by Adam Tanner
Privacy advocates suggest using encrypted email providers. But three such services closed down after Edward Snowden’s revelations about the NSA highlighted the limitations of such formats. Two of those companies, Silent Circle and Lavabit, have formed the Dark Mail Alliance (darkmail.info) to devise an even better encrypted email service in the future.
Other options include Hushmail, which offers a service for free provided you sign in at least once every three weeks. A paying version without this restriction costs $35 a year. When a hacker from the group Anonymous contacted me, it came from a Hushmail address. CounterMail advertises especially strong security that encrypts each email before you send it and costs $59 a year. ShazzleMail is another new service with an interesting concept: it sends email directly from your computer to its recipient without going through the usual Internet intermediaries, so it does not contain metadata, which is akin to the address on a package whose contents one cannot see. Your cell phone or computer needs to be on when the recipient downloads the message, however.
One email-related program that I like is Abine MaskMe, which creates temporary email addresses that bounce to your main email address. With this program, when you are shopping online and do not want to share your permanent email address, it generates a new one such as [email protected]. If the merchant keeps sending you communications you no longer want to receive, you can deactivate the address. A browser add-on made by privowny.com also creates disposable email addresses.
Search Engines
Some search engines do not track your searches. These include Duck-DuckGo and Ixquick, which compile results from a number of sources, and Startpage, which uses Google’s search engine but without the tracking. However, sites that mirror Google anonymously sometimes work more slowly than Google, and all of these alternatives may not offer as rich results as Google. Thus one might use such search engines on occasion for more sensitive topics.
Social Networks
Privacychoice.org offers a free privacy dashboard to help set your preferred levels for Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, and other sites. Identity.com, set up by the Monahan brothers (featured in Chapter 6), is also aimed at helping shape your social media profiles. Some startups are trying to introduce privacy-friendly social networks such as Sgrouples, which advertises that it is “free of tracking and other data scraping nonsense.”
Mobile Data
There are programs that tell you how widely your smart phone is sharing your information or that help boost your mobile privacy. I’ve tried a mobile VPN from SurfEasy, which has worked well so far. This can also help against wireless hacking. Turning off the GPS function prevents advertisers from knowing where you are. If you are concerned about the growing use of Wi-Fi tracking by retail stores of customers through cell phones, a pouch called Off Pocket blocks all signals sent from a phone (the downside: you can’t receive any calls when using the pouch). Some experts say installing an alternative phone operating system such as Ubuntu will also aid users in preserving privacy.
ShazzleMail (as mentioned above) is a cell phone app that sends secure private emails (and also works on computers). WhisperSystems encrypts mobile communications for added security on voice calls and texting, and TextSecure encrypts text messages.
In 2014, several companies have introduced new cell phones preconfigured to maximize privacy, including Blackphone.
Traditional Mail and Phone Marketing
Several sites make it easy to limit or opt out of various categories of direct mail. Direct marketing offers such catalogs, subscription offers, donation requests, and various promotions (www.dmachoice.org). Do Not Call Registry allows Americans to opt out of receiving most telephone solicitations (www.donotcall.gov).
Banks and Credit Cards
Credit card transactions are a major source of transaction data about you. You can opt out of certain targeting by credit card companies. MasterCard allows you to opt out of web analytics, marketing email, and data analytics at www.mastercard.us/privacy. Visa allows you to opt out of its anonymous marketing analytics for five years (usa.visa.com/sitewide/privacy_policy_optout.html). American Express lists its opt-out policies at http://tinyurl.com/czdzubp. Also, check with your bank to learn what data it shares about you and how you can opt out of that sharing.
Those “prescreened” credit card offers that pile up in the mail come from data collected by credit reporting agencies Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. You can opt out by phone at (888) 567-8688, which removes you for five years. You can also opt out for five years of credit card and insurance offers at www.optoutprescreen.com.
