Facebook World

Let's just do this, ok? Let's just get a little perspective on things. My perspective, to be exact.

Let me talk to you about the future: it's been cancelled. There will be no future, it will be fed to you, ever so slowly, bite after bite, like a baby in a high chair. You don't chew solids, and that's because you're not being fed with a spoon, you're being fed with an eyedropper -- the new wool being pulled over your eyes. Vision is reserved to a select few, call it billions, the rest of us, just have deduction, intuition, perspective, and a wallet.

Information, including what you're reading right now, is tainted.

What happened to you? A few years ago, you didn't have an email address, and then you started complaining when you got spam. You've made your own idea of what spam is, you let it get all automated, and then you started forwarding stuff to your friends. Worthless un-assessable information about viruses, and a young girl that everyone refuses to find in a ditch. Yes, Bill Gates wanted you to get a free computer if you forwarded this email, and you did, "just in case". You used to have concerns.

Years go by, and you've been meaning to call your friends within this shitstorm, and then, the emergence of Facebook. A call, coming from nowhere. Normally, if this had been an automated phone message, you would have just hung up and gotten back to your tablemanners with a sigh of disbelief. Not this time.

So let me do a random forecast of the direction and origins of facebook. I will do this with no search engine attached, only the simmering stew of "what the fuck" that's been going on in my head as non-users become addicted to a technology whose workings seem very clear:

September 11th.

Oh shut up...

Passport pictures, proper screenings, you luggage turned upside down at the airport, your nail clipper confiscated, and eventually, your trusty Evian corporate pacifier. Background checks, private life, hanging by a thread. The annoyance is deafeningly obvious. The need for facial recognition in order to recognize you should be be boarding your flight in a halloween costume, is in great demand. As any bid, many companies proposed software solutions for facial recognition, and so, the guidelines for passport pictures changed around a lot. Don't smile, fuckface.

Yes, facebook was created by a college student, but they offer third party companies the ability to develop software, and thus, the access to the sets of data is not completely restricted. That being said, Facebook is an excellent facial recognition starter database for anyone interested in the grailish "world database of humans", if I may call it that.

No, facebook doesn't sell anything.. it's buying, guess what the product is. Stop reading if you can't figure out the answer to that question, and go right back to your merry facebook life.

Your social network, your buying habits, your likes, dislikes, etc, all exposed. The good spamming people had been wrong all these years: why reach for the information when people are willing to give it away? I'd say it's a fair trade, because you get to reconnect with people you haven't heard of in ages. But what you're trading in, you'll never really know, which is why I made this into a blog post instead of a conversation.

Facebook is the pinnacle of people not understanding the power of computer processing. There's a reason why ga-jillions of dollars are poured into "connected" devices. If you don't think that it's possible for a camera feed that just picked you up on a street corner to do a facial data lookup to find out what's in your fridge, or what the next party you'll be attending to is, or what your highscore on XboxLiveArcade is.. you're not getting it. And if the example seems to mundane, consider the fact that this feed is a good indicator that you are not in your home at the moment (quite convenient in an age where some of us don't pick up the phone for need of peace and quiet).

Remember that scene from The Running Man? The one where they mismatch Arnie's face on some other guy in a video to fake his death to a wall of spikes? Not really far fetched anymore, look around http://heinekendraughtkeg.com/, you can now star in your own Beer Commercial.

Ever..
So..
Slowly..

It's scary because digital law and copyrights is SO FAR behind. It used to be that you needed a permit to take photos with a standard camera, now you can just snap anyone at anytime and they're yours.

So, here's my doomsday prediction:

Consumer-lever network-broadcast-enabled digital cameras allowing you to do facebook lookup from your shot bank and know exactly who it was that you've just crossed on the street, where they live, what they do, who their friends are, and what they look like, and where they were last seen. Yes, I understand that Facebook doesn't have your home address, but combine a few publis services, and the work is done.

Let me un-mumbo-jumbo this a little bit by giving a focused explanation:

People talk about viruses today like an "annoyance", or some automated "thing" that made it to their computer "again". "What's a good virus scanner", so that they can shut the door and just keep using the computer, with no real desire to understand that there are people behind these viruses that are not to be ignored, unlike the code they write. When you make a technology, people will fuck with it, sometimes out of curiosity, sometimes to prove a point or flaw, or to cause mayhem.

When you convert people into data, they can be fucked with as well.

Furthermore, all these "web 2.0" apps further help the un-aware computer user execute tasks that should be performed with basic computer knowledge, and totally have them skip out on computer logic, or legal logic. These freaking apps that allow you to "find more friends" through Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, etc. Sure, the said 2.0 service will not "redistribute or share" your information without your consent. Guess what, opening your email address book to a system, is the same thing as handing them your address book "we will never as you for this information", but you'll sure as hell volunteer it. All these years of people using BCC:, right down the drain.

So why the hell would you get a facebook account when the data set is not private? Restricting access to your information by other users on the system is NOT equivalent to the data itself being safe from anyone else.

This could all be horseshit, so why not read the Facebook terms of use and privacy policy. Here's a short clipping, did you read the terms before getting your account? :

Third Party Websites and Content

The Site contains (or you may be sent through the Site or the Service) links to other web sites ("Third Party Sites") as well as articles, photographs, text, graphics, pictures, designs, music, sound, video, information, applications, software and other content or items belonging to or originating from third parties (the "Third Party Applications, Software or Content"). Such Third Party Sites and Third Party Applications, Software or Content are not investigated, monitored or checked for accuracy, appropriateness, or completeness by us, and we are not responsible for any Third Party Sites accessed through the Site or any Third Party Applications, Software or Content posted on, available through or installed from the Site, including without limitation the content, accuracy, offensiveness, opinions, reliability, privacy practices or other policies of or contained in the Third Party Sites or the Third Party Applications, Software or Content. Inclusion of, linking to or permitting the use or installation of any Third Party Site or any Third Party Applications, Software or Content does not imply approval or endorsement thereof by us. If you decide to leave the Site and access the Third Party Sites or to use or install any Third Party Applications, Software or Content, you do so at your own risk and you should be aware that our terms and policies no longer govern. You should review the applicable terms and policies, including privacy and data gathering practices, of any site to which you navigate from the Site or relating to any applications you use or install from the site.

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