You have a cell phone in your pocket, use cash/CC cards, the government knows where you are and who you are talking to all the time 24/7.
You live in a police state gave up all your freedoms long ago.