Panoptican People

[Cugel]

Jeremy Bentham - he now stuffed and on display in a glass case at UCL - dreamt up the notion of the panoptican - an arrangement of factory, prison or other human-populated institution in which the managers could see everything each occupant was up to whilst the occupants could not know if they were being observed or not; or observe each other. The purpose of the panoptican was to exert authority, power and control over various populations performing various social or economic tasks.

Now we have a true, universal and extremely effective panoptican, instituted via the internet, it's various technologies (particularly the smart phone) and run by a new breed of capitalists who have colonised everyone for the usual human purposes of exerting their authority, power and control. We are now just their human resources in a market trading in prediction and control mechanisms for getting large groups of us to behave in ways that suit those who wish to exert a vastly asymmetric authority and power over the human (and hence the whole) world.

The processes involved are antithetical to democratic principles of any and all kinds. A few humans "in the know" can now control vast populations and bring about huge social, economic and political changes. The rise of Trump, the success of Brexit and many other recent events are witness to the power of this new breed of capitalism to own us all, via their data & information "services" describing our every action and inclination, such as those services provided by the likes of Cambridge Analytica and used by the troll-army of Putin, various far right cabals, sellers of all kinds of addictive gew-gaws and many others who are avid to buy the means to control human behaviours.

Here is a Guardian article illuminating this phenomenon:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... e-facebook

A summarising quote:

"It is no longer enough to automate information flows about us; the goal now is to automate us. These processes are meticulously designed to produce ignorance by circumventing individual awareness and thus eliminate any possibility of self-determination. As one data scientist explained to me, “We can engineer the context around a particular behaviour and force change that way… We are learning how to write the music, and then we let the music make them dance.”

"This power to shape behaviour for others’ profit or power is entirely self-authorising. It has no foundation in democratic or moral legitimacy, as it usurps decision rights and erodes the processes of individual autonomy that are essential to the function of a democratic society. The message here is simple: Once I was mine. Now I am theirs".

Cugel

[reohn2]

I'm surprised no one has an opinion on this matter.
FWIW I can only see it getting worse by the way the world is heading presently.

[661-Pete]

I did read the OP carefully, wasn't sure how to answer it.

It does read rather like Nineteen-Eighty-Four. I subscribe more - perhaps - to the Pollyanna line of thought: that things may be bad but surely they can't be that bad!

I don't think that disasters like Trump and Brex**it have arisen directly out of this universal-surveillance state. I think most people wouldn't be bothered about that - apathetic even. I think they came about due to misinformation and blatant populist propaganda.

But that last is also Nineteen-Eighty-Four-ish. Remember how, in the book, the 'telescreens' are forever blaring out fake statistics - like the chocolate ration "increase" which is actually a decrease...

[reohn2]

I did read the OP carefully, wasn't sure how to answer it.

It does read rather like Nineteen-Eighty-Four. I subscribe more - perhaps - to the Pollyanna line of thought: that things may be bad but surely they can't be that bad!

It's all about control and the people in control getting away with as much as they can without triggering revolution is how I see it.

I don't think that disasters like Trump and Brex**it have arisen directly out of this universal-surveillance state. I think most people wouldn't be bothered about that - apathetic even. I think they came about due to misinformation and blatant populist propaganda

.
Is not populist propaganda borne out of the knowledge gleaned out of such information?

But that last is also Nineteen-Eighty-Four-ish. Remember how, in the book, the 'telescreens' are forever blaring out fake statistics - like the chocolate ration "increase" which is actually a decrease...

A couple of examples,has not the present government been telling us how much more money they've ploughed into ie; the NHS and education,when in real terms it's actually reduced,how long have they been bleating on about a lack of housing whilst doing very little to make the construction industry build affordable housing,not to mention the state of UK railways whilst they plough on regardless with the white elephant of HS2,and all the time reducing funding by as much as 50% or more to local authorities which are now on their knees with even some apple in the eye Tory councils facing bankruptcy.
I think it's fair to say we are being told one thing whilst the government do the opposite with the promises of jam tomorrow end to their austerity regeme,meanwhile the majority of the country suffers greatly as a result,though not those running it.....

[pwa]

I don't use a smartphone at all. And when I go out cycling I take a very basic mobile phone, switched off. I love the idea of being out of contact, out of the loop, until I choose to return to the connected world.

