FW: about:global in Netscape

[Ernest Perez]

Deanna P. Denk wrote:
> 
>How concerned should librarians be --
> if at all -- about preventing others from being able to check where on
> the Internet a patron has been? Do you have policy for this? Does your
> library make it the library user's responsibility? Do you expire links,
> delete cache, exit Netscape after every user? Perhaps this issue is new
> to you?
> 
Charles Anderson wrote:
>
> Yes, I agree and find it particularly surprising since I have seen a 
> number of library policies that require a subpoena to reveal circulation 
> records.  Somehow some places apparently are viewing electronic =
> information differently.  There have been several posts in the last few =
> days on this list and Publib that imply a changed perception to =
> electronic materials.

Hmmm...WHO is this anonymous "patron" of we're so concerned with
compromising?  Excuse, but isn't this a teapot tempest, as far as
confidentiality of public terminals goes? Okay, so Big Brother or
Fundamentalist Frank can sit down and be able to find out that some
unknown patron used the www.xxx.edu site 6 days ago. So what? Anderson
above uses the metaphor of circulation records.  But this is a list of
place *somebody* looked at! Not a patron list with which sites they have
each checked....

[Well, I do suppose an FBI agent COULD sit down right after the perp
leaves, and quickly check out the global file. I'll have to remember to
do my bomb-making research at a non-public terminal.]

But generally, isn't the global file sort of like saying that a
vigilante will be able to tell from the date-due stamp that "someone"
checked out Das Kapital last month?

Cheers,
- ernest

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Ernest Perez, Ph.D.     |   There ain't no answer.
Oregon State Library    |   There ain't going to be any answer.
perez at opac.state.or.us  |   There never has been an answer.
503-378-4243, xt 257    |   That's the answer.
                        |        -Gertrude Stein