Well, I think it can at the margins. For example, LibraryThing for Library
libraries don't know what tags people have searched on through LTFL, nor do
we know what patrons those searches correspond to. For the coppers to know
who's been searching for the "terrorism" tag, they'd need to issue
subpoena's to both the library and us. Both systems would need to have kept
the log files, and then they'd need to match up IP addresses at a given
time, which has limitations. Once we add reviews and such, I think those
protections will be a plus.
On the flip side, in certain circumstances it won't be necessary to get the
library data, but the IP info would be enough, in which case the subpoena
that might have gone to the library goes instead to a private company. We'd
have to prove that whatever protections libraries get should also apply the
vendor. And we don't have the deep pockets of even a library.
It's off-topic, but where do libraries draw the line. I'm assuming nobody
would respond to "who's been reading books about Bin Ladin?" But what if the
police were to find someone bludgeoned to death with a library book? Can
they find out whose book it is?
Tim
On 1/28/08, Karen Coyle <kcoyle_at_kcoyle.net> wrote:
>
> Neither Bernie's nor Tim's examples show me that someone hacked into a
> library system for the purpose of getting user data. The Library Elf
> mess was, as they said, "inadvertent." It was more like leaving data
> lying around that shouldn't have been (and was nothing that the
> libraries themselves could have prevented). Bernie's example was of a
> system being hacked but not for the purposes of obtaining patron data. I
> still maintain that our primary threat is from law enforcement, and
> there are hundreds if not thousands of examples of law enforcement
> attempting to get or getting data on library use. I'm not advocating
> that library systems be INsecure, but security doesn't help us with what
> is, IMO, our largest threat.
>
> kc
>
> Tim Spalding wrote:
> >> Perhaps I am out of the loop, but I have never heard of an outsider
> >> privacy breech of a library system. Hackers and criminals (if that's
> not
> >> a redundancy) have little to gain from the information in library
> >> systems. The library privacy concern mainly involves law enforcement,
> >> and began with actual cases in which the FBI used libraries to seek out
> >> "thought criminals."
> >
>
>
> --
> -----------------------------------
> Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
> kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
> ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet
> fx.: 510-848-3913
> mo.: 510-435-8234
> ------------------------------------
>
--
Check out my library at http://www.librarything.com/profile/timspalding
Received on Mon Jan 28 2008 - 14:33:33 EST