There are many companies working hard to collect and distribute data about you and your family for profit. What you want to buy, where you want to eat, even what medical conditions you have, and whether or not you believe in God. That information and anything else you put into the internet can be collected and monetized by companies like Google and Facebook. At The Washington Post, Geoffrey Fowler explains just how far Google has gone to prevent internet users from employing its competitors' privacy-enhancing products. He writes: There’s a setting on your phone and web browser that Google … [Read more...]
Pandemic Creates Virtual Panopticon
“In the 1600s a series of civilization-threatening plague epidemics gave birth to one of the most heavy-handed surveillance states in the Western world,” writes Annie Jacobsen in First Platoon. “In order to impose the rule of law, the government ordered the full-scale cataloging of people.” You felt like you were being watched because you were, especially by your neighbors.
Historian Michel Foucault draws the parallel between the surveillance state during the plague, in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, and a prison called the Panopticon or “all seeing.” It was a circular prison with a guard tower in the middle from which a single guard could observe the prisoners—but where they couldn’t see him. They felt like they were constantly watched, creating a fear that produced obedience.
The technology is growing at the speed of science fiction, faster than your Fourth Amendment rights. Technology can be used against you before you even commit a crime just by using A.I. and analysis of your patterns to examine how you live your life.
Americans are now caught in a "Virtual Panopticon" created by the pandemic. Read more below about this scary new reality.
Is Your Data Safe from Q-Day?
Among cybersecurity professionals, Q-day is the name given to the time when quantum computers will become so powerful that current cybersecurity measures will be useless. That day might not be that far away as governments around the globe are pouring money into advancing quantum computing. Your Survival Guy has warned you many times about the incessant surveillance of the "virtual Panopticon" of the modern world. Q-day will open your private data up to anyone who has the resources to build a quantum computer with enough power. Zach Montague reports in The New York Times: They call it Q-Day: … [Read more...]
States Want to Follow You Around to Tax Your Mileage
When states decided to pay for their infrastructure with gas taxes and then push incentives to get drivers into electric vehicles that don't use gasoline, the obvious happened, gas tax revenues fell. Now states are looking for new ways to tax drivers. Per-mile taxes appear to be the most popular choice. One problem with mileage taxation is a complete loss of privacy to the state. Ken Martin reports for Fox Business: States are looking for ways to keep the funds coming in order to maintain the nation's roads. Gas taxes have been used for more than a century for the purpose. The problem … [Read more...]
Musk Reveals Previously Unknown Government Surveillance Operation
In a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, Twitter owner Elon Musk, explained that until he purchased the company, the government had vast access to the social network users' information. The Daily Mail's James Gordon reports: Twitter CEO Elon Musk has claimed the U.S. government had access to users private messages on Twitter. In a wide-ranging interview with Fox News' Tucker Carlson, set to be broadcast on Monday and Tuesday night, Musk made the startling claims noting how he was shocked to learn that the government had full access to private communications on the platform. The … [Read more...]
December RAGE Gauge: Government About to Ration Vehicle Use, Appliances Next
My December Rage Gauge is in, and what can I tell you? The main takeaway is sales of guns and gold are up. Perhaps Americans are looking for ways to avoid government control of their lives and money. It's certainly not easy. Take a look at what's happening with electric vehicles. You have read regularly here on Your Survival Guy about the intense surveillance and control available to governments in the digital. It creates a "virtual Panopticon," in which residents can be continuously monitored. An outgrowth of that digital reach is the ability via smart grid technology to turn on or turn … [Read more...]
The Weaponization of Your Banking Information Against You
Anyone who has seen the Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise film Minority Report has a decent idea of what "predictive policing" is. In the real world, cops use data analysis rather than psychic "Precogs" to predict crimes. This technology is in its infancy, but banks are now ramping up their surveillance of your actions in what they say is an attempt to predict the actions of "mass shooters." Jenny Surane reports for Law.com: Banks are developing technology to identify potential mass shooters, according to a CEO backing the push to get credit-card companies to more closely track gun … [Read more...]
VIRTUAL PANOPTICON: Chinese Possibly Using Spy Drones on Enemies, Citizens
The proliferation of digital technology and cheap electronics has led to the widespread usage of drones, both sophisticated and simple, in war, surveillance, and spycraft around the world. The use of drones for artillery spotting and kamikaze missions in the war between Russia and Ukraine has given war planners much to discuss and consider. Outside the war zone, Chinese drones are being used both to spy on the country's opponents and its own people. Politico reported last week that Chinese-made spy drones are buzzing restricted airspace over Washington, D.C. and that senators are alarmed. … [Read more...]
Is All This Technology Actually Good for Humanity?
You may be wondering after Covid-19—a virus that was potentially made in a lab and terrorized humanity for over two years—if technology is necessarily good for humanity, and the world. Technology, in the form of nuclear weaponry, also threatens to end the world if Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin can't come to terms over some place most Americans have never been to or heard of called the Donbas. In The Wall Street Journal, Andy Kessler gives his opinion of technology and its effects on humanity, writing: Lockdowns were a huge policy mistake. I blame Silicon Valley. I know, I know, the real … [Read more...]
Americans Find Themselves under Increasingly Detailed Surveillance
Since the revelations of Edward Snowden, Americans have become increasingly aware that they are heavily surveilled, not only by their government but by private corporations as well. You have previously read about this concept that Your Survival Guy calls the Virtual Panopticon. Last week, a new layer of surveillance was added to the net, with the segregation of the records of purchases at gun shops by credit card companies. Previously firearm purchases had been accounted for in a similar way to all other miscellaneous retail purchases, or those of sporting goods. The addition of a specific … [Read more...]
Amazon Is Building a Surveillance Empire
Do you want Amazon to have access to your medical records? How about a perfect map of your house? How about knowing when you're at home or away? How about knowing when you're kids are at home and you're not? Business Insider's Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert reports that privacy advocates are raising the alarm over Amazon's increasing reach into our private lives. She writes: Amazon's recent multi-billion dollar purchases of One Medical and iRobot have spurred concerns from legislators, antitrust advocates, and privacy experts, but the company's sprawling business model — and reputation of … [Read more...]
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