I can't resist this, How can the maiden name of my greatgreatgrandmother born in the 1790's be a security threat in the year 2000? Marilyn CT ALLAGREEN@aol.com wrote: > > Dear Friends: > > I thought that maybe it was not possible for a member of Congress to further > amaze me with his stupidity, but this has managed to make me rethink that > possibility. > > Allan E. Green > > New Privacy Threat: Genealogy? > by Declan McCullagh > 3:00 p.m. May. 18, 2000 PDT > > Just when you thought there was nothing new to say about the oft-cited > privacy threats that Americans face, along comes Congress with another > worry: genealogy. > > During a privacy hearing Thursday before a House Judiciary subcommittee, > Rep. Ed Pease (R-Ind.) said the growing number of websites that allow > people to trace their families' history was a threat that called for > legislative action. > > "There are some commercial ventures now providing information on this > subject ... oftentimes genealogical information involves a mother's maiden > name, and that is often used by many as a password," Pease said. > > Genealogy.com, for instance, says it has 470 million names in its database. > It allows you to search someone's family tree using their full or partial > name. > > Clinton administration representatives -- who were planning to testify > before the panel about cookies and industry self-regulation -- were caught > completely off-guard by Pease's comments. > > "This is not really anything I've heard about yet," replied Andrew Pincus, > general counsel to the U.S. Department of Commerce. > > "We're dealing mainly with commercial sites, and not these," said Jodie > Bernstein, director of the bureau of consumer protection at the Federal > Trade Commission. > > Pease shot back that "a growing number of commercial ventures" provided > such potentially troubling information and he'd "sure appreciate" it if > the FTC would investigate. > > To survive a free speech challenge, any legal restrictions Congress imposes > would have to comply with the First Amendment, which limits government > controls on publications and websites. > > "Rep. Pease has gotten it all backwards. The inherent insecurity of using > mother's maiden name as a password means that the practice of doing so must > stop, just as most of us know better than to use our birthdays or first > names as any form of password," said Stanton McCandlish, an amateur genealogy > researcher and spokesman for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. > > "Genealogists are neither a new threat, nor any threat at all. Mothers' > maiden names are available from numerous public sources, while the security > risk of using them for passwords is increasingly well known. (Such a bill) > will not withstand even a cursory First Amendment challenge in court," > McCandlish said.