Should we be frightened of the alarming pace at which technology is developing? Should we be afraid that things are changing so rapidly that it is not just becoming difficult to keep pace, but that the developers are getting so far ahead of themselves that safety and security measures can no longer keep up?
Call me a pessimist, but I think we most definitely have cause to be nervous, especially if the latest developments by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) in Japan are anything to go by.
According to a recent report I read, NTT has developed a technology that uses the human body as a high-speed network, and hopes next year to commercialise the technology in Human Area Networks (HANs) to provide a communications link between people and electronic devices.
NTT claims it has developed transceivers that can send and receive data by using weak electric fields on the surface of the body, which can become data transmission paths capable of speeds of up to 10Mbps between transceivers kept close to the surface of the body.
It says research shows that the weak electric fields that exist around many kinds of objects - including metals, many plastics, glass, ceramics and liquids - make communication between such transceivers possible.
The system is apparently able to work through socks, shoes and gloves, and on both dry and oily skin, meaning that a person equipped with a sensor can exchange data with another person carrying a sensor simply by shaking hands, and between a person and a device simply by touching it.
The report goes on to say that unlike communications technologies such as Bluetooth, NTT`s system does not suffer from interference issues, and people equipped with transceivers can communicate with each other even if they are wearing rubber gloves, and it also states that by combining the system with encryption, it will be perfectly safe.
And this is where I have an issue with the whole concept.
Hacked and smacked
Some of the supposedly most secure networks in the world have been hacked by individuals intent on causing harm, so how am I supposed to feel safe with all my important data stored on my body?
Worse still, what if you are hacked? Does that mean that the hacker will just gain control of your data, or actually be able to control your body?
What about people who fly often - will those X-Ray machines at the airport wipe all your data out and leave you as an empty shell of a human being?
Although to be honest, perhaps my greatest fear is not so much of being hacked, but of being smacked.
Personally, I`m quite terrified of the idea that I can give away all my secrets simply by shaking hands or kissing a loved one, so I`m thinking of heading somewhere remote, like the Himalayas.
Rodney Weidemann, Contributor, ITWeb
You go out to your office party and drunkenly grope your secretary. Upon your return home, you give the wife or girlfriend a kiss hello and immediately get a crack around the ear, because your kiss has transferred the data regarding your drunken fling from your HAN to hers.
Or you shake hands with MD of a company you have to deal with, only to lose out on a multimillion-dollar contract, because your HAN mistakenly told his HAN what you actually think of him.
Personally, I`m quite terrified of the idea that I can give away all my secrets simply by shaking hands or kissing a loved one, so I`m thinking of heading somewhere remote, like the Himalayas.
Except that I`ve recently heard that yak farmers in Nepal are using WiFi to communicate with one another in order to buy and sell livestock, and exchange veterinary tips - so I guess that theory goes straight out the window.
Instead I`ll exchange it for a much better one.
In order to avoid having to deal with such a hi-tech concept as the HAN, I`m planning to move to a country where the telecoms sector is dominated by monolithic monopoly and the minister in charge has about as much of a clue about the realities of ICT as Superman has about where he is supposed to wear his underpants.
Oh, hold on half a moment - I already live there!
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