Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping!
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Posted on 03/05/2015 9:06:15 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Can you imagine a world where your home, your vehicles, your appliances and every single electronic device that you own is constantly connected to the Internet? This is not some grand vision that is being planned for some day in the future. This is something that is being systematically implemented right now. In 2015, we already have “smart homes”, vehicles that talk to one another, refrigerators that are connected to the Internet, and televisions that spy on us. Our world is becoming increasingly interconnected, and that opens up some wonderful possibilities. But there is also a downside. What if we rapidly reach a point where one must be connected to the Internet in order to function in society? Will there come a day when we can’t even do basic things such as buy, sell, get a job or open a bank account without it? And what about the potential for government abuse? Could an “Internet of Things” create a dystopian nightmare where everyone and everything will be constantly monitored and tracked by the government? That is something to think about.
Today, the Internet has become such an integral part of our lives that it is hard to remember how we ever survived without it. And with each passing year, the number of devices connected to the Internet continues to grow at an exponential rate. If you have never heard of the “Internet of Things” before, here is a little bit about it from Wikipedia…
Things, in the IoT, can refer to a wide variety of devices such as heart monitoring implants, biochip transponders on farm animals, electric clams in coastal waters, automobiles with built-in sensors, or field operation devices that assist fire-fighters in search and rescue. These devices collect useful data with the help of various existing technologies and then autonomously flow the data between other devices. Current market examples include smart thermostat systems and washer/dryers that utilize wifi for remote monitoring.
But there is also a dark side to the Internet of Things. Security is a huge issue, and when that security is compromised the consequences can be absolutely horrifying. Just consider the following example…
It is a strange series of events that link two Armenian software engineers; a Shenzen, China-based webcam company; two sets of new parents in the U.S.; and an unknown creep who likes to hack baby monitors to yell obscenities at children. “Wake up, you little ****,” the hacker screamed at the top of his digital lungs last summer when a two-year-old in Houston wouldn’t stir; she happened to be deaf. A year later, a baby monitor hacker struck again yelling obscenities at a 10-month-old in Ohio.
Both families were using an Internet-connected baby monitor made by China-based Foscam. The hacker took advantage of a weakness in the camera’s software design that U.S.-based Armenian computer engineers revealed at a security conference in Amsterdam last April.
The Internet allows us to reach into the outside world from inside our homes, but it also allows the reverse to take place as well.
Do we really want to make ourselves that vulnerable?
Sadly, we live at a time when people don’t really stop to consider the downside to our exploding technological capabilities.
In fact, there are many people that are extremely eager to connect themselves to the Internet of Things.
In Sweden, there are dozens of people that have willingly had microchips implanted under the skin. They call themselves “bio-hackers”, and they embrace what they see as the coming merger between humanity and technology. The following is what one of the founders of a Sweden based bio-hacking community had to say during one recent interview…
“The technology is already happening,” says Hannes Sjoblad, one of the founders of BioNyfiken. “We are seeing a fast-growing community of people experimenting with chip implants, which allow users to quickly and easily perform a variety of everyday tasks, such as allowing access to buildings, unlocking personal devices without PIN codes and enabling read access to various types of stored data.
“I consider the take-off of this technology as another important interface-moment in the history of human-computer interaction, similar to the launches of the first windows desktop or the first touch screen. Identification by touch is innate for humans. PIN codes and passwords are not natural. And every additional device that we have to carry around to identify ourselves, be it a key fob or a swipe card, is just another item that clutters our lives.”
And of course this is happening in the United States as well…
In America, a dedicated amateur community — the “biohackers” or “grinders” — has been experimenting with implantable technology for several years. Amal Graafstra, a 38-year-old programmer and self-styled “adventure technologist”, has been inserting various types of radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips into the soft flesh between his thumbs and index fingers since 2005. The chips can be read by scanners that Graafstra has installed on the doors of his house, and also on his laptop, which gives him access with a swipe of his hand without the need for keys or passwords.
But you don’t have to have a microchip implant in order to be a part of the Internet of Things.
In fact, there are a whole host of “wearable technologies” that are currently being developed for our society.
For instance, have you heard about “OnStar for the Body” yet? It will enable medical personnel to constantly monitor your health wherever you are…
Smart, cheaper and point-of-care sensors, such as those being developed for the Nokia Sensing XCHALLENGE, will further enable the ‘Digital Checkup’ from anywhere. The world of ‘Quantified Self’ and ‘Quantified Health’ will lead to a new generation of wearable technologies partnered with Artificial Intelligence that will help decipher and make this information actionable.
And this ‘actionability’ is key. We hear the term Big Data used in various contexts; when applied to health information it will likely be the smart integration of massive data sets from the ‘Internet of things’ with the small data about your activity, mood, and other information. When properly filtered, this data set can give insights on a macro level – population health – and micro – ‘OnStar for the Body‘ with a personalized ‘check engine light’ to help identify individual problems before they further develop into expensive, difficult-to-treat or fatal conditions.
If that sounded creepy to you, this next item will probably blow you away.
According to one survey, approximately one-fourth of all professionals in the 18 to 50-year-old age bracket would like to directly connect their brains to the Internet…
According to a survey by tech giant Cisco Systems, about a fourth of professionals ages 18 to 50 would leap at the chance to get a surgical brain implant that allowed them to instantly link their thoughts to the Internet.
The study was conducted on 3,700 adults working in white-collar jobs in 15 countries.
“Assuming a company invented a brain implant that made the World Wide Web instantly accessible to their thoughts, roughly one-quarter would move forward with the operation,” the study found.
In the end, they are not going to have to force most of us to get connected to the Internet of Things.
Most of us will do it eagerly.
