After my last post, the homie got in touch to perform a wellness check and report a bug. He reminded me that while I didn't directly monetize Default Tester the blog I did in fact attempt to monetize Default Tester some years ago and in fact, it was a whole ass company with a website, staff, and a failed Kickstarter campaign. To that, I responded, "Oh yeah... that."
See, the reason I managed to forget such an important part of my personal history was that at the time I didn't consider Default Tester the company an actual company because I was using it as a cover to test a data aggregation hypothesis.
Ok, this may take some explaining, let me back up.
Way back in 2009 I was a video game industry platform quality assurance engineer who played a lot of Team Fortress 2. Over time I became a well regarded local in now-defunct global community ironically called No Heroes.
At the time the internet as we know it today was just taking shape and games like TF2 and servers like NH became the communal intersection for tech-heads, hacktivists, and 4Chan trolls. Valve provided the perfect storm of global reach, solid gameplay, and lax restrictions. To say you could find no greater hive of scum and villainy this side of the darknet would be an understatement.
Hiding from such folk is a fool's errand, so pretty much everyone knew who I was and what I did, and likewise. It was never a big deal, most people would do was complain or try and press me on bug fixes. But after the company I worked for suffered a security breach I was very salty and made my feelings known.
An acquaintance got in touch to let me know it was all just business and to not take it personally. I was like, "I'm not mad, just disappointed, but also can you please unpack this for me?" They explained that while they did not do it they understood who did and why. That the hack was not malicious, but necessary for the data points. There wasn't anyone to catch, it was a business transaction. But they could use a patsy, and all of my stomping was noisy, so just chill.
At the time I was stone-cold dumb, still am, but I was then too. So I needed more explanation. They explained that no one was interested in the credit card info and bankrupting anybody, but the data was necessary for marketing purposes.
The most important info was the email addresses that would be used to track where people went on the internet and what social networks they used. Basically, the who, what, when, where, and why they did things so they could create a profile to guide a user anywhere they wanted and sell them things targeted directly to their soul.
I still didn't fully understand the full danger of anyone with access to such data and why it would have to be stolen, but I knew enough to understand the implication. I asked why they were telling me all of this, and their answer was threefold. One, because you were crying about it. Two, because there is nothing you can do about it. Three, because we like you and think over time you will find it funny like we do.
The information sent me down the rabbit hole. In my spare time, I began researching companies that could possibly use that information, but it turned out literally every single company could use that information. Then I started realizing that social media sites were like free aggregators for that exact information. And then I started noticing companies like Cambridge Analytica popping up, and I thought to myself, "Ok, all of this tracks, but it can't possibly be that easy to get access to such personal data."
So I started a company in line with any other startup that could use such data and got in touch all of the types of organizations that sold such data to see what they would just give some random person that asked for it. And, wow. It was enough information to sway elections, sway opinions, to sell a person anything. And they knew exactly what to do with it (I swear that in 2012 this was a revelation, today, not so much.) I had to imagine there were people way smarter and capable than me that figured this out, so why wasn't this all over the news?
I realized the homie was 100% right and I was a dog chasing a car, I caught it, but now what?
Turns out there was no now what. I tried to tell people at my work and in my personal life, with obvious results. Then came the seven stages of grief, not sure which one I am on now. I had also created a whole ass company with people depending on me, and one thing I neglected to do was let anyone know what I was doing or why I was doing it.
When it fell apart because I just didn't care enough to invest in its success, the look on my teams face as the seams came loose made me realize that no matter the narrative I created in my head, in my quest to defeat the baddie, I became the baddie, at least to the people closest to me. So I erased the data from my head to keep going. My selfish streak continued.
I had convinced myself that when I had definitive proof then I could stop lying to everyone because they would have to accept I wasn't crazy and that there were a group of individuals accumulating massive amounts of information that they were using to corrupt the global communication server in ways that may be irreparable.
Boy was I wrong. About so much.
Doesn't even matter if any of my soapbox preachings turned out to be true. If I could do it all over again, I wouldn't have worried so much about the macro and focused on my loved ones and the peace I can hold, because looking back, they are all I see.
Anyway, looking at how 2020 is going I can fully admit that I was obviously crazy because none of my dark premonitions came to pass. False alarm folks, carry on. Also, thanks for checking in big homie, hope all is well on the other side of the world.
Oh, and P.S.: If you are wondering why I am openly admitting to all this stuff, I will say I never would have previously but please ask yourself, "Is this the craziest thing I found on the internet today?" I'm betting it isn't.
Rip Tb Rip TC Rip Tall-T. Love is wise, hatred is foolish. Get out there and do great things, we believe in you. Also Jobs.
The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : Games : Ombudsman
