Pii Quotes

From a philosophical point of view, Leibniz's most interesting argument was that absolute space conflicted with what he called the principle of the identity of indiscernibles (PII). PII says that if two objects are indiscernible, then they are identical, i.e. they are really one and the same object. What does it mean to call two objects indiscernible? It means that no difference at all can be found between them--they have exactly the same attributes. So if PII is true, then any two genuinely distinct objects must differ in at least one of their attributes--otherwise they would be one, not two. PII is intuitively quite compelling. It certainly is not easy to find an example of two distinct objects that share all their attributes. Even two mass-produced factory goods will normally differ in innumerable ways, even if the differences cannot be detected with the naked eye. Leibniz asks us to imagine two different universes, both containing exactly the same objects. In Universe One, each object occupies a particular location in absolute space.In Universe Two, each object has been shifted to a different location in absolute space, two miles to the east (for example). There would be no way of telling these two universes apart. For we cannot observe the position of an object in absolute space, as Newton himself admitted. All we can observe are the positions of objects relative to each other, and these would remain unchanged--for all objects are shifted by the same amount. No observations or experiments could ever reveal whether we lived in universe One or Two.

This is why regulation based on the concept of “personally identifying information” doesn’t work. PII is usually defined as a name, unique account number, and so on, and special rules apply to it. But PII is also about the amount of data; the more information someone has about you, even anonymous information, the easier it is for her to identify you.

La chiesa, quella vasta chiesa che la avvolgeva da ogni lato, che la custodiva, che la salvava, era anch'essa un supremo calmante. Le linee solenni di quell'architettura, l'attitudine religiosa di tutti gli oggetti che circondavano la ragazza, i pensieri pii e sereni che sprigionavano, per così dire, da tutti i pori di quelle pietre, agivano su di lei a sua insaputa.

MBio 2012;3:pii:e00300–11.

Buy something at a retailer, and your PII (personally identifiable information) attaches the UPC to your Guest ID in the CRM (customer relations management) software, which then starts working on what you’ll want next.

We expose our most sensitive personal information any time we Pick up a phone, respond to a text, click on a link, or carelessly provide personal information to someone we don’t know; Fail to properly secure computers or devices; Create easy-to-crack passwords; Discard, rather than shred, documents that contain PII; Respond to an email that directs us to call a number we can’t independently confirm, or complete an attachment that asks for our PII in an insecure environment; Save our user ID or password on a website or in an app as a shortcut for future logins; Use the same user ID or password throughout our financial, social networking, and email universes; Take [online] quizzes that subtly ask for information we’ve provided as the answers to security questions on various websites. Snap pictures with our smartphone or digital camera without disabling the geotagging function; Use our email address as a user name/ID, if we have the option to change it; Use PINS like 1234 or a birthday; Go twenty-four hours without reviewing our bank and credit card accounts to make absolutely sure that every transaction we see is familiar; Fail to enroll in free transactional monitoring programs offered by banks, credit unions, and credit card providers that notify us every time there is any activity in our accounts; Use a free Wi-Fi network [i.e. cafés or even airports] without confirming it is correctly identified and secure, to check email or access financial services websites that contain our sensitive data.

Dice che, a pensarci, è curioso che persone normali, intelligenti, possano credere a una cosa tanto pazzesca come la religione cristiana, una cosa in tutto e per tutto identica alla mitologia greca o alle favole. [...] Eppure viene creduta. Sono in molti a crederci. Durante la messa recitano il Credo, ogni frase del quale è un insulto al buonsenso, e lo recitano nella loro lingua, che si presume capiscano. Quand’ero piccolo, la domenica mio padre mi portava in chiesa e gli dispiaceva che la messa non fosse più in latino, un po’ per passatismo, e un po’ perché, ricordo ancora le sue parole, «in latino non ci si accorgeva che scemenza fosse». Ci si può rassicurare dicendo: non ci credono. Come non credono a Babbo Natale. Fa parte di un retaggio, di abitudini secolari e belle alle quali sono attaccati. Tramandandole, affermano un legame, di cui vanno fieri, con ciò che ha ispirato le cattedrali e la musica di Bach. Borbottano quelle parole perché è la consuetudine, come noialtri radical-chic, per i quali il corso di yoga della domenica mattina ha preso il posto della messa, borbottiamo un mantra seguendo il maestro prima di cominciare la pratica. In questo mantra, tuttavia, ci auguriamo che la pioggia cada al momento giusto e tutti gli uomini vivano in pace, nient’altro che pii desideri, probabilmente, i quali però non offendono la ragione, e questa è una differenza sostanziale con il cristianesimo.

If you have an iPhone, Apple could have your address book, your calendar, your photos, your texts, all the music you listen to, all the places you go—and even how many steps it took to get there, since phones have a little gyroscope in them. Don’t have an iPhone? Then replace “Apple” with Google or Samsung or Verizon. Wear a FuelBand? Nike knows how well you sleep. An Xbox One? Microsoft knows your heart rate.1 A credit card? Buy something at a retailer, and your PII (personally identifiable information) attaches the UPC to your Guest ID in the CRM (customer relations management) software, which then starts working on what you’ll want next.