Re: is surveillance technology extropian?

Spike Jones (spike66@ibm.net)
Tue, 01 Dec 1998 20:47:23 -0800

mark@unicorn.com wrote:

> my inner geek [geek@ifeden.com] wrote:
> >Having worked at SGI, I know that special effects experts can fake
> >almost anything, including surveillance audio and video.
>
> Indeed. What's the value of surveillance video when anyone can create their
> own on a computer at any time?

i am searching my memory banks. there was an asimov short story i read a long time ago about this. someone had invented a machine that could somehow calculate the past. you could punch in the space and time coordinates and the machine would give you information about that 4 space. the government launched a huge effort to keep the whole thing secret. the heroes struggled to get the information out, so that if they were killed by government goons the world would still have their gift.

in the final scene, the government agents gathered all who knew about the machine into a room. he said the machine's inventors won, the bad old government agents were unsuccessful in plugging all the leaks, the secret was out. then, when all in the room are expecting to be killed, the agent says (approx): we now enter a brave new world. all shreds of privacy are gone. all our lives are an open book. you may go now, gentlemen, and may you all burn in hell.

does anyone here know the name of that story? spike