Data Mining Tool detects Tax Evaders

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 20:03:19 -0600
From: Bob Alberti <alberti () sanction net>
Subject: Data Mining Tool detects Tax Evaders
To: dave () farber net

I kind it frightening that private sector tools are available for this kind
of effort.  Even more frightening is the following marketing-speak (emphasis
mine):

http://www.revenuesolutionsinc.com/Products/DiscoverTax/index.shtml

"DiscoverTax is a powerful suite of tools designed to reduce the tax gap. It
provides an integrated software solution that addresses the full discovery
life cycle - collecting and organizing data from multiple sources, building
comprehensive profiles of taxpayers in your jurisdiction, analyzing,
selecting and pursuing non-compliant taxpayers and tracking the benefits.

"Based on LEADING EDGE TECHNOLOGY, DiscoverTax revolutionizes the
traditional single-threaded "matching" approach, transforming it into an
easy-to-use, multi-dimensional discovery engine and data warehouse."
  [snip]
"DiscoverTax Technical Details
A multi-processor Windows NT 4.0T or Unix Server"

So... this software is mining financial data of individuals, and storing it
on a "leading edge" operating system that was obsolete five years ago?

I'm not confident that my private financial data is in very good hands in
these databases...

Bob Alberti, CISSP, President                            Sanction, Inc.
Phone: (612) 486-5000 ext 211                             PO Box 583453
http://www.sanction.net                             Mpls, MN 55458-3453

"If your laptop was stolen, would you expose confidential client data?"

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