Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products

Who pays for the connection?

I assume for the radio to stay on, it's either subsidized by the parent company (Amazon pays for Alexa's 5G) or I'm paying for a subscription (Xbox subscription pays for 5G on some future mobile XBox)

Maybe you could get the cost down to $1 / month. If you invest $400 in the market it should pay out about that much, so you could make it a one-time payment of $400 for a 5G chip.

Consumer network connections, of any kind I'm aware of, don't go down to $1 per month. Maybe with a big volume order and a low bandwidth cap the cell companies would do it, or maybe 5G itself is just cheaper, but where does that monthly cost come from?

A couple decades back when internet was a bit younger, there was a quite popular metaphor of the Global Village, shrinking the world and connecting people. However, that focused only on the positive aspects, but as time has gone on, I think that this has materialized in quite a literal way.

Currently most of us are used to the pseudo-anonymity of big cities, where people technically can know a lot stuff about us (because it happens in 'public' space, as you describe) but they overwhelmingly don't, because the vast majority of them are strangers who don't care. The new digital environment, on the other hand, is quite a lot like a small village.

The grocer can make effective suggestions for your food because they remember every purchase you ever made, they will know your consumption habits better than Amazon or anyone else in the modern world. They will know if you're expecting guests tonight just because of your purchases (and might gossip about that), and in that case they'll point you towards their cousin who's selling wine across the street. They will know if you're eating something that their other cousin, the local doctor, has said that you should avoid, and might refuse to sell you that.

The local lender (whether a banker or just a wealthy farmer who's a loan shark) does not need to 'profile' you - they know your dealings and your character, they'll know even if you've been stingy in giving back borrowed things as a teenager. If you buy condoms, the pharmacist will likely know with whom you're planning to use them. The contents of your bookshelf, as in your example? The village knows about that, people have been to your house, if there's anything unusual, word will get around - and if people have not been to your house, you've kept your privacy and the village does not know you, then you'll be treated as an untrustworthy weirdo with maximum prejudice; because keeping private is just not How Things Are Done Around Here. If your political opinions or religious views or sexual preferences don't fit what the village expects, good luck mentioning about it - their condemnation will be much more fierce than any Twitter mob.

So in that aspect, it's not something new, the level of privacy is slowly becoming as low as it was historically when we lived in much smaller communities. We have had some centuries of urban pseudo-anonymity, but it's fading now. It has been just a temporary reprieve, when you could move from a literal village to a big city, get lost in the crowd and be free and anonymous. It was difficult to do in ancient times, and it might be difficult to do again in the future.

If, hypothetically, you worked for one of these vendors, then, hypothetically, you might find that while waiting for a shipment of new product test gear to your lab, a shipment from California to Maryland may get waylayed - by U.S. Customs, in Texas. Two weeks later you finally get your gear. And you don't talk about it outside your immediate team. Such is life in a big company.

Hypothetically.

Meanwhile government can read any email without a warrant that is six months old for the past THREE DECADES

Why does the press never mention this?

It's in part why there was an email server in the basement, most people should have theirs there but gmail mostly won that battle due to spam management.

So the poor shouldn't be able to vote?

Let's come out and say it: this is a policy designed to consolidate power in the hands of the rich.

Universal suffrage is important.