Holistic Design – Page 7 – A Piece, of the Sky

Google Glass should be banned, like drones are banned on military installations. Casinos and those concerned with film piracy should also ban it.

Any (LED) light, that comes on to say the device is recording, can easily be worked around by software, like the ban on facial recognition apps, that Google originally placed in the device. Just ban the whole thing.

Using this head mounted display while driving should be punished like texting and driving is now. One Google Glass app, Winky, allows people to take a picture with a wink of an eye – literally.

Note that I am not against augmented reality or virtual reality gizmos, but things like Google Glass – which can masquerade as a normal object (fomite), while surreptitiously recording visual and audio of everything and everyone, in its vicinity.

At least, it’s quite obvious if someone takes a phone out to record someone or something. The Google Glass device in effect weaponizes the user, making them an agent, for whatever ideology or motivation they happen to espouse that day. And then, all the crash reports go back to Google.

Software or malware can be installed on Google Glass too, to secretly record people typing or drawing in their phone passwords – much like a key-logging malware, that captures passwords and anything typed on a computer, a nightmare for public computer rooms.

Driverless cars are a bad idea. Ban those too. Especially on military sites. Anyone could hack one. If you’re afraid of people hacking the power grid, and other cyber-attacks or cyber warfare, why make a driverless, remote-controlled car a thing? Taxi drivers should boycott any driverless cars, like they did Uber and Lyft.

I am not against technology. However, it is my knowledge of technology and forensics that leads me to respect how powerful technology is, and how it can be misused and abused. Technology can be cool; it’s humans who can’t be trusted.

Technology is a set of tools. In the right hands, a tool can be used therapeutically or medically. In the wrong hands, technology or a viral idea is a dangerous act of terrorism, or crime, waiting to happen. Anyone can see that.

Anyone with a basic working knowledge of the human condition can see which new pieces of technology have far more potential for abuse – that outweigh any of their potential benefits. That’s just good governance and policing.

Ban driverless cars and Google Glass, without a second thought, and with no regrets. It is too easy to hypothesize what an evil person could and would do with them. Police-work is about imagining what an enemy/unsub (criminal) could do with the same tool or piece of information. Preemptive strike: just ban it.

Business-owners should be able to put up a sign saying ‘no Google Glass’ and reserve the right to escort any such person off of the premises, for the potential to illegally record people, without a warrant.

I fully support public CCTV, for its role in psychologically reducing most crime. I do not support people surreptitiously recording people, without them knowing, for whatever random motivation – especially if they are not law enforcement, with a warrant. It’s not hard to imagine. And if an average person can imagine it, a criminal or a terrorist has already built it, and tested it.

There’s been technology and software/malware that can surreptitiously activate even “off” phones, and secretly broadcast microphone audio, and front and back cam phone video, since 2003. It was used in Iraq. It’s not magic. It’s science. It’s not supernatural; it’s real life.

I am not a Luddite or a technological singularity alarmist. People will be devious, even with spears and arrows. It’s not technology that people should be afraid of, but other people. “Technology” doesn’t destroy people; people destroy people.

I am all for fast Internet and I am not a fatalist. Everything has its limits. Even good things need to be used, in moderation. Everyone has their own personal (technological) limits. It is the law’s job to corral those limits into socially acceptable boundaries, when certain technologies – Google Glass, driverless cars – have way more potential for abuse, than others.

Smart home. Internet of things. All those things can be hacked. Easily. I inherently distrust wearables. All it is, is another thing that can surreptitiously record video and audio, and a locating device. You might as well chip yourself, like a dog.

We have had microfilm since the ’50s. There are tiny cameras that can fit in pens or hollowed out books. Since at least the ’70s, you could easily wire tap a whole house. People can be recorded, without them knowing: it is public knowledge, even in commonly consumed political and intelligence pop culture fictions, like “Homeland” or “Scandal.”

Bottom line, there are some technologies more susceptible to abuse, that should be banned, limited or restricted.

If production had called the violation, in the heat of the moment, fine. But there is a statute of limitations here, like in sports. Production can’t go back and reset the entire week, after-the-fact. That wouldn’t be fair to everyone. ‘Fairness’ is also relative. We live in a “random,” quantum world and a game, as a controlled environment, can mitigate that randomness, only so much.

The moral of the story is that no matter what twists are thrown in: battle-backs, power-apps, hacker comps – bad players will be bad players and skillful players will be skillful players. It will always come down to how one plays the game.

I blame Scottie for the absolute blow-out of this week. Scottie was the best one, to come back in, from the jury house. However, Foutte is going to Foutte (that’s a new verb now) – so, even Foutte’s best player is the worst player, in a house of mostly Level 6 players.

Scottie just wasted this opportunity. From the time he came back in, championing #Scyler, you knew Scottie was going to bungle this. He was ‘just happy to be here.’ But that’s not enough! Even if you don’t have a traditional goal, you must still have a goal. You have to be motivated by something.

Scottie is a super-fan, but it seems like he is simply watching the show, from inside the house! Scottie just didn’t have that groundbreaking, epiphany moment, like JC had last week, when JC knew that he didn’t just want to make Final Four or Final Two, but he wanted to win the game. Second-best just isn’t going to cut it.

Speaking of JC, if I had known JC was so smitten by Tyler, I wouldn’t have rated him so highly. JC is still hanging on, by his fingernails, to the ledge of my Final Five, because JC and Brett are beginning to make plans, but JC needs to realize that Tyler, Angela and Kaycee don’t owe him anything.

Yes, JC stuck his neck out, and worked as a mole, collecting information for Level 6, from Foutte. But, as I highlighted in my last analysis, JC hasn’t had to touch the block and he hasn’t had to take on the ‘face’ of the organization, as HOH. Level 6 and Tyler essentially shielded JC from going home, during the first month. JC holding his work, for Level 6, over their heads, is already rubbing Tyler and Angela the wrong way.

JC also keeps confronting Tyler about this Tangela nonsense. As I alluded to, last time, what do you think Tyler is going to tell you, JC?? Tyler is never going to admit that #Tangela exists! Every time JC asks Tyler those mega-obvious questions Tyler is going to deny, deny, deny. Never, in a thousand years, will Tyler ever say ‘yes’ to your questions, JC!

Yes, it is a bad strategy for Tyler to continue to claim Tangela doesn’t exist. Tyler should just own it and say ‘Yes, what are you going to do about it?’ Then Tyler can move on and go back to the game, because Tangela has really distracted him and made Tyler mush – highly strategic mush, but still mush.

However, as long as Tyler continues to obfuscate, he’s not going to give JC a different answer. The time for talking is over. It’s time for JC to do something about it! Get over this crush on Tyler, JC! Tyler isn’t going to take JC to the Final Two! He was never going to take JC to the Final Two! JC is finally understanding this, but by the time JC and Brett act, it may be too late.

Which brings us to Brett: as the Trickster archetype, Brett is actually more of a beta person or an omega person. JC needs to take the lead here. The problem is that the two of them are both wringing their hands, like Hamlet, afraid to make a move!

JC and Brett keep hoping that someone, like Hay or Sam, can be tricked into not targeting each other, and can be convinced to take out Tyler or Angela, instead – for JC and Brett. But these two have to recognize that no one is going to do it for you! There are only about three weeks left in this game. Three weeks to half-a-million dollars!! Wake up! Take out Tyler, the huge sitting duck.