At some past jobs, although not so much at this one, I’ve been the guy that my co-workers referred to as “tinfoil hat security guy”. I was the one who worried about cookies and tracking before most people did (and well before we all just gave up because Google knows everything about us), who raved about TIA and Carnivore, who used PGP for his personal email, who played with Tor before it was easy, etc. One thing I never actually got into, though, was the tinfoil hat–aside from once as a joke to go with the name.
I’ve just run into some academic research from MIT which indicates that it’s a good thing I never depended on the tinfoil hat: far from blocking the mind-control signals it may actually boost them! Quoting from the summary:
Using a $250,000 network analyser, we find that although on average all helmets attenuate invasive radio frequencies in either directions (either emanating from an outside source, or emanating from the cranium of the subject), certain frequencies are in fact greatly amplified. These amplified frequencies coincide with radio bands reserved for government use according to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). Statistical evidence suggests the use of helmets may in fact enhance the government’s invasive abilities. We speculate that the government may in fact have started the helmet craze for this reason.
And if you think those tinfoil hat guys are sad now… wait until they find out about the microwaves…
(MAN sits cross-legged in the middle of a pool light. DC. HE mimes smoking a joint and passing it to an unseen companion.)
(Tokes and passes.)
It’s like if a tree falls in the forest, you know what I’m saying, man? It’s like if everybody already knows everything, then nothing means anything. Everything’s a cliché.
That’s why i stopped making art.
(Takes the joint and tokes.)
You know what’s wrong with the world today? Why everything’s screwed up and you can’t do anything about it? Because we don’t live in a human world, we live in a machine world.
(Passes the joint)
There’s this guy, I can see him from my apartment, down in his apartment across the street. All night long, every night, he lies on his couch, doesn’t move for hours on end, his eyes wide open… Now if I didn’t know he was watching TV, I’d think there was something seriously wrong with him, like he was paralyzed or hypnotized or something…
All night long, he lies there and messages from outer space go into his brain “Buy a new car, use deodorant, work harder, your dog has bad breath, buy a microwave oven . . .” All night long, into his brain.
(Takes the joint and tokes.)
I mean what’s a microwave oven, man? Everybody’s got one, nobody knows what it does, nobody knows how it works, everybody’s got one. Why? Why does everybody have a microwave oven? Think about it.
Because the TV set told ‘em to buy it.
I’m telling you man, the government is building this computer, biggest computer they every built. Spending billions and billions dollars. It’s a secret project but I read about it…
When they finish this computer we’re all gonna be dead man… ‘Cause they’re gonna hook this huge computer up to everybody’s TV set. Then they’re gonna reverse the TV set so it can see you in your house doing your thing? Computer’s gonna watch you, man, and if you do something the computer doesn’t like, it’s gonna send a message to the TV set. TV set’s gonna send a message to the microwave oven, door’s gonna pop open, you’re gonna be ashes, man…
That’s an excerpt from Eric Bogosian‘s monologue Artist in Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, by the way. I first read that in an excerpt in Harper’s in Grade 7–so more than 20 years ago–and enough of it stuck in my brain that I could find it just now with Google.
I wonder if a foil suit would protect us from the microwaves–maybe there’s a market for the Faraday Cage Business Casual line. Not a new idea though, apparently.
