The integration of mass surveillance and new digital technologies is unnerving and the many ruses being provided by governments is that it is there to protect us from terrorists and jail the criminals. The governments can now read your emails; track your movements; provide a profile of the sites you’ve visited, media interests and shopping patterns; monitor your associates and check whether your words, thoughts or actions could be deemed to have criminal intent. The power this would hand them is enormous and the potential scope for Orwellian levels of surveillance is terrifying.
The idea of connecting your home appliances to the internet is not you. Tech companies and pundits have been discussing the idea for decades, and the first internet-connected toaster was unveiled at a conference in 1989. The Internet of Things (or as it’s also known, IoT) encompasses everything connected to the internet, but it is increasingly being used to define devices that "talk" to each other.
Convergence of multiple technologies, including ubiquitous wireless communication, real-time analytics, machine learning, commodity sensors, and embedded systems. This means that the traditional fields of embedded systems, wireless sensor networks, control systems, automation (including home and building automation), and others all contribute to enabling the Internet of things.
Digital economy refers to an economy that is based on digital computing technologies. The digital economy is also sometimes called the Internet Economy, the New Economy, or Web Economy. The increase usage of consumers adopting the use of smart phones and tablets has made it possible to envisage a world without cash. It is these factors such as easy implementation, enhanced customer experience, fast processing and increased accuracy have led to the transition towards digitalization. But there are forces at work pushing these ideas such as the central banks, IMF, United Nations, European Union and tech companies using laws, policies and directives to implement the changes.
Digital currency is a type of currency available only in digital form. It allows for instantaneous transactions and borderless transfer-of-ownership. Examples include virtual currencies and cryptocurrencies or even central bank issued "digital base money". Like traditional money, these currencies may be used to buy physical goods and services. Bloomberg reported in 2016 that “On a recent Monday in April, more than 100 executives from some of the world’s largest financial institutions gathered for a private meeting at the Times Square office of Nasdaq Inc. They weren’t there to just talk about blockchain, the new technology some predict will transform finance, but to build and experiment with the software.”
Cryptocurrencies are a type of digital currencies, alternative currencies and virtual currencies. Cryptocurrencies use decentralized control as opposed to centralized electronic money and central banking systems. The decentralized control of each cryptocurrency works through a blockchain, which is a public transaction database, functioning as a distributed ledger. While names and other identifiable information won’t necessarily be part of the public record, governments have the resources to unmask those identities. In 1996 the NSA published a paper entitled How to Make a Mint: the Cryptography of Anonymous Electronic Cash, describing a Cryptocurrency system first publishing it in a MIT mailing list and later in 1997, in The American Law Review (Vol. 46, Issue 4).
China’s central bank — the People’s Bank of China — has developed a prototype of a cryptocurrency that it could end up in circulation in the near future. It would be introduced alongside the China’s primary currency the renminbi (also called the yuan). China will be simulating possible scenarios and running mock transactions using the cryptocurrency with some commercial Chinese banks.
It’s not just China that’s heading away from cash. In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, scrapped 86 percent of notes in tender in a bid to target corruption and push the use of digital payments. Bank of Canada, Deutsche Bundesbank and the Monetary Authority of Singapore are examining digital currencies.
Despite the incredible power of today’s supercomputers, there are many complex computing problems that can’t be addressed by conventional systems. In 2014 the Washington Post reported that NSA seeks to build quantum computer that could crack most types of encryption. With such technology, all current forms of public key encryption would be broken, including those used on many secure Web sites as well as the type used to protect state secrets. “The irony of quantum computing is that if you can imagine someone building a quantum computer that can break encryption a few decades into the future, then you need to be worried right now,” said Daniel Lidar, a professor of electrical engineering and the director of the Center for Quantum Information Science and Technology at the University of Southern California. And now in 2018 quantum computing has taken a step forward with the development of a programmable quantum processor made with silicon.
EU flagship initiative, the 5G declaration signed by EU ministers in Tallinn, Estonia - It is estimated that by 2020 there will be 26 billion connected devices and 70% of people will own a smartphone. 5G will form the backbone of the EU digital single market industries of the future, modern public services and innovative applications such as connected cars, smart homes and mobile health services. The declaration indicates the steps that member states will take to encourage the swift roll-out of 5G and related services across Europe.
United Smart Cities Program - The United Smart Cities program is a global initiative, established by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in cooperation with the Organization for International Economic Relations (OiER) and other international organizations, cities, industry and finance sector.
Smart cities initiative aim is to establish a technology-based service to manage a city’s infrastructure, transportation, energy and healthcare resources. These initiatives are already being piloted across major cities in the UK and globally.
Can you see where all of this is headed?
Think about all the things technology can do, all the advancements that have been made within a relatively short amount of time, and then tell me that it's not at the very least possible that this could be the ultimate agenda to rule and monitor the masses.
“The totalitarian dictatorship, as in Nazi Germany, Communist China, and the former USSR, is much more thoroughgoing. It seeks to control all aspects of national life, including the beliefs and attitudes of its people. It has a set of ideas that everyone is expected to embrace, such as revolutionary Marxism or counterrevolutionary fascism. At its most extreme, as during the leadership of Joseph Stalin in the USSR, the power of the dictator may become more absolute than in any of the earlier forms of tyranny. Such gross power in the hands of one person results inevitably in the development of what has been called a cult of personality. The leader is credited with almost infallible wisdom, because to admit that he or she may be wrong would deprive the regime of its authority. In some Communist countries the cult of personality appears to have given way to the dominance of a group of party leaders—a ruling oligarchy. The administrative complexities of managing a modern industrial state are too great to be monopolized by an individual leader such as Stalin or Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung). The successor regime in China, for example, continues to claim infallibility for its policies and doctrines but not for the leaders. Examples of 20th-century dictators in addition to those already mentioned include Idi Amin Dada(Uganda), Kemal AtatÃrk (Turkey), Fulgencio Batista and Fidel Castro (Cuba), Francisco Franco (Spain), Saddam Hussein(Iraq), Ferdinand Marcos (Philippines), Benito Mussolini (Italy), Juan Peron (Argentina), and AntÃnio Salazar (Portugal).” A Review by Thomas B. Hartmann for scholastic.com.
Isn’t that exactly what has been happening ever since the UN and the EU were formed. To manage every aspect of our lives and it is no wonder that people are misled because it is all wrapped up in a warm blanket called democracy, but that is not where it is heading. The United Nations, often ridiculed as the "dictators club" by critics, is actually the "Parliament of Humanity" and "a beacon for all humanity," declared UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in a statement celebrating the United Nations Day and the 70th anniversary of the UN's founding.