How much data can you get on the residents of your town?
It goes without saying that we live in a world where data is more valuable than oil, we like to think that most of this data is locked in the secure servers of the many private companies that collect it. Anyone who hasn’t been sleeping for the past decade also realizes that those servers are not immune from attack. We’ve seen big breaches including: Target, Home Depot, and Equifax, among others. We also ‘give’ our data away in return for advertisers to target their ads on the platforms that have become a part of our daily life. With the rise of all of this data, there are also data brokers who provide your data, as a service, to whoever wants it. This is nothing new. Back in the day there were big yellow phone books, 411, directories, public records offices etc. where a skilled sleuth could gather information. Nowadays it’s just much easier, and can all be done from the computer.
In fact, doing some research into my towns history I uncovered the early 20th century version of status updates which were posted in the newspaper. They provide one or two sentence breakdowns of the major happenings around town. This way the whole town knows that Elston Slater hit himself so hard in the face while cutting wood that his teeth became loose.
