{"id":9075,"date":"2019-08-15T09:13:55","date_gmt":"2019-08-15T08:13:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/?p=9075"},"modified":"2026-03-26T16:57:52","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T20:57:52","slug":"big-brother-is-watching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/2019\/08\/15\/big-brother-is-watching\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Brother is watching"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is nearly 50 years since I read George Orwell\u2019s \u201cNineteen Eighty-Four\u201d. It was required reading at school. I thought that it was an interesting book at the time and a lot of the ideas in it have stayed with me. This is surprising, as I forget most books when I have finished reading them [so I keep notes!]. The future that Orwell described was quite chilling: a totalitarian state, where the citizens had no freedom to do anything, say anything or even think anything. We were taught that there were countries in the world [this was during the Cold War!], where the society was not unlike this and we should be wary of our world going in this direction. Just lately, I have begun to wonder \u2026<\/p>\n

In Orwell\u2019s world, the government controlled the language, which was [IIRC] called \u201cNewspeak\u201d. People were strongly encouraged to use this language – a subset of English. It was a subset that contracted over time. The idea was that the less words available to the common people, the more limited the scope of their thought. This sounds [to me] scarily feasible. To the best of my knowledge, no current government is trying to control\/limit language in this fashion – though both France and Germany [for example] have official bodies who oversee the language.<\/p>\n

However, I am concerned that such limitations could happen by accident. My favorite example is \u201cunique\u201d. This word has a clear meaning. If an item is unique, it means that there is just one of them in existence. So often I hear people referring to something\/someone as \u201cvery unique\u201d. There can be no scale of uniqueness; something is unique or it is not. It is a little like saying that someone is \u201cslightly pregnant\u201d. The result of this misuse is that there is a danger that the word \u201cunique\u201d will gradually evolve to mean \u201creally unusual\u201d. Language evolution is not, in itself, a bad thing – far from it. However, in this case it could be damaging, as there is no other word that clearly encapsulates the concept of uniqueness.<\/p>\n

Another interesting concept in the book was the \u201ctelescreen\u201d. This device was quite similar to what we would recognize as a TV, but differed in two important respects: the device was always switched on; in addition to the screen and loudspeaker, the device had a camera and a microphone – this led to the phrase \u201cBig Brother is watching you\u201d.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to the present. In many homes, the TV is switched on most of the time – even if nobody is actually watching it. Many TVs have webcams and microphones to enable Skype etc. It does not take a great intellectual leap to see where this might lead! Recent discussion\/news\/revelations about large corporations listening in to people\u2019s lives via voice-activated household devices make me wonder if Orwell\u2019s world is almost upon us. Has anyone read \u201cThe Circle\u201d or seen the movie?<\/p>\n

This week, I encountered another example of the \u201cBig Brother Effect\u201d. My car was due for its annual road-worthiness test – we call it an \u201cMOT Test\u201d and I think that most countries have something similar. This certificate is required to legally tax a car and get insurance. It used to be possible that, if a driver was stopped by the Police or involved in an accident, they would need to take their papers, including the MOT certificate, to a Police station for verification. It seems that this is no longer the case, as Big Brother is looking after us.<\/p>\n

I was waiting for my car\u2019s test to be completed and a staff member came along to say that it was bad news and good news. The bad news was that it had failed; the good news was nothing too serious or ridiculously expensive. They could fix it straight away and told me the cost. In the past, I could have driven the car away [even though it was technically unroadworthy] to get it fixed elsewhere and be re-tested, as my MOT certificate was still good for a couple of weeks. It was explained to me that I could no longer do this, because they were required, on failing a vehicle, to log this fact on the national vehicle registration service. This meant that, if I was spotted by a Police officer, they could do an instant check and find that I had no valid MOT certificate. The net result was that I had no choice but to let the test center team do the repair. I felt that Big Brother was watching me, but not watching over me. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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