We went to large gatherings in large cities and traveled around to assigned spots to take over a "portal," in defense of our team. We traveled in the day, at night, in the middle of the night, to places like Nashville, Birmingham, Chattanooga, and to very unknown towns sprinkled across the Southeast to help a larger group complete a mission. We worked with agents in Florida, Washington, D.C., Texas... and the list goes on. I was running mission control for large scale efforts using my computer and talking to agents from all across the U.S. as I saw real-time capturing of these portals across the pond, and capturing "mind units" to "win" the game for a set time period. I once had to explain to a Sheriff's deputy in Lynchburg, Tennessee what I as doing, and I had no intentions of breaking into any of the businesses in the town square near the Jack Daniel's Distillery. I met people, made friends, and it was awesome until life just got too busy to keep going.
Ingress still exists, and has even recently pushed for a revival in revamping the game for those to keep playing and recruit others. Maybe one day I will go back. Who knows.
This isn't about a game of augmented reality... it's about a lot more.
While playing this game, agents would communicate with each other and say things like "you need to go blow up the [portal]," but that portal could have been the church up the street, a post office 30 miles away, or a historical marker off the back roads in between hither and yon.
After a while I felt the need to express to any listening ears that I was playing a game and had no intentions on physically committing a crime to blow up anything, of any sorts. I was on the phone, and would feel a little worried when I told my husband something along the lines of "hey, I think I'm going to go to Taft and blow up the post office." What I was really doing was changing the augmented reality color from green to blue.
I'm a middle-aged mother of three, and there is no reason for any government agency to worry about me becoming a homegrown terrorist, but the words I used while playing that game could have been taken out of context and for all I know, I'm on a list somewhere...
Then came smart devices that listen to us.
Remember when the Google Home Mini came out and there were incidents of the device actively listening to people? Google even admitted it was eavesdropping on people. There have been far too many incidences when my husband and I were talking to each other about a topic, and then I happen to see an ad for something that related to that conversation within a day on a Chrome browser.
Our home has Amazon's Echo, and Alexa is always listening. It is listening for the activation word, but it is still listening. Our Android phones, which are Google Pixel phones (which rock in their functionality), are listening. Our Google Home and Home Minis are listening. My Nest Cams could be listening (and they could be watching). I do not care. Many do, but we do not.
Post 9/11 Behavior in America
The Patriot Act of 2001 expanded the ability of the government to spy on us. This allowed our government to behave in ways that resulted in our loss of privacy. As a society, and in the post-traumatic social stress we endured after the 9/11 attack, there lacked a huge push-back on this loss of freedom because it was for the good of the nation. As someone that has followed the FBI, and have read reports of plots that were thwarted by America's great agents of the bureau, I can't help but be willing to give up a freedom if that means our American Justice System is able to keep us safer. However, it does not mean it was all legal under the Patriot Act and abuses have taken place.
What we don't see is what has hurt us. We are truly becoming an Orwellian America.
In addition, because we have become so socially integrated into the digital life, we are opening ourselves up to additional abuses. President Trump uses his Twitter account to do... well, a completely unlimited list of things that are far outside the norms set by previous Presidents. Russia used troll farms to disseminate false news stories in an attempt to sway the 2016 Presidential election, and even the 2018 midterms (and there is no end in sight). Facebook is selling our information to companies without our knowledge. We are no longer simply human. We are digital footprints that are sold and targeted to alter our opinions, our consumer habits, and beyond. We may not be able to see the full scope of this until we are decades removed from what is happening to us today, yesterday, and tomorrow.
How do we keep up with what is going on?
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an organization dedicated to defend "digital privacy, free speech, and innovation."
First, there is this news story on EFF:
Then you can go read about the additional intrusive Facebook’s in-home camera, Portal, in the article The EFF Gift Guide: What’s Creeping Us Out.
If you care about your personal data, which I suspect most mature individuals do, you can keep up with what is going on through the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
As Thomas Jefferson said on several occasions, knowledge is power. Keep up with current affairs. Do not keep to one news source to give you the full gamut of information you need to figure out what is really going on.
We are safer, but we need to keep safe.
The Aspen Ideas Festival offered this article in April 2018: How Safe Are We Online? There's Good News and Bad. Here are a few bits to consider from the article:
- Cyberthreats are “more diffuse, more sophisticated, and more dangerous” than they’ve ever been
- “The better connected your citizenry and infrastructure are to the internet, the more vulnerable you are.”
- With close to 30 years experience in some areas, the US intelligence community is the best in the world when it comes to offensive cybersecurity measures
Here's an hour-long video of the panel talking about the topic at hand:
Overall, the next step is simple: Limit your digital presence online.
My husband and I have three children, a 15 year old and twin 10 year old girls. The 15 year old has been through several smart phones, and is part of the Generation Z, which I've equated to Z = Zombie because that's what it is like living with a teen who is constantly putting that phone in his face. However, my girls are different. We decided that they will not have social media accounts. They had a phone they shared for a while since we do not have a land line but they were downloading apps that I did not approve of. They were using music.ly (now it's known as something else) and the videos were so funny! Then I read an article where an adult male basically equated the app to a menu of girls to target for child sex predators. I found a chat app named Discord on a computer and lost my mind when I saw what was going on. That was it. We did a 180, and although we are far from helicopter parents or free-range parents, we are mindful in our parenting. We also practice what we preach.
No social media. I read Twitter, but if I decide to go back on Twitter, it would only be to advance this blog's audience, and nothing more. I have Facebook but only keep four friends (my husband, who doesn't use it anymore, my son, a friend I met online and have known for 15 years and my mother who passed more than four years ago, simply to keep reading her posts). I have LinkedIn for my future career prospects. I believe that if people are truly interested in my life, they can reach me if they want. I have a phone. They can call or text me. I do not need a social media platform to show everyone what I'm eating for dinner, or share pictures of my children. I do not base my worth on how many likes I get, or how many retweets I receive.
Too many of our children want to gain popularity online, believing they are somehow adding to their self-worth. That isn't what is important in life. Look out the window and look inside your heart. Look at the real world.
The digital world is a predatory mine field that has become toxic with hate, venom, and polarization. I refuse to be a part of it.
We all need to be aware of what our digital presences can do to us, our personal identity, our minds, and our hearts.
All of these apps and social platforms should come with a health warning. The same could be said for blogs and news sites.
USE WITH CAUTION.
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