Somebody's Watching Me

It was one of the short lived hypes of the 1980s, this song from American musician Rockwell. Who remembers him? Or Tim Finn with "Fraction Too Much Friction"? What about "You Spin Me Round" by Dead Or Alive? No? Then you're born in the panopticon age (and a lot younger than I am ;-)).

_{source: Wikipedia}

Because in this age, somebody IS watching you. Maybe not literally, and maybe not all the time, but as things are progressing it'll only be a question of when and not if this becomes reality. A particularly disturbing peek into this future was given to us by the news around the hacks involving Amazon's "Ring" camera security system. There have been several privacy and security incidents relating to Ring this year and last year. It's come to the point now that hackers can now hijack Ring's camera system and literally watch unsuspecting victims, harass them, talk to them and threaten them. I hope all my libertarian brothers and sisters are paying attention here: it's not the government that threatens your liberty, but the system that concentrates so much power in so few hands that our beloved tech companies have become the real world "Big Brother."

_{Is Amazon covering up a massive hack of Ring security cameras?}

The Rockwell song has this eerie and foreboding atmosphere and really conveys the feeling of paranoia that must have descended upon the families who's Ring security system was hacked. In one case the hackers were directly talking to an 8 year old child through the system, saying things like "I'm Santa Claus. Don't you want to be my friend?" and encouraging the child to destroy her room, saying that "it's okay." Read this article and watch the included video; it's horrifying to think this could happen to you or me... Apparently a Texas woman was awoken by hackers who had hijacked her Ring device and told her to pay them a 50 Bitcoin ransom or she would "get terminated."

Apart from the humor one might distill from a security system that doesn't improve, but compromises one's security, this is not funny at all and should open up a serious discussion about the very real flaws and pitfalls associated with the rapid rise of The Internet Of Things in a world where the distribution of power is as skewed as ours. It's not just the camera systems or other obvious possible threats like Amazon's Echo & Alexa Devices; every electrical appliance will become vulnerable to these hacks in the not so distant future. Blockchain technology will be central in making this future a safer space, I'm sure. I have to hang on to that thought, but still... it could also be used to centralize the power of controlling the things on that internet. Technology itself isn't the final answer here, not when it's embedded in an overarching system that's built to create oligarchs and insists on pitting individuals as well as groups against each other.

_{Rockwell - Somebody's Watching Me}

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