Life continues to be awesome and wonderful here in Hawaiian Paradise Park.  It’s the time of the year when our lilikoi vine just rains down fruit.  Super yum!

I’ve been absolutely slammed with website work and online marketing efforts, with multiple product launches currently underway.  The upshot is I have enough really cool work to keep me busy until next century.  The downshot is I’ve been sitting in front of a computer screen for most of my life lately.  I was, however, stoked to start work on a tile job with my good friend the other day – boy does it feel great to get out of the office and use my hands for something other than mousing and typing!  I just love fine craftsmanship, whether it’s building websites or building homes.  And having the luxury of doing both is a dream come true.  Lovin’ it!

Moving on…

Online Extortion

scam

Over the last few weeks I’ve had numerous clients who have been scammed in one way or another while using their computers.  The game works like this:  A message pops up on the computer screen telling the user their computer is infected and needs to be fixed immediately before things get worse.  The threats range from file deletion, to bank account access.  So the user calls the phone number on the screen (often presented as HP Support or Microsoft Support or whatever) and is given an option to pay for the fix.

Here’s where it gets really ugly. 

Usually, the “technician” on the other end of the phone wants access to the computer to “get in and fix it”.  If this is allowed, things go from bad to worse.  Now, some guy half way around the world has full access to the computer and the extortion escalates.  I have a computer in my office right now that has been totally fouled up by such an instance.  In this particular case, the extortion continued for months after paying for the initial “fix”.

Not pretty.

So here’s the deal.  If you ever get a window that pops up and tells you that you need to call someone for tech support to fix some critical issue, it’s almost certainly a scam.

Now this isn’t to say you don’t have a virus or, more likely, spyware on your computer – but spyware is one thing, full-on remote access to your computer is quite another.

So in such an instance, start running scans.  Start with Spybot and Malwarebytes (see my previous blog posts about this) and move on to a virus scan.  Also, remember that AV software like McAfee, and Norton are almost useless.  Get a decent free AV like Avast, or a more bullet-proof AV like BitDefender (again, see my previous posts about this).

If the problem persists, call your local tech and have them clean out whatever is causing the problem before it escalates.

But never, NEVER, give anyone access to your computer over the phone unless you are ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE they’re legit.

And bear in mind that Microsoft, HP and all the other big manufactures pretty much NEVER proactively reach out to their customers so you can pretty much bet those popup messages are scams.

Ok, enough of that.

On to the future…

The Future of Technology

So this is a huge topic and I’m not going to dig too deep today but I do have some real concerns about where we’re headed.

Concerns?  What kind of concerns?  Technology is awesome!  It gives us so much!

True enough.  But we’re also approaching an unprecedented moment in the evolution of humankind.  This moment, now being deemed The Singularity, has some extremely serious ramifications for our future.

With the progress of Genetics, Nanotechnology and Robotics, we’re headed into completely uncharted territory.  And AI will be the game-changer.

The estimate is that AI will achieve, and indeed surpass human intelligence and capability in less than 30 years.  There are all sorts of fantastic predictions about what this will mean for humans, ranging from immortality to a completely new iteration of what it means to be human, and indeed, what constitutes reality itself.  The term being pushed for this new iteration of humankind is Transhumanism.  There’s even a Johnny Depp movie on the subject, albeit somewhat cheesy.  And the ideas in that movie are just the beginning, in indeed, somewhat under-exhibited and under-appreciated.  We’ll blow past that shallow depiction in no time.

At first blush, the promises are wondrous indeed.  But when you take into account who will be afforded the benefits of this new technology, and how exactly this new technology will be utilized, the picture starts to get a bit darker.  If you’ve even seen the movie Elysium, you’ll see what I mean.

So who will be in control?  And what will that mean for the rest of us?

I think we need to pay real close attention to what’s going on with super high tech progress.  It’s easy to think that our laptops and phones and electronic devices represent leading-edge technology.  But in reality, the work being done behind closed doors makes the technology that we all use on a daily basis look like a bunch Speak-n-Spells.

singularity

A fundamental problem is that most people can’t really grasp the concept of the exponential curve, at least as far as it pertains to technological development.  You see, at some point, the curve goes straight up.  What happens between now and then, and indeed, at and after that point, is where my concern lies.

The fact is, while technology has afforded us many luxuries, it’s also been used to control, manipulate and, dare I say, enslave huge masses of people.  So effectively so, that many of us aren’t really even aware of it.  In fact, history will show that human life has taken a back seat to maintaining the power structures in place on our planet today – time and time and time again.

So while I welcome all the benefits that we’ll see in our future, I also fear that that very same technology will be used for evil purposes, as has so often been the case.

With that said, I think we all need to be diligent about what we (often blindly) welcome into our world with open arms, and we need to question the purposes and nuances behind the technology we engage with.  The fact is, most of the technology we enjoy wasn’t really invented to make our lives better (although there are exceptions) – No, it was invented to make a profit.  The almighty dollar has been the primary driving force behind nearly ALL development for at least the past century – NOT altruistic good intentions.  You may argue with me on this point but I challenge you to find a piece of technology that wasn’t developed, first and foremost, to make someone richer, to grant someone more control over others, or to make us beholden in one way or another.  Think about it.

Ok, that’s it for my doomsday rant.  If you really want to dig in and understand where we’re going, you first need to understand where we’ve come from, and where we are.  To do this, you’re going to have to throw away the history books you were given in school, and you’re certainly going to need to turn off the History channel and mainstream news.

A good place to start is Noam Chomsky’s movie Requiem for the American Dream, available on Netflix.  It’s fantastic.  That’s the tip, of the tip of the iceberg.  If you want to go deeper, let me know and I’ll show you a history you were never meant to see.  One that paints a much clearer, and indeed, more explanatory picture of what’s going on in the world today.

In the meantime, let’s put the technology we have today to good use.  Turn off the violence.  Turn off the smut.  Stop taking the Soma.

Shan and I just started using Pureflix.com as an alternative to Netflix.  It’s still in it’s infancy but I really like the concept.  I’ll give you a review after we’ve had a chance to use it for a bit.

It’s a wonderful world.  It is what we make of it, and as importantly, it is what we make it.

Let’s make it better.