Blogging hiatus is over. A long overdue follow-up to my June 24, 2011 blog post: "The Post Digital World". The view in that post was basically security-centric in regards to increasing concerns about cyber crime involving hackers and transacting ... a focus-bias based on my 15+ years primarily involved with addressing how to overcome obstacles for optimally monetizing the Internet and helping B2B, B2C and B2B2C companies reach the largest addressable markets while optimally bringing the most possible off the sidelines of ecommerce/ mCommerce.
While that post hinted at concerns beyond transacting (i.e.: over-dependence on GPS and even national defense concerns), there has since been considerable headlines about how significantly the digital world is increasingly lurching toward the Orwellian prison George Orwell warned of in his classic: 1984.
Those paying attention over the past decade plus know not only the headlines, but the secret decisions by top government officials, cloaked under National Security designations, that criminalize any whistle blower attempts to expose what many view as unconstitutional government surveillance programs:
- The NSA (National Security Agency) under President George W. Bush, post 9/11, was secretly granted unprecedented authority to look "inward" at America citizens (extending the NSA Charter established after WW2's Pearl Harbor attack to look "outward" for potential foreign threats. This controversy - now being thoroughly explained in the PBS mini-series documentary: "United States of Secrets", trumped lawful safeguards of U.S. citizens' privacy and Constitutional protections against unlawful search and seizure by claiming Commander-in-Chief rights for increased surveillance to protect citizens.
- NSA under President Barack Obama was secretly put on proverbial steroids. This action by President Obama to not only sustain NSA spying, but significantly increase the U.S. Government's NSA surveillance of U.S. citizens was in direct contradiction to Candidate Obama's 2007 campaign pledges to stop illegal government spying on American citizens as is contrasted in this linked video of Candidate Obama vs. President Obama (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BmdovYztH8).
- Edward Snowden - some consider him a Traitor, others a Patriot Whistle blower (and Nobel Peace Prize nominee). This 20-something former CIA employee and NSA contractor discovered the mindboggling magnitude of U.S. Government spying on all Americans plus discovered that even the New York Times buried the story for over a year so did his diligence to find global allies in the media who would help him expose the startling magnitude of U.S. Government spying on U.S. citizens, as well as to leaders of foreign allies of the United States (requiring Snowden to seek asylum in Russia, beyond the reach of the U.S. Government).
- Telecoms, Search Engine and Social Media giants have been exposed for turning over activity of all U.S. citizens to the U.S. Government for analysis and scrutiny.
- 'Big Data' is now a boom sector of the economy - with the U.S. Government's ravenous appetite for details on all U.S. citizens continuing to grow unchecked. While other nations globally have kept pace with advancing technologies via extending privacy laws (i.e.: try finding the email address for an executive in Europe via Hoovers), the U.S. business-political climate encourages ever expansive data collection for profiling that has both business-marketing potential and government-national security potential (as well as of course political-abuse potential). A recent Politico story reiterated a U.S. Senate report that private companies already collect, mine and sell as many as 75,000 individual data points on each customer that includes very personal information on not just credit card transactions, EasyPass travel activity (etc.) but details on personal mediations and pharmacy purchases - information that will become vastly more accessible by the U.S. Federal Government as new national healthcare systems continues its gradual, phased implementation.
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/big-data-beyond-the-nsa-106653.html#ixzz31jNdlCwV
- Drone warfare by the U.S. has evolved from a war-provoking action rarely used (10 strikes between 2004-2007, killing about 190 in Pakistan alone), then from 2008-2014 there have been over 280 drone strikes (many including multiple missile firings) in Pakistan, killing well over an estimated 2,700. Known killings by U.S. drones have occurred in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia (plus recently drones were deployed to Niger). Generally speaking, the U.S. public and media are mainly indifferent to drone warfare while the sophistication and size of drones are continually evolving.
- Traffic cams and security cams were the early wave ... that is now rapidly expanding to encompass
at least a significant portion of the footprint of the nation (and eventually the world) where people typically circulate ... with a ubiquitous eye that sees and records everything. Of course there are pros spanning security safeguards and crime solving needs, to enhanced public safety due to the awareness of the ever present law enforcement camera-eyes that help cause safer conduct (i.e.: reduced speeding, jumping of red lights, etc.), however, in the wrongs hands this infrastructure can be invasive, controlling and worse.
- Technology leaders like Google's Regina Dugan (former DARPA Director [Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - an agency of the United States Department of Defense] is pushing an
edible “authentication microchip” along with an electronic tattoo that can read your mind.
Dugan, who is Head of Advanced Technology, told an audience at the All Things D11 Conference that the company was working on a microchip inside a pill that users would swallow daily in order obtain the “superpower” of having their entire body act as a biological authentication system for cellphones, cars, doors and other devices. (DARPA is the Pentagon agency that many see as being at the top of the pyramid when it comes to the Big Brother technocracy.) “It has been known for decades that when you speak to yourself in your inner voice, your brain still sends neural spike volleys to your vocal apparatus, in a similar fashion to when you actually speak aloud,” explains Extreme Tech's John Hewitt, noting that the device could allow covert voice activation as well as being used to detect stress and emotion.
The list goes on ... inevitable advances in innovation in the digital world that not that long ago was science fiction. Nothing has changed in human nature ... where a discovery breakthrough is
made with technology to advance understanding and contribute to helping the human condition, the environment (etc.), the inevitable dark side of human nature sees ways to exploit technological advances for purposes of control, power and worse. Hundreds of years ago Benjamin Franklin understood human nature on the lessons of history there to learn from or ignore. On this topic Ben was prescient and timeless. "Any society that will give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and loose both".
Must our world remain bound by the positive and negative developments within the confines of today's quickly evolving digital world? Of course not. The reinstituted TV series Cosmos (hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson) has already shown many examples proving that innovators over recorded history have found a way to break the bounds of conventional wisdom, dogma and known scienticic facts to make game changing discoveries (for instance 19th century physicist Michael Faraday who undertook imaginative scientific experiments to ultimately prove that light was closely linked to electricity and magnetism - the result of which was the first induction motor which converts electrical current into continuous mechanical motion. The induction motor started a revolution that became a vital building block of contemporary civilization (light on demand, generators, etc.) as Faraday's ideas became a vital part of the foundation of modern physics.
The digital world has brought about vast types of efficiencies and has enabled countless developments in analysis and understanding across communications, medicine, space exploration, energy management, etc. However, downside costs of the expanding digital world include loss of
privacy, new types of security threats (from personal to national) and more.
Magnetic fields, sound waves, light waves - building blocks of reality that were invisible and unknown for most of humanity's existence. Once discovered and understood they were leveraged to advance humanity to unthinkable places. There will be more discoveries. What will be the next discoveries of the currently undetectable ... discovery of new elements on far away worlds via our increasing ability to peer and probe deeper into the universe?; discovery of dimension(s) in addition to height, width, depth and time?; discovery of time-rips that validate wormhole theories?; discovery that the 'universe' isn't "uni" but a duo-verse, or a tri-verse or a quad-verse (etc.)? discovery that analog and digital have a sibling or siblings?
Maybe before a post-digital world can be discovered by humanity, AI (artificial intelligence) will arrive first. If that breakthrough happens first, expect AI to take the baton and accelerate discovery at an unprecedented pace.
