May 25, 2013
Eye Pie

Hi. Melvin here. Sorry about the delay. I had family drop by unexpectedly. Don't worry, their last name isn't Klein (none of my family is) and we went out in public. I shouldn't brag but the time my face is caught on camera I'd die of embarrassment long before the O.S.I.R. got to me. I can tell where cameras are, when I'm on camera, and what angle of view the camera has. I wouldn't bet anyone can pull my face together from partial bits here and there even. If you watch a lot of TV, don't bet on reflections either. Its easy to be aware of any reflections large enough to use. Screenwriters always exaggerate technology. Anyways...

Josh is taking a well deserved holiday after another painfully hollow victory. We've done a good thing, but the cost doesn't feel justified. It should. How many other lives is one killer's worth? We're all taking a bit off, some less than others. I like to keep busy at the best of times and I'd have posted on time if not for the pleasant surprise.

I wanted to talk to you about a couple things. First, Lookered Lens has been out for a while. It has been another recording device to keep an eye out for, what with the line of sight camera sitting next to your eye. Yes you can see when the camera is working if you're relatively nearby to the person (the eye screen lights up), but that isn't always the case. It's really not a huge deal. A killer app has dropped for Lens though. It does facial recognition. It's rather good at it too. It's better than anything that has come out for the Z-Phone.

The other thing I wanted to talk about was the somewhat disastrous move made by Gabbl this month. You've probably heard of it before on other sites; it's called two-step authentication. It's supposed to be a safer way than just using passwords. With it you use a password, but the company also messages your phone a code that you have to enter. Anyone trying to pretend to be you has to know the password, and have your phone. I'm sure it protects some people, but it's also a good way to spy on people. Every time they want to do something they have to give away their location. It also ties your phone to the companies using the two-steps. You can imagine why this is terrible for the gifted. Now, not everything is an O.S.I.R. plot, but you can see how it benefits them as much as other authorities looking to keep tabs on people. Of course that does require the authorities in question having access to all the bits of code watching you, but we know that it easy as pie. Gabbl is also particularly open and with the way they'd been hacked earlier in the year you would think they wouldn't want to gather even more information to lose.

Tags: cameras, facial recognition, Gabbl, Joshua Rhoads, Lookered, Lookered Lens, Melvin Klein, O.S.I.R., police, surveillance, web administrator, Z-Phone.