But most people will never even stop to consider the potential for abuse.
An Internet of Things could potentially give governments all over the world the ability to continually monitor and track the activities of everyone under their power all of the time.
If you do not think that this could ever happen, perhaps you should consider the words of former CIA director David Petraeus…
“Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters — all connected to the next-generation Internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing”
Are you starting to get the picture?
They plan to use the Internet of Things to spy on all of us.
But we just can’t help ourselves. Our society has a love affair with new technology. And some of the things that are being developed right now are beyond what most of us ever dreamed was possible.
For example, Microsoft has just released a new promotional video featuring 3D holograms, smart surfaces, next-generation wearable technologies, and “fluid mobility”…
The elaborate, highly produced video shows jaw-dropping technologies like a SCUBA mask that annotates the sea with 3D holograms, a multipart bracelet that joins together to become a communications device, and interactive, flexible displays that automatically “rehydrate” with information specific to the people using them.
This video from Microsoft was posted on YouTube, and I have shared it below…
So what do you think about all of this?
Big Brother!
How soon will the SCOTUS approve of the law where we’re taxed for NOT having everything in the house connected to the internet.
I mean, gov’t can tax for anything but, that’s GOT to be SOME kind of interstate commerce, right??
In the last episode, 6, 2, the butler, and Alexis Kanner somehow drove away in a semi and then parted ways from what I remember.
I googled Patrick McGoohan. Very interesting cinema career both before & after The Prisoner of which he was co-author.
The 1967 depictions of all-seeing surveillance were well ahead of their time.
But it all started with George Orwell in “1984”.
“It will be just like living in a world-wide version of ‘The Village’ from ‘The Prisoner’.”
As I scrolled down, I was picturing Number 6 watching the obligatory morning propaganda, including the denunciation of all freedom-loving individuals as “unmutual”; I was just about to post when I read your post: You beat me to it.
I am not a number! I am a free man! (And, yes, I am unmutual!)
Remember when he smashes the radio only to have someone show up right away and replace it?
A very interesting fellow.
As far as Smart TVs, I believe that our TVs will remain off until the regime-apparent approves indoctrination, speeches and mandates for its controlled media to stream, and then the TVs will turn on until their steady stream of islamo-facist blather is completed for that timeframe.
Among those broadcasts will likely be where and when the regime subjects have to be (with their papers in order) to obtain their food rations for that day.
Those able to work in all the factories that will be set up (as the regime is actively going about wiping out all private enterprise) will be fed there.
All of us who cannot work (the ill, disabled, the elderly) will be speedily phased out of the right to continue living as they will be denied the medicine and care they now need to survive. They will also be denied their food rations, so it will only be a question of whether they die from starvation, lack of medication, lack of care, or all three.
Any regime knows that they can’t have a viable contingent to work their factories and man their armies if their is a ‘burden’ of those not able to work; the regime feels that they are nothing more than ‘ravenous feeders’, taking bread out of the mouths of the workers/military/regime-indoctrinated youth. So those unfortunates will be rounded up, taken to various facilities where they are ‘humanely disposed of’.
Of course, all those who rebel against the regime will be quickly dealt with, interrogated, physically beaten and then shot and piled by the hundreds into deep, long graves...alongside all the bodies of the ill/disabled/elderly.
Does this sound like Nazi Germany?
Also, at what point in our near future are Christians going to be slaughtered for their faith, right here in this country? The hatred is certainly there, both for Jews and Christians, and with a muslim islamo-facist dictator draping his filth over the chair of the Highest Office In the Land, the plan is most certainly in place and ready to implement at a moment’s notice.
Congress has become out-and-out zombies, roving about, dragging their legs behind them and occasionally face-planting. They are just as much a threat to We the People as the regime, and need to be summarily removed from office and if need be by law enforcement.
They sit in their luxury mansions and dine on salmon carpaccio, caviar, wine and organic ice cream imported from Italy, they make millions of dollars, are driven around in limos, private-jetted to an assortment of countries, but do absolutely NOTHING to earn anything of it.
It’s their fear, of losing all of that—all that power, luxury, pampering, money. Which of them—any of them—if they somehow regain some sense of integrity and honesty and go and just lay it all out right at the feet of their ‘glorious leader’ and say “we give it UP! All of it! “If you do right, will not the Lord reward you?” as Biblical scripture tells us in Genesis.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Yes.
This is my all-time favorite program; I have it practically memorized. (I have not yet bought the DVD edition, since it is reselling at a high price, and some consider it to be a mediocre tape transfer).
My favorite episode is “Schizoid Man” for it shows the inexorable insidiousness of communism/collectivism: They so dismayed the Prisoner that he for the first time asserts that he is in fact their Number 6. (It was arguably a Pyrrhic Victory for them, since Number 12 died and Number 6 finally outsmarted them, but it was a victory nonetheless: the incrementalism of leftism.)
We have gotten to the point indeed where “Television Watches You.”
> And what percentage of the population did you spy on? And what percentage that you spied on did you actually find the results interesting enough to continue?
Only a very small percentage but for good reason. It was usuallyt o obtain evidence to prove the mens rea of the targets involved and obtain evidence of a crime.
Which feeds both aspects of people’s belief that while bad things can happen, they won’t happen to them (”I have nothing to hide” and “who even knows I exist”). Which is why people connect more and more of their life online without worry about the consequences, because honestly for 90+% of us, there won’t be any.
Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping!
To get onto The Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping List you must threaten to report me to the Mods if I don't add you to the list...
Think of how cool that will be! No more lost socks!
Don’t worry, his apologists should be along anytime now.
Better read Revelation chapter 13. It will cause Babel to fade away quickly.
we’re from the government. we’re here to help
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