When is Big Brother real? When anyone can really see everything you do
PLUS the new product answer, Elon Musk-isms, two story updates, and a couple of closing thoughts
NEW PRODUCT ANSWER
Fewer votes this time and 75% knew what that cute little product was for: a heating pad. Next week I will be back onto technology products.
QUICKBYTE: Data rich surveillance as a mainstream business
I’m always surprised by the shoulder shrugs I get from people, usually younger than me, about their loss of privacy. I guess when platforms like LinkedIn have all of your employment information and business connections, you have liked, posted or reposted every social or political view you have, and have pictures ….well let’s leave the pictures and videos shall we?
Not only do these people wash all their laundry publicly, but they don’t seem to be that concerned about their personal data or being surveilled. I believe there are only 50 more hectares before every inch of England is completely covered by CCTV, as an example. It is for our protection.
Maybe I am just the suspicious type. Here is a story on why I am, and why I think more people should be concerned. Some people may not realize that when you are just driving around, your license plate is being photographed (and interpreted) fairly often; sometimes for speeding, as an example. One of the companies Flock that makes license plate reading (LPR) software, are doing what every good technology vendor should do by upgrading their product. The primary change is to integrate lots of personal data gathered from different databases with your license plate look-up. Data like your address, phone number, email address, your partner or spouse, children.
And more.
So the police can determine in a moment who exactly you are and then the cameras can track your car movements wherever you go. Surveillance without a court order. Even more disturbing is that a large number of Flock’s clients are communities, homeowners associations, schools, and businesses. So far the new product is only in beta with a few police forces. But how long before private groups get access to it, and the scope and scale of data linkage (financial records anyone?) increases.
My more suspicious readers (like me) will likely ask, “What the F*ck else does Flock do?” I’m sure you will be flabbergasted to know that they have an up and coming drone line. This really is Big Brother in action.
TWO EXTRA HELPINGS UPDATES
As per one of my 2025 predictions, there continues to be more cybersecurity breeches that I will touch on Monday. Also, incorrect citations and case law created by AI being presented in court are now so frequent that judges are fining lawyers for doing this. That is what happens when you don’t check in detail output from a technology we know is unpredictably unpredictable.
WORD SALAD - Elon-isms
I read recently that the Federal Aviation Administration is in the process of granting SpaceX permission to have more than 5 restricted launches of Starship per year. I didn’t realize Elon Musk’s musical affinity spread to Starship the group (though I thought when they were just a Jefferson Airplane their music was edgier) but perhaps he went off Grime’s music as well as his relationship with her.
Starship, for those of you like me who don’t stay up on all things rocketry, is the top banana in the fleet of rockets that SpaceX has, though the others are just variations of the word Falcon. I guess this is similar to Toyota spinning up Lexus to move to luxury, because Starship is a fully reusable, super heavy lift rocket that will take crew and cargo into orbit, to the Moon, Mars, and the rest of the universe. With a vision like that it cannot just be called Falcon Max.
Now the FAA approval will actually quintuple the number of launches permitted annually to 25. Some of the regulatory team must have been as naïve as I am and simply shrugged off problems with the last two launches which were termed “rapid unscheduled disassemblies”. Another glorious term from our era of euphemism, which stands for catastrophic explosion. The rockets blew up.! Kids, next time you damage your parent’s car, smooth things over with this term.
A LITTLE SPICE
The behaviorist way that social-media algorithms work means that we conflate being right with feeling right, and we conflate being wrong with being wronged.
Timothy Snyder
WHAT’S REALLY COOKING
What activities and people give you ordinary happiness?
That is a wrap for this week. Back on Monday with the larger Tonic. Thanks as always to my readers. I especially appreciate comments, feedback, likes, and restacks
finally I got the product right!😂 I keep saying this but you cannot trust all of the output from ChatGPT. And if you're bringing caselot into a courtroom here for darn sure better be double checking that.
As a conversation point, other than our sense of it being different, why is living in glass houses a Bad Thing if one leads a legal and moral life? I'm old-fashioned and like my privacy because that's how it's always been, but if a culture is brought up without that expectation — indeed has the expectation of sharing everything — what makes that a Bad Thing?
There is a saying: "Sunlight is the best disinfectant." Making wrong-doing public has always been an effective strategy (at least until recently). Other than the notion being offensive to those of us not raised that way, why not be more open?