THEY ARE WATCHING US

George Orwell was not only scratching the surface with the telescreen. The 21 century house designed as a monitoring center will surpass everything we read in 1984. From light bulbs to dishwashers, called "smart homes" will enable industry and government spying everywhere in all aspects of our existence.

The CIA chief David Petraeus has praised the "Internet of things" as a blessed transformation. In other words, will soon be easier than ever to monitor the population and that everything that used to connect to the Web, with complete disregard for privacy considerations. The spies do not have to hide a microphone in your home, you have to do it for them.

"The products of interest will locate, identify, follow and be controlled remotely through technologies such as RFID, sensor networks, servers, embedded and small energy harvesters - all connected to the abundantly used the Internet for the next generation low cost, high computing power, "said Petraeus.


Soon have to live like a Luddite solo if you wait to escape the new surveillance panopticon will be well extended by the masses as a necessary sacrifice for the comfort and technology.

- Google has acknowledged that the background noise environment where the person through their cell phone or a computer microphone to spy on their activities in order to provide more targeted advertising to them.

- The game device Microsoft X-Box Kinect has a video camera and a microphone to record conversations. Microsoft said that users "should not expect any level of privacy regarding their use of online communication functions" and the company "may access or disclose information about you, including the content of their communications."

- The latest range of digital TVs also have built high-definition camera, microphones and facial and voice recognition, which are all connected to the Internet. Companies like Samsung have not yet been able to develop a privacy policy that applies to the devices, ie, have open season of espionage and data collection.

- The latest LED light bulbs "green" are also a communication device in two ways. Ceiling lights being installed in offices and government buildings "transmit data to specially equipped computers on desks below by flickering faster than the eye can see."

- Exterior lighting of the streets also will be changing to the new versions 'smart' so they can be used for applications of "national security". These devices are equipped with surveillance cameras can transmit government announcements, and also have the ability to record conversations.

- Smart meters, which is now going to become mandatory in many areas, communicate wirelessly with utility companies to send details on energy consumption of each house, and also emit electromagnetic radiation. Health problems have led some local authorities to allow residents to choose not to install them, but in other areas the meters are required.

- Forget that the government has to implement a chip on his forehead ... the modern and stylish smartphone that has the vast majority of the population, does just as good a job. Five years ago we warned that the first version of the iPhone contained a backdoor spyware, a module that allowed hackers to carry out the government's secret surveillance of the user. Monitoring the cell phone is now everywhere. Google was recently caught hacendo also track the surfing habits of users of the iPhone through a code that disables the privacy settings of the phone's Safari browser.

- Google's attitude towards privacy also came under scrutiny when it was discovered that the company was spying on the WiFi network data in violation of federal wiretapping law, when gathered images for Street View program.

- The most obvious of all is the Internet itself. The ISPs have announced that they keep records of websites visited by at least 12 months, together with details of private communications. This figure is constantly increasing, with the FBI, now pushing for ISPs to keep this information for years.

Like most people have already made the decision to sacrifice their privacy for convenience, all the technologies mentioned above will be used to spy on individuals and collect data that will later be sold to large corporations. The vast majority simply do not care. Appreciate the novelty of a fridge that is able to tell when you're running out of milk and can automatically be ordered through the Internet rather than their own privacy.

It remains to see if they start worrying about the fact that it is transmitting everything about his private life and allowing governments and corporations to obtain this information, when in fact begin to turn against them in negative ways yet to be seen. The fact that some employers are demanding passwords of Facebook staff is perhaps the first sign of how all this could collapse.