1984, Voluntarily

In George Orwell's novel 1984, written in 1949, long before personal computers or the Internet were even a dream, all citizens were subject to constant surveillance by Big Brother. Presumably, this activity wasn't preferred by the citizens.

Now we see that we may be becoming our own Big Brother. From worm of oblivion: Nerd surveillance, we see news that MIT students are voluntarily becoming citizens of Orwell's fictional nation of Oceania.

I always wondered if Oceania had huge banks of super-computers doing the monitoring. No way that you could have each citizen being monitored by a citizen - who watches the watchers?

As soon as MySpace gets a piece of this, the high schools will be full of it. Imagine - the ability to hide from your parents or teachers, but let all your buds know where you are.

We have met the enemy, and he is us.