Big Brother

To those that know me personally will tell you that in some aspects I subscribe to the belief the Big Brother is watching you.  Where it cannot be proven 100% and I certainly cannot prove any of it there is enough evidence that can give food for thought.  I am going to look at some of these theories as best as I can in this medium and I ask that you sit back and digest it.  From there you may come up with the same answers that I have.

First let me start off with theses seeds: in 1949 Eric Blair or what he is best know as 'George Orwell' wrote the story entitled "1984."  This is a dystopian society that is watched by Big Brother...AKA the government.  In later years Isaac Asimov introduced "Multivac" a monster of a government owned and operated computer that is underground which we really do not know of the true purpose.  In 1967 Patrick McGoohan is a prisoner of the government and his name is stripped away and is given a number.  In 1971 the move THX 1138 is about how a society tightly controlled and your every movement watched completely by the government.

How far fetched are these? In no particular order, I am going to poke at some of these.

Driving along the Long Island Expressway and the parkways, there are video cameras mounted high up on poles. What you are led to believe is that the traffic can be monitored for backups so motorists can be alerted by electronic bill boards. What I heard recently is that although you can see the images yourself on place like TrafficLand.com, and they are not that clear, Big Brother purposely degrades the images for public viewing. For Big Brother's use, they can see and make out in perfect detail of the driver and front passenger. This is for anti-terrorism.


Think that is impossible?


I attended an astronomy show a few years back and one of the speakers was the president of a major eyepiece manufacturer. Prior to making eyepieces for telescopes he made optics for spy satellites. He told us that these lenses are so powerful and fine, they can read the writing on a pack of cigarettes for over 100 miles up.


Using Google Earth I was looking at Las Vegas Nevada. I saw the hotels and all of the pools there. Using Google Earth I was able to easily tell that there were women patrons poolside. You were able to make out the shape of breasts. This is Google Earth, not StreetView. These images have been heavily degraded for public use. Imagine if they were not? If I remember I read that Google does degrade the images.  So just imagine the quality of the non-degraded images.  Big Brother can see what you are cooking on the BBQ.

I went back to see if I could include a screen shot here, but Google has since degraded those images. But with the recent news announcement on their high end quality gives me reason to be concerned.


Don't you think that these same optics are not used in the cameras watching the highways?  Still don't believe me?  Ask someone that was snagged by a red light camera.  You can make out the details of the license plate in perfect detail right down to the small font they use for the state.

So it is very possible that these highway cameras can see who is driving and the front passenger.

That might be fine and dandy if Big Brother can track you.  But can they?

Since the 1990's cell phone manufactures have been installing a GSM chip in every phone.  This allows GPS satellites the ability to track your every movement.  And now with smart phones like the iPhone, Android this technology allows the phone to be tracked down to within 30 feet of it's actual location.

We did an experiment here in the house.  One of my sons took walk with his Android phone around the neighborhood.  We were able to log onto a website and were able to follow his every movement in the area.  We did this same experiment with an iPhone using iCloud and the results were amazing.  Mind you this is the civilian level of tracking.  I can only guess the how accurate the tracking that Big Brother can utilize on the smart phones.

And phones are not the only way Big Brother can track your movements.  A lot of people use the EZ-Pass or something similar while traveling toll roads. These allow motorists the ability of going through tolls without stopping.  A radio receiver in the toll plaza picks up the information from the EZ-Pass and you are charged the toll fee on your credit card.  Simple.

How EZ-Pass works

But Big Brother can track your movements as well and tell what toll roads you have traveled.  And here is another thing, remember the spy satellites in orbit?  Who says these cannot be tuned to pick up the information from the EZ-Pass?  Big Brother can now follow you even if you are not using toll roads from several hundred miles up.

Here is something else that you might not realize about the EZ-Pass.  If you are like me and I admit to go slightly above the speed limit on the open highways (65 on a 55 but not any higher) you can get a speeding ticket without ever being pulled over.  How?

