Swimming in dark waters

Every time I write stuff on here, I am aware that the content of this post is not just visible to bloggers, but to countless other search engines, tech companies, governments and who knows? Maybe even a few tentacle-faced people. This amazing thing we call the internet, is an information abyss. You stare into the abyss, and the abyss stares right back at you. It knows what you know. It can help you decide whether or not you are fit to purchase a house. It can also show you pictures of random dead babies.

Enter Zoom, the video conferencing platform that has taken the world by storm. According to news outlets, their profits are rising at astronomical rates. With rising popularity comes controversy, and Zoom is no exception. I remember reading in the paper that organizations are advising against the use of Zoom due to security concerns. I was reluctant to use Zoom for this very same reason. That was until everyone decided to ignore all the security threats, and push Zoom for work meetings. Fast forward to today. The news paper says Facebook was (once upon a time) fined 5 billion dollars for unauthorized use of user data. There have been legit warnings issued by the Indian Air Force against Xiaomi phones, saying they are a threat to national security. It is common knowledge that the twitter account of the founder of Twitter was hacked.

From what I understand, if there are people out there, determined to hack into your life, they will most likely be able to do it, which means all of us are floating on a cloud of uncertainty. There’s the argument that “you have nothing to be afraid of if you have nothing to hide”, which makes sense to an extent. If you lead a normal life, if you don’t send nudes or blackmail people for a living, you are going to be fine. On the other hand, all private information is at stake.

Connections

Can you see the sun leaking through the wall? How did I end up looking at it at this weird angle? 

Social anxiety+2 hours to kill at a village

Welcome to Chhatna railway station, West Bengal. 

Platforms: 2

WiFi: Yes, if you are the chosen one, gifted with the divine power of radio wave manipulation

Awesomeness: ∞

Backside of railway station

I hear Google is going to pull the plug on the free WiFi project at all railway stations. The government says it will take over the project. Public WiFi, or as I like to call it, ‘training ground for young, aspiring hackers’ has always been a problem in India because there’s just too many damn people here, and who doesn’t like free internet/HD pornographia? 

Times change, people change gender, words get confusing

Remember the phrase ‘browsing the internet’? It used to have a totally different meaning back then. Blogs were the rage. There were websites to read jokes. There were websites with links to other websites. Remember how that felt? You would visit a website, and from there, you would click a link to another one, and another one, and another one, until you finally ended up with porn. The internet somehow made sure that everyone got their daily dose of pornography whether they liked it or not (or maybe it was just me). Nowadays, browsing the internet means, reading news on twitter, liking funeral photos, watching movie trailers, stalking the ex, and buying shoes. Sometimes people feel bad, and start a LinkedIn account. Then, there are the fuckers who turn LinkedIn into Facebook. The porn aspect of the internet has mysteriously vanished though, at least from the mainstream. I find that Interesting (or maybe it’s just me. Adsense? Makes sense?).

The day the internet stood still

Have you ever had one of those days where you come back home to find there’s no internet, and you don’t know what to do? While you stand there in the darkness(2018 synonym for offline) trying not to panic and act like everything is cool, you tell yourself ,”huh!. No internet. Not a problem. I have thousands of other things to do”. You contemplate visiting the neighbours for a moment and realize you don’t even know their names. That’s when you remember an old friend called ‘book’ that you never finished reading. You wipe the dust off ‘A brief history of time’, written by Stephen Hawking, and admire the smiling face on the front cover. That’s when it hits you, “oh shit! Stephen Hawking is dead!”. Then you turn real sad.

Death of people like Mr Hawking is what you call an actual catastrophe. Do you know why? Because we do not know what we have lost. We have no idea what these people could have given mankind if they had lived longer. What if we had the technology to make a copy of his conscience? Would he allow that? Would he be wary of the consequences of doing such a thing? Who knows if it will be used for good or evil? Probably evil. But a lot of good too, I think.

I salute you Mr. Hawking, for showing us the awesome power of determination, and inspiring even the dumbest of people like myself. Although disabled, you had a pretty good run here on Earth. Cummon! Not every movie gets picked to win an Oscar, and one of them is a movie about you! I know it’s quite late to say this but, goodbye Mr. Hawking.