[reohn2]

I don't use a smartphone at all. And when I go out cycling I take a very basic mobile phone, switched off. I love the idea of being out of contact, out of the loop, until I choose to return to the connected world.

That doesn't mean you aren't subject to the 'loop's' influence to some decree

[Cugel]

I don't use a smartphone at all. And when I go out cycling I take a very basic mobile phone, switched off. I love the idea of being out of contact, out of the loop, until I choose to return to the connected world.

That doesn't mean you aren't subject to the 'loop's' influence to some decree

I go further than pwa in not having a mobile phone at all (and not using the landline either); no facebook or twitter presence (this is the only place I post stuff); and a minimum of other on-line activity.

But the fact is that the panoptican has many channels for sucking in data about us and has had for many decades. Government knows a lot; private firms know a lot - just from out unavoidable dealings with various government Departments; and with a range of private businesses, from banks, insurers and infrastructure service providers to everyday retailers.

Once they all failed to much-use what they knew about us; or to share it (there were many laws to prevent government departments from sharing data, for instance; laws mostly gone now). Today there is Big Data and all it's tools, avidly consumed and used by both governments and businesses as a means to first know us intimately and then to use that knowledge to control us, individually or en-masse, with a thousand "nudges" of various kinds, most notably adverts but now also social-media campaigns by both cabals of real people and bots programmed to disseminate various opinions, news (usually fake) and conspiracy theories.

Newspapers and TV channels are businesses, not public services. Even the BBC has a control agenda and always has had. (Read John Reith's statements about his vision for the role of the BBC as a purveyor of a very definite nationalism, morality and almost totalitarian ambition to form "model citizens"). They construct our modern minds to such a degree that we no longer have minds of our own based on our everyday experiences in the street or at work - although part of the mass-media construction of our belief-system is to include the illusory contention that we do have minds of our own.

These mechanisms have been vastly expanded and been made far more sophisticated by the various tools of the internet and other highly-connected data-rich services, as have the resolution of the instruments that report on us along with the the data-processing techniques that discover how that data can be used to manipulate us.

The point is that even a Luddite like me can't avoid being known - in great detail - by these gatherers of date, these constructors of information services; and by those who buy the knowledge to use in manipulating, exploiting and otherwise controlling us. Even when we become aware of what's happening, we're powerless to avoid it. Go "off-grid" and that very fact will be significant to the panoptican. Not that it's possible anyway, unless you can anonymously buy land and be entirely self-sufficient. Few can; and are anyway closely observed by government as potential criminals, tax-avoiders and otherwise rogue.

What to do? I have no idea? Is there an escape? I believe not.

What do you think?

Cugel

[pwa]

I don't use a smartphone at all. And when I go out cycling I take a very basic mobile phone, switched off. I love the idea of being out of contact, out of the loop, until I choose to return to the connected world.

That doesn't mean you aren't subject to the 'loop's' influence to some decree

But I do get a token break from it. There will be times when nobody knows where I am and nobody can contact me, until I choose to come back.

[reohn2]

I don't use a smartphone at all. And when I go out cycling I take a very basic mobile phone, switched off. I love the idea of being out of contact, out of the loop, until I choose to return to the connected world.

That doesn't mean you aren't subject to the 'loop's' influence to some decree

But I do get a token break from it.There will be times when nobody knows where I am and nobody can contact me, until I choose to come back.

Ah! You may think so

[mercalia]

I'm surprised no one has an opinion on this matter.
FWIW I can only see it getting worse by the way the world is heading presently.

well this lady has get her book.

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for the Future at the New Frontier of Power

Her contention is all this information gathering is moving to a new phase to control people

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Age-Surveillance-Capitalism-Future-Frontier/dp/1781256845

https://forum.cyclinguk.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=127384

[Canuk]

That doesn't mean you aren't subject to the 'loop's' influence to some decree

But I do get a token break from it.There will be times when nobody knows where I am and nobody can contact me, until I choose to come back.

Ah! You may think so

Even if your phone is switched off, the battery taken out, and the SIM card removed, if your phone has previously been registered on the network there exists technology to temporarily ramp up the power of the TX/RX towers in a given, even wide area. This has the effect to activate the reciever chip in your phone and locates it again on the network, and with it your position to roughly 10 metres accuracy.

