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My Toilet Ratted Me Out

I found a story on bbc.com that struck my funny bone. Tongue and cheek aside, though, this article is very poignant about our future in the developed world. It's not entirely unlikely that your entire life will be recorded by a camera. You can't go anywhere today without being seen by a camera.

Dumb cameras don't scare me. Sure you can make them auto-track and interface with a computer that knows where you are. Okay, big deal. Maybe Tom Hanks cares about that more than me. What does concern me is the growing interest in supposed smart home devices.

The BBC article made a cheeky comment about a toilet that knows when a woman is pregnant before she knows. Harumpf you say, that's a good thing. Well, how about if you're a cocaine user and your lovely smart commode decides to check on your drug use and then rat you out to the cops.

Worst yet, let's say you do get the fancy John, and you love that it tells you that your blood sugar is too high, or that you're eating too much sodium. What if it was hacked by a nefarious dude like me, and it starts alerting those coppers to your elicit drug use even when you're not. Hmm, that sounds fun. It's another level of disinformation terrorism that is only now starting with those phoney bomb scares in the USA.

So everybody has to make water, whether in a toilet, or on a tree. In the future with nifty smart devices, you can imagine a smart storm drain that is able to do quick DNA analysis. Oh snap, huh? So much for being a criminal. The minute you make water, either the dirty rat of a commode will rat you out at Jump'n Jimmy's Truck Stop, or else the sewer drain will start calling the coppers on you. Once you're identified by your urine, the army of eyeballs will turn their attention to you, and you won't be able to get your liquid life, a.k.a. Starbucks, without being molested by some billy who's waiting for charbucks. Maybe you can bribe him with a Carmel, Non-Fat, No-Whip, Sugar Free, Soy, Half-Decaf Mocha Frappuccino. With 2 Equals.

There was a book that I read recently titled The Light of Other Days by Arthur C Clarke and Stephen Baxter. You should read this fiction book because it has a good message about our future. We may not be creating worm holes today, but we are creating a video archive of history that is unprecedented. In thirty years time you will be able to call up images of "yesterday" on just about anyone and anywhere in the world from your embedded cellular search device.

Does anybody want to start a Ludite colony?

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