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by Mike Banks Valentine
Most of the commentary over the George Orwell's novel, "1984"
that occured in that year, was derision, saying that now it
was quite clear that the eerie picture painted of "Big
Brother" was unlikely, and certainly not possible.
Now Microsoft has proposed a sweeping web initiative which
it has dubbed "dot Net" or .Net in which they would
be the "host" for the personal information of every
single online consumer. The idea has some appeal as a possible
way to access information from a central bank of servers using
XML code to withdraw selected info from the vast database
of personal information about anyone from a central "host".
To have web access to that information might save the life
of an accident victim allergic to medications or allow you
to withdraw cash from any bank via your cell phone.
The privacy implications though, are downright spooky. Now,
you combine that information with newly available science-fiction-
like "face-mapping" software tested this year at
the "Snooper- Bowl" where certain law-enforcement
agencies would have access to private personal information
and high resolution video scans of the crowd and you have
-- Big Brother. Combine that with "Telematics" being
used by car rental agencies to track the location and even
the speed of their fleet of cars and now it gets real ugly.
This is the George Orwell novel, "1984" come to
life, a little late, but it's definitely here. Carry a cell
phone? It will be federally mandated that your phone must
use global positioning technology so that when used to dial
emergency services via 911, you can be located to within twenty
feet or less. It doesn't take a genius to realize that could
be used by Big Brother just as easily without your knowledge.
Any idea if your boss is peering over your shoulder? More
than three- quarters of corporate employers monitor employees
in multiple ways. The following is from Onvia.com web article
on workplace monitoring.
"Although the average percentage of workers with
office e-mail and Internet connections remained relatively
constant, overall active monitoring grew to 78 percent from
74 percent in 2000. The overall figure includes such measures
as storing and reviewing computer files (36 percent), video
recording of employees on the job (15 percent), recording
and reviewing telephone messages (12 percent), and storing
and reviewing voice mail (8 percent)
Other forms of surveillance, including telephone numbers
called and time spent on the phone, logged computer time and
video surveillance for security purposes brought the total
for all forms of monitoring to 82 percent, up from last year's
78 percent and from 67 percent in 1999."
http://www.news.onvia.com/x20557.xml
Consider that Microsoft provides the desktop software to most
of the corporate world and it doesn't take much of a stretch
of the imagination to see them building in their own monitoring
tools.
Add to that, "Smart Tags" that are being built
into Microsoft software so that all of their products are
tethered together and they now have access to virtually all
of your information from Outlook, Word, your calendar, your
email addresses, your files, your spreadsheets and your Powerpoint
presentations.
The following quote came from a large computing company's
lead engineer, he was promised anonymity:
"Bill has held back technology in order to control
the growth at his own pace and suck up every ounce of revenue
along the way. He is a genius when it comes to business -
probably the smartest business man to ever live!
When he released MSDOS (early 80's) there were plenty
of multi- tasking OSs available - he released Windows NT in
the mid 90's over ten years after the technology was available
on the PC! You have to be pretty smart to hold off that kind
of technology for over ten years!
The consumer is just now starting to receive the benefits
of multi-tasking OS's with Windows 2000 and still has no idea
how much technology they are missing!
He uses his install base of (90+%) of the client market
to control and kill every standard in his greedy profit hungry
companies way.
Now he is trying to kill Java with SOAP, SNMP with CIMOM
... etc.
He killed pop3 with exchange server - you have to buy
your corporate email server from Microsoft. No open email
standards will stand in his way - eliminate the competition!
The bottom line is Bill is the smartest business man in
the software industry and controls the pace of technology.
You will not get the technology until Bill can control and
own the market!"
Bill Gates made $931 million as Microsoft shares rose about
2 percent, better than the Upside 150's 1 percent gain. The
Microsoft chairman was worth $50.6 billion at the end of trading
on June 29, based on his company stock holdings. That would
finance the Big Brother centralized database called .Net quite
easily.
Are you ready for 1984?
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