The war of privacy is coming in 2014

What will you do when you have the opportunity to trade your privacy as a currency?

Of course, it’s not a sustainable model, but that’s not the point. The point is that as long as we can trade our info for goods and services, we will set new standards for technological boundaries on our lives. And we’ve already seen it coming fast - mobility has been tackled, wearability is next, and embedded/environmentally ubiquitous will come after.

Apple released a phone that knows you by the same way you are identified by if you commit a crime or two. (This is a gross over-generalization, but stick with me.) On the flip-side (read: not the private sector) the NSA can listen in on your conversations. Without a warrant. Endorsed by the president. He doesn’t really want a call made on whether that’s okay.

And what will this bring? With movies like The Fifth Estate coming into mainstream (albeit fairly unsuccessfully) and with technological literacy being pushed with efforts to get everyone to code, there will eventually be a click moment where people understand the seriousness of the NSA’s deal to weaken RSA. Eventually there will be an enlightenment of what “surveillance state” means as it relates to all of these wearable devices and Xbox eyes and webcams and…

We’ve heard about Luddites, and I think this may be their birthplace: a strong, deep-rooted hatred for the corruption and terror of privacy-destroying devices like Apple’s iPhone 6. They reject the need for technology, first as a hipster trend (like leaving Facebook), but evolving into a real movement.

Obviously this is absurdist in many ways. (At least hopefully that’s obvious.) The truth is, the general population will take longer to shift to technological literacy enough to understand the seriousness of the RSA deal. (By the time that click moment happens, RSA will have become obsolete anyway.) But the underlying pattern is emerging: people will start caring more about privacy than ever before. They will understand that their need to be “always-connected” puts that privacy up for crucifixion, and that creates a direct conflict with the rapidly advancing personal device world. And that will be the war of privacy.