Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

Tumblrstalking, or nothing

It's all for me to see how much of a creep I can be, I guess.

Stalking in public: one man follows and photographs a woman, sharing results on Tumblr.  It's an odd story, which ultimately risks collapsing into itself.

Because the players back away from fears and anxieties.  It becomes a kind of in-group social game, of the pre-interent kind.

what's most striking about this incident is the way in which it differs from the horror stories we're used to hearing about the Web. This wasn't some stranger cyber-stalking an unsuspecting victim; this took place among a group of people who socialized IRL as well as on the Internet. Merker knew Walker, and their mutual social connection was the one that eventually spilled the beans.

Will Tumblr's reputation grow into being known for this kind of social gameplaying?  Or will the creepiness swamp it?

(thanks to Jesse Walker)

Deadly mobile phone calls

Another killer phone story, or The Ring: 

Viral text messages had warned that several people had died when they answered calls with the ID 09141. 

...

The text messages gave conflicting accounts of the number of people killed when they answered the call - some put the death toll at seven while others put it at 10.

The Beeb helpfully, drily adds: "A BBC reporter was unable to get through to the number."

Why 09141?

(thanks to Cori Samuel; image from long ago)

Fear is the absence of networks

Once upon a time, vast networks of communication and power were the enemy. But now, as my teacher and friend Eric Rabkin notes, they are sometimes benevolent.

This development is based in part on a shift from transportation to communication functions, but read the whole thing, as they say, to get the idea. Eric's writing is, as ever, a marvel of economy, and resists easy extraction.

Which reminds me of this fine video collection, horror/suspense movie scenes when coverage failure spikes the fear:

Shutting down cell phones in San Francisco

Fears of technology lead to policy: San Francisco's train service blocked out cell phone coverage on Thursday, to ward off an anticipated protest.  (A job they should have outsourced to AT+T, which is experienced in cutting Bay Area coverage)

Said protest was aimed at a police shooting.  It's hard to say if crowds would have turned dangerous, but police had a term for what they expected:

Andy Alkire told Bay City News that while it was unusual to kill cell phone service, it was "a great tool to utilize for this specific purpose" with the agency facing a potentially volatile situation.

BART itself used different language:

Organizers planning to disrupt BART service on August 11, 2011 stated they would use mobile devices to coordinate their disruptive activities and communicate about the location and number of BART Police. A civil disturbance during commute times at busy downtown San Francisco stations could lead to platform overcrowding and unsafe conditions for BART customers, employees and demonstrators. 

Were fears of London-style riots in mind?  What about anxiety concerning cell phones' various effects?

Interestingly, this might not have been a police plan to start with:

KTVU reported that BART's media relations department suggested cutting off the cell service during the protests.

Which might backfire, if Anonymous gets going.  If something happens from that source, then this story obtains another level of digital fear!

(thanks to Ryan Brazell, Steven Kaye and others)

Riotous Canadian mobiles

Fear the Crackberry: maybe the best way London riotors organize is through Blackberry smartphones.  Specifically, angry Londoners are relying on the device's short text function,  Blackberry Messages‚ or BBMs.

FastCompany notes several recent encounters between RIM, protestors, and police in other countries, including Egype and India.

Note, too, how unfashionable the Brits are.  Clearly they didn't get the memo about RIM being dead, and smartphones being all Android and Apple:

BlackBerry handsets – the smartphone of choice for the majority (37%) of British teens, according to last week's Ofcom study... 

"Unlikely", says one surprised blog, who then goes on nicely;

“BBM is standard issue.” One said to me. “Of course. It’s all about BBM. This is our network!” I was told. The fact that journalists have just woken up to this fact is interesting in itself, but it has led to some sections of the media coming to bizarre conclusions.

Is this connection between riots and tech enough to spur a wave of fearing Blackberries?  Maybe, if official sanctions occur, and have any effects on popular imagination:

Mike Butcher, a technology journalist and adviser to London Mayor Boris Johnson, said it was "unbelievable" that the BBM service had not been disabled.

Maybe not.  RIM is cooperating with police.  And it's a Canadian company.

(burning man photo from Guardian; some links via John Robb) 

Fearsome Foursquare

Fearing Foursquare: after checking in to a restaurant, a man gets a phone call.

Everyone paused while he handed me the phone.
Me: “Hello?”
Them: In a voice that was clearly masked “Is this Brad Feld”
Me: “Yes, who is this?”
Them: “I wrrrr whrrr your rrrr.”
Me: “I’m sorry – I can’t understand you. What are you saying.”
Them “Brad Feld – I know whrrr you rrr.”

The masked voice is a nice touch.  

Fears about mobile, connected devices have been around for a while.  

(via KurzweilAI)

Floating bodies on the land

Here's a new project for creepy augmented reality (AR) art.  "Proyecciones en el Exterior" by Ibon Mainar.

Manair's setup looks like this:

The results look like this:

Is this an example of William Gibson's "locative art"?

(thanks to Glenda Carl!)

Pop up sex offenders in your neighborhood

Checking out a neighborhood for sex offenders?  Why, "There's an app for that".  

Users can adjust the range of their search from a tenth of a mile to several. A map mode identifies registered offenders as pins on a map, while an augmented reality view allows users to look through the camera lens of their smartphones to pull up addresses in any given direction.

Users can click on each of the pins or red dots to draw forth detailed information about the offenders, including their names, addresses, photos (if available) and the offenses they were convicted for.

Just in time for Halloween, if we remember that holiday fear.

 

(thanks to mid-Pennsylvania's own Todd Bryant and Ed Webb)

This story creeps around the reader

A fine use of augmented reality for unsettling stories, AR Jekyll and Hyde:

(via Bruce Sterling)

Mobile phone wars turn Gothic

A fine use of mobile phone logos:

Nice work contrasting the charmingly cartoonish logo outlines with the blood stains and smears.

The full-size image looks sadder and grimmer, with all the isolation: