Lock Your Doors

 

It's cheaper to funk than it is to pay attention.

-- "Funkentelechy" (Parliament-Funkadelic, 1977)

When you see something like this in the New York Times, you can bet that the technology is already much more advanced.

Over the last two years, researchers in China and the United States have begun demonstrating that they can send hidden commands that are undetectable to the human ear to Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Assistant. Inside university labs, the researchers have been able to secretly activate the artificial intelligence systems on smartphones and smart speakers, making them dial phone numbers or open websites. In the wrong hands, the technology could be used to unlock doors, wire money or buy stuff online — simply with music playing over the radio. 

A group of students from University of California, Berkeley, and Georgetown University showed in 2016 that they could hide commands in white noise played over loudspeakers and through YouTube videos to get smart devices to turn on airplane mode or open a website. (…) 

[Fifth-year Ph.D. student in computer security at U.C. Berkeley Nicholas] Carlini added that while there was no evidence that these techniques have left the lab, it may only be a matter of time before someone starts exploiting them. “My assumption is that the malicious people already employ people to do what I do,” he said.

Emphasis mine.

I removed Alexa from my Amazon Wishlist a while back. Call it a hunch. And I bet there are many other digital methods already being used to steal -- and to plant suggestions into consciousnesses. What about WiFi, especially the public variety?

Consider this.

Occasionally, I have experienced crazy, twisted and horrible images in my head -- concepts very foreign to my thinking and proclivities -- when I am almost asleep. It’s as if there are spirits bouncing against my soul and spirit to see if they can penetrate. In these individual instances, I banish them by calling on God’s protection in Jesus’ name. Some else I’ve been doing for years: daily praying Psalm 91, which I memorized back in 2012. I don’t just recite it; I pray it. When I find myself just saying the words and not meditating on what the Psalm means, I stop and go back to the beginning.

At first the images were frightening, but I've had enough experience with the supernatural to quickly figure out what was happening. It wasn’t the first time that enemy forces tried to invade the Juliette network.

Am I paranoid? Perhaps. And I’m at peace with my paranoia. And I don’t doubt that many of the two types of forces -- physical and spiritual -- are in cahoots.

There are several substance-free things I have used to increase the likelihood of much deeper, more peaceful, and invader-free sleep: specific prayer beforehand; shutting down all devices and unplugging the WiFi or if I keep the WiFi and a device on, streaming a trusted source of the Word of God. Of course the invaders still knock on the windows, as it were. That's the reason to stay armed, asleep or not.

But there are those who scoff at such protection or ignore it. Then they wonder at the proliferation of mass shooters, serial killers, rapists, child molesters, etc. who say they hear voices.

It’s all unprotected networks out there, ripe for the intrusion. Unlocked doors and open windows.

What about yours?

(Thanks to Stephen Green)

Every Tuesday and Saturday, I blog at the award-winning DaTechGuyBlog. Latest post: Dirty Windows.

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