Big Brother & Little People

If I said "Digital Fortress"! My friends will go "huh?". But when I mentioned "Da Vinci Code", I will get less of that "blur" expression from them. Dan Brown, the brain behind that unputdownable novel, had masterfully crafted four thrillers to date, the other two is Deception Point and Angels & Demons. Why am I talking about an author whose obsessed with secret societies and encryptology, the reason is not because of the Da Vinci novel. It is more about my own recently caught paranoia bug. You see, I arrived at my office pretty early everyday so I could get some extra time surfing the net and answering my fan mails (yeah, right). The weird thing is when I arrived and opened the door to my room, the lights are always ON, the blackout buster is ON too. I am not that absent-minded, so this incident come as a suspenseful experience ( background music: theme song from twilight zone). have any of you ever experience this? Have any of you ever experience a time when you are surfing the net or typing the keyboard, the computer suddenly get jammed or you could not move your cursor for a minute or two? When you are walking down the sidewalk in any part of Kuala Lumpur, have you ever noticed flashes of lights in your way but you could not trace its origin? No, we are not talking of some mindless papparazi that suddenly finds your life interesting, we are talking about your privacy and the possibility of intrusion by powerful people. Before you accused me of being a first class paranoid, let me just get back to Brown `s novel i.e DF and DP. Though both novels did not deal with the dark secrets of Christianity and related secret societies, it deals with the whole issue of intrusion of privacy by organized groups that are always backed by government funds. Remember 1984 by Orwell? It speaks volume of how one `s control of mind shall in the end control the whole self. Realizing how effective is such control, Big Brother, the antagonist in the story came up with a well-thought ( if not well-intended) system of control which covers up almost all aspects of the people` s lives - ways of thinking, behaving and speaking. A classic presentation of preserving National Security at the expense of Private Lives ; Big Brother -vs- Little People. Then, why I am babbling about trivial incidents such as the ones I described above? Well, should I say my insecurity over my privacy grew after I learned the following information from Dan Brown `s website:

• In large cities, Americans are photographed on the average of 20 times a day.
• Everything you charge is in a database that police, among others, can look at.
• Supermarkets track what you purchase and sell the information to direct-mail marketing firms.
• Your employer is allowed to read your E-Mail, and if you use your company's health insurance to purchase drugs, your employer has access to that information.
• Government computers scan your E-Mail for subversive language.
• Your cell phone calls can be intercepted, and your access numbers can be cribbed by eavesdroppers with police scanners.
• You register your whereabouts every time you use an ATM, credit card, or use EZ PASS at a toll booth.
• You are often being watched when you visit web sites. Servers know what you're looking at, what you download, and how long you stay on a page.
• Intelligence agencies now have "micro-bots" -- tiny, remote control, electronic "bugs" that literally can fly into your home and look around without your noticing.
• the National Security Agency has a submarine that can intercept and decipher digital communications from the RF emissions of underwater phone cables.

Although all this phenomenon looks typically U.S-invented, but it does drag me into thinking: such thing is not impossible in our country too. Now you understand my over-consciousness with jammed computers and etc.

In respect to Dan `s work, I perceived his four novels as ying and yang. Despite the fact that his techno-thrillers DP and DF reveals the operation and existence of National Security Agency, his books DVC and AND serves another perspective to the whole issue. With the existence of nationalized (or internationalized) attempt to intrude people `privacy in the name of national security, at the same time, we will also witness the growing tendency to conceal and hide our communications and actions via symbols and codes. I call these attempts as advocating for secrecy and privacy . Interestingly, Brown produced Leonardo Da Vinci and Galileo as the masters of secrecy via their inventions in both DVC and AND. Interestingly too, with all the microbots, submarines and state-of-art spying gadget, U.S still are unable to catch Osam Ben laden and have to launched War Against Terrorism. Hairan! Hairan!

I had an interesting discussion with my friend on this , she claimed that secret codes or encryptology is the fruit of prejudice, lost of trust and paranoia. One who choose to communicate secretly also must be up to something bad or else, he or she will not conceal his message/communication from the others. She has a point. If you recall the Cold War you will also remember the Echelon system. Let the following excerpt refresh your memory:

"In the days of the cold war, ECHELON's primary purpose was to keep an eye on the U.S.S.R. In the wake of the fall of the U.S.S.R. ECHELON justifies it's continued multi-billion dollar expense with the claim that it is being used to fight "terrorism", the catch-all phrase used to justify any and all abuses of civil rights. With the exposure of the APEC scandal, however, ECHELON's capabilities have come under renewed scrutiny and criticism by many nations. Although not directly implicated in the bugging of the Asia Pacific Economic Conference in Seattle, the use of so many U.S. Intelligence agencies to bug the conference for the purpose of providing commercial secrets to DNC donors raised the very real possibility that ECHELON's all-hearing ears were prying corporate secrets loose for the advantage of the favored few. Given that real terrorists and drug runners would always use illegal cryptographic methods anyway, the USA led attempt to ban strong crypto to the general populace seemed geared towards keeping corporate secrets readable to ECHELON, rather than any real attempt at crime prevention"

Source: http://mediafilter.org/caqhttp://www.worldmedia.com/caq

But remember the Chinese folklore regarding moon cake (if i am not mistaken)? How the villagers hide important message for the soldiers that will save them from the bandits that ruled their village in the moon cake? Secret codes in this context, rather than creating a catalyst to pre-judge people `s thinking or plans, are used to secure lives and plans to defeat injustice. This might be a bit off-track as an example but my point is the attempt to spy on other people `s life creates stronger urgency for secrecy i.e the counterproductive effect. But whether it works the other way around, beats me. Like the chicken and egg argument, it just goes on and on.

My only intention of posting this incoherent piece of writing (berterabur!) is to remind all of us the thinning line of privacy hence, the potential collapse of our freedom of expression and choice. it is fearful to imagine one day, our decision or choice that we make are very much affected by the "invisible" eyes and ears that are keeping track of our daily routines. It is also scary to picture the fall of our most darkest secrets, preferences or tendencies into the hands of strangers who would later use it for ulterior motives. Where is the ultimate line that says "this is my space and don`t trampled on it!" or is there any?

I guess the whole issue of NSA and secret codes runs deeper that we expect. It is for now, an interesting and appealing theme for Dan Brown `s best sellers but if we give it a deeper thought, it will not seems that appealing anymore.

On a more jovial note ( since all my postings are damn serious) , go and check Dan Brown `s Official Website and give the code breaking challenge a try. Its COOL especially the search across the web game. If you really want to enjoy it, don't try to cheat and look for "walk over" sites that offer solutions. Not exciting anymore lah!

Watch behind your back. Are you sure no one `s watching you?