Mister Bottom's Folly: RANT: IS THAT A CELLPHONE IN YOUR POCKET?

WELL, I DIDN’T THINK I’d ever do it, but I finally got a cellphone, a smart little thing that sits comfortably in the palm of my hand and periodically purrs like a kitten when it vibrates to tell me I have a phone call or text message coming through. Charming! And its ringtones can sound like water drops echoing from a dark, cool cave or perhaps a high summer’s gentle rasping of awakening cicadas at dawn. Pure pleasure! I’d sigh here if there was an app, so you’ll have to take my word for it that my new smartphone leaves me so relaxed and at peace with the world and my fellow, wireless brethren that it’s impossible for me to express myself adequately in words; a fumbling paean is the best I can offer. Oh, 'tis a brave, new day that's begun for for the world!

SO, WHAT CAN I EXPECT from my new smart phone as I discard, with distaste, the land-line analogue I once possessed from an earlier, less-evolved time? WELL, one thing I can now do is move safely through the world, secure in the knowledge that my device “pings” nearby cell towers (like tiny bells on Christmas trees ring when angels get their wings) “…thousands of times a week,” in some cases.¹ THUS, I AM NEVER ALONE; my musical emcee announces me to the world wherever I roam. With my smartphone on me, AIs from my phone’s manufacturer, and through apps, downstream tech companies and government bureaucracies that fill the hungry interstices of my device (one with more computing power than was used to send men to the moon in the last century), virtually every aspect of my life is recorded and encoded into transmittable, value-added data.

My phone documents and conveys to interested parties a plethora of data-points concerning my movements, moods, my health, wealth, with whom I communicate, what I buy, what I search for, what puzzles me and what informs me. Answers to when, how, who and perhaps even "why" are all gleaned from my personal data and metadata and sometimes they give answers to the great question: "Why?" before I, myself, know enough to ask....

I AM NOT ALONE, anymore! I share myself with the world, just as it shares with me. I have nothing to hide and therefore nothing to fear. Those who watch and listen are my guardians; they reward and protect my time here on earth. Thank you.

“With this in mind, one can only be in awe at the kind of computer power each of us holds at their fingertips. Never mind we use them for frivolous matter. Imagine what you’ll be holding in your hand (or inside it) 20 years from now!” ²

ANOTHER FEATURE OF MY PHONE is how “hackable” it is. But that’s such a raspy, negative word, don’t you think? Sure, there are bad people out there who would use my personal information for nefarious purposes, like identity theft and credit-card fraud, but with just a few judicious changes made though various menus in my phone’s administrative systems, I can make it much harder for them to raid my data, and, therefore, I am free to phone and text and “zoom” and purchase on-line via my smart phone. I can buy an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tamper-proof wallet that protects my phone from scammers. It allows me to sit with confidence next to people of questionable national origins as I ride the bus, secure in the knowledge my phone is safe from hacker intrusions. All that power! All that wisdom in such a small thing! Delicate, but, at the same time, robust. And with trusted AIs, regulated corporations and an all-encompassing surveillance state acting as overseer, smartphone use has never been safer. THUS, in safety and security we go forth into our new and exciting digital futures!

There will be many teachable moments to come and much that our phones will do to us (even in spite us!) in the coming years. Truly revolutionary! A communication device designed by our best and brightest, connecting billions across the globe in an unbreakable web of near-sentient intelligence! Now, more than ever, we are living in a global village, and I say: "Welcome" *

Cheers, Jake.

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* OF COURSE, THE ATAVISTIC SIDE of me is more skeptical about swimming in such gushing pools of positivity piped to the surface by our tech lords and ladies, who incessantly remind us how there’s a digital nirvana in our future, and it’s just around the corner, folks! I’m starting to feel like a turducken, stuffed to the eyeballs with the sturm und drang of technology and consumerism, and fucking capitalism with its dross and dregs filling every nook and cranny of our soon-wilting biomes and global nests.

Well, just what can we expect from our smarter-than-we-are phones?

FOR EXAMPLE: WHEN I CARRY my phone with me, I am literally NEVER ALONE, which I think is just plain unnatural. GPS (Global Positioning System) is a standard feature in even the cheapest smartphone (like mine). It can be activated when your phone is supposed to be off, by police or your country’s handy-dandy spy agency, or retail and tech companies hungry for your personal data.

When lost in the woods in bear country, GPS is a good thing. Tracking me as I go into my local Adult Book Store—not so much.

FOR EXAMPLE: YOUR PHONE’S CAMERA AND MICROPHONE can be turned on by the above miscreants even if your phone is off! So potentially every eruption of flatulence, every mad burbling you make when you sleep or any subversive missive you mutter while shaving in the morning could potentially be picked up and recorded by somebody, be they corporate, police, or government (take your pick). Talk about Big Brothers!

FOR EXAMPLE: Is your personal information secure on your phone? Oh you trusting soul! Think again. All your contacts, email addresses, photos, vids, and what is called “meta-data” (data about data) can be downloaded by various supposedly “secure” apps and portals, one way or another. (Read the fine print.)