Abine will process credit card transactions on your behalf so that none of your personal information is recorded. In the future, some firms may realize a market advantage by offering credit cards that do not collect personal data on their users. Personal.com says it is considering introducing such a card.
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse offers sample opt-out letters you can send to your financial institutions asking that they refrain from sharing your financial data. They are available at www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs24a-letter.htm.
Data Brokers
Companies like Reputation.com and Abine offer services to remove you from people-search databases. In the end I had the impression that these services hack away at the weeds but do not remove the roots of your personal information. And because personal data are collected and spread in so many places, they will continue to sprout into new dossiers about you. “The root problem is the public records laws that enable data brokers to exist: they came about in an era of paper records, limited access, and limited visibility,” says Sarah Downey, a lawyer who worked as Abine’s chief privacy strategist. “Until they’re modernized to align with the web’s capabilities and people’s reasonable expectations about the privacy of their personal information, they’re going to cause a lot of problems for a lot of people. Technological solutions can only go so far when there’s an underlying legal hole as big as this one.”
You can also opt out by contacting data brokers one by one, but that’s a huge task. Abine maintains a list of leading brokers (abine.com/optouts.php), as does Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (www.privacyrights.org/online-information-brokers-list).
You may find it interesting to see how much information a major data broker like LexisNexis has about you. Details of how to do that are at www.lexisnexis.com/privacy/for-consumers/request-personal-information.aspx. Unfortunately, its Accurint dossier service only allows very few people to remove themselves from the database, such as victims of identity theft or those at risk of physical harm. You can opt out of marketing products from one of the biggest databases, Acxiom, at isapps.acxiom.com/optout/optout.aspx, and see your file at Aboutthedata.com.
Traditional Shopping
If you are making a sensitive purchase that you do not want recorded for posterity and potentially shared with other merchants, go in person and pay in cash.
Data Vaults and Form Filling
Personal.com allows you to encrypt and store important personal documents and details on Dropbox. Gordon Bell, the author of Total Recall: How the E-Memory Revolution Will Change Everything, suggests, for example, that people embrace health logging, keeping track of all their medication information. Personal.com’s browser plug-in Fill It allows you to use some of this data to fill out online forms. Abine also has a good password and form-filling plug-in, and allows you to create multiple identities so that not every site needs to know your real name.
More Information
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (www.privacyrights.org) offers many useful detailed background papers on issues such as online privacy and technology, Social Security numbers, and privacy for in-store shoppers. It also has a series of sample opt-out letters for companies, financial institutions, charities, and others asking them not to share your information.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center lists various privacy tools at epic.org/privacy/tools.html. Another list of suggestions is at www.cotse.net/privac
ytools.html. DataBanker.com also has helpful links on privacy.
NOTES
Introduction
1. California data broker Infocore tracks a huge volume of international dossiers for its US clients. At present the company tracks more than 7.6 billion records from more than 1,100 separate datasets owned by more than 720 data companies around the world, according to CEO Kitty Kolding. Email to author, January 1, 2014. For more information on her company, see Adam Tanner, “U.S.-Style Personal Data Gathering Is Spreading Worldwide,” Forbes.com, October 16, 2013.
2. James Glanz, Jeff Larson, and Andrew Lehren, “Spy Agencies Tap Data Streaming from Phone Apps,” New York Times, January 27, 2014.
3. “Rovio Does Not Provide End User Data to Government Surveillance Agencies,” Rovio press release, January 30, 2014.
Chapter 1: What Happens Here, Stays Here?
1. For example, James McElroy, who started working as a Las Vegas dealer in 1973, says he would address important clients only by the first initial of their last name, such as “Mr. C.” or “Mrs. S.” “Maybe the person did not want to be known,” says McElroy, who rose through the ranks to become the assistant casino manager at Caesars Palace. “I very seldom call a person by their actual name, unless I know them very well.”
