No Privacy on The Web

Want to see how much the world knows about you? Try this: log on to World Wide Web, fire up a search engine, and type in your name. You're probably listed somewhere, especially if you've been mentioned in a newspaper or magazine article during the past few years.

Big deal. Now type in your Social Security number.

If you're an official in the military—if you've filed papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission—or if you're a student or faculty member at a university that uses Social Security numbers for Ids—you may well be among the people whose numbers have made their way into the all too public record.

Want to get really creeped out?

Click over to InfoSpace, "the Ultimate Directory," whose People Search Directory has the home address of everybody with a listed phone number, all 112 million of them. Type in your name, and out pops a map of your neighborhood, with a little X marking your residence. Click on the icon to get written directions to your house.

And that's just the free stuff. If you're willing to pay for dirt, dozens of browsers are waiting on the Web to supply you with just about anyone's number, listed (and unlisted) phone numbers, voter registration driving records, court records, real estate holdings, liens and well, you name it.

—Time

Threats In Cyberspace

While new technology and widening global trade have made enterprise more efficient, both have also opened new cracks in society's defenses.

Take commerce. As much as $117 billion in financial transactions will occur online by the year 2000, according to market researchers IDC. As banks go digital—in operations like trading stocks, paying bills, making loans—the robbers will, too. The sheer size and speed of information networks will make them impossible to monitor closely.

Indeed, all sorts of transgressions are already occurring in the shadowy corners of the Internet. Cyber-pirates, for example, register phantom ships on the computers of maritime agencies. After taking out huge insurance policies on these virtual boats, the crooks "sink" them with the stroke of a computer key and file multimillion-dollar claims.

A bigger threat may be electronic money laundering. As the Internet becomes a place where money changes hands, strong cryptography will become the digital equivalent of armored cars: a way for people to protect their transactions.

Which is exactly what worries the Fed. They don't want encryption to be too strong, lest money launderers use it to transfer funds under their radar. To an extent, this is already happening. "We're simply losing the ability to break into their information structures," says John Arrquilla, a Rand Corp. consultant.

Our increasing reliance on computers may also leave us vulnerable to the terror—but don't panic yet. Authorities may have installed something called biometric identification. Straight out of "Mission: Impossible," biometric ID turns body parts into PIN numbers. Retina and palm scans already grant entrance to buildings.

Even body odor or DNA samples could become "passwords." "Effectively," says George J. Tomko of Mytec Technologies, "people would walk around without any paper ID at all."

—Newsweek

Los Angeles (AP)—The United States is on the verge of a "crime wave like the world had never seen before," warns Los Angeles police chief Edward M. Davis. And he says the women's liberation movement and politicians must share the blame.

In an address to the Los Angeles Breakfast Club, Davis said crime "is going to continue to go up, up, up," primarily because of "the new morality which condones lying, stealing and killing."

He said more mothers should stay home to instill old-fashioned values in their children.

"If you don't have that culture in which to bring up that young human with love and discipline, he's going to become some sort of savage if he wants to," Davis said.

Bribes Are Deductible

The Internal Revenue Service official taxpayers' guide advises: "Bribes and kickbacks to non-governmental officials are deductible unless the individual has been convicted of making the bribe or has entered a plea of guilty or nolo contendere."

Says an IRS expert: "Suppose a guy gets a kickback from an insurance broker for referring customers to him. Unless he's convicted or pleads guilty or nolo contendere (no contest), the broker is entitled to a deduction." The ancient institution of bribery has finally been institutionalized, achieving formal Government recognition.