I LOOKED up to see if you looked up, then you looked up to see if I looked up to see if you looked up to see if I was looking up at you ... words from an old romantic ballad sung by (I can’t remember) that could perhaps now be relaunched as a Merkel-Obama duet?
I love spying. Who doesn’t? I’m sure there is a little bit of wannabe James Bond secret agent 007 in each one of us.
My mother always told me that eavesdroppers heard no good of themselves, but that didn’t stop me from standing listening just outside the dining room door for a while, just in case, after I’d been sent out yet again to wash my hands. We did a lot of washing in our house — of hands and even mouths, with soap — cleanliness is next to Godliness, you know. Mom was right, of course, I never heard much good of myself standing out there — maybe when you know you’re being listened to, it affects what you say?
We’re all connected by technology nowadays. We’re connected to each other, we’re connected to machines, those machines are connected to each other … there is stuff zooming through the air we breathe, thick and fast. We breathe data in and out all day — weird, when you think about it.
The latest technology (I think it’s the latest, but I may be an eon or two behind the curve) is this phenomena known as the cloud. A rain-bearing cloud (a nimbus) is something we’re all familiar with. When these clouds gather and yield their loads we have a Highveld cloudburst — one of the many fabulous things that make Johannesburg my favourite city in the world, but I digress.
Cloud computing is essentially a network system to take storage capacity and processing capability from down here (on your desk-top computer) to up there (at some central facility), which then allows multiple two-way user access and interface, sort of. A cloud of sorts, let’s hope we never have a data downpour.
The same brains that create this ether information superhighway also know how to intersect and analyse its traffic. All that data — be it codes or words or sounds or pictures — is capable of being watched, extracted, sorted and analysed. Everyone is doing it, you’re not going to stop it and the authorities can only regulate to the point of their understanding anyway — which is well behind the hacker’s edge of the envelope. And somehow the baddies are always ahead of the goodies in these races — maybe they get paid more, or maybe it’s the anti-establishment DNA that drives them.
But is it fair?
Let’s start with common courtesy. You just don’t read a girl’s diary, you don’t read other people’s e-mails or SMSs and you don’t look at others people’s pictures — you just don’t. If someone wanted to share something with you, they’d have copied you in on it in the first place.
Of course, spying has nothing to do with courtesy.
The US national intelligence service has only been around since 1946, but now it’s all-pervasive, all-invasive, some would say. The trouble with any secret service is just that — it is secret and therefore all-powerful and unaccountable and capable of getting out of control. How many crimes against humanity have been committed under cover of state security? I can understand Merkel being a bit miffed about having her cellphone listened into (boring as I’m sure that is) but in their heyday the Gestapo wrote the book of standards for invasive intelligence gathering by the state.
Worse still, and perhaps this is the real point, was the political force brought to bear on those whose utterances and actions weren’t in line with Nazi ideology. Surveillance by the all-powerful, not-accountable state is what’s at issue here.
I think it is common cause that someone should watch over us, that we should have some form of pre-emptive awareness capacity and intelligence of approaching danger. We should be able to fire up our missiles when we first detect their launch commence sequence in Siberia. In fact, it can be argued, the mere awareness that both sides know that they’re being listened to is what keeps the peace and avoids the triggers. Okay, so that stuff is okay.
The trouble is that surveillance isn’t selective — you can see and hear everything. And, as we all know, what has been seen can’t be unseen and what has been heard can’t be unheard. So, when does it get out of hand? It already is.
Like all of these things, it depends on the mandate and who has the power to execute it. It is not okay to gain unfair advantage, we deal with this quite extensively in business — you can go to jail for insider trading. Governments, it seems, have carte blanche to look and listen into our private lives without restriction, without even probable cause — and that is simply bullshit. If there is reasonable suspicion that my behaviour or plans could cause harm to society or break the law, then by all means have the right to take a closer look. But surely there has to be a "warrant for observation" issued by a judge, after due process.
Spying on the enemy is okay. Spying on allies is not, but it isn’t going to stop. It is wrong (by the unfair advantage rule) but you won’t stop it so you may as well make some rules? Trouble is, there’s always some ambitious little geek on a mission to hack himself through the rule book to even the best protected centres of confidence. Even the joint data protection initiatives under discussion between France and Germany won’t prove impenetrable. I don’t think you can really stop it, at best you can make rules and punish offenders.
Cyber security is big business in most corporations nowadays. We all have firewalls and spam detectors and internal company rules for internet access — but I’m pretty sure industrial espionage is alive and well.
In truth, this freedom of communication, this instant access to information, is less of a liberator than we’d hoped it would be. The freer and more abundant the information flow, the more of a police state response will be required to control it. Between Facebook and Twitter and Linkedin and Instagram and whatever, we are not being liberated at all, we are being exposed, we’re in a fish bowl, a cage — it is not good, it can be evil.
