I gotcher doomsday scenario right here, buddy!

"Perrraps monsieur would enjoy today's specialite, hell pie! C'est fantastique! Incroyable!"

n-sphere's Recipe for Hell Pie, Not Like Mama Used to Make!

Take one cup of microbots...

Exploring Caves with Hopping Microbots, Microbots Grow Own Muscles from Cells, 'Microbots' hunt down disease, Researchers concoct self-propelled nano motor

add a dash of IPv6....

Hackers are ready for IPv6—are you?

and a sprinkling of leveraged technologies....

Skype could provide botnet controls, Security Watch: The Sky(pe) is falling

add a wee dram of automated, IP networked (and, therefore, eminently hackable and sniffable) video surveillance:

Start-up soups up surveillance cameras

mix in essence of yet more hackable, corruptable video/networking technologies/systems:

Another fix for the mobile TV capacity problem


garnish with yet more possibilities:
(add Orwell to taste: "We use these dollar bills as radar devices for humans,")

Scientists use Net game to forecast epidemics, Senator demands info on search engine subpoena

Government study: VoIP, video can be taxed


fold into "modern" societies' reliance on highly-centralised, networked communications, power, transport and security systems and serve, extra hot, on a plate of zombies,

Cybercriminal and the army of zombies, Term of the Week: Zombies and Phishing

Prepare a spicy side-dish of corporate and official ineptitude, information overload and the simple fact that the "good guys" have to get it right every time while the "bad guys" only have to get it right once and,

"Bon appetit, monsieur!"

For a bit of variation, why not take control of satellites?

Bejing Alleges Falun Gong Hijacked Chinese TV Sat During World Cup, USAF Plays Necessary Role in Space, Critical US satellites could be hacked, 'Soft walls' will keep hijacked planes at bay (remember, anything that can be done, can be undone), Bracing for guerrilla warfare in cyberspace, The NDS story as alleged by CANAL +

hijack a wee bit of Global Hawk

"...first trans-Pacific flight by a UAV..."

"ISRAELI ­ PALESTINIAN CYBER -WARFARE BROADENS" and "Information warfare (IW)--specifically the ability to intercept, read and alter enemy communications, as well as penetrate computers--is another possible role for Global Hawk"

Yet more.

If George Orwell had the slightest idea of the potential for government, corporate, terrorist and other anti-freedom, criminal tyranny we now face, what would he have said?

We face several threads and layers of threats:

1. We are already in an age that leaves authorities and organisations no choice but to automate as many of their technology tools and tasks as possible. Anything that can be programmed, scheduled, controlled or automated by one person, can have the same done by another.

2. As more and more technologies exploit IP networking and remote control more and more of those technologies can be exploited by others. More and more of those networks, networked systems, networking protocals, network devices and networking devices can be hijacked.

3. As more and more video goes digital, especially over IP networks, that video can be hijacked, snooped, redirected, altered and redistributed. The old days where criminals intercepted an analogue signal or stuck a still photo in front of a camera lens are gone. Welcome to the days of digitally-altered CCTV security footage, amigos.

"Old school" has never been more attractive. I think it is not at all far-fetched or unrealistic for people now to look forward to, envisage, expect or fear a future in which life is not totally dissimilar to that portrayed in Mad Max, A Boy and His Dog, Water World, Terminator, RoboCop, Brazil, etc...

One day, we'll likely face two choices: live in the "civilized/developed" world, where the distinctions between government, corporate and organised criminal are even harder to judge than today and who are only made abundantly clear when contrasted with petty, violent crime, "terrorist" and "criminal street gang", or one in which petty, violent crime, "terrorist" and "criminal street gang" are allowed to rule the land.

Anybody who thinks we are not already perilously close to such a state of affairs is an ignorant, blind fool.

The smart money is thin (pun not intended) on the ground, "lives" mostly in places like much of Africa, Central America and South Asia and knows that, as far as their lives are concerned, we have already reached this point.