Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: aldo_14 on June 23, 2005, 03:54:16 pm
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/23/uncle_sam_wants_your_data/
[q]The US military has retained the services of a commercial privacy invasion outfit to assemble detailed dossiers on all American high school children and college students, according to a report in the Washington Post.
Direct-marketing database outfit BeNow Inc will manage students' information for the US Department of Defense (DoD), in order to sidestep federal regulations limiting the amount of citizens' personal data that government agencies are permitted to retain.
By combining commercial data with information already accessible to the government, the DoD hopes to assemble "a single central facility within the Department of Defense to compile, process and distribute files of individuals who meet age and minimum school requirements for military service."
Military recruiters will then be able to target qualified candidates over the age of sixteen, with complete dossiers of their educational, economic, and ethnic backgrounds. This will enable them to initiate contact with the most effective sales pitch, emphasizing, say, job security to weak students with poor employment prospects, or prestige assignments to those with records of high academic and/or athletic achievement.
The Pentagon's opt-out plan is absurd. It will require students or parents to submit detailed information to be held in a separate database, and checked regularly against the "working" database, to ensure that there are no matches. Thus one is given no option of withholding the information in the first place, but rather, one gets a mere choice of databases, with all the potential for deliberate abuse and accidental disclosure that this implies.
The DoD says that it is confident that all of its information contractors understand and abide by its (putatively strict) data security practices, so there is no reason for concern.
No doubt MasterCard felt the same way about its payment processor CardSystems Solutions, which recently coughed up 40 million credit card records.[/q]
Data-mining on kinds in order to recruit (conscript?) them into the military - a bit dodgy, no?
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Funny thing is, it doesn't surprise me anymore.
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Yup, it's all about getting the young'uns set on the military path. They're having problem maintaining an all-volunteer military, so they need to milk the population for all the fresh bodies they can.
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Maybe if the leader of the military weren't an asshat vigilante, there'd be more recruitment.
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In their defense, an hour's worth of digging could get this info anyway.
But yea, it's stepping over the line, imo.
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911 knows where you live, too.
But I see your point.
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Talkin bout a revolution...
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Looks like someone in the Pentagon has been taking Ender's Game a little too seriously.
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I know where I live :nervous:
I think... :p
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Youth of America! The time has come!
Move to Canada.....
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... HELL no.
j/k.
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I think they are really trying hard not to have conscription...
But I think that maybe its still going to be coming.
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there the government, of course they know were I live. I mean they've got a freaking cencus buro.
and as for the recrutement tactics, it's been my experience, once you make it clear to them there isn't any way to talk you into the military they give up on you.
"is there any way to get you to serve your nation"
"well, not realy, I'm a big nationalist and everything, but I'm not realy the military type, I'd join if we got invaded or something, but it's have to be something prety big, sorry"
"well alright then, goodbie"
"bie"
(prior to 9/11, I haven't heard from them sence that conversation)
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Originally posted by Stealth
... HELL no.
j/k.
That's what the canadians would say, I think :p
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Well so long as nothing gets disclosed I don't see the problem. It's not like these kids don't have free will NOT to join the military.
It's not much different to Voter Vault (using consumer information to target acute sections of the voting demographic) or those irritating companies using credit information to find people who'd be most willing to take finance-destroying loans, really. Although using a private contractor to sidestep regulations does seem a bit stupid.
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the only branch of the military not meeting there recrutement quotas is the army, IIRC.
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I've got a few friends who want to join up in the military when they get out of highschool, but none for the army. They all want Marines, Air Force, Navy, etc.
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Thats because the Army is full of tards (at least, according to any Marines...).
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yeah, Marines are actualy exeeding
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Originally posted by aldo_14
Data-mining on kinds in order to recruit (conscript?) them into the military - a bit dodgy, no?
Nah, that's what the Prussian education style is for.
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Originally posted by pyro-manic
Youth of America! The time has come!
Move to Canada.....
I would, but I'd like my nads to stay not frozen off. Plus I like my American rights(that are slowly being taken away). Except for guns. Those ain't never goin away.
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Originally posted by Ghost
I would, but I'd like my nads to stay not frozen off. Plus I like my American rights(that are slowly being taken away). Except for guns. Those ain't never goin away.
Move to Mexico.
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Heh the BESS A.k.A N2H2 gave schools free censoring, in return for being able to sell all viewed pages to the Army.
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Considering you have to register for the Selective Service thing anyways, they'd know where you live already...
EDIT: IIRC, from talking to folks who were/are stationed at Pendleton, the Marine Corps' recruitment figures are such that many people who would have liked to go for a second or third enlistment are rejected (several people I've had classes with at college have stated this happened to them). It's gotten to the point where some high-level people are getting worried about it, and expressed those worries in a recent issue of Proceedings...
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Originally posted by Ghost
I would, but I'd like my nads to stay not frozen off. Plus I like my American rights(that are slowly being taken away). Except for guns. Those ain't never goin away.
Our Bill of Rights and Freedoms is not all that different from the American Constitution. The American Consitution was studied in depth when the Canadian one was drawn up. We just have more controls on guns and more government involvement in a variety of things.
But yeah, it can get cold up here and you American wusses would all go home :D
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Are you kidding? My skin is practically melting, and the humidity, my God the humidity!
*grumble*
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Wear enough layers and eat properly and you can tolerate the cold. ^_^
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If the Pentagon is pulling stunts like this, I hate to think what schemes the NSA is up to........
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Oh, I think we all know what the NSA is up to ("http://www.splintercell.com/us/"). But don't say I told you, the walls have ears.
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Good for them. They won't make me sign up. My A.D.D. will protect me.
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Until they get desperate enough to draft disabled people. :p
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Originally posted by Kosh
Until they get desperate enough to draft disabled people. :p
I could see it now......
"Private get out here right now!"
*Rolls out on wheel chair with neckbrace and breathing tube in throat*
"Yes sir?"
"We would like to ask you to go on a covert mission deep behind
enemy lines."
"well..... sir I really don't thi....."
"Thats good to hear son your drop plane leaves at 0800."
"Then miraculously he manages to complete his mission and gets a medal of honor. Then they make a movie about him called Disabled Donnies adventures in Iraq then there is a revolution..... wait I got a little off track there didn't I?
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http://watleyreview.com/2005/042605-1.html
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Well, a drafted army is not very good for interventionist police action around the world. First you have to train them A LOT (something that's not so difficult with volunteer army), then you have to equip them (which is expensive if you want to keep your technological advantage as big as it is right now), then you have to maintain morale among the troops ("hey wtf why are we here in butt****istan dying for no obvious reasons") as well as home front ("MAH BABY BOYH JUST GOT HIM KILLED IN BUTT****ISTAN OMG i say we hang them by their necks and kill em till dey die you leaders"), you have to be able to somehow explain the inevitable casualties to populace and so on.
A conscript army is pretty powerful political leverage which hampers interventionism, unless you're a 3rd world ****house or a dictatorial nuclear power (think Russia!).