Let's hope. Let's hope.
 

This is an essay by Sibylle Berg, who runs a column in Der Spiegel. I let Google Translator translate it, and then added a light editing to it to bring the bot translation into some better shape, so that one could understand it. The original German text can be found here:

http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesells...a-1150029.html

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Like really good sex, with plenty of spectators


You have nothing to hide? The debates about the safety of the web kill your nerves and you think they are exaggerated? Well, then lets hope that all will go well.

The net is broken. One would have to bury and reinvent it. Everything that some people in the beginning had imagined it would bring in liberty, equality and fraternity, the better world coming into the world, did not take place. And how should it have been different - there are human people involved in the project Internet. In addition to annoying hackers, who are simply criminal and enforce a daily upgrade of technology day in, day out, and who get focussed on by all the media (of course, it's about money), the meta threat is almost forgotten. Because: You do not see it. Because "I have nothing to hide". Said by those people who could have watched "CitizenFour" .

Even sensible people say "No, I do not have anything to hide", and leave me helpless. And it goes on in the Bundestag (Skybird: referring to a new law that has deleted all inihibitions for state offices to call up biometric data of citizens, and that founds a national central datapool for biometric data that could be sold to the industry and could be fed into facial recognition software).

Facial recognition, then storage; most poeple voluntarily have typed their fingerprints into their mobile phone already. What's going on? Monitoring is good, isn't it, because of terrorists, they think, and: What can I do about it? With the latter they are almost right. In principle, one can do little, except to make the monitoring an exhausting task for the monitors

You have nothing to hide? Seriously? It rings. A pack of fat men is standing at the door, and you ask them into your apartment. They group around your bed at night and watch you having sex.

Does not work? Well, then let's take your health markers. Hm, the blood pressure is miserable, so we have to report the checkout to the health insurer (Skybird: reference to the fact that health insurrance companies massively collect health data of insurances takers from software companies collecting such data big style via online software activities, and use these to profile their customers to tailor individual prices). Oops, where does the increase of the premium come from? No matter. The strangers in the apartment watch you masturbating in front of Youporn'S screen. They browse the notebooks, the address lists, they call all your ex-partners and ask them for nutritional habits - hoopla, they do not have to ask, the data are already recorded anyway. Monitors accompany all your shopping, a bit too much alcohol you have there, or what?

Let's just hope that you are not standing in anyone's way.

They know when you meet with whom for how long, they watch the parental affairs, funny, that Viagra spam in the mailbox! They read the mail in which the father complained about the boss (that impotent piece of crap) and the mails of the wife, who after exchanging some conspiracy pages, exchanges with her friends for drugs.

Do you get one job cancellation after another? Weird, isn't it? People watch your BMI, your whims and the tears at night (are you depresseive perhaps?), the frequency of your stool, your changing of sex partners and your political attitude. Then they check your bank account, your attempt to lie over taxes, and perhaps tomorrow or the day after, there will be a new law that punishes the viewing of pornography. But you just wanted to have a quick glance, no?

Let's hope that you never want to start a job in which you are extortionable. Just hope that you never claim an insurance, that you never apply for a pension. Let's hope that you get the credit for your house (as a depressive). Let's hope that you never stand in the way of someone who is powerful, that you never offended anyone with your sexual behavior, or with your face, lets hope that your eating habits are within the norm.

Your data is collected , your fingerprints registered, your iris scanned. Let's hope that everything goes well. Let's hope, let's hope.