I spy with my goldeneye

MANILA, Philippines - At some point, people are going to realize that Google has everything on everyone. Most of all, they can see what questions you’re asking in real time. Quite literally, they can read your mind,” Jacob Appelbaum claims in last month’s issue of Rolling Stone magazine. Quite frankly, this guy just might have the proper credentials to back it up. He’s the only known member of Wikileaks, a whistleblower group that has spearheaded the “largest unauthorized disclosure since the Pentagon Papers.” What they did was basic — even trivial (in his words, at least). They only managed to expose the US government’s most closely guarded intelligence reports about the war in Afghanistan. You know, nothing consequential and of global significance. Incidentally, Appelbaum also created Blockfinder, a program that can essentially identify, contact and potentially hack into every computer network in the world.

With guys like him trolling about, easily gaining access to, well, us and every imaginable detail we share online, what’s there to worry about?

The Curious Cases of Online Espionage

Appelbaum is an international hazard, a sweeping force and inarguably a master of anonymous surveillance. But to even attempt to track him is an impossible task, and really, before you even begin to map out a strategy to become Blockfinder-proof, try hitting something closer to home — Facebook friends, Twitter followers, and the not-so-occasional blog onlooker who seems to resuscitate your hit count whenever it’s about to reach its demise. It’s our postmodern version of Big Brother, only he is everyone. He is us.

If I were to be completely honest here, I’m pretty sure I could write several incredibly detailed biographies of people based solely on their Facebook statuses. There’s the relentless, faux-humble shameless plugger, the girl who keeps misery as company, the friend who just can’t give you a break by shoving his extravagant lifestyle in your face, the person who’s never met a page he didn’t like (literally), inspirational quote guy, and then there’s the ubiquitous lady who shares every pedestrian detail of her life. Facebook, Twitter, and any other public online platform we own are the flash mobs we encounter every day — and we just eat it all up. It was a childhood dream to be able to read people’s minds, and now, with willing extensions of it prancing around cyberspace, I’ve come pretty darn close.

I got very good at it too, very fast. Perhaps I have Google to thank for this, and while my ADHD tendencies began to spike, so did my stalking “skills.” It started becoming legitimate when I put it in black and white — as an odd ability for our philosophy class’s identification card. It escalated into being a fond label that friends attached to my name, and then it reached its pinnacle when I’d inspired a classmate in writing class to compose an entire paper on effective stalking devices.

It wasn’t so much how I did it as just how extensive my aptitude was. I knew just the right keywords to type in search engines, could mentally cut and paste dates and events, and knew that with the exception of a few, people mostly used one username for all of their accounts (and it can summon the cached ghosts of your past). I instantly catapulted myself into a useful stalker and a potential subject for sociological study. It was then that I decided that it didn’t have to be such a despicable talent; I had a real use for it, after all: research, identification and periodic conversation topic starters. Stripped of all the cynical stigma that surrounded it, I was just someone who could make sense of a deluge of information. And though it’s difficult to prove, so many of us engage in this faceless game of interpretation and prediction, consciously or not.

Why We Do It

It now behooves us to get to the bottom of why we do it. Why do we invest in other people’s lives and live vicariously through their volatile relationship statuses? Why do we pry and prey?

Because that’s what we do. Whether it’s a guilty pleasure or a bad habit you can’t shake, it all boils down to us being social beings — and recognized or not, we feel the inherent need to not get left behind. We want to be updated, to successfully manage change and make it as painless as possible. So we cling to what we know, or what we don’t know but can know, to help us deal in superficial ways. It’s part classic defense mechanism, and part escapism; when the going gets tough, the tough go online.

Despite our personal space exploration being light years away from crossing classified intelligence borders, it’s about time we admit it: we’ve been downplaying things a lot, and we’ve been doing it for a while now. It’s unlikely that Jacob Applebaum will be checking on our IP addresses anytime soon, but we do have everything to worry about.

8 Simple Rules for Undercover Success

1. Stalking skills actually translate to good research skills, once you know your way around.

2. Once it’s online, no matter what you’d like to believe, it becomes public. You can never take information back once it’s out there.

3. Do not be obsessive. Keep it to a reasonable, minimum.

4. If you intend to put drama online, don’t wonder why people are all up in your business. Those encumbered in heartbreak, especially, have the un-shocking ability to spike interest levels.

5. Anonymity is essential, as long as it is harmless.

6. You have no right to make value judgments. You’re a spectator, not an unwarranted jury.

7. Google-proof yourself. A little narcissism goes a long way to self-preservation.

8. There is a huge difference between online and real-life personalities. Ultimately, you don’t know them. You may know their boyfriends and saw how they got extra cheerful at Cheers Wednesdays, but you don’t know them.