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It's so easy to tune out the crazy bloggers and Alex Jones types, screaming that the NWO is watching your every move. After all, these guys are paranoid about everything, all the time, so there's probably nothing to it. Right? Well, whether or not there is actually a massive room full of government operatives monitoring everything you say or type, you are being tracked. Whether it's done in the name of theft prevention or stopping terrorism, basically nothing you do - nothing - is a secret any more. Who do you have to thank for that? How about... #5.
Public Transit Audio Surveillance
You roll over at 10:47am to see that you've overslept and, shit, you're late for work! You spring out of bed, slather on enough deodorant to substitute for showering and hustle to catch your bus to work. After all, those fries aren't going to supersize themselves. You just barely make the bus, plop down and start venting to anyone who will listen about how much you hate modern technology and the fact that it must be a government conspiracy that makes your alarm clock suck balls. We've all been there. Good thing the government boogeymen didn't hear it, right?
Little Did You Know... Having decided that the rambling nonsense of people on buses is a major security issue--which it is, assuming your average bus passenger works for Cobra Commander or some shit--cities around the U.S. have installed surveillance equipment in their buses. A study back in 2001 found 80 percent of the transit agencies surveyed had some kind of surveillance in place, including closed circuit TV cameras and separate audio recording.
Keep in mind, this was in 2001, not even close to the height of post-9/11 paranoia. Cost was the biggest factor (Chicago spent more than $3 million to put the equipment in their 300-plus city buses) and of course the cost of the technology only goes down every year. The practice has been found to be perfectly legal (a bus or a train is a public place, so all bets are off). So everything you say to the guy sitting next to you, what materials you were reading, whether or not you picked your nose- all recorded for posterity. Even everything you say into your end of a cell phone call. Hell, what's next? They listen in on your cell phone, too? #4.
Remote Cell Phone Tapping
If you don't have a cell phone, you're probably living in a time where the Internet doesn't exist, so how the hell are you reading this? Get out of here before you fuck up the space-time continuum! And since the entire modern world relies on these things for their voice communication, they must be nice and secure, right? Little Did You Know... The odds are very good that at least some of you reading this right now have already had your phone remotely tapped.
How does it happen? Covert government spying programs? Nefarious groups of teenage computer hackers? Yep, probably. But anyone else can do it too! It's as simple as downloading widely available software from the Internet. At that point, anyone who has your phone in their possession can tap it in less time than it'll take you to notice you don't have it in your pocket. Even better, you don't even have to be on the phone for them to listen in! This software allows someone to remotely turn on the microphone function of your phone even when you're not using it. So not only can they eavesdrop on the depressing phone sex you're having with your long distance girlfriend, they can even listen in while you bang the chick you're cheating on her with and send her the audio via text message. Awkward!
Law enforcement agencies are even developing a method of implanting this software on phones wirelessly, with the software being delivered and installing itself via text message. Because surely that's not a technology anyone would ever want to abuse or exploit. But this is all just a paranoid hypothetical, right? After all, why would anyone even want to listen to your calls? Well, one study estimates around three percent of phones in the U.S. are already tapped, and up to five percent in parts of Europe. #3.
PC Printer Tracking
If you work in an office setting, soul crushing or otherwise, you've almost certainly used a printer at some point. And if you're reading this at work instead of, you know, working, you've probably printed something less than business-like on the company dime; your fantasy football roster or a stack of fliers for that underground donkey show you're promoting perhaps. It's not like anyone's gonna find out, right? Little Did You Know...
Have you heard of ECHELON? If not, don't worry. It's just a global network of computers. Nothing scary about that. After all, that's kind of what the Internet is, and what's scary about the Internet except fucking everything? But where the Internet is terrifying in a tentacle porn/endless stream of Pedobear memes kind of way, ECHELON is terrifying in that it monitors your e-mail, phone records and Web surfing on behalf of several world governments, all in the interest of, supposedly keeping tabs on potential terrorists and other assorted criminal masterminds. What does this have to do with you and your donkey show, you ask? Well, whatever intergalactic team of anal probe wielding space dwellers created ECHELON also came up with a way to embed every piece of paper that goes through a laser jet printer with a microscopic code that identifies the specific printer that the paper came from.
Granted, this code can only be seen with the aid of blue lights and magnifiers, but still, someone can read it. Companies including Xerox, Dell, Canon, Lexmark and others have all begun installing this technology. So when it comes time to type up your manifesto, probably best to do it from somebody else's desk. |
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We've never had so much to fear, yet so little danger.
The trend of history is that as governments get more and more information, personal freedoms and wellbeing INCREASE.
Most brutal dictatorships occur in countries and times where they have very little technological control. Advanced bureaucracies are normally only uses for the welfare state and checks and balances. People think 's**t, our government knows everything! We can't trust them, so let's get one that's too lazy or incompetent to be evil'.
People like to be paranoid to feel important. But no one ever predicts the real problems. Few experts talked about Islamic terrorism before 9/11 (yes, I know some did but they weren't given much mainstream attention). Bird fly, swine flu and SARS have all been predicted as pandemics, when it's almost certain to be little known virus that takes hold before anyone gets a chance to fight it.
