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Technology used to be liberating. When I first went to Bangkok the Internet helped me to find out how the bar-scene worked, how to avoid scams, which hotel to stay in and which bars to visit. My favourite sites were Stickman and Bangkok Bargirls, and they provided such a wealth of information that I felt like an actor in a well-rehearsed play: hello girls, lady drinks, mamasan, short time, long time, don’t take the taxis parked at the entrance to Soi Cowboy, etc, etc… One site even provided the actual script of the typical bargirl conversation:

Hello, what your name?
First time Bangkok?
Where you stay?
…and so on, up to…
Pay bar!

The accuracy of the information was surreal – and it’s just as well, because the Rough Guide to Bangkok, despite having a whole chapter on gay Bangkok, dismissed the girlie bar scene in one sneering paragraph and did not even show Nana Plaza or Soi Cowboy on its maps. The Lonely Planet guide to Thailand was even less helpful. I made many mistakes on that first trip, but had it not been for the Internet, I would have probably ended up in an upstairs bar in Patpong.

When I met my first Thai teerak, Technology helped us to keep in touch. First with Net2Phone – which enabled me to make cheap, if crackly, phone calls via my dial-up modem, and later with MSN – though it was a long time before I had a connection which was fast enough to cope with video and voice simultaneously. Booking the trips was easier too. In the early days I used a travel agent, but it was not long before I was doing everything myself online. Technology even helped me to experience something of Thailand in the long periods between trips by reading what others wrote online, and later, by contributing to the various online forums.

I don’t own a mobile phone, but regularly text my girlfriend from my computer. She doesn’t understand this, and thinks that my texts must come from a mobile phone which, for some reason, I am keeping secret from her. One of the reasons I don’t own a mobile phone is that I don’t want to be easily contactable for reasons which I will outline later. Other aspects of technology have helped me to learn a little Thai (CD’s, MP3’s) and to while away those interminable flights (MP3’s – mainly of novels and BBC Radio 4 podcasts).

However, I’m starting to get a creepy feeling. This cute and helpful Technology Pet is growing into a Sinister Monster – and it is watching me!

Take Google for starters. Google’s stated aim is to assemble a huge database about each person so that they can target people with tailor-made advertising. However, that raises serious privacy concerns. You can read more about it here http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/technology/article2589388.ece
and here http://www.google-watch.org/bigbro.html. Microsoft has similar aims, which is not surprising because the Holy Grail of the next few years is targeted advertising. The targeted advertising will be annoying enough, because, like the auto-text features in Word, it will second-guess you in the most annoying way possible. For example, make one search for ‘Italian Restaurant’ and you’ll be pestered with advertisements for Italian Restaurants for the rest of your life. The real concern is who else will get access to that data, how will it be used, and how secure will it be?

At least these people only want our money – but governments have a more sinister aim – they want to control us. Having failed to crack down on real criminals and illegal immigrants (or ‘migrants’ too use the latest, softer-sounding, PC term), they want to use electronic systems to crack down on the law abiding citizen, and harass the legitimate traveller. Here are just a few of the initiatives that are coming our way in the next few years:

ID CARDS – the British government plans to introduce an isometric ID card from 2009. This will be linked to a National Identity Register (NIR). The Act specifies fifty categories of information that the NIR can hold on each citizen, including up to 10 fingerprints, digitised facial scan and iris scan, current and past UK and overseas places of residence. The legislation also says that further information can be added. And before any of you US citizens laugh, it is rumoured that the Federal Government supports this as a way of softening up the American public for a similar isometric ID card.

NUMBER PLATE RECOGNITION – this is already in use for taking payments for the London Congestion Charge. The following article explains how it will soon be extended to identify motorists driving without proper documentation and to implement a nationwide road-pricing policy: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/09/21/number_plate_recognition_poised/
It will, of course, track us everywhere we go, giving rise to further privacy concerns.

EBORDERS – to be introduced this year, a government scheme to collect 53 pieces of information for every journey out of the UK, including credit card details, holiday contact numbers, travel plans, email addresses, car numbers and even any previous missed flights. The information, taken when a ticket is bought, will be shared among police, customs, immigration and the security services for at least 24 hours before a journey is due to take place.

So far we’ve got big business and governments – who else is likely to use Technology to spy on us? – unfortunately, our nearest and dearest! The mobile phone is a good example. Couples often call each other as a way of checking up on each other. A phone that is turned off can be suspicious – is he/she hiding something? As long ago as the mid 90’s I can remember being called (on my landline at home) by an anxious wife enquiring about a colleague. We had set off from a business meeting at about the same time. I had been home for hours, and he had not arrived yet, and had not called to explain why – worse, his phone was unavailable. He arrived soon after that call, and the explanation was simple. He had been held up in traffic, and his battery was flat.

My friend was not, as far as I know, a ‘player’ – and nor was I (in those days), but I find the thought of being accountable for my every move oppressive, even if it is because someone genuinely loves me. That’s one reason I’ve never had a mobile phone myself. Unless you need it for business, it seems that it serves the purposes of others rather better than your own purposes.

And it’s just got worse. GPS – which we first experienced as a user-friendly device to help us find our way about – has also turned on us and now tells others where we are. GPS is now built into most new mobile phones, so your whereabouts can be tracked by your phone. You can also get software to spy on the contents of a mobile phone – see this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2006/sep/03/news.mobilephones
Since I don’t have a mobile, that’s not my problem – but it is even easier to spy on the contents of a computer, especially if it is a shared one. My friend was caught when his wife, suspicious of his frequent ‘business trips’ to the Far East, installed a keystroke logger on their home computer – another friend used the 'Restore Previous Session' feature of the Firefox browser to hack into his teerak's email - with horrifying results!

So how do we retain some of our privacy in an age when Technology can track our every move? One answer is electronic counter measures. First, stop using Google. Try xB Browser. This provides for anonymous surfing via proxy server – though for a fee (see http://xerobank.com). Next switch from Gmail or Microsoft to Hushmail (http://www.hushmail.com/). Keystroke loggers are hard to avoid. Just be careful when using a shared computer (especially in an Internet Café), and never type your credit card number or a sensitive password. If you absolutely must do this, type out the letters or numbers in a different order and cut and paste them into the box – but be warned – there is also spyware that takes snapshots of the screen. Don’t use the same password for all your applications, and change your passwords regularly.

Another answer, and my preferred answer, is to be more confident in who we are, to understand ourselves better, to know why we are doing things, and not to let fear of being found out stop us, though we might decide to keep it secret to avoid hurting someone. If people find out – especially if they have used underhand techniques to do it – then it is up to them to cope with the information. This approach may help in personal relationships, but will not help when governments decide to make previously legal things illegal (such as paying for sex).

I can envisage the scenario now:

It is 2010. The British government outlawed paying for sex in 2008, and paying for sex abroad in 2009. All the above surveillance measures are in place. I am at Heathrow Terminal 4 (which is still not working normally), and am stopped at Passport Control. The officer’s suspicions have been raised by all the Thailand stamps. A series of electronic checks produce condemnatory evidence – emails to various Thai girls, my Google searches for information on gogo bars. Worse, GPS evidence that I have actually been inside gogo bars. I am imprisoned for 42 days without a trial using anti-terrorism legislation which is now used against ordinary citizens.

Far fetched? Well, it’s about to happen in Norway, as this article shows:

http://www.pattayagogos.com/in08b.htm#Cold_Hearted_Norway

At least when I’m sat in my cell I will have a decade of happy memories to warm my heart – they can’t take that away from me!

© Rob 2008