Can you opt out? Can you even operate in a world where all communication is electronic? How will you pay your electricity bill, how will you get included in the meeting invites, how will you send holiday snaps taken on the beach to those freezing relatives living in Canada?
I know a few people who don’t have a TV (really, I do), they read more, and that’s good.
I even know one person who doesn’t have a cellphone — she seems to manage, in fact she seems to have a more peaceful life. I’ve thought of opting out, switching off — but where’s the fun in that?
...
DRONES. I want one. I can only imagine how much fun I could have with my very own drone.
For just a few thousand rand you can buy yourself a real drone. A quadricopter fitted with an auto-pilot system that reverts to hover if your fingers slip off the controls. A GPS navigation system that "returns home" with a one-touch command, when you’ve done spying for the day, is standard. Any one of us could operate such a thing. If you want to upscale a bit, then how about a thermal night safari through the neighbourhood? Or get yourself a high-definition, stealth silent, noninvasive (yeah, right) picture and video-mounted platform, with a live feed to your cellphone.
For a couple of hundred thousand rand you can get yourself a fully equipped drone (unmanned aerial device) that can fly from here to Maputo, get re-fuelled on the ground there and fly back, surveying all in its path, both ways, really. Nasa has successfully flown a Boeing 720 under full remote control — the sky really is the limit.
What fantastic technology, what inspired human endeavour, to invent such a fabulous toy. Its virtuous applications are obvious. Aerial photography redefined, security surveillance, search and rescue in dangerous conditions, going down into mines or volcanos to gather valuable data — the list is endless.
Sadly, there’s always a downside threat. Not entirely dissimilar to the endless debate on gun ownership — – in the wrong hands they’re evil, but if we ban them then only the baddies will have them — so the arguments rage on. (A helicopter just flew over, I’m sitting at the pool — should I move inside?)
In the wrong hands, a drone’s uses may range from mischievous flights over Sandy Bay all the way to downright invasive spying and even outright remote murder.
The power of technology, its uses and applications, is what’s at stake here. Nothing we can do will stop the advances and we shouldn’t waste our time trying. SIM card technology enables remote access and control over everything, but it also enables a "happy birthday" call to granny or a call from a daughter to her dad in a time of need.
It’s not the machines that are evil. The solution doesn’t lie in science or laws. It’s human behaviour that has to be regulated, and it seems that there is less and less consensus around the world as to what is right and wrong.
We are at risk.
I LOOKED up to see if you looked up, then you looked up to see if I looked up to see if you looked up to see if I was looking up at you ... words from an old romantic ballad sung by (I can’t remember) that could perhaps now be relaunched as a Merkel-Obama duet?
I love spying. Who doesn’t? I’m sure there is a little bit of wannabe James Bond secret agent 007 in each one of us.
My mother always told me that eavesdroppers heard no good of themselves, but that didn’t stop me from standing listening just outside the dining room door for a while, just in case, after I’d been sent out yet again to wash my hands. We did a lot of washing in our house — of hands and even mouths, with soap — cleanliness is next to Godliness, you know. Mom was right, of course, I never heard much good of myself standing out there — maybe when you know you’re being listened to, it affects what you say?
We’re all connected by technology nowadays. We’re connected to each other, we’re connected to machines, those machines are connected to each other … there is stuff zooming through the air we breathe, thick and fast. We breathe data in and out all day — weird, when you think about it.
The latest technology (I think it’s the latest, but I may be an eon or two behind the curve) is this phenomena known as the cloud. A rain-bearing cloud (a nimbus) is something we’re all familiar with. When these clouds gather and yield their loads we have a Highveld cloudburst — one of the many fabulous things that make Johannesburg my favourite city in the world, but I digress.
Cloud computing is essentially a network system to take storage capacity and processing capability from down here (on your desk-top computer) to up there (at some central facility), which then allows multiple two-way user access and interface, sort of. A cloud of sorts, let’s hope we never have a data downpour.
The same brains that create this ether information superhighway also know how to intersect and analyse its traffic. All that data — be it codes or words or sounds or pictures — is capable of being watched, extracted, sorted and analysed. Everyone is doing it, you’re not going to stop it and the authorities can only regulate to the point of their understanding anyway — which is well behind the hacker’s edge of the envelope. And somehow the baddies are always ahead of the goodies in these races — maybe they get paid more, or maybe it’s the anti-establishment DNA that drives them.
But is it fair?
Let’s start with common courtesy. You just don’t read a girl’s diary, you don’t read other people’s e-mails or SMSs and you don’t look at others people’s pictures — you just don’t. If someone wanted to share something with you, they’d have copied you in on it in the first place.
Of course, spying has nothing to do with courtesy.
