“In the shower, I’m afraid to wash my hair! Because I might open my eyes and find someone standing there!!” –  Somebody’s Watching Me, Rockwell, 1984 

According to Wikipedia, the music video for Rockwell’s 1984 smash hit Somebody’s Watching Me “underscores the song’s paranoid tone with a haunted-house inspired theme, including imagery of floating heads, ravens, graveyards, and shower scenes referencing Psycho.” Here we are 33 years later, and it’s not floating heads, ravens and the undead that are stalking us (or “the IRS”), but apps, carriers, content providers and God knows who else. The average Joe has no idea the true extend of surveillance and data sharing that goes on and the resultant knowledge gleaned from the global spy machine.

Example 1: Facebook purchased a company called Onavo in 2013. Onavo makes an app called Onavo Protect, which creates a VPN (virtual private network) that encrypts all of your interactions so that you can operate securely over the internet. The OP app has been downloaded by millions of users. So, now that FB owns OP, guess who can see those secure communications, actions and transaction you perform on your device, even the ones outside of FB? Yep .. FB!  A spokesperson for the fab social net said “Websites and apps have used market-research services for years”. 25 years ago, in a parallel world, this would have been considered wiretapping. 50 years ago, espionage. Now it’s “market research”.  What other prying eyes do they employ?

Example 2: Verizon has a new “rewards program” called Verizon Up. For every $300 spent you get 1 credit and credits can be used towards such things as music, transportation, upgrades and drugs (not drugs). Why do we need to purchase music with credits when we can thank Brands for giving it to us for FREE? (click here to appreciate that sarcasm). How cool of Verizon! A rewards program just for their customers… a way to give back. Added value. An amazing company. Wait, there’s a catch! In an effort to build a high value SSP, they’ll need access to your data in return. They’ll just want to know who you know, talk to, text, watch what you do, see where you are, pry into the sites you visit and how much time you spend there, find out your activities, app usage, social security number and secret thoughts (not yet at least). When you sing up for Up, Verizon “makes consumers aware“ of the data usage. No doubt it’s buried in an incomprehensible labyrinth of text.

For both FB and Verizon, they are technically operating above board. But how much more is out there that is hidden in the fine print, being perpetrated by governments or hackers on the dark web? We may never know.

And so… I’ve grown paranoid:

Somebody’s watching me….I’m sure of it. The more I learn about the various ways “they” have to study us, the less faith that I have in lawmakers’ ability to keep up and hence, the more paranoid I become. I don’t want to leave my house anymore. I don’t want to go online or even use a landline… for what if my phone is tapped? In this dystopia camouflaged as democracy I quiver. The realization of the fact I am being recorded and studied is like awakening into a nightmare. Falling asleep, under the covers, lights out and shades drawn, is the most comforting solace.. yet even there I am uneasy, for eventually I must face the day. A day packed with a bombardment of ever increasing stimuli and scrutiny. A day that is wrapped not only in beautiful sunlight but in a horror cage of electronics. It talks to me… no, shouts at me, relentlessly. I’ve become, not over-socialized by a society demanding that I conform, but over-stimulated by a ubiquitous and invasive apparatus that demands I engage whether I want to or not. Perhaps what is most unnerving is that the cyber age today is analogs to the auto industry in the 1920’s…nascent; barely a ‘thing’ at all compared to the exponential growth that will multiply right before our eyes as it feeds itself larger and larger portions of intelligence and innovation. Soon, we shan’t recognize the world in which we inhabit. One day, technology so powerful, pervasive and transformative will arrive – appearing almost out of nowhere. Then, we will surely feel like visitors in our own world. We’ll all be living in our very own Haunted House, co-existing with and perhaps haunted by, the Internet of Things.