This month's Reason Magazine

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dischord

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The cover of this month's Reason Magazine has one of the best teasers I've ever seen -- a satellite photo of my neighborhood with the caption:

<My Name>
They Know Where You Are!
The unsung benefits of a database nation


Of course, I've seen these pictures, myself long ago -- there are plenty of websites that let you find satellite pictures by street address.

I've never considered them to be a violation of my privacy any more than I believe Mapquest.com, Mapblast.com, etc to be violations -- or the phone book for that matter.

I certainly hope that whatever article is inside has something more valid than "THEY(TM) can find pictures of your roof on the internet! Eeek! Alas and Alack!"

I'll let people know if the article is valid or unReasonable (don't know if I'll get around to reading it tonight though).

OTOH: I have to wonder how much it cost to print this edition with each cover being different.
 
The article wasn't very insightful or interesting -- a stock opinion that we get great benefit from computers and databases and on the one hand need to be careful about privacy but on the other hand need to be careful about too many privacy laws. It was really nothing you couldn't have read in any privacy article (or even online discussion) in the past 10 years or more.

But the teaser was very cool.
 
Got my issue today but just skimmed the article and agree with your take. The aerial photo on the cover that was supposed to be of my house wasn't. I don't think they were even in the right state. If the police are using the same techniques to find addresses for search warrants it's no wonder they raid the wrong places occasionally.
 
The aerial photo on the cover that was supposed to be of my house wasn't.
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That's funny. :D Mine was right, and yours was wrong. It would be interesting to find out how many they got right and how many they got wrong. Obviously, this issue cost more than others to print. It would be pretty bad if there were a high level of errors (coupled with the milquetoast article.

Did you notice the ad inside for the company that provided the photos?
 
Did you notice the ad inside for the company that provided the photos?
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I haven't seen the magazine but I would guess that Reason gave them the subscriber list with all the addresses & they provided the photos in exchange for the ad (& maybe some more in future issues as that is probably a hell of a lot of work). The printing costs though must have been horrendous to get a different picture on (most) every cover. Cool idea though.
 
I agree that the tech was no big deal, but I was pretty impressed that they orchestrated the customized printing of an aerial photo cover for each subscriber. I think it's one of the neatest magazine covers I've ever seen.
 
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