A new and wonderful mode of human subjugation and domination is on the anvil. Forget about the age old ways of muscle power or capital power. Forget about the widening gap between haves and have-nots, between third world and first world, forget about the hypocritical nature and world domination whims of the some governments! These are matters of the past. The information age is empowered with a mean much more sophisticated and powerful.
Let us see why and how.
We live in a web today. Literally. A web of connectivity - of 'connected devices'. What is it about this web which is making life easier for us? Every little thing happening on this web, every occurrence, anywhere and everywhere, is available and traceable everywhere else on the web. Leveraging this core principle, we translate the information available towards various services making life easier for us.
Let us now consider that all the information which is traceable about an individual is made available for study. This would include everything a person has ever done on his/her mobile, credit cards, bank accounts, internet, tv, etc. What programs he watches, what articles he read on the net, what sites interest him, how much time he spends in his activities - everything is captured somewhere. Now, some expert, studying all these data spanning across a length of some years on an individual, would be able to formulate a very accurate psychological footprint of the person, complete with his strengths, weaknesses, seduction points, etc. Using these, the individual's reactions to the external world or any external stimuli can be predicted with considerable accuracy. He, henceforth, can be totally socially engineered to act as a puppet. In short, he can be 'mapped'. This is no science fiction or fantasy.
Till the present information age, neither the data, nor the expertise had been available in adequate scale to make such a social engineering really feasible. Today, the data is there. The technique is partially there - and it is only a matter of time until the full expertise spectrum gets developed.
This staggering information - constituting the footprint of individuals - is currently getting accumulated everyday, every hour, every second. As for the techniques, sophisticated data mining techniques are already in place. Identification of characteristics and patterns are happening everywhere - currently, for example, in targeting advertisements, assessing reliability or credit ratings, etc. From the social engineering perspective, the only things probably not yet fully matured are the exact techniques of leveraging this mined information towards social manipulations. But it remains only a mater of time until these become a reality.
A class divide - one of the most foul, but one which also had perhaps always existed in this world, yet never in such staggering proportions - is shaping up. The divide between the ones who have access to this information (with the capacity to use them), and the ones who do not. 'Knowledge is power' will assert itself in the coldest and truest way possible.
Going by present trends, this data availability will get concentrated on a handful of individuals. The likes of Google, (or Facebook?) for instance. If the corporates decide to pool and mine this information, and can come up with the expertise to leverage this towards social engineering, can one imagine the staggering power over human beings they would yield? People would be puppets without even being aware of the same!
Brave new world?
Let us see why and how.
We live in a web today. Literally. A web of connectivity - of 'connected devices'. What is it about this web which is making life easier for us? Every little thing happening on this web, every occurrence, anywhere and everywhere, is available and traceable everywhere else on the web. Leveraging this core principle, we translate the information available towards various services making life easier for us.
Let us now consider that all the information which is traceable about an individual is made available for study. This would include everything a person has ever done on his/her mobile, credit cards, bank accounts, internet, tv, etc. What programs he watches, what articles he read on the net, what sites interest him, how much time he spends in his activities - everything is captured somewhere. Now, some expert, studying all these data spanning across a length of some years on an individual, would be able to formulate a very accurate psychological footprint of the person, complete with his strengths, weaknesses, seduction points, etc. Using these, the individual's reactions to the external world or any external stimuli can be predicted with considerable accuracy. He, henceforth, can be totally socially engineered to act as a puppet. In short, he can be 'mapped'. This is no science fiction or fantasy.
Till the present information age, neither the data, nor the expertise had been available in adequate scale to make such a social engineering really feasible. Today, the data is there. The technique is partially there - and it is only a matter of time until the full expertise spectrum gets developed.
This staggering information - constituting the footprint of individuals - is currently getting accumulated everyday, every hour, every second. As for the techniques, sophisticated data mining techniques are already in place. Identification of characteristics and patterns are happening everywhere - currently, for example, in targeting advertisements, assessing reliability or credit ratings, etc. From the social engineering perspective, the only things probably not yet fully matured are the exact techniques of leveraging this mined information towards social manipulations. But it remains only a mater of time until these become a reality.
A class divide - one of the most foul, but one which also had perhaps always existed in this world, yet never in such staggering proportions - is shaping up. The divide between the ones who have access to this information (with the capacity to use them), and the ones who do not. 'Knowledge is power' will assert itself in the coldest and truest way possible.
Going by present trends, this data availability will get concentrated on a handful of individuals. The likes of Google, (or Facebook?) for instance. If the corporates decide to pool and mine this information, and can come up with the expertise to leverage this towards social engineering, can one imagine the staggering power over human beings they would yield? People would be puppets without even being aware of the same!
Brave new world?
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