[Vision2020] Ockham's Razor: Under The Hammer

[Ted Moffett]

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2008/2399350.htm#transcript

If you worry that 'Big Brother' is everywhere, watching us via CCTV or other
devices, imagine a future that's even worse. Melbourne author Andrew Herrick
delves into the not too distant future to tell us what can happen, and it's
a very worrying picture which, according to the author, is not all science
fiction.
Transcript

This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC cannot
guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and
occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.

*Robyn Williams:* Have you noticed how the British police, at least on
telly, depend almost entirely on CCTV? The cameras are everywhere, and it's
a rare crime that doesn't get picked up on video to help *The Bill*, or even
the guys from *Spooks* to find the villain. We're always being watched.

Professor Paul Wilson from Bond University in Queensland has even asked for
proper studies to be done on the way cameras seem to be following everything
we do.

So let's look to the future. Andrew Herrick, in Melbourne, has done just
that.

*Andrew Herrick:* Who would have thought, just a few years ago, that one day
we'd all be able to peer down like God into anyone's backyard, with a home
computer. Or that almost anywhere there'd be a camera watching us, recording
what we do? Or that every word we uttered or wrote electronically was being
judged by distant machines?

Well, like it or not, this is the New World, and we must be Brave. But let's
also be wary, and try to imagine the future before it comes knocking on our
doors, or knocking them down. Though science fiction is often predictive,
the following story is not strictly fiction, because most of it has already
happened, or is already possible.

So let's remember the most powerful law in the universe: Murphy's Law. If it
can happen, it will happen. And because we can never know quite when, it
might be best to turn off your mobile phone right now. Just in case.

Like most people, John Hooper spent days inside waiting for a chance to go
out when it rained. Clouds didn't stop them targeting your phone implant,
but rain was said to absorb and scatter the beam before it could strike you
down. On overcast days, Hooper sometimes saw a neat circular hole burn
through the cloud layer, meaning someone nearby had been zapped. Too close
to home.

Global warming enforced long waits through the many dry spells. Blue skies
and starry nights saw the city emptied of pedestrians. Hooper could feel the
tension, all those people pacing indoors, unwilling to go out on foot,
millions of eyes watching the sky through slitted curtains, fingers tapping
barometers, nerves yearning to sense a change on the way.

And then, when it finally did rain, the streets would fill with smiling
people. Laughing neighbours shared umbrellas, in the teeming euphoria
complete strangers exchanged moist kisses, felt the shape of each other's
bodies under sodden raincoats, all the while using sign language to arrange
to meet indoors. For a brief time, it felt like the old days again, for
while it rained, you didn't have to cringe under the sky. While it rained
you could enjoy that rarest and most illicit pleasure: privacy.

If he had to go out in fine weather Hooper always paused at his front door
to ask himself the usual questions. Is my trip strictly necessary? Is it
legitimate? Is it wise? Then he stepped out fast, and kept moving along the
almost deserted footpaths to the subway. He always avoided blending with
groups of hunched, scurrying people. There was no protection in numbers. The
targeting was so good now, they could pick you out, fry your brain with
microwaves so precisely focused that people standing either side didn't even
feel warm. 'Surgical strike' was no longer a metaphor.

Like most people, Hooper didn't know what exactly got you on the HAMMER
target list. He wasn't convinced by footage aired on the embedded media
showing graphic strikes on terrorists about to detonate bombs, paedophiles
downed in the act of delectation. He was certain there must be cases of
mistaken identity, justified after the fact by a campaign of bad PR, that
hoary old Catch-22, the 'pre-emptive strike'. You heard of people being
zapped and you wouldn't have suspected them of anything. Everyone was a
suspect now. Nowhere was safe. But what to do? How could you press charges
against the controllers of devices in the borderless, lawless frontier of
space? You couldn't even shake your fist at the sky. They might be watching.


Hooper was old enough to remember when it all began, back in 2005. Seven
years before becoming President, Governor Jeb Bush had authorised the GPS
tracking of Florida's sexual predators, and before long, terror suspects and
anti-globalisation activists were fitted with chipped anklets, along with
convicted paedophiles. And who was going to defend them? Military satellites
already spied using GPS, and the stalled anti-ballistic system had to be
used against something. Why not criminals? The new generation of HAMM
satellites (High Altitude Morphographic Monitoring) proved ideal platforms,
and by the time someone in the Pentagon's acronym division added 'Evaluation
and Response", HAMMER was hanging over humanity's head. With help from
Israeli targeting experts the first successful kill from low Earth orbit was
achieved in 2012 in Paris, when a terrorist's fingerprints were identified
from space as he prayed in an open courtyard.

Like most people, Hooper had to work for a living, and Bryson's industrial
bakery was a short pre-dawn trip by subway. In the huge loading bay his van
was waiting, stacked with warm bread, ready to roll. Hooper always climbed
into the driver's seat and hit the streets with mixed feelings. He was out
and about, and the van shielded him from the sky and made him legit. But
while on the job he laboured under a regime of triple invigilation. The
company's computer tracked the vans via GPS, tracker cams constantly scanned
his progress, or lack of it, and the ID chip in his phone implant pinpointed
him to homeland security. Like most people, Hooper was sick of being
scrutinised.

The company's computer had designed each route to maximise efficiency. This
was not necessarily the shortest trip from A to B, as hills and the extra
fuel used to climb them were taken into account. It was all about accounts:
reduced costs, increased margins, maximised shareholder return. Hooper had
driven his predetermined route so many times that he no longer had to glance
at the dash screen or listen to the irritating voice prompts that nagged him
to turn left, right, stop, a lofty, condescending woman's voice that he
couldn't turn off.

What really got on Hooper's wick was knowing the computer was peering over
his shoulder, logging and judging his every tiny action as he drove. It
monitored the pressure of his foot on the accelerator, when he braked and
how hard, the lateral g-force as he cornered. Hooper knew what would happen
if his driving style, his unloading pace, if the number of times he halted
in traffic crept outside the narrow confines of the computer's Route
Efficiency Quotient. At the end of his shift he would be called to the
office and presented with a dreaded hard copy. Indisputable proof of his
inefficiency.

The computer didn't seem to appreciate that with fewer people willing to go
out on foot, the roads were increasingly snarled with traffic. Hooper would
sit in the gridlocked streets grinding his teeth, dreading the inevitable
call from Chatfield, the distribution manager. Chatfield would pout at
Hooper's excuses - heavy traffic, parking problems, slow retail staff,
Hooper's aching bladder. Hurrying to make up time only made things worse.
'Brake pads don't grow on trees,' Chatfield would growl, scowling at the red
figures on the readout, 'and look at this rate of tyre wear ...'

Now they wanted him to start even earlier, to avoid the traffic. It would
mean a wake-up call, that nagging, synthetic voice inside his head, that
told him where to go all day, at three o'clock in the morning. Hooper would
have liked to tell it where to go. But he didn't dare. There was always
someone listening.

At the end of his shift, Hooper was glad to get back inside. Driving the van
let him get out, but it wasn't the kind of out he wanted. These days, out
was a dirty word. People spoke of going outside their dwellings, even into
their small, desiccated, neglected gardens, the way prisoners talked about
getting out from behind bars into the exercise yard. When you did go
outside, you even had to be careful what you carried in your pockets, now
that metal detection had been added to HAMMER's capabilities. The tabloid
media had celebrated the triumph of finally giving the free world what it
had long hankered for - a box-cutter defence shield. Hooper knew some people
felt safer knowing an all-seeing eye was protecting their loved ones from
all the insurgents out there somewhere. But Hooper sometimes wished he
hadn't buckled and had been implanted all those years ago. If he knew then
what he knew now. If only he had had the foresight to realise that the first
step had been to make mobile phones compulsory.

