I love DEFCON.

It is one of the few events in my life that I almost religiously wait, from the moment that one ends, trough a whole year until the next one. Also I like to write, just for the sake of it... so I was expecting to know the theme for this year short story contest, and when it was published I rushed to read it and... there it was:

"Always connected"

(... really?!?)

I got a bittersweet feeling. My intuition knew exactly where this is going to....

Don't get me wrong, I make a living out of the internet, and I love technology but it sounded exactly like the bad manager of a company trying to exploit the employees with those hideous pre-fabricated SLA phrases.

The contest stablished three main guidelines for the story to develop:
  • Services should be usable no matter who you are.
  • Services should be accessible no matter where you are.
  • Services should not violate user privacy or security.
And those should hipotetically foster new proposals for the internet to be a better and safer place... but...

The last two, when they are together, are almost inherently opposed to freedom and privacy.

--verbose

There is no way to get rid of abusive people for good, they are always embedded into the breeding litters of human species so you have to aspire to the best scenario, learn to cope and defend yourself. You can't invite everyone to your house, and expect them to behave well just because you appeal to their common sense, in the real world it does NOT work like that.

Somewhere in the future you will have the ability to access information almost directly from your mind to the network trough bio-technological interfases. I don't know when is going to be but it will happen. Do you really want all your toughts and feelings: the hidden, the sacred, horrible, the doubts , fears and the loves of your life to be connected and available for profit by organizations (or bad actors)?

Do you really will trust that the organizations will follow the guideline that "Services should not violate user privacy or security.​"

We can't lend that kind of power to the services and organizations.

Working in technology, with the lessons that we have learned, are we really that... "naive"?

Are we stupid?!?

Nowadays privacy it's gaining terrain, paramounting other characteristics, because we are in danger. The companies have proved again and again, time after time that they can't be trusted with our private data, and that most of them are willing to steal, sell and misuse it without any regret, and even if there is economical repercusions they just pay the fee and go on...

We MUST be able to disconnect whenever we want.

Also there is the mental health/spiritual side of it, we must be able to breathe without the no-stop bombarding of negativity and psychological manipulation from social media. You must have the right to live that... individually.

How long will it take to the next evolution of chatGPT to give bad counseling just for you to buy another thing or consume a drug? (advertised and paid by X or Y company)

Technology must serve us, and not the other way around. The focus should be on the benefits for the human user , not the services.

If I could, I would rephrase the guidelines like this:
​​​​​​
  • Services should be usable no matter who you are.
  • Services should be accessible no matter where you are.
  • The user should be able to decide when to turn off the services and the device whenever he chooses to.
  • Services should not violate user privacy or security.

So I didn't participated in the contest.

I choose ... to disconnect.