Something About Big Brother

 We  are  the  product. 

 http://drpendleton.homestead.com/files/We_are_the_product.pdf


A Duck Duck Go search of the phrase "We are the product" reveals that quite a few people have uttered this under varying historical and modern circumstances.  I'm guessing that some percentage of folks find this phrase when applied to web platforms and services as distasteful  as the notion that we are each of us alone in our own skins.  And the rest-- well some won't give a damn.  Others will shrug.  A few will claim that fear-mongering does not bother them.

There is something there within the observation that when we avail ourselves of "free" services on the internet that we do indeed become the product.  Business is business, as my dad always told me.  People usually go into business with the idea of making some money.  Very few people will continue to foster a business that is losing money.  When a search engine or an e-mail service or a real-time social stream sets up camp, there has to be some return on the investment.  At the very least, the company has to pay its' workers, which for all practical purposes includes the C.E.O. or whatever the top of the pyramid is called these days.

Enter those obnoxious ads.  Ads have become such an interwoven part of the web experience these days that housemate did not realize the computer was infected when the words "ads not from this site" began to appear and words began to be underlines.  Housemate is not a dummy.  Housemate does New York Times crossword puzzles in pen in minutes.  Yet, there was a failure of realization.  Why?  Because the average person on the average operating system using the average browser and the average e-mail services and the average social networks-- and so on-- expects the ads to be there.  My first time using the average browser [I usually don't.  I have alternatives] to check on something non-related that the housemate wanted me to view resulted in some cursing and then a flurry of activity to remove the infection.

When a company's ambition is to own huge chunks of data, we have become the product.  When we have to opt out of [rather than into] ads targeted to our "interests," we have become the product.  When a company keeps copies of  every e-mail that we have ever sent using its' "free" e-mail service, we have become the product.  When a company keeps copies of every conversation in voice or text that we've ever had using its' messaging platforms, we are the product.  Business is business.

Enter everything that happened in the United States after 9/11.  We've got Homeland In-security, a watch list of words that will cause scrutiny of what we are writing about in our blogs, airport security lines [but virtually no existent security for trains], the planting of news items by folks getting paid to do so in order to influence popular opinion in various countries on various topics, dissidents being called "terrorists," and the false idea that we have to give up some privacy in order to have security.

I reject that idea.  Security without privacy is the true oxymoron.  There are reasons why I do not use my wallet name if I am accessing Fed Book in order to investigate people and organizations that I am writing about.  There are reasons for the zillions of e-mail addys spread across the world.  There are reasons for sandboxing browsers, having a V.P.N., and not obeying the latest Big Brother video on "how to create the coolest, safest password in the universe."  And no, turds-- I mean Big Brother-- I am not going to give you my mobile phone number in order to follow your two step verification thingy.  Furthermore, my cell phone is not compatible with your data mining products.

Big Brother is no longer a singular entity.  Big Brother now has associates.  There are Big Brothers all over the place, everywhere.  On the street corner an installed camera.  In the air, drones and mini drones.  And more drones to come.  Big Brothers are in the Cloud, on the Internet, at the local airport, woven into the fabric of social media.  

sapphoq n friends say: Big Brother is not your friend.  Big Brother can beat on you, isolate you, make fun of you, imprison you for the sake of national security, spy on you, collect information on you.  And we continue to let him do it.  Big Brother has many masks and tells us lies.  We are the sheep, trusting in Big Brother and his associates to keep us safe and happy and well-fed.  

I resist.