Enjoy watching TV? How about your TV — watching you? Oh, and your dishwasher, and your stove, and your — well — you name it. It could be in the works.
CIA Director David Petraeus tells the agency's non-profit investment firm, In-Q-Tel, earlier this month how the Internet of PCs will move toward an "Internet of things." Petraeus projected 50 to 100 billion household fixtures will be connected by 2020.
In-Q-Tel investment companies are working on this technology. The Daily Mail reports you could even "bug" your own home with app-controlled gadgets.
"Everything from remote controls to clock radios can now be controlled via apps, and chip company ARM recently unveiled low-powered, cheaper chips which will be used in everything from fridges and ovens to doorbells."
Alex Jones from Infowars.com thinks that even the possibility of stealth-tracking appliances takes the whole idea of government power too far.
"All of the new washing machines, dryers, computers, iPhones have cameras that are two-way, have audio that's two-way, and they admit they're tracking you."
A blogger for SmartPlanet says — Big Brother, anyone?
"While developers would argue that espionage wasn't what any of them were intended for, we'd be naive not to realize by now that anything that lets us be more connected also opens us up to such possibilities."
Although many are opposed to the 'Internet of things,' one potentially positive aspect is that it could hide information about future CIA officers on social media sites. New data — about locations for example — could bury information posted online in the past.
Wired reports Petraeus is...
"...interested in creating new online identities for his undercover spies and sweeping away the 'digital footprints' of agents who suddenly need to vanish."
NDTV predicts this online data will be spot-on, tracking home appliances as precisely as Google Maps charts locations. Petraeus also described the surveillance as "transformational" in tracking persons of interest in CIA investigations.
Petraeus Promoted Email Surveillance & Bugging Our Home Appliances