Also, as James Lovelock says, the unforeseen effects of Global Warming will be the worst.
So relax! Sorta.
People spend all of their time tracking my life? Wow, they must have less of a life than people who watch reality shows.
We're worried now, but once this becomes the social norm, I doubt anybody will care much, especially considering the long term benefits.
Also, despite the often played "Robots are evil" card, machines lack the ability to think outside of rules, so they won't be evil. Or at the very least, they will be Rule Utilitarianists, which isn't so bad seeing as those guys have to admit to an axeman where a man ran off to. If it's just being monitored by computers which will flag up potential dangers and send them to human analysts, I'm all for it.
Now to sit back and watch the "You imbecilic, sheeple! You will be the first led into the slaughterhouse by our soon to be Alien masters!" flood in.
Still, fuck those guys.
(To comment as well as reply)
First to be led to the slaughterhouse? Eh, I think we all will be in a tie for that spot. Whether we are 'aware' of these type of things or not, we won't ever truly know how much or to what extent the government is doing.
Now, on the 'machines lack the ability to think outside of rules.' There are a few problems with this.
1.) For now, that is how it is. However, in the future, as in 10-20 years, there is a very good chance we will have real life artificial intelligence. This leads to
2.) Humans are innately lazy. It's our nature. Whereas we currently have computers simply red-flagging things and sending them to humans, with upcoming technologies, these computers will make their own decision on things.
I'm all for surveillance watching potential terrorists, however it gets to a point where it sounds awfully reminiscent of '1984'. I think our government is a little bit too paranoid when it comes to terrorism. While a repeat of 9/11 is not a very savory idea, something similar is bound to happen, no matter what we or the government does. It's a simple fact that when we have religious or non religious extremists, there will be those that are crazy enough to do something drastic. It won't change unless we just nuke everyone. In which case, we get into a form of Nazism and I'm reminded a bit of Hitler.
Meh, this whole being watched thing is just a normal part of modern lives. Any sort of privacy we have is pretty much null and any we still think we have is false. Gotta love it, eh?
5butjam wins via Godwins Law!
o.O wow ...im scared
Most of this seems pretty silly. Although the CIA did just hire a firm to monitor social network activity, still, the concept of privacy is pretty much an idea of the past, similar to "the future". It just doesn't exist anymore. Good thing for me I only look at SFW content ;) http://bit.ly/9NAc0
This is all assuming that I do a damn thing that would arouse the government's interest, or anyone else's for that matter
Life needs passion.
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@ Random240 Keep giving up a little of your privacy at a time, you'll soon find there is none left to give. If no crime has been commited then why the hell should it be anyone's buisness
& they call me synical for not trusting any form of government.
Don't fear, Big Brother is your friend...
Oh, and TIA is the brainchild / giddy wet dream of John Poindexter, who took over at DARPA years after, as Wikipedia puts it, "Poindexter was convicted on multiple felony counts on April 7, 1990 for conspiracy, obstruction of justice, perjury, defrauding the government, and the alteration and destruction of evidence pertaining to the Iran-Contra Affair."
So yeah. Bush & Co. gave a man convicted of multiple treacherous felonies his long-standing dream of spying on everyone. Why do they hate America?
wow, i thought the 'total information awareness' program was made up for that British miniseries, The Last Enemy. guess not, how creepy.
@Random240
The point of having privacy is so that you can keep things private. You never know if in the future when you're trying to get a job, the gov't will use that footage of you fapping and drinking against you. They'll skew it to say you're a pervert and alcoholic. It's also not a pleasant feeling to know that while you're on the shitter, someone's peeping at you through a pinhole camera. People need solitude. Just because you know you're not doing anything wrong, doesn't mean that someone can find something wrong with it. It's just one step towards taking away your freedoms.
@Samael101
Oh, and if it was fascist then it'd be perfectly fine?
@Random240
The point of having privacy is so that you can keep things private. You never know if in the future when you're trying to get a job, the gov't will use that footage of you fapping and drinking against you. They'll skew it to say you're a pervert and alcoholic. It's also not a pleasant feeling to know that while you're on the shitter, someone's peeping at you through a pinhole camera. People need solitude. Just because you know you're not doing anything wrong, doesn't mean that someone can find something wrong with it. It's just one step towards taking away your freedoms.
Bring on 1984 bitches!
Bring on 1984 bitches!
Oh snap, the government can trace my trolling in Yahoo Answers. I bet they like my socialist rants as much as the angry users do.
haha, f**king awesome.
great, now im even more paranoid. fuck you cracked, now ive got to go buy a tin foil hat
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. Thomas Jefferson
People are more than willing to give up their liberties for security especially when the govt. is the one causing domestic terrorism. It's history & history does repeat itself. Some laugh at this thought, but it's about standing up for your liberties as those did before us so we could have our present day liberties.
Just read a great, underground novel that is a modern day version of what the original Americans were going through just prior to the American Revolution (A Time To Stand by oliver www.booksbyoliver.com). I only recommend it cause it shows what extent our govt. will go to expand their control all of us. All living organisms continue to expand as our govt. does. I just say read it and see what's going to happen in the nxt 3 years. It's been right so far.