08.06.13
The purpose-driven life
Tech writers continue the daily charade that young vatos who discover security holes — using whatever they could buy for a few hundred dollars in town — matters. It doesn’t. It may be interesting but it’s irrelevant that guys like Brendan O’Connor, security researchers, put together a bunch of black-boxed public WiFi vacuums.
Forty eight million people on food stamps is a problem. An effective unemployment/underployment rate of 14 percent is a major national problem. The fact that the country with biggest military in world history is ungovernable is a problem.
The private information leaking out of the smartphones and Internet connections of people everywhere, the stuggling class shoppers at the Baja Ranch market, is annoying.
But, as something within the national framework, it’s trivial. Maybe you can earn a lot of money with it, but fix stuff, teach important lessons?
You gotta be kidding.
So why the Hell is it important that the security company business card, Malice Afterthought, is in a picture of a ring of electronic spying gadgets made for 600 bucks.
Six hundred bucks isn’t much to the New York Times reporter. It isn’t much to the security researcher.
“Brendan O’Connor is a security researcher … How easy would it be, he recently wondered, to monitor the movement of everyone on the street – not by a government intelligence agency, but by a private citizen with a few hundred dollars to spare?” reads the NYT.
Six hundred bucks is a lot in my neighborhood. And the difference in regard for it is just another example of the immense divide present in America.
The professional class that’s still doing well tries to keep peddling stories that have no relevance in solving what has destroyed the economy for millions in this country.
“You could keep tabs on people who gather at a certain house of worship or take part in a protest demonstration in a town square [with Malice Afterthought’s gadgets]”, writes the newspaper.
News flash! They’ve been keeping tabs on people in protest demonstrations for years. There’s a multi-billion dollar national security industry devoted to it.
So, we’ve added another few grains of irritating sand to the national matrix.
Wow, more vaguely menacing-looking spying gadgets for security tech nerds. Your data leaks everywhere! Astonishing!