As they say: “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” So, too, there's no such thing as a free app. Apps may be useful tools but they also troll for as much data about you as they can get away with. Data miners don't have to read, verbatim, your emails to know who you correspond with, how often, when, how long each email is, even what font, types of punctuation, word use, how many replies, when, from where, etc. There's lots of info about you for the taking and data trolls know where to look and how to get it. Every data piece is added to complete the "puzzle" that is you. To know you (they hope) is to control you. Head's Up!

FOR EXAMPLE: Giant technology companies like Google, Facebook, etc., make most of their money from advertising. (They also make a pile from military and surveillance state contracts, but that’s another story.) They sell advertisers data about you (and you, and you), with smart phones as an important “data-sea” for them to troll. Google built cheap cell phones (Hey, thanks!), using its in-house “Android” OS. They proceeded to shovel them out the door and into our greedy hands. It’s not that phone sales are particularly profitable for Google, rather, the gold mine is found in on-going, real-time data-sourcing, whereby the tech giant hoovers-up and packages your personal data and meta-data to sell to the highest bidder (either corporate or government). This hidden wealth pump is how companies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft actually make their enormous profits. Sneaky!

FOR EXAMPLE: Our phones are becoming electronic "influencers". Today, most people, billions of us, get the majority of our information from social media and curated news feeds, while using our phones. And with pings, buzzes, alarms and ringtones, pop-ups and texts, we're being "trained" to accept what our phones tell us, or guide us, cajole or suggest, and perhaps (someday) demand us to do.

SOME YEARS AGO a subsidiary of Google, Niantic Labs, created an app that allowed the popular Nintendo game of Pokemon to be played on cellphones. Called "Pokemon Go", the game was wildly popular in 2016 whereby players used their cellphones to track and acquire digital "prizes" in the real world. Local businesses (in many countries) paid Niantic to "host" their storefront establishments (eg. a local pizzeria) as a "destination" where players could find their digital egg or whatever it was, and buy a slice of pizza to keep up their strength.

WHAT GOOGLE and other tech companies learned during this "test run" in social engineering was that human behaviour could be manipulated digitally. This was why Pokemon Go was created in the first place--to see if peoples' behaviours could be altered via their cellphones. It was an bold, "real time" experiment in social engineering. Using "behavioural analytics", subtle cues, word choice, subliminal messaging, etc. (stuff right out of B.F. Skinner and Behavioural Psychology) they found they could alter or "train" player's behaviour, if not their thinking:

"Nowadays, nearly every “smart” product, internet enabled device, and digital assistant is a supply chain interface for behavioural data, meaning they are constantly collecting your personal data from your everyday interactions."

"Tech giants benefit from keeping individuals in the dark about how their data is being used and profited from. This new power is subtle, using the internet and social media to shape behaviours so that they align with corporate gain.^{" 3}

FOR EXAMPLE: Phones have become a main interface between people and such things as government services, banks, businesses, and through social media like Facebook, with each other. While data privacy is becoming an issue, particularly in the European Union where legislation has been recently enacted to limit government access to citizen's personal data, regulations for private corporations and how they harvest, and use data remains a problem. "While most democratic societies have some oversight over state surveillance, there is almost none for privatized surveillance on the internet." (ibid)....

FOR EXAMPLE: OBSERVERS HAVE NOTED that authorities in China seem committed to establishing a form of social control called "Social Credit" (see Chart) that utilizes personal information about their citizens to a degree not thought possible only a few years ago. Of course, smart phones (along with "wearables", CCTV, and the "Internet of Things") will be a major source for tracking citizens' interface information, particularly if a digital currency is introduced, and people's finances can be scrutinized by government revenue departments to the last renminbi. It should be noted that in the last few months, in Canada and elsewhere, the possibility of national digital currencies has been discussed.

THE RECENT TRUCKER protests in Canada and the Liberal government's audacious freezing bank accounts of protesters and their supporters as a way of ending the demonstrations spoke volumes to the surveillance community, police and government apparatchiks who might be interested in strengthening their control over their citizenry. Many people, including myself, thought this set a dangerous precedent and was an egregious example of governmental over-reach. They used a hammer to kill flies and it is worrying that current legislative initiatives may add this tool to their toolkit permanently.

AGAIN, CELLPHONES are an important data source and interface, both for corporations who want to shape us into predicable consumers of their products and for governments who want to acquire real-time information about our activities at home and in the community.

FINALLY, I INCLUDE A DISTURBING example of a potential new use for cellphone data that may be adopted by authorities in the near future. Recently, the United States Supreme Court overturned the long-standing abortion rights law, Roe vs Wade, which granted women access to abortion services nation-wide. Now, in a number of US states, that right is being challenged and women may face the choice of an carrying unwanted fetus to term, or else travelling out-of-state to obtain an abortion. And, cellphone activity is being considered as a source for evidence with which to charge women seeking (or who have had) illegal abortions, as well as doctors and clinics who provide such services.

WHATEVER SIDE in the abortion debate you fall on, this chart gives you some idea just how much personal information can be gleaned by examining a person's "digital fingerprints" found in their cellphones.

ALL-IN-ALL, comrades, I think caveat emptor is something to keep in mind. And I'm hanging onto my old phone. Just in case!