**** Cyborg Central ****

Recently there have been many articles posted about the level of "realism" in the game Watch_Dogs and whether or not the things that happen in the game are possible.

Unfortunately, most of the discussion has been about weaponized hacking - the stoplight changing and electric-junction-blowing over the top stuff, rather than the parts that are genuinely scary: profiling strangers on the street, invading privacy of others, and the huge effect of corruption in a government agency.

The game would be far more realistic if Blume were renamed "NSA" and CtOS were renamed "PRISM." We don't need a fictional company wiring together an entire city's security infrastructure and putting in back doors; the NSA is already in this business. If they have the means to force private companies to install secret backdoors, they most certainly have the means to force state and local governments to comply as well. The fact is, CtOS's level of interconnectivity may already be a reality for most cities. It simply is not widespread public knowledge.

Add to this the reality that things are becoming MORE connected on a daily basis, not less, and the kind of disaster in Watch_Dogs sounds more like a guaranteed future than fiction.

Categorized as: Games | Security