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The internet and indexing changed the equation. Before the web, a phonebook was mainly a local thing: you could look somebody up in your area, but you couldn't

by Sanzig 5y ago

The internet and indexing changed the equation. Before the web, a phonebook was mainly a local thing: you could look somebody up in your area, but you couldn't easily look up somebody across the country. You'd have to dial directory assistance in that other area, and even then, you're only getting a few names that way. With the web, everything is online and accessible using a simple lookup from a device in your pocket. You can also automate the acquisition and processing of entire phone directories with ease: going through the entire phonebook to annotate profiles on people would have taken weeks with paper, but you can do it in seconds with a Python script. Indexing and rapid data processing fundamentally changes the character of datasets, both in terms of positive utility and in terms of potential misuses. We still haven't figured that out yet as a society.

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jfrunyon 5y ago
> Before the web, a phonebook was mainly a local thing: you could look somebody up in your area, but you couldn't easily look up somebody across the country. You'd have to dial directory assistance in that other area, and even then, you're only getting a few names that way. Right, but you still can't easily look somebody up across the country - unless you pay for access to that data - which you could've done with phonebooks. I strongly suspect that Bell sold their phonebook data to companies, but even if they didn't, it wouldn't be particularly difficult to obtain phonebooks from all the areas your business is interested in...
- Sanzig 5y ago
  > Right, but you still can't easily look somebody up across the country - unless you pay for access to that data - which you could've done with phonebooks. Sure you can, all the phone directories are online and aggregated now - for example: https://www.whitepages.com/ https://www.whitepages.com/ > I strongly suspect that Bell sold their phonebook data to companies, but even if they didn't, it wouldn't be particularly difficult to obtain phonebooks from all the areas your business is interested in... Yes, but there's a lot more effort involved with (1) ordering a phone book from Bell for a city located on the other side of the country, and (2) looking up the persons of interest in the paper directory. I wouldn't be suprised either if Bell sold phonebook data in the pre-internet age, but that's still a larger barrier to entry than somebody who can search for anything they want to know about somebody using a laptop in coffee shop. We've democratized open source intelligence to the point where the barrier to entry is a bored teenager that doesn't even need to leave their house. I don't think we've figured out the massive societal implications of that just yet.
  - jfrunyon 5y ago
    I'm sorry to break it to you, but nowhere on whitepages.com is there a phonebook-esque listing of names and numbers. (Not for free, anyway.) I never said that it wasn't possible now. All I said was that it was just as possible then. You really think that ordering something by mail was a barrier to entry at a time when everything which could not be obtained locally was ordered by mail?

by Sanzig 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

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jfrunyon 5y ago

> Before the web, a phonebook was mainly a local thing: you could look somebody up in your area, but you couldn't easily look up somebody across the country. You'd have to dial directory assistance in that other area, and even then, you're only getting a few names that way. Right, but you still can't easily look somebody up across the country - unless you pay for access to that data - which you could've done with phonebooks. I strongly suspect that Bell sold their phonebook data to companies, but even if they didn't, it wouldn't be particularly difficult to obtain phonebooks from all the areas your business is interested in...

Sanzig 5y ago
> Right, but you still can't easily look somebody up across the country - unless you pay for access to that data - which you could've done with phonebooks. Sure you can, all the phone directories are online and aggregated now - for example: https://www.whitepages.com/ https://www.whitepages.com/ > I strongly suspect that Bell sold their phonebook data to companies, but even if they didn't, it wouldn't be particularly difficult to obtain phonebooks from all the areas your business is interested in... Yes, but there's a lot more effort involved with (1) ordering a phone book from Bell for a city located on the other side of the country, and (2) looking up the persons of interest in the paper directory. I wouldn't be suprised either if Bell sold phonebook data in the pre-internet age, but that's still a larger barrier to entry than somebody who can search for anything they want to know about somebody using a laptop in coffee shop. We've democratized open source intelligence to the point where the barrier to entry is a bored teenager that doesn't even need to leave their house. I don't think we've figured out the massive societal implications of that just yet.
- jfrunyon 5y ago
  I'm sorry to break it to you, but nowhere on whitepages.com is there a phonebook-esque listing of names and numbers. (Not for free, anyway.) I never said that it wasn't possible now. All I said was that it was just as possible then. You really think that ordering something by mail was a barrier to entry at a time when everything which could not be obtained locally was ordered by mail?