Hooper remembered back in the noughties when authorities began to insist
that lone yachtsmen and polar adventurers wear tracking devices. After 2012
anyone entering a wilderness area was legally required to carry a
GPS-equipped mobile or face heavy fines along with rescue fees. Then the
Finns miniaturised phones with reliable voice-recognition, and it was a
small leap to the wrist-mounted model, minus clumsy keypad, and only another
three years before the first successful bio-phone was inserted, initially in
the forearm and then, using cochlear implant techniques, behind the right
ear. When governments provided a free locator implant for every toddler as
protection against sexual predators, no parent dared refuse.

Law enforcement authorities had supported implants because it made ID
scanning and revenue collection friction-free. Consumers liked them because
it meant they no longer had to sort, choose and swipe dozens of credit cards
at retail outlets. Supermarket items were charged to your account the
instant you voiced your selection. You soon got used to talking to products,
and before long they were talking back, complimenting you on your purchase.
You felt more secure, because your identity had finally merged with your
credit rating.

By then phone implants featured everything you needed to get by in the
modern world. Travelling overseas? The new system promised to eliminate
airport security hassles - as long as you had your phone implant. If not?
Expect the delays and harassment a rogue element deserved. Before you knew
it, saying no to an implant was just not an option.

And yet Hooper seldom made actual phone calls nowadays. He knew his low
phone usage profile attracted high low-usage fees - his bills proved it. And
he knew the voice recognition chip in his phone alerted the Echelon network
whenever it detected a proscribed word or phrase, even during face-to-face
conversation. But it was difficult to find a happy balance. When talk is
cheap, he reasoned, silence is suspect. So how much silence? Hooper hoped
his radical lack of prattle didn't automatically raise his status as a
HAMMER target. There was no notice given once your points were used up. No
warning that you were about to be zapped.

Instead, Hooper spent time doing the two things they couldn't see, didn't
know about. He would pull down the shades, wrap himself in his tight ration
of privacy, and read and think. Hidden in his flat was a tattered copy of a
magazine that had briefly appeared in the underground markets, before a
chipped invoice for printing ink revealed its publisher to the eye in the
sky. An article in the magazine mentioned an intriguing possibility. It
claimed that by using a non-invasive method, ID chips could be
re-programmed, thus avoiding the alert signal trigger if the chip was
subjected to physical interference by an unauthorised person. This
procedure, the article claimed, would not alter the bearer's identity, just
his apparent co-ordinates, introducing enough error to throw the GPS out a
few metres. Suddenly invisible, you could breathe again. Hold your head up
high. You could poke your tongue out at the sky.

Using street sign language, Hooper made discreet enquiries in the
underground markets. After being flick-passed through an odd array of people
he was finally given the address of a phone-repair shop, deep under the
city. Early on the appointed day he made the required pass-sign to a swarthy
man behind the counter.

'You want to be free?' the man signed, with an elegant flourish.

Hooper nodded.

'Then you'll need to trust me.'

The man held out his hand, and Hooper passed him the folding money. The man
immediately reached for a scrubber and cleared the notes' embedded chips.

In an hour it was done. On the way back to the surface through the markets,
feeling jubilant, Hooper lashed out on a nice pair of gloves, socks,
handkerchiefs, and underpants. And for once, when he stepped out into the
crisp, blue morning, the sun's warmth felt like a blessing, not a threat.

But then, on that fine day, a signal was sent from the sky to a distant
computer, then back to the sky:

*Target: Hooper John J. 2306987T: subject in possession of chipped
underpants label revealing country of origin in violation of World Trade
Organisation regulations. STRIKE AUTHORISED*.

As he paused on the footpath to try on his new gloves, Hooper heard a rising
hum in his right ear, as if his phone was trying to warn him about
something.

*Robyn Williams:* And it was ... but too late. Hooper seems to have
disappeared.

Andrew Herrick is a writer and lives in Melbourne. Both he and I were
fascinated by what you were doing as he told that tale. Try the other hand
next time.

Next week Don Palmer goes Dream Time, where it's safer.

I'm Robyn Williams.

 Guests

*Andrew Herrick*
Writer
Melbourne
Victoria

Presenter

Robyn Williams
Producer

Brigitte Seega

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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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