You go through a particular exit on the start of your trip.  This is recorded by the computers capturing the data from the EZ-Pass.  Your exit is say 65 miles away and the speed limit is 55MPH.  It should take you 70.9 minutes to go from exit to exit if you follow the speed limit.  If you take only 50 minutes to travel that distance, you can wind up getting a speeding ticket in the mail for going 23MPH over the limit.

The math is simple, the formula is 60 times the distance over speed times time (60D / ST).  60x65=3900 / 50 = 78.

This is one of the reasons I don't use EZ-Pass myself.  If I do get the chance to go to the Keys I will need to get their Sun Pass while I am there in any case.

GM installed the On-Star system into luxury cars a few years back.  Now as I understand it is available on more cars and someone told me that it can be added to just about any car.  In a way the On-Star system can be useful but they use GPS technology and with that can track you very movements.

On-Star

As an example, you want to find out how to get to Sloppy Joe's on Duval Street from the I-Hop in Manhasset.  You hit the button an operator answers and you ask in plain English how to get to Sloppy's from where you are.  An operator looks up your location and directs you to there.  This same thing happens in reverse should you get into an accident.  The air bags are deployed, the On-Star system notifies the police where you are and aid arrives.  So far not bad but don't you think that they can't track you without any involvement on your part?  And since you can speak to an operator with it couldn't Big Brother use that to listen into the conversations inside the car?  I am not saying that is happening but you never know.

And who has not heard about Lo-Jack?  With it in your car should you car get stolen the police can zero in on where your cars is and apprehend the culprit.  And this can happen without you hitting any buttons or switches.  The police take care of that for you.  Nice.

A Lo-Jack transmitter

But what if Big Brother still wants to follow you?  All they have to do is activate your Lo-Jack and track you every movement without you ever knowing about it.

Take a look at any bill you have in your pocket from $5 on up.  Hold it o the light and you will see black line running through it.  This is a thin strip of plastic with metallic ink on it.  If you are careful you can actually remove the strip from the bill.  When you examine the strip it will have the denomination of the bill printed on it.  According to the government this is one of the ant-forgery techniques that they use on  a bill.  With the way that color laser printers have evolved you have to agree with the government in taking whatever steps are needed to stop forgery.

Anti-forgery strip shows up under UV Light

But what I heard, and this is rumor but gives some fuel for thought is that in reality these strips are actually a form of tracking device.  When you leave the country by plane you have to go thought the detectors.  There is a sensor in them that will read the strips in the bills to determine how much cash you are taking out of the country.  No one cares if you board a plane with a few thousand in cash, but say 20 to 100 thousand?  That would wake up the authorities in no time.

Now I have a problem with that. A stack of hundreds totaling $20K is substantial in bulk.  I would think that the mass alone would show up on x-ray and alert the authorities for a closer inspection.  Plus what if you take a ship?  I have not heard of the same screening process being done on people boarding a cruise line.  And there even though it is a lot slower than air flight, would be easier to carry large sums of cash.

And you still have to get through customs and I am sure they do a very detailed search on both ends of the trip.  But it is food for thought in any case.

And what about the TV?  Harmless?  Here is one for you that will give you the willies.

A friend of ours had cable TV installed into his home. The tech came, ran the cable into the front room, installed the box and everyone was happy. Our friend and his family like to watch TV while eating so he ran a cable from the box in the front room into the dinning room. Just to let you know anyone can do that very easily, the trick is to run it through the walls.

Anyway he setup a second TV in the dinning room and all was good. One day the reception was horrible on the TV in the front room so he called the cable provider telling them about the poor reception. After a few minutes the tech on the phone came back with the diagnosis. He said that there was a loose connection on the TV in the dinning room. Mind you the tech was never told about the second TV, how did he know? The cable box and cables were all gone within hours.

If cable knows what sets you have and where then what does Big Brother know?

Now I am not saying that this happening at all with the exception of the last and I was never there during the phone calls.  So there really is no way to prove any of it.  Especially with the crime that is out there.  But with the changes in the political climate, advances in technology any thing is possible. 

All I can say is I feel that Big Brother is watching.

'till next time.