Privacy
The other day, I quoted Sun's Scott McNealy saying "you have zero privacy anyway", and I was reminded of that on Sunday when putting out the rubbish.
In Germany paper and all things plastic are put out on the road for the garbage collection. Depending on the place of residence, paper is dropped into a blue bin, otherwise you dump it onto the road in whatever carboard boxes you may have. Plastic, wrappings, etc. go into translucent yellow bags which are also placed on the sidewalk awaiting collection.
The yellow bags reveal at a glace what kind of food you eat: tin cans, food wrappers, yoghourt pots are all very visible. Many people are also not conscious of the information which can be gleaned from the paper deposit: bank slips, preferred magazines, television programs (some people circle the shows they like to watch), newspapers, etc.
nic wrote on 13-Feb-06 at 12:59 pm
The obtained info can be considerably enhanced if one also distributes mail, like in the "urbanización" in Ibiza. The person who picks up rubbish and delivers the mail has a wonderful range of info at his disposal:
"Annie's pension cheque stilll hasn't arrived",
"Quite a party at Nr. 25 last night. Several dozen beer empties and two Scotch",
"Nr. 31 gets a lot of documentation from mainland estate agents. Must be planning to leave".
That kind of thing.
Jan-Piet Mens wrote on 13-Feb-06 at 1:02 pm
Come to think of it, that applies to any postman as well; "Mr Mens was still in pajamas at 11:30", "Mr Smith appears to have changed his bank connection", "Mrs Doe has ordered new lingerie again", "Mr Doe's Playboy magazine subscription has been renewed", …