Paranoid? This Won't Help (Extra)

In class we discussed the ways in which technology use keeps us constantly connected to large organizations, whether we like the association or not.  Cell phone companies have a detailed record of any conversational history.  Websites such as Google monitor our popular searches and accordingly rank information displayed.  ATM cash transactions and purchase receipts can be tracked across country.  The list goes on and on.  In the end,  its the government who can compile all these technological breadcrumbs and track anyone's trail regardless of the measures of secrecy they take. 

The question of escape from government surveillance prompted "Wired" magazine writer Evan Ratliff to try an experiment of his own.  In an article titled, "Gone Forever: What Does it Take to Really Disappear?" Ratliff first decribes the story that motivated him concerning a man named Matthew Sheppard.  Sheppard succeeded in faking his death and escaping from his family for a couple months, leaving misdirecting clues and convincing evidence behind him (Ratliff 5).  Yet after months hiding from the law he contacted his family to let them know he was alive and they carefully moved into a motel under an alias (5).  The family existed happily for a while but authorities were able to finally catch him despite his secrecy.  

"South Dakota-based federal agents pulled up an address for the family and contacted the landlord. “I rented to that guy,” he told them upon seeing Sheppard’s picture, “but his name is John Howard.” The alias led quickly to Howard’s very Sheppard-like rèsumè, still posted on Monster.com. Then, in a scene befitting Sheppard’s most paranoid fears, officers staked out the house, setting up in trees nearby, waiting for him to appear" (6). 

Although he took many precautions, Sheppard could not escape even the slightest of trails that was left behind.  After realizing what implications this story provided, Evan Ratliff decided to attempt his own escape.  He sent out a challenge in Wired announcing that he was officially going "off the grid" and that if anyone found him they would win $5,000 (6).  Participants were able to search from August until September to recieve the prize.  Sure enough, despite the drastic measures Ratliff took to hide, he was tracked down by the electronic records of receipts days before the deadline.  It just comes to show the basic, frightening fact that because of our electronic usage we are able to be constantly surveilled and captured if necessary.

   






http://www.wired.com/vanish/2009/08/gone-forever-what-does-it-take-to-really-disappear/2/

"Don't Be Evil," Google

Where do I usually go when I need to research a topic for school?  Instead of the library, I seek out my Google search-bar and type in my subject.  What do I look to when I want more information about a certain writer or poet? Google guides me through a plethora of online encyclopedias and articles.  What about the recipe for a dinner to impress my new date?  Google's always an excellent wing man.  I've used Google at least 100 times in the last week alone, trying to locate information, music, videos, etc.  Just a moment ago, when I was trying to pull up this very website, I typed "blogger" on the google search-bar to bring forth the log in screen.  While habitually drinking from this fountain of knowledge called Google I ask myself, "How could any tool this helpful threaten me?"  As I've come to realize the threat is far more real than most would like to believe.

"Googlization" is a term coined by Siva Vaidhynathan, and it is both a gift and a curse.  What Vaidhynathan means by this is stated in an article: "Google puts previously unimaginable resources at our fingertips- huge libraries, archives, warehouses of government records, troves of goods, the comings and goings of whole swaths of humanity" (Vaidhynathan 2).  Today's society can easily access virtually anything they want using this search engine's easily-accessible, useful format.  With google-brand websites as popular as YouTube and Gmail, Google is proving to be one of the most influential online institutions.  As other google related sites' popularity increase, Google may very well become indistinguishable from the Web itself (3).  Googlization is definitely occurring, and it is not without a dark side.

Compared to other well developed and renowned institutions, Google is still in it's stage of infancy.  But what an influential infancy it is.  Once it grows to even a toddler, that Google will be much different from the Google we see now.  Who's to say how powerful it will become as an adolescent?  It is this power that Google already holds over us that I fear; the power that one day, every type of information and website will be sought out and monitored by Google.  This phenomenon is already scarily at play.  The Google browser is set up in a way that links caused by a search are ranked/ shown by popularity.  In this way, Google's biases are permitted entry into our subconscious minds.  Who is to stop Google from deciding what information the public is allowed to view?  No one; and that alone is a threat.

Google is dangerous, not due to a physical threat, but because society uses it constantly, recklessly, and faithfully while building dependence on it (4).  We are as desnsitized to the abilities of Google as we are to the modern car.  This was another invention that, though first seemingly innocuous, led to many unforseen consequences including the shaping of the modern world around it. 

If we as a society have developed a great dependence on Google, we have a critical addiction to cell phones; more importantly, smart phones.  Cell phones have made our world so much more connected yet simultaneously far more isolated.  By "connected", i'm referring to the ease at which people can contact each other.  It is the mobility aspect of the cell phone that makes the land-line phone obsolete. Yet this constant mobility, reflecting the frantic pace at which our daily lives progress, is what will isolate us in the end.  People are constantly on their smart phones any time of day texting, watching videos, playing a new game ("app"), etc.  As phone technologies are rapidly advancing, people are becoming addicted to the capabilities of their phones.  This will eventually result in the complete destruction of social interaction without a screen and keyboard.

Google and smart phones are related in the way that they are forcing our dependence on them.  The two are even combining with the capability of online internet via smart phones.  Sure it would be a much more difficult world without these innovations, yet it is reaching the point where our desensitization and reliance on them is hurting our culture.

Whatever the damage, i'm not going to end up throwing my smart phone away or cease using Google, so what am I suppossed to do?  There is no easy solution because we have already gone too far. The only thing we as a society can hope to prevent the dominance of Google is to recognize its influence over our daily lives.  Only then can we hope to set boundaries and rules to an autocratic institution.