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<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-font-family:
"Arial
Unicode MS";mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Dear all,<br>
<br>
I am pleased to read that the job offer posted by </span><span
style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Arial
Unicode MS"">Matthew
Gerber<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold"> spurred a
response and that the
subsequent discussion offered many good points. <br>
<br>
I would like to add a few arguments, first of all concerning
Matthew Gerber's
response:<br>
</span><br>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Matthew Gerber wrote: <br>
"</span>I've
provided victim-based examples" <br>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Even if we do not take a
potential criminal point of view but a victim centered
one: It is still questionable if the potential (!) victim's
data should be used
in such a way. After all, they did not ask for their
whereabouts and daily
routine activities to be monitored and used. And they will not
be made
aware of it either, I assume. <br
style="mso-special-character:line-break">
</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial">Also, the approach cannot be
purely victim-based for obvious reasons: in two cities there
might be blocks with similarly high proportions of 9 to 5
workers and therefore - according to this approach - an
alledgedly high risk of robbery. Still, past criminality rates
and mean wealth might differ greatly for these cities, probably
resulting in a quite different risk of robbery for the
respective city. A purely victim based approach doesn't accout
for that.</font><br>
</p>
<span
style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Arial
Unicode MS""><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><span
style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Arial
Unicode MS""><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Matthew
Gerber wrote: </span></span><br>
"Now of course, all of this could be used for
malicious purposes, just like every other technology in the history
of
Man."<br>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-font-family:
"Arial
Unicode MS"">Matthew Gerber seems to want to say 'Because
other technologies have had this flaw, I
should not need to be troubled by this fact'<br>
I guess that if I am (made) aware of realistic drawbacks of my
approach I should try to overcome these or not pursue it any
further. </span><br>
<span
style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-font-family:
"Arial
Unicode MS""><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-font-family:
"Arial
Unicode MS""><o:p><br>
Now coming to what other people have contributed:<br>
</o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-font-family:
"Arial
Unicode MS";mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Andrew</span><span
style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Arial
Unicode MS"">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Hardie</span> wrote:<br>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">"Ben Goldacre, who
points out that
the prior probability of any given purpose being a terrorist
(or murderer or
whatever) is so low that even the best data mining will
produce results
absolutely swamped in false positives.</span>"<br>
Another aspect in my opinion are the false negatives: If police
officers trust
in the results of a machine <br>
(see Mike Scott: "If the cops start to
assume that the associations the software predicts are pretty
well infallible,
there will be no escape for the innocent ")<br>
instead of on actual past crimes, a lot of time and money is
being spend in the wrong
place!<br>
<br>
<br>
John F Sowa wrote: <br>
"After 9/11, the major complaint was that
different gov't agencies didn't "connect the dots".[...] We need
an
honest, impartial, ombudsman" <br>
This sounds like a great idea. However, who do you think could
be truely objective?
Who could finance such a post without endangering objectivity?<br>
<br>
In my view the main issue after 9/11 was a major shift away from
human rights <br>
(such as the right not to be subjected to arbitrary interference
with one's privacy, family, home or correspondence as well as
the right to freedom of
expression and association, the right to life and liberty, the
right not to be
subjected to torture or other illtreatment or arbitrary arrest,
the right to be
presumed innocent until proved guilty...) <br>
towards an excessive need for security.<br>
</span></p>
Best<br>
Christina<br>
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