Spying on one's neighbor
or business partner is no longer considered
a shady proposition. It's a multi-million
dollar business endeavor known as personal
surveillance. The mission: to protect
assets. And with this chapter of Big
Brother comes astounding new technologies
designed to document the foibles of our
daily lives.
With the influx of gadgetry and its sudden popularity, questions of ethics arise.
Are our rights to privacy being swept under the carpet of technology? Are trust
and freedom the casualties of the Information Age?
Once you've determined your ethical stance (and assuming you are in the "if
everyone else is doing it, why shouldn't I" herd) the next step is to determine
form and function. A short stint on the Internet will reveal enough gadgetry
to rival "Q." Some are clever, some ingenious, but all have been designed
to observe the unknown enemies from within: the suspicious employee, nanny or
wayward spouse. The proliferation of Internet sites such as sharperimage.com
and spytech-hawaii.com are testament to the public's salacious desires, perhaps
a by-product of tabloid journalism.
Whatever tools you choose, you will collect information — and most of it
chronicling completely mundane acts of daily life. The key, as with all endeavors
in the New Economy, is deciphering the value of the information you've collected.
Once documented, the evil deed becomes its own currency, a personal rainy-day
fund.
Of course, information uncommunicated is worthless. How, when, and if you choose
to use the goods bring about its own set of complications. Pop above the radar
screen and you may realize that, you too, are a target in the information sweep.
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