Chapter 2: A Harvard Professor Comes to Vegas
1. The cost of attending HBS has risen steadily since Loveman’s years there. The class of 2016 faces total costs of more than $95,000 a year, although many receive some form of financial aid. See www.hbs.edu/mba/financial-aid/Pages/cost-summary.aspx. Students often interrupt careers in which they earn more than $100,000 a year, some with base salaries of more than $135,000, not including bonuses, according to statistics from the school. See www.hbs.edu/about/facts-and-figures/Pages/mba-statistics.aspx. Naturally, students have high expectations for their professors.
2. Harvard Business Review still sells his cases today at hbr.org/search/gary+loveman/4294958507/?Nao=30. He also coauthored a book about economic changes in post-Communist Eastern Europe.
3. “An Assessment of the Productivity Impact of Information Technologies,” Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University, June 1990. Asked about the paper today, Loveman says, “It didn’t necessarily say computers weren’t important, it just said it didn’t seem to lead to productivity. . . . Since then everyone agrees that technology has been applied in ways that are dramatically improving productivity rates.”
4. In 1992 Bob Metcalfe, publisher of InfoWorld, described Loveman as “the probable father of the Paradox—the devil himself.” “Productivity Paradox ‘Devil’ Slides Data Past the Debunkers,” InfoWorld, August 24, 1992, 43. In 1994, CIO Magazine referred to Loveman’s “now-infamous macroeconomic study” and concluded, “Reports on the dearth of IT impact may have been greatly exaggerated.” “Bye-Bye Productivity Paradox,” CIO Magazine, October 15, 1994, 42.
5. “Putting the Service-Profit Chain to Work,” Harvard Business Review, March 1994.
6. Author interview, January 17, 2013.
7. Author interview, January 2, 2013.
8. “Harrah’s to Merge with Rio,” press release, August 10, 1998.
9. Author interview with former Harrah’s executive Rich Mirman, January 3, 2012, and confirmed by Loveman.
10. Because slot machines are so profitable, they dominate most casinos. There are about one million slot machines in the United States, according to Patti Hart, CEO of slot machine maker IGT (author interview, November 12, 2012). Nevada Gaming Commission statistics show there were about 155,000 slot machines in Nevada alone as of the end of January 2014. See “Gaming Revenue Report,” Nevada Gaming Commission, January 31, 2014, at http://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=8701.
11. In 2004 Harrah’s Entertainment agreed to buy Caesars Entertainment for $9.4 billion. After concluding the deal the following year, it became the world’s largest casino company. In 2010 Harrah’s Entertainment changed its name to Caesars Entertainment Corporation, giving center stage to the name of the best-known property in the chain, Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. I refer to the company as Caesars today and Harrah’s in references before 2010. There are some references to Caesars Entertainment before 2004 in this book about the company centered on Caesars Palace at the time. The corporate picture became even more complicated in late 2013 as part of restructuring efforts amid its massive debt load. The main company became Caesars Entertainment Operating Company, and it created Caesars Entertainment Resort Properties and Caesars Growth Partners. “Confused? Card counters likely have an easier time keeping track,” Spencer Jakab wrote in The Wall Street Journal about the related companies and their finances on March 11, 2014.
12. Nevada State Gaming Control Board statistics for the twelve months ending January 31, 2014, show an average hold percentage at Las Vegas Strip casinos for the prior year at about 7.5 percent. Penny slots returned the least amount, only 88 cents per dollar, whereas $100 slot machines offered the best odds on average, returning 95 cents for every dollar wagered. See http://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=8701.
13. The big-picture estimate comes from Gary Loveman: “That has allowed us to re-price slot machines over the years very dramatically and has made us hundreds [of millions] if not billions of dollars over that period. And the whole industry has followed us and done the same thing.” Author interview, December 12, 2012.
14. The mean is the average payout across the cycle of spins. Yet there will be a variance of results. So some people will win more money and others will lose more money than average during their time at the slot machine. Greater variance makes it harder to accurately assess the distribution from repeated observations.
