currently enjoyed by zoo animals and celebrities (Blogsmartcities 2014). James
Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, predicted already some years
ago that in the years to come, intelligence services could use the Internet of Things
for the purposes of identification, control, surveillance, location tracking, and specific recruitment, or to gain access to networks or user data (Timm 2016). The former
CIA director David Petraeus had already made a similar remark back in 2012 by
prophesizing that energy-reaping machines linked to “. . .the next-generation internet
using abundant. . .high-power computing” (Timm 2016) along with sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and radio-frequency identification would facilitate
locating and monitoring “items of interest” (Timm 2016). In any case, smart
household devices from smart TVs over smart dishwashers and robot vacuum
cleaners up to IoT-connected dolls and barbies communicating with children in
manipulative and vulgar terms while recording and/or videotaping the owners and
their homes can be abused by intelligence agencies for their own agendas or hacked
by criminals for stalking, spying, or kidnapping purposes, e.g., by pedophile networks (Naylor 2017; Michael 2015; Allison 2018; Kölner Stadtanzeiger 2008). The
full digitization of cities on a global scale will also entail incalculable risks by
making cities highly vulnerable to sabotage (Blogsmartcities 2014) and state espionage, opening up completely new fields of warfare.
State secret services with the best cyber specialists and the most ruthless decicionmakers
16 as well as private intelligence services may use their cyber skills to control
and blackmail governments, authorities, and companies worldwide. Already a lower
extent of digitalization facilitated this kind of abuse in the recent past: As revealed by
Edward Snowden’s Global surveillance disclosures, the Five Eyes
17 , above all the
US-American NSA and the British Government Communications Headquarters
(GCHQ) and their partner agencies on all continents, abused digital cutting-edge
technologies including fiber-optic cables for warrantless espionage on citizens,
diplomats, and heads of states on a global base, inter alia, for extorsion and
assassination purposes, exchanging detailed information about social network activities of citizens across nations and continents. Their illicit actions included, among
others, the establishment of fake LinkedIn websites by GCHQ for the installment of
spy-software on the computers of unsuspecting users, the invasion into the booking
systems of luxury hotels, the monitoring of diplomats’ itineraries by ultramodern
technologies, as well as the geographical surveillance of persons in real time to kill
them by tactical units and drones (Macaskill and Dance 2013; Wikipedia 2018b).
16 Possibly the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), an intelligence and
security organization responsible for providing signals intelligence/SIGINT (GCHQ 2016; Bliley
2017). GCHQ is notorious for having spied on foreign politicians, inter alia, at the G20 where it
used an email interception program and key-logging software to spy on delegates’ use of computers
in addition to monitoring the email messages and phone calls on delegates’ BlackBerrys (The
Guardian 2013) and which is encouraging teenage girls to become cyber experts (Palmer 2017).
17 An international alliance of intelligence agencies from the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, and
New Zealand (Wikipedia 2018b; Macaskill and Dance 2013).
238
O. Schwarz-Herion
Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, predicted already some years
ago that in the years to come, intelligence services could use the Internet of Things
for the purposes of identification, control, surveillance, location tracking, and specific recruitment, or to gain access to networks or user data (Timm 2016). The former
CIA director David Petraeus had already made a similar remark back in 2012 by
prophesizing that energy-reaping machines linked to “. . .the next-generation internet
using abundant. . .high-power computing” (Timm 2016) along with sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and radio-frequency identification would facilitate
locating and monitoring “items of interest” (Timm 2016). In any case, smart
household devices from smart TVs over smart dishwashers and robot vacuum
cleaners up to IoT-connected dolls and barbies communicating with children in
manipulative and vulgar terms while recording and/or videotaping the owners and
their homes can be abused by intelligence agencies for their own agendas or hacked
by criminals for stalking, spying, or kidnapping purposes, e.g., by pedophile networks (Naylor 2017; Michael 2015; Allison 2018; Kölner Stadtanzeiger 2008). The
full digitization of cities on a global scale will also entail incalculable risks by
making cities highly vulnerable to sabotage (Blogsmartcities 2014) and state espionage, opening up completely new fields of warfare.
State secret services with the best cyber specialists and the most ruthless decicionmakers
16 as well as private intelligence services may use their cyber skills to control
and blackmail governments, authorities, and companies worldwide. Already a lower
extent of digitalization facilitated this kind of abuse in the recent past: As revealed by
Edward Snowden’s Global surveillance disclosures, the Five Eyes
17 , above all the
US-American NSA and the British Government Communications Headquarters
(GCHQ) and their partner agencies on all continents, abused digital cutting-edge
technologies including fiber-optic cables for warrantless espionage on citizens,
diplomats, and heads of states on a global base, inter alia, for extorsion and
assassination purposes, exchanging detailed information about social network activities of citizens across nations and continents. Their illicit actions included, among
others, the establishment of fake LinkedIn websites by GCHQ for the installment of
spy-software on the computers of unsuspecting users, the invasion into the booking
systems of luxury hotels, the monitoring of diplomats’ itineraries by ultramodern
technologies, as well as the geographical surveillance of persons in real time to kill
them by tactical units and drones (Macaskill and Dance 2013; Wikipedia 2018b).
16 Possibly the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), an intelligence and
security organization responsible for providing signals intelligence/SIGINT (GCHQ 2016; Bliley
2017). GCHQ is notorious for having spied on foreign politicians, inter alia, at the G20 where it
used an email interception program and key-logging software to spy on delegates’ use of computers
in addition to monitoring the email messages and phone calls on delegates’ BlackBerrys (The
Guardian 2013) and which is encouraging teenage girls to become cyber experts (Palmer 2017).
17 An international alliance of intelligence agencies from the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, and
New Zealand (Wikipedia 2018b; Macaskill and Dance 2013).
238
O. Schwarz-Herion