Date: Tue, 03 May 2005 01:05:23 -0400
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Re" Phone Numbers
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

At 08:39 PM 5/2/05 -0400, Ted White wrote:
>
>I think you're stretching any parallel between Lexus-Nexus and WSFA past
>the breaking point.   The WSFA JOURNAL never contained "personal
>information" on the level of Lexus-Nexus:  no Social Security numbers, for
>example.  And the addresses and phone numbers are unlikely to be current or
>usable.

Agreed for the most part.  Some addresses and phone numbers may still be
current, I have no way to tell without a lot of work to check them
all...though you did say yours hadn't changed.  Past address info is useful
in identity theft though, but there are other places to get it...though
usually not so undetectably.

The main risks I can see are SPAM and bulk marketers and people who are
trying to avoid being found by those who want to do them harm (the
estranged ex thing for instance).  Since WSFA seems to have no viable
privacy policy, current info could be published next, but that is still
speculative...and I hope it stays that way.

>Further on in your post (not quoted) you refer to the circulation of Don
>Miller's 30-years-old WSFA JOURNALs as "very limited" and you seem to think
>they were then circulated as they are now (sans the web).  In this you are

No, I didn't refer specifically or exclusively to Don Miller's editions,
which predated my membership. I said 25-30 years ago, meaning approximately
the period around when I first joined WSFA (early 80s, more or less for me,
but my impression at the time was that things had been done the same way
for some time, hence the 30 year limit).  The ones I saw were much smaller
and as far as I know, just circulated at meetings and perhaps sent to a few
more distant members or interested subscribers.  If his editions were at 30
years range, then things apparently weren't done the same way for very long
before I joined, so perhaps I should have said 20-25 rather than 25-30.

>Miller sent copies all over the world.

Even so, I doubt there were as many people with access to them as there are
with access to the web today, and I suspect his audience was restricted to
a better class of people than the web is too.  Hence much lower risk of the
information getting into the wrong hands.

-- Mike B.
--
We're lost, but we're making good time.