Technocreep by Thomas P. Keenan Read Free Book Online

using query apps as opposed to processing the data yourself) and it gave me my answer. Ronald Rivest of 41 A****** Street, Arlington, Massachusetts 02476 donated $200.00 on May 4, 2011 to Friends of Stephanie Singer. I have redacted part of the street name but the original database was completely forthcoming with the precise address.
    Â­By cross-checking this name and address with some other databases, a technique called “data jigsawing,” I was able to say with reasonable confidence that this contributor was in fact a well-known MIT professor and researcher, who is in fact the “R” in the famous RSA Encryption algorithm.
    I think I met him once at a conference, but I know Ron Rivest mainly by reputation. And, let me be clear that there is nothing wrong with someone who lives in Massachusetts donating to a local candidate in Philadelphia. Unusual, maybe, but certainly not illegal.
    I knew to search for Rivest’s name in this database after downloading and processing the data on my own personal computer, and graphing the geographic patterns of donations. A donation from far-away Arlington, MA, to a Philadelphia local candidate practically jumped off the page.
    This geographical analysis revealed some other remarkable facts. It turns out a very significant number of people gave 1719 Spring Garden Street, Philadelphia, PA 19130 as their address on the contribution form.
    Specifically, for one of the campaign finance data sets:
    86 of 588 people with the surname Smith listed that address
    63 of 426 people with the surname Johnson listed that address
    77 of 400 people with the surname Williams listed that address.
    A quick trip to Google Maps to see if this is the world’s largest rooming house reveals that this is the location of the “Financial Office & Electrical Apprentice Training” operation of a Union, the IBEW Local 98.
    It is easy to imagine some possible scenarios that would lead to so many supporters of certain candidates having a connection to the union office address, but that would take us into the realm of speculation. But why are addresses required in the first place? One plausible explanation is to differentiate people with similar names. There could be ­certainly more than one “J. Smith” in the campaign contributions file.
    Johnson, Smith, and Williams are the most common surnames in America, so I went through the 1,414 people in the file with those surnames, looking for cases where there might be confusion.
    Here’s what I found:
    Among the 426 Johnsons there were three possibly ambiguous entries
    Among the 588 Smiths there were eight possibly ambiguous entries
    Among the 400 Williamses there were four possibly ambiguous entries

    The question for policy makers is whether or not this small additional power of discrimination is worth the wholesale exposing of addresses. Many people, such as victims of domestic violence, have good and valid reasons to avoid having their address posted online for all to see. On the flip side, being able to plot donations on a geographic grid might reveal some interesting information about which parts of the city are supporting which candidate. In this case, however, being allowed to give a union address regardless of personal address appears to defeat the purpose.
    Voting is another area where privacy seems vital. Yet each piece of new technology brings more disturbing elements to the ballot box. There’s a controversy in some jurisdictions over whether or not it’s OK to “tweet your vote” by taking a picture of your ballot at the polling place.
    This came up in 2013 in Nova Scotia, when a political blogger posted a picture of his marked ballot on a social media website. He was told he might face a fine of up to $5,000 for violating the province’s Elections Act. In the U.S., laws vary by locality but the smartest move is to keep your smartphone and digital camera in your pocket during the voting process.
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