ANALYZING TERRORISM - How do we design for an insurmountable tops that is an undeniable element of our lives? There are different forms of understand Terrorism. Broadly, it means "the threatened or actual use of illegal force or violence to attain a goal through fear, coercion, or intimidation." (1) At the same time, terror is codified as one of the 8 basic human emotions. (2)
We identified a key strategy of terrorism from both real events and artistic interpretation - manipulation.
PROJECTING TERRORISM - The key currency of terrorism moves from violence to data. It will no longer be about manipulating through violence, but through control of information.
German politician Malte Spitz sued to have German telecom giant Deutsche Telekom hand over six months of his phone data. This map is his geolocation data compiled from information such as Twitter feeds, blog entries and web searches. He published this data publicly.
THE OPPOSITE OF MANIPULATION IS EMPOWERMENT.
THE STRATEGY - Protecting ourselves from manipulation by manipulating our data.
FAKE ME is an app to protect your trace by creating multiple digital imprints of your digital self.
HOW IT WORKS - A user will always be "dropping location pins," and creating a digital profile. FAKE ME adds to that profile by adding a series of randomly generated location data attached to the user's device ID.
FAKE ME allows the user to protect their real location by complicating their online profile with useless information.
What the user "sees" vs. what others "see."
Team Roles: Project Leader; Concept Development; UI & Graphics
Team Members: Kenneth Huang, Lale Tanrikulu, Neeta Vernekar
(1) Global Terrorism Index, 2015, IEP
(2) Robert Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions, 1980
(3) Smart-tech sales to increase 500% - Forbes, Roundup of IOT Forecasts and Market Estimates, Nov 2016.
(4) Journalist Alexis Madrigal report on which companies collect data for internet search habits, Feb 2012.