Forum on Risks to the Public in Computers and Related Systems
ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy, Peter G. Neumann, moderator
Volume 21: Issue 52
Tuesday 17 July 2001
Contents
Re: WashingtonPost.com real estate database (Hudson, RISKS-21.51)
<"Peter G. Neumann" <neumann@csl.sri.com>>
Tue, 17 Jul 2001 11:19:12 PDTMy humblest apologies for letting the 2600 Pennsylvania Avenue item slip by my usually more alert moderation. Moderation in the defense of moderation is no virtue, and I should have caught that one. However, perhaps we can consider the episode a successful test of your collected readership alertness. In the entire history of the Risks Forum, we have never had the volume of responses from you all that Tramm Hudson's contribution received, and thus it seemed appropriate to put out this one-item issue. There is also a correction note in the official archive copies at SRI and Newcastle. We received lots of comments about 2600 Pennsylvania Avenue *not* being the most famous address in the DC area, and some analyses of the actual listing for the White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Andrew Brandt (PCWORLD) noted that the correct listing for the White House gave a Total Assessed Value: $340,000,000, Assessed Land Value: $314,975,600, Lot Size: 787,439 (18.1 acres), a blank ZONING field (ergo, no zoning violations there, eh?), and Property use: Special Purpose-Misc, General use: UNKNOWN. There may have been some wonderful humorous notes as well, but I could not begin to read each of your over 100 messages. For example, one of you suggested that the author might have been the same guy responsible for the targeting error that caused the U.S. to bomb the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia. In addition, a few messages noted that this kind of database provides publicly available information, so what are the risks, and why are we running this in RISKS in the first place? Indeed, my relevance criterion seems to have slipped in this entire thread. Reflecting upon all of our past issues, I am actually delighted that the Risks Forum has been so participatory. Indeed, I hope that the occasional slip-ups on the part of our contributors -- and your moderator -- have all been rectified by subsequent postings (of which this is clearly an example). Unfortunately, the volume of submissions has increased enormously, so I am also guilty of not being able to give each and every message enough scrutiny. Consequently, your responses to errors are particularly important. If I do not get to them in a timely fashion, please resend with a suitable SUBJECT line alerting me to my possible oversight. PGN
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