Big Brother Bill: It's 1984 all over Again!
by Mike Banks Valentine
Most of the commentary over the George Orwell's novel, "1984"
that occured in that year, was derision, saying that now
it was quite clear that the eerie picture painted of "Big
Brother" was unlikely, and certainly not possible.
Now Microsoft has proposed a sweeping web initiative which
it has
dubbed "dot
Net" or .Net
in which they would be the "host" for the
personal information of every single online consumer. The
idea
has some appeal as a possible way to access information
from a
central bank of servers using XML code to withdraw selected
info
from the vast database of personal information about anyone
from a central "host".
To have web access to that information might save the life
of an
accident victim allergic to medications or allow you to
withdraw
cash from any bank via your cell phone.
The privacy implications though, are downright spooky. Now,
you
combine that information with newly available science-fiction-
like "face-mapping"
software tested this year at the "Snooper-
Bowl" where certain law-enforcement agencies would
have
access to private personal information and high resolution
video
scans of the crowd and you have -- Big Brother. Combine
that with
"Telematics" being used by car rental agencies
to track the location
and even the speed of their fleet of cars and now it gets
real ugly.
This is the George Orwell novel, "1984" come to
life, a little late,
but it's definitely here. Carry a cell phone? It will be
federally
mandated that your phone must use global positioning technology
so that when used to dial emergency services via 911, you
can be
located to within twenty feet or less. It doesn't take a
genius to
realize that could be used by Big Brother just as easily
without
your knowledge.
Any idea if your boss is peering over your shoulder? More
than three-
quarters of corporate
employers monitor employees in multiple ways.
The following is from Onvia.com web article on workplace
monitoring.
"Although the average percentage of workers with office
e-mail and
Internet connections remained relatively constant, overall
active
monitoring grew to 78 percent from 74 percent in 2000. The
overall
figure includes such measures as storing and reviewing computer
files (36 percent), video recording of employees on the
job
(15 percent), recording and reviewing telephone messages
(12 percent), and storing and reviewing voice mail (8 percent)
Other forms of surveillance, including telephone numbers
called
and time spent on the phone, logged computer time and video
surveillance for security purposes brought the total for
all
forms of monitoring to 82 percent, up from last year's 78
percent and from 67 percent in 1999."
http://www.news.onvia.com/x20557.xml
Consider that Microsoft provides the desktop software to
most
of the corporate world and it doesn't take much of a stretch
of
the imagination to see them building in their own monitoring
tools.
Add to that, "Smart
Tags" that are being built into Microsoft
software so that all of their products are tethered together
and
they now have access to virtually all of your information
from
Outlook, Word, your calendar, your email addresses, your
files,
your spreadsheets and your Powerpoint presentations.
The following quote came from a large computing company's
lead
engineer, he was promised anonymity:
<-------- begin quote -------->
"Bill has held back technology in order to control
the growth at his
own pace and suck up every ounce of revenue along the way.
He is a
genius when it comes to business - probably the smartest
business
man to ever live!
When he released MSDOS (early 80's) there were plenty of
multi-
tasking OSs available - he released Windows NT in the mid
90's
over ten years after the technology was available on the
PC! You
have to be pretty smart to hold off that kind of technology
for
over ten years!
The consumer is just now starting to receive the benefits
of
multi-tasking OS's with Windows 2000 and still has no idea
how much technology they are missing!
He uses his install base of (90+%) of the client market
to control
and kill every standard in his greedy profit hungry companies
way.
Now he is trying to kill Java with SOAP, SNMP with CIMOM
... etc.
He killed pop3 with exchange server - you have to buy your
corporate
email server from Microsoft. No open email standards will
stand in
his way - eliminate the competition!
The bottom line is Bill is the smartest business man in
the software
industry and controls the pace of technology. You will not
get the
technology until Bill can control and own the market!"
<-------- End of quote ------->
Bill Gates made $931 million as Microsoft shares rose about
2
percent, better than the Upside 150's 1 percent gain. The
Microsoft
chairman was worth $50.6 billion at the end of trading on
June 29,
based on his company stock holdings. That would finance
the Big
Brother centralized database called .Net quite easily.
Are you ready for 1984?
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