The US national intelligence service has only been around since 1946, but now it’s all-pervasive, all-invasive, some would say. The trouble with any secret service is just that — it is secret and therefore all-powerful and unaccountable and capable of getting out of control. How many crimes against humanity have been committed under cover of state security? I can understand Merkel being a bit miffed about having her cellphone listened into (boring as I’m sure that is) but in their heyday the Gestapo wrote the book of standards for invasive intelligence gathering by the state.
Worse still, and perhaps this is the real point, was the political force brought to bear on those whose utterances and actions weren’t in line with Nazi ideology. Surveillance by the all-powerful, not-accountable state is what’s at issue here.
I think it is common cause that someone should watch over us, that we should have some form of pre-emptive awareness capacity and intelligence of approaching danger. We should be able to fire up our missiles when we first detect their launch commence sequence in Siberia. In fact, it can be argued, the mere awareness that both sides know that they’re being listened to is what keeps the peace and avoids the triggers. Okay, so that stuff is okay.
The trouble is that surveillance isn’t selective — you can see and hear everything. And, as we all know, what has been seen can’t be unseen and what has been heard can’t be unheard. So, when does it get out of hand? It already is.
Like all of these things, it depends on the mandate and who has the power to execute it. It is not okay to gain unfair advantage, we deal with this quite extensively in business — you can go to jail for insider trading. Governments, it seems, have carte blanche to look and listen into our private lives without restriction, without even probable cause — and that is simply bullshit. If there is reasonable suspicion that my behaviour or plans could cause harm to society or break the law, then by all means have the right to take a closer look. But surely there has to be a "warrant for observation" issued by a judge, after due process.
Spying on the enemy is okay. Spying on allies is not, but it isn’t going to stop. It is wrong (by the unfair advantage rule) but you won’t stop it so you may as well make some rules? Trouble is, there’s always some ambitious little geek on a mission to hack himself through the rule book to even the best protected centres of confidence. Even the joint data protection initiatives under discussion between France and Germany won’t prove impenetrable. I don’t think you can really stop it, at best you can make rules and punish offenders.
Cyber security is big business in most corporations nowadays. We all have firewalls and spam detectors and internal company rules for internet access — but I’m pretty sure industrial espionage is alive and well.
In truth, this freedom of communication, this instant access to information, is less of a liberator than we’d hoped it would be. The freer and more abundant the information flow, the more of a police state response will be required to control it. Between Facebook and Twitter and Linkedin and Instagram and whatever, we are not being liberated at all, we are being exposed, we’re in a fish bowl, a cage — it is not good, it can be evil.
Can you opt out? Can you even operate in a world where all communication is electronic? How will you pay your electricity bill, how will you get included in the meeting invites, how will you send holiday snaps taken on the beach to those freezing relatives living in Canada?
I know a few people who don’t have a TV (really, I do), they read more, and that’s good.
I even know one person who doesn’t have a cellphone — she seems to manage, in fact she seems to have a more peaceful life. I’ve thought of opting out, switching off — but where’s the fun in that?
...
DRONES. I want one. I can only imagine how much fun I could have with my very own drone.
For just a few thousand rand you can buy yourself a real drone. A quadricopter fitted with an auto-pilot system that reverts to hover if your fingers slip off the controls. A GPS navigation system that "returns home" with a one-touch command, when you’ve done spying for the day, is standard. Any one of us could operate such a thing. If you want to upscale a bit, then how about a thermal night safari through the neighbourhood? Or get yourself a high-definition, stealth silent, noninvasive (yeah, right) picture and video-mounted platform, with a live feed to your cellphone.
For a couple of hundred thousand rand you can get yourself a fully equipped drone (unmanned aerial device) that can fly from here to Maputo, get re-fuelled on the ground there and fly back, surveying all in its path, both ways, really. Nasa has successfully flown a Boeing 720 under full remote control — the sky really is the limit.
What fantastic technology, what inspired human endeavour, to invent such a fabulous toy. Its virtuous applications are obvious. Aerial photography redefined, security surveillance, search and rescue in dangerous conditions, going down into mines or volcanos to gather valuable data — the list is endless.
Sadly, there’s always a downside threat. Not entirely dissimilar to the endless debate on gun ownership — – in the wrong hands they’re evil, but if we ban them then only the baddies will have them — so the arguments rage on. (A helicopter just flew over, I’m sitting at the pool — should I move inside?)
In the wrong hands, a drone’s uses may range from mischievous flights over Sandy Bay all the way to downright invasive spying and even outright remote murder.
The power of technology, its uses and applications, is what’s at stake here. Nothing we can do will stop the advances and we shouldn’t waste our time trying. SIM card technology enables remote access and control over everything, but it also enables a "happy birthday" call to granny or a call from a daughter to her dad in a time of need.
It’s not the machines that are evil. The solution doesn’t lie in science or laws. It’s human behaviour that has to be regulated, and it seems that there is less and less consensus around the world as to what is right and wrong.
We are at risk.
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