Chapter 3: Loyalty
1. Binion quotes recalled by John Acres. Author interview, May 23, 2013.
2. In 2013, slots and related devices brought in 65 percent of total Nevada gaming revenue for casinos making at least $1 million, according to the 2013 Nevada Gaming Abstract put out by the State Gaming Control Board. On average, each casino resort earned $156 in daily slot revenue per hotel room, compared to $76 per room daily for pit games. See http://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=8566.
3. James Nagle, “Trading Stamps: A Long History; Premiums Said to Date Back in U.S. to 1793,” New York Times, December 26, 1971.
4. The company had introduced a more rudimentary version of the loyalty program some years before that. Caesars, then a separate company from Harrah’s, introduced the slot players loyalty program, called Emperors Club, in 1992.
5. Jamie McKee, “Believing in the Brand,” Casino Journal, March 1997.
6. Many years later Booz Allen Hamilton made international headlines when Edward Snowden, one of the firm’s employees who was working as a contractor for the National Security Agency, leaked information about the government’s covert surveillance program that monitored private communications and traffic on leading websites such as Google and Facebook as well as phone logs. Mirman said he worked on the commercial side of the consulting business, not the government side.
7. Author interview with Mirman, January 3, 2013. Nowadays, Caesars set up special lines for top-tier members in some of their restaurants, much as airlines check in first- and business-class passengers before others.
8. “Harrah’s Entertainment Unveils New Customer-Loyalty Program,” press release, April 4, 2000.
9. Author interview, December 4, 2012.
Chapter 4: Casino Data Gathering in Action
1. The buffet price sometimes changes during holiday periods, when demand spikes. There are also some restaurants in big properties not owned by Caesars that do not offer preferential prices for Total Rewards members.
2. “Of course we have surveillance if we need to go back and check our judgment; we can do that with surveillance. And we rate you,” Loveman says.
3. In the episode Franklin falls to his death from his hotel window. In an eerie twist, Everett Sloane, the actor who
played Franklin and who had appeared in the movie Citizen Kane, took his own life in desperation five years later, in 1965.
4. Casinos also distribute informational brochures on addictive gambling and invite gambling addicts to put themselves on an excluded list so that they will not be allowed to wager in the future.
5. The Hangover series is popular enough to lure a steady stream of guests who rent the duplex apartment that inspired the suite shown in the film. Sometimes they damage the room. Unlike in Hollywood, there are real consequences. For most fans of the movie, however, it is enough to jokingly ask the receptionist, “Did Caesar live here?” as the Zach Galifianakis character does in the film, or just buy a Hangover T-shirt in a lobby gift shop.
Chapter 5: A Celebrity, a Private Eye, and a Hit Man
1. In this case I used Accurint, which is part of LexisNexis.
2. Details provided from Criss Cross advertisement, at http://digitalcollections.mypubliclibrary.com/digital/13/16708/1/120.pdf.
3. Author interview, June 7, 2013.
4. Author interview, July 9, 2013.
5. Cullotta’s debriefer, Dennis Arnoldy, was an FBI agent from 1971 to 1997. He moved to Las Vegas in 1980 during the end of the mob’s era of widespread influence. He investigated Tony Spilotro and ended up overseeing Cullotta when he decided to work as a cooperating witness. Arnoldy envies the amount of personal information law enforcement officials can acquire today. “There was a lot of the stuff we would have to get, like to subpoena telephone records from the telephone companies and all that,” he said. “Nothing, but nothing, like they have now. I mean, I think it would be so nice to be an FBI agent now.” For private investigators, the huge increase in personal information facilitated by the Internet turned out to be a double-edged sword. “Times changed, and along comes the computer. They are the best thing and the worst thing that ever happened,” LaRue says. “You could look up everything. The problem is that everyone who owns a computer thinks they are a detective. Business has dropped off somewhat.”