Thats how they caught one of the 7/7 bombers in Italy. Took them less than half a day from fleeing to arrest him.

Although I agree its a disturbing phenomenon, there's a whole generation of kids who now are lifting their eyes from the screens and rejecting it for the magic and beauty to be found in the 'real world' , we as parents can of course influence this.

My son wanted an electric guitar and all the gubbins AND lessons (20 euro a go), I said I'd get him one if he sold his smartphone and got a Saturday job. I've never seen him so excited about anything, and even he says he's so relieved to be finally off social media and 'back in the world' . And it's not a fad, that's 6 months practicing every day, plays in two bands. A regular little Leonard Skinnard and no mistake

[reohn2]

....What to do? I have no idea? Is there an escape? I believe not.....

Cugel

I dunno.Nor me.Nope,We're owned.........

[mercalia]

But I do get a token break from it.There will be times when nobody knows where I am and nobody can contact me, until I choose to come back.

Ah! You may think so

Even if your phone is switched off, the battery taken out, and the SIM card removed, if your phone has previously been registered on the network there exists technology to temporarily ramp up the power of the TX/RX towers in a given, even wide area. This has the effect to activate the reciever chip in your phone and locates it again on the network, and with it your position to roughly 10 metres accuracy.

Thats how they caught one of the 7/7 bombers in Italy. Took them less than half a day from fleeing to arrest him.

I think you are wearing your tin foil hat. Even if you have taken the battery out? There is no power to power any chip? Maybe if you have one of those phones that dont need to charge from usb port, but through the air, contactless charging? Maybe if you phone is in standby or sleep but not if it needs to be rebooted? please supply a reference for your claims.I bet the case you mention the guy had one of those phones that use contact less charging - none of mine can.

[Canuk]

Here is an older article from 2013 detailing that even a switched off phone can be silently switched back on, audio recorded, pictures taken, position tracked and all uploaded back to HQ without either screen being turned on, or the user at all aware of what has happened.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130 ... tion.shtml

I'll find the Snowden article where he talks about how towers immediately log your last position as soon as you switch the phone off (or take out the battery). He then goes on to detail how the local cell towers can 'superpower' themselves up in search mode and activate the IMEI chip (the hardware that's used to uniquely identify every phone ever connected to the network) even with no power, or the battery removed. And that's the stuff they allow you to know about. The covert surveillance reality will be much more invasive than that.

The British police currently have at their disposal a device called Stingray that when switched on outside a subjects abode can simulate a local cell tower and block transmission to anything but their own device. It requires no warrant to do so AFAIK. So effectively when your phone thinks it's connecting voice or data to the local mast, it is in fact being directly intercepted outside your front door by the coppers.

I know about this stuff, because a few years ago I was charged with protecting sensitive business meetings in house for our company directors, whose contents could have been very useful to our competitors. Industrial espionage is on the rise everywhere. The cost to do so was high.

Is scary stuff, but all this was doable 6 years ago. I dread to think whats been achieved in the meantime. The NSA have been quietly doubling the storage capacity of their data centres every 12 months since 2004. That's enough capacity to record every single phone call, text message and email on earth and be able to retrieve them instantly, and then some, for the next 75 years.

[kwackers]

I'll find the Snowden article where he talks about how towers immediately log your last position as soon as you switch the phone off (or take out the battery). He then goes on to detail how the local cell towers can 'superpower' themselves up in search mode and activate the IMEI chip (the hardware that's used to uniquely identify every phone ever connected to the network) even with no power, or the battery removed. And that's the stuff they allow you to know about. The covert surveillance reality will be much more invasive than that.

Please do.

If they really can do that then they're so advanced their technology has the appearance of magic.

The IMEI chip simply adds an ID to all communications - but it still requires communication which still requires at transmitter and a receiver and unless you're using a crystal set for the receiver and magic for the transmitter then it can't be done.

You can of course self power a simple transmitter by hitting it with a large bit of RF - that is after all how pet tags and anti theft tags work but they have a pitiful range measured in inches.
Look how crap your phone is at getting a signal unless its sat on top of a tower - and that's with a decent battery, high power transmitter, sensitive receiver and the very best in high tech RF engineering.

"Superpower themselves up" - I'm almost crying with laughter here. It's like something out of a Manga cartoon aimed at twelve year olds.