On Tuesday, December 31, 2002, at 09:49 AM, Kevin Elliott wrote:
* No store I have used has ever _checked_ that a name is "valid"...they don't even care when my credit card or check says "Timothy C. May" but my Customer Courtesy Card says J. Random Cypher, or Eric Hughes, or Vlad the Impaler...or is just unattached to any name.At 12:12 -0500 on 12/31/02, Adam Shostack wrote:Interesting point on grocery cards... Why do they have your name at all? Every grocery card I've ever gotten they've said "here's your card and application, please fill out the application and mail it in". I say "thank you ma'am", walk out the door and toss the "application" in the trash. Not exactly strong (or any) name linkage...Rummaging through my wallet...a grocery card in the name of Hughes, a credit card with the name Shostack, and an expired membership card in the name Doe.
* Some stores are doing the "bonus points" scam, where customers who spend $300 get a $1 discount applied to their next purchase, etc. This does not need a name, either, as the discount can apply to whomever uses the card with a particular number, but the stores may (I don't know) require that a card has some semblance of the right name, etc.
* I expect most uses of "customer courtesy cards" are to try to get some kind of brand loyalty going. People thinking "Well, I have a card at Albertson's, but not at Safeway, so I'll go to Albertson's."
* Dossier-compiling does not seem to be the motivation...at least not yet. The data are too sparse, it seems to me. I don't know if people who "honestly" gave a name and mailing address, and whose data were keypunched accurately, are getting the "targeted mailings" for Midol, Attends, Trojans, etc. that the technology can support.
* As we've mentioned several times, Cypherpunks at physical meetings sometimes put their customer courtesy cards in a box and then draw randomly, to make the point and for grins.
* I keep meaning to get a new series of cards and have them with names like "Rasheed bin Salmeh" and so on, with addresses like "Islamic Students Center, 21 First...blah blah..." Just to watch the reaction.
* Dossier compiling at grocery stores is not very useful for Big Brother, either. Who consumes Midol, Attends, Trojans, etc. is not interesting even to George Bush and Dick Cheney. And few hardware or electrical supply stores have courtesy cards. In any case, no requirement to use cards, etc.
* All in all, not a very interesting example of ID and tracking. Things will get much more interesting, and worrisome, if there is ever a national ID system (in the U.S.) and some kind of legislated requirement (albeit unconstitutional!) that citizen-units must ID themselves with valid ID for all purchases, or at least of certain classes of purchases (beyond guns, for example).
I don't see this happening in the next 15 years unless some major new terrorist incident occurs.
--Tim May
"The State is the great fiction by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else." --Frederic Bastiat
