Is the Deep State, with multiple intelligence gathering agencies and their veritable alphabet soup of letters from the likes of CIA, GCHQ, NSA, MI6/5, FBI plus many more, really interested in watching us?
Or is it the GIANT internet and computer companies like Google and Fedbook, these massive miners of our most personal data, who watch our every move and keep tabs on us?
Is BIG Brother watching us in our Orwellian dystopia?
So to find some answers to these questions, this clever American reporter chap from the Tucker Carlson show on Fox News, takes 2 identical phones, completely new and unused, on a data gathering mission.
Neither phone is set up to connect with wifi, neither is connected to ANY data networks and neither of them even has a sim card.
The ONLY diff is that he pops one on airplane mode (ie disconnected from receiving and sending signals at all) and the other is not on airplane mode.
Then with both phones in his pockets he goes off into downtown Washington DC and travels about bit, goes to the shops, hops in a cab, walks around, visits a church, a hospital and then returns to the TV studio. The question is...will the phones be collecting data about where he has been and what his locations were? Will one of them have stored more data than the other?
Back at the studio, they connect both phones up to Google to see what tracking information the site has recorded from each phone.
Now get this....is the airplane mode phone gonna give less information???? Or is it not??? The vid is approx 5 minutes and is well worth a watch...especially of you'd like to learn the answers to that!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=39s&v=5BurOuyANwY
Getting chillingly close to Orwell's vision by the dystopian day isn't it, dear steemies? So how do you plan to combat this? Will you be leaving your phone exactly where it usually is...in your pocket? Or will you be leaving it at home? Or do you plan to build a Faraday cage to protect yourself from prying eyes and the electromagnetic smog? Or maybe, being cynical, even these measures are futile...I'd love to know what you think in the comments!
Credits
Both Orwell images; ebaumsworld.com
Just an addendum to add to wariness of some, and laughter of others. Car tyres have a chip, therefore however you hide ID, the magic red-light can read your tyres and know from where they were fitted. In this country the little gold chip that enables your Visa and MasterCard and indeed most Bank cards, is now also on your driver's licence, therefore the Policeman sitting in his card can read Who is driving past, if you are legal and have your licence on your person. If you then get an aluminium foiled wallet so you can protect your Bankcard from ID and financial hacking, and also keep your driver's licence there, the Police might pull you over Because you gave no lic visible to their scanners. They also know who your passengers are who carry lic ID. But don't worry they are your Friends and work for you. 😇
And boom Simon, you nailed a whole new can of worms right there. They scan us coming, going, and at all the stages in between...you're exactly right my friend.
Makes me even wonder if the RFID chips are even necessary any more...like AT ALL??!!?? Unless they are wanting to collect and monitor our very DNA...which is likely!
Funnily enough when I was driving in Australia not long ago, I was stopped BECAUSE they couldn't read my British driving licence...I was not driving in any way that would otherwise have attracted the ministrations of the police-y enforcers!!! As soon as he saw my licence it was "Oh you're on holiday...you're a pom and on you go we can't make any revenue out of you!!!" Would be funny if it wasn't so ironed fisted!!!
Makes you wonder how long before they can make revenue out of everybody who travels, not just trains, coaches, and buses, but any lic, any where¿
It's actually not funny that you raise the point of revenue raising. Crime is no longer detected or deduced from evidence, it is bullied from witnesses, associates, under-age children, virtually anyone they think might help their circumstantial build-up. While revenue raising may save a few lives of speedsters, I'm pretty sure it drives many drivers to further push the boundaries of common sense. The local revenue raisers cannot handle the ice problem, so cause more ice problem by stomping on kids with a J, because it can be smelled, and it mustn't be said they do nothing about the 'drug' problem, so they go out deliberately to create a greater revenue raising situation. I just reckon they want all illegal green associates on record, so when it does become taxable, they will have a list of persons who may not get a licence to grow, transport or distribute, and also the hard info on 'how' the different strains and strengths may be best produced, and therefore best taxed. But maybe I'm just cynical. I reckon I won my battle against the redneck authorities, and they reckon they won their battle against me, but now their problem is the ease with which 'bad' chemicals are found by the kids. My generation might have smoked a little pot, but we still went out and created businesses, raised families and paid our taxes, but now, the killer chemicals are a direct result of policing methods by govt authorities that even dress as if we the public are the enemy. 😕
Yep, you're right its hard to ignore the facts, isn't it, Simon? And the old addage of "absolute power, corrupts absolutely" really does apply to every level of our crazy mixed up society and none more so than in the area of our judicial system and police-y enforcement.
