Surveillance

FutureTechMag

It’s amazing how much of our current technology has been predicted by Science Fiction authors. Surveillance was predicted in 1939.

The dystopian concept of Big Brother originated withGeorge Orwell’s1984, leading to the term “Orwellian” entering everyday practice to describe a totalitarian state characterized by surveillance, misinformation, and propaganda. In the novel, telescreens are used to watch a person’s every move — a blatant act of surveillance, as the government’s total control has removed any idea of privacy.

You had to live — did live, from habit that became instinct — in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

Interestingly, technology has gotten around the “except in darkness” idea with the advent of night vision.

In 1942, only three years after 1984 was published, closed-circuit television (CCTV) was used for the first time to monitor the launch of a…

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