Infowars first broke invasive spying story 6 years ago
Steve Watson
Infowars.com
Dec 6, 2012
In a move that Infowars warned over six years ago would come to fruition, Verizon has followed Google’s lead and officially filed a patent for a set-top box that will actively spy on Americans in their own homes in order to target them with custom advertisements and programming.
The patent application,
which was filed in May 2011 but published last week, says that the
technology will be capable of detecting “ambient action” including
“cuddling, fighting and talking” in people’s living rooms.
Verizon notes that the system utilizes “a depth sensor, an image
sensor, an audio sensor, and a thermal sensor” within the box. The
hardware can determine what activities you are partaking in in your own
home, whether it be “eating, exercising, laughing, reading, sleeping,
talking, singing, humming, cleaning, and playing a musical instrument.”
The document states that the sound of raised voices in an argument
could trigger ads for marriage counseling or therapy, and suggests that
detection of a couple engaging in intimacy could prompt ads for
contraceptives.
The box will even listen to your conversations, according to the comms giant’s patent.
“If detection facility detects one or more words spoken by a user
(e.g., while talking to another user within the same room or on the
telephone), advertising facility may utilize the one or more words
spoken by the user to search for and/or select an advertisement
associated with the one or more words,” the document states.
While the patent claims that it increases the “effectiveness,
personalization, and/or adaptability of targeted advertising,” anyone
who holds even a shred of value for their privacy will balk at the
technology, which would be more at home in some nightmarish dystopian
movie.
The patent also notes that users will have the ability to connect
smart phones and tablets to the box, increasing the range and
sensitivity of the monitoring device. Americans buying the product would
not only be literally inviting big brother to come into their homes,
but asking him to walk about inside it with them.
“If detection facility detects that the user is holding a mobile
device, advertising facility may be configured to communicate with the
mobile device to direct the mobile device to present the selected
advertisement. Accordingly, not only may the selected advertisement be
specifically targeted to the user, but it may also be delivered right to
the user’s hands,” the patent application reads.
The technology Verizon is proposing to use already exists and has
been adopted by other companies including Comcast, Microsoft (Kinnect),
and Google.
Indeed, Infowars broke the story over
SIX YEARS AGO, warning that government and industry were set to use
microphones and cameras, fitted as standard within set top boxes since
their inception in the late 1990′s, to spy on millions of Americans.
Detractors refused to believe it when we warned that Google was
seeking to tap into microphones within laptops and PCs in order to
target advertisements at users in their own homes, but now
communications companies are openly announcing their intention to do so
and rolling out products for that very purpose. Many of them are already
in your homes.
We were considered crazy by some when we emphasized that the
development would be too much of a good thing for both unscrupulous data
mining corporations and the state itself not to take advantage of.
However, revelations
concerning the murky relationships that exist between companies like
Google, AT&T and Comcast, and government spy agencies including the
CIA and the NSA have served as stark exclamation points on our warnings.
Furthermore, civil rights attorneys have warned that recent secretive cybersecurity rulings
under Obama, and extensions of the NSA’s remit to spy on Americans,
could allow for government and even military oversight to become
commonplace within communications companies.
Whistleblowers, such as William Binney,
have warned that the NSA has virtually every US citizen under
surveillance, with the ability to record all of their communications.
The agency is building a monolithic heavily fortified $2 billion facility deep in the Utah desert to process and analyze all of the information.
The technology to carry out such surveillance is already fully
operational within your homes, it is now merely being openly revealed by
the industry.
Earlier this year, now former CIA director David Petraeus lauded the
rise of new “smart” gadgets, decreeing that Americans are effectively bugging their own homes, saving US spy agencies a job when it identifies any “persons of interest”.
Petraeus’ comments came in the same week that one of the biggest
microchip companies in the world, ARM, unveiled new processors that are
designed to give practically every household appliance an internet connection,
in order that they can be remote controlled and operate in tandem with
applications. ARM describes the concept as an “internet of things”.
Of course, while such technology is utilized by government and
military for mass surveillance purposes, the fact that it is being
openly revealed may be seen as a positive development, for it may also
be used as a weapon in the peaceful revolution of information. The
effectiveness of the technology rests in the hands of those utilizing it
and will be determined by what degree we continue to value our
inalienable rights.
The Infowar truly is in full swing.
http://www.infowars.com/verizon-follows-google-in-turning-phones-tvs-into-wiretaps/
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