When a mother can be arrested for giving her child with cancer CBD oil instead of chemo you know things have gone badly wrong!
The "SYSYEM" favours a small elite of approx 1% at the expense of the remaining 99% and until enough people wake up and realise the power they have this system will continue to flout was is right, enforce what is blatantly unlawful in moral humanistic terms, and extract as much juice from every single one of us as is humanly possible.
Yep, I personally, gave up on that inconsistency as expressed by our delusions, such as democracy, and innocent til proven guilty, and so on. Fair-go, was an expression of my youth in 70's. Now it's CV's that record no experience but only classroom time. I turned to letting my brother create his own Karma. He will anyway, and he doesn't need or want my help. I am here for those who do want help to create a better balance in their life. There is a means of living without being an utter basket. One can learn to live a karma-less life, and not get caught up in the mind-passions of the rabid world. The ability to be free IS the ability to grant others the ability to be free. Love all life. All things happen FOR you, and no thing happens TO you. I am solely responsible for my world. Keep on keeping on. 😇
Completely agreed! Rock on, my friend, we need more peaceful warriors like yourself, not fighting necessarily because in my book fighting for peace is an offensive oxymoron, but seeking the freedom, acknowledging free will, and learning to love ALL life, however it expresses itself! 💚⭐️👍
Hi @lilygolightly, yes this is an issue for me! I too used to think that putting my phone on airplane mode would switch off all functionality. However, I found out that this only switches off the front-end, user functionality - ie ability to make calls, surf etc. The back-end is still wide open and the clip you posted (even from a source like Fox :) demonstrates this clearly. I heard an analyst once say that the amount currently being paid for one's data runs into the hundreds, but more likely thousands of dollars annually - that's what is being paid for information about you now! Don't see any clear way out apart from not use a smart phone :( ... I do keep it a good few feet away from me when I sleep and often leave it behind at home when I go for a walk - I rarely speak on the phone, mainly texting and browsing and music when I'm out and about.
Hey Barge, lovely to have your incisive comments, as always!!! Its a BIG issue this isn't it...and like rats in a trap I really don't see any way out of this labyrithine maze they have baited us with.
I mean how many people can seriously manage these days without a phone? Businesses depend on it, so do vulnerable people, the sick, the elderly and young children. We are damned if we do...and damned if we don't! What a pickle!
Yeah, and although the report is a good one...I was dubious about "promoting" the little sly Fox and its cunning media manipulations!! Sometimes the message trumps the messenger though so on balance I did it anyways!!
One little tip - I heard from an electronics wizard friend that he keeps his phone (when not in use) in an old microwave! He said it was the closest thing to a Faraday cage he could get without building his own! Could be a good way of recycling the brutes that "nuke" all the nutrition out of your food anyway!!!
If you do speak on the phone...keep it on 'speaker' mode, and as far as possible from your head, ears and mouth...this is especially important if you have any metal fillings in your teeth! Seems obvious but not a lot of people have considered this.
Yes, there are so many ways of enticing us into giving our power away in exchange for trinkets :)
Thanks for the tips. I use headphones when speaking on the phone. Reckon I've def. still got some mercury filings from the DelhiDentalDept. of the 80s. No microwave at home, functioning or not, but that is an idea!
Yes, good point, Barge, and how similar that is to what the early settlers did to the native americans giving them beads and baubles for huge tracts of land!!! Seems they have been at this game for a long long time!!
Yep I am also on the look out for an old non functional microwave to build me a Faraday cage for all the electronic gadgetry I have traded my soul for!!! 😊NOT!
Beyond crazy! And there are people out there that think this technology is 'cool'!
Yes, you're exactly right there...the rise of the abominable "selfie" culture coincided far too conveniently with the release of facial recognition software didn't it?
A neatly timed form of "spyware" that gets the subject to DIY (Do It Youself) thereby saving world police/intelligence networks valuable surveillance time and effort!
And with phones that track themselves, cameras on nearly every street corner, TVs/Computers in all, or at least most, homes they can monitor our every movement! LITERALLY, if they wanted to!
There is an interesting future ahead of us.....be careful out there!
Thanks for commenting so positively about this @lynxki its great that you have reminded us that while care IS needed, our future need NOT be viewed negatively.
We DO have to be careful, you're right about that, but if we can only imagine a better future for all of humanity, all of the creatures we share our planet with, and indeed have care for the planet herself, then we can create a utopia, rather than the dystopia! ⭐️❤️😊