Pandora's Voodoo people

In my last post I was thinking a little bit about all of our digital data being made public and how heavily our relationships and reputations might be affected. I used a hypothetical of a switch being flicked that exposed us, but this might one day happen for the information that is used to manipulate our lives daily, is accessible to someone.

I created this image as how I see one potential future for us as end users of the internet, us who do not own or control the data we generate, us who could eventually be held hostage by the collectors of our digital lives and the connectors who place those 0s and 1s to a person, the owners of our digital avatar.

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Just think about how much data flow we generate each day through thousands of gateways that funnel information into a central source so that it can be analyzed and sorted, cross-referenced and connected in order to influence our decisions on what we buy, what we support, the party we vote for and even who we will fall in love with, have children with and then support the ones we care the most about to generate even more data than we.

Now imagine ten years from now, twenty, thirty - a time when we are not only generating a mass of data, but the artificial intelligence that sort them have refined and integrated even more heavily into our everyday lives and the lives of our children. Not only will they be able to manipulate our decisions with more precision, they will also have a very large range of data connected to each of us over the span of many years, and that of our children.

What happens to the world when these data collectors have a digital voodoo doll of us, will they not use it if it is to their advantage, if it gets them a better market position and makes them a little more profit? Will they keep the secrets of a state or a state leader if they can use that knowledge they have collected to make gains, to take out competition, to obtain more power? Use it to undermine a rival CEO, sell the data of a troublesome reporter or employee, a protester, a judge?

It doesn't have to be verified, it just has to appear real and just like statistics, the framing can make a great deal of difference, and with millions of points of data collected and connected, cherry-picking to build the narrative is not a very hard task to perform. Are you safe?

What about your children?

Who is watching all of those millions of cameras that litter the public streets, who is filtering the calls, reading those messages, those snaps - those digital assistants that collect our voices? Where does this information reside, is it secure, is it hackable - are our digital dolls in safe hands or will they one day be unearthed and come out into the light to create the world's largest, messiest and all encompassing scandal, the likes of which have never been seen before.

Would any emerge unscathed?

Even without immutable blockchains to store the information, we are chained to the data we create because it is all stored with enough of it tied to our person that there is little chance of escape. People believe they are anonymous while typing on their phone, connecting to owned towers and then using that same phone to call and order a pizza to their home. There are a million points that can be used to identify a person, they only need a handful, and they have plenty of sticky hands tentacling out into the ether and pulling back all that they touch.

There is a reason that information is the most valuable resource on earth and there is a reason that the saying, knowledge is power rings true. Knowledge is information sorted into usable context and the power comes from how that knowledge is used.

Do you know what is attached to your avatar?

We want our digital secrets to remain so and because of this, those that hold the box have access to an immense amount of potential energy - how long until the lid of Pandora's box is unhinged and our digital dolls are released?

The Voodoo, who do, what you don't dare do, people

Magic people, Voodoo people

Data people.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]