Data Mining 101: Finding Subversives with Amazon Wishlists
Here is the example of misuse of personal data from a Mashup.
Owad looked up the Amazon wishlists of everybody whos first name was Mark. Finding 124,887 public wishlists Owad then proceeded to identify a few books he found subversive and mapped the addresses of the individuals concerned.
If you imagine what next steps would happen with this project is becomes a little frightening how information that may have been thought private or obscure can easily be used to give a clear picture of you. Imagine if knowing your name and reading preferences Owad next extracts your address and telephone number from the public telephone directory; next he gets the property values in your street or even the last sale price of your house; next census data detailing general details about people in your area; next, do you have a myspace profile, or a blogger account that could be tied back to this growing profile.
I’ve got to say, none of this seems particularly difficult and its a real issue.
From an ebusiness perspective the requirement to keep someones private information private will need some real thought as these technologies move forward.
Refs:
Data Mining 101: Finding Subversives with Amazon Wishlists viewable at
http://www.applefritter.com/bannedbooks
