Electronics Spying On Us?

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I'm convinced our electronics and appliances may be spying on us. "Why do you think that Debi?" you ask. Well, I'll tell ya. I can suggest to David that I think we need to check into buying one of those new sleep number beds and guess what? An ad for sleep number beds will pop up on my social media page. That's why I think we're being spied on.

This is deeply disturbing and not something I'd ever thought about until Facebook. I want to say that the possibility of our electronics or appliances spying on us is my fault (mostly). As I am typing this, Siri has popped up on my laptop and is asking me what I wanted. I didn't say anything to her!

Anyway, as I've said before, I tend to get an affliction I've named "Delusions of Competence," or DOC, for short. Anytime I get near a fabric, craft, or do-it-yourself store, I get DOC, and now this affliction has expanded to the confusing and frustrating world of technology and electronics.

Yes, I have turned our cozy little abode into an Internet-grubbing monster, and I've been paying for it dearly ever since. So have the poor techs who have to deal with me on a weekly basis, but hey, that's what they're paid for, right? The fact that more than a few of them have chosen to enter into the exciting field of the fast-food industry after an encounter with me is NOT MY FAULT.

So, anyway, I was reading an article the other day that would make an excellent plot for a science fiction horror movie. It was written by an employee of a company that's supposed to protect us from bad things like this happening. It was entitled "Is Your Microwave Spying on You?" by Jas Dhaliwal. Mr. Dhaliwal suggested a few steps we could take to help ensure we won't be spied on, but I quit reading after the first one, which was – Be sure to read the terms and conditions. Even if I was interested in reading the 2,000 pages of lawyerese guaranteed to put anyone to sleep, who could understand it? Lawyerese is a language that is so complicated that even politicians go "Huh?"

And now he's implying I may have to worry about my microwave? Of all the appliances in this house I don't trust, my microwave isn't one of them. It's the only one I've trusted to work like its supposed to. Now I find out it could be sending covert messages to spies somewhere in a foreign country. These are probably the same people we get connected to when we call tech support. Even though we can't understand a word they say, they insist their names are Bob or Joe even though they sound more like someone not from the United States named Apapa (translation: keeper of secrets of the Internet).

My question for these people who have no lives and obviously nothing better to do is, why would anyone want to how long I nuke my hotdogs? I don't bake in there, so there are no secret recipes to steal.

And just when I thought it was safe to walk around my house, I find out my appliances could be sending pictures of us to remote locations. How bored are these people? After getting a gander of me strutting around in my plus-size pajama pants and oversized sleep shirt, their vision may never return to normal. Serves 'em right, the perverts. All I can say about this is these people must be seriously bored or have the IQ of a peanut to think they'll find anything useful in this house.

Unless someone is seriously interested in knowing how long it takes me to get going in the morning or how often I vacuum the carpet, they're going to either be bored out of their gourds and fall asleep or discover a sudden interest in finding jobs in the fast-food industry alongside the computer techs I've driven mad.

So now I'm a little paranoid, (okay, a LOT paranoid). When I found out that spies could be listening in on our electronics, I turned off the microphone on my phone, my laptop, our television, the remote control for the television, our doorbell, and our refrigerator. Are watching us too?

I thought having Alexis around would be fun. I thought this would be an electronic I could boss around and not get talked back to. Instead of doing my bidding, she randomly talks to no one and scares the bejesus out of me.

Asking me if she can help me when I've not been talking to her is NOT funny. Thanks a lot Alexis and Siri for making me paranoid.

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