Imagine a fully connected world. One where your physical life and digital life have merged. Sensors persistently collect data on your health, whereabouts, purchasing habits, and general behavior, sharing this holistic information with the governing bodies, corporations, and special interest groups. Knowledge is nursed to the initiated through digital lenses, and a communal truth about the world around us is in the process of being acknowledged and verified by a United Nations-led project. Humanity is finally able to eat from the manna of immortality, at least through an AI-powered, digital version of themselves.
It’s the year 2030. Zoomers are entering adult society knowing nothing less than a fully connected existence. Your digital footprint has evolved past common social media. Many people now learn, work, shop, eat, and medicate online, thanks to the reign of 5G networks, more accurate algorithms, as well as 3D (and now 4D) printing. You benefit from the near absolution of physical labor, brought on by the prevalence of teleworking, and for industrialists, industry 4.0. But there’s a mounting sector of residents who have grown weary and resentful due to the pure volume of personal information obtainable by enterprises. These Splitters wish to bring back an idealized “golden age” of privacy. Paired with the recent interdiction, in a neighboring country, of teachers deemed “undesirable” by the system this has lit a match under these citizens’ (and others’) concerns.
Whether or not technology has provided you with greater efficiency, security, and meaning, it unquestionably has made the online world more dangerous. Greater connectivity has led to a larger attack surface that threat actors are lining up to exploit. While threats like data manipulation, extortion, and denial of service have been around longer than a dusty old NFT, cybercriminals have more tools at their disposal in which to hold your data ransom and drain the ones and zeros from your bank account.
The company you work for has become fully automated, eliminating the threat of human error, much to your relief, as you are now tasked with more absorbing tasks working on the output. However, the proliferation of crime-as-a-service (CaaS) has given individuals with little or no technical skill the tools needed to run their own cybercriminal enterprise. Paired with the rise in AI-powered attacks and it seems like no organization is safe from an attack.
Enterprises are not the only entity vulnerable to advanced threats. Your friends and relatives who have volunteered a large chunk of their digital lives via social media now live on as “infini-mes”. These digital sprites are self-learning and are able to create new experiences. You find yourself thinking about your own “infini-me” more than you do your own mortality as of late. Especially since cybercriminals have found a way to exploit “infini-mes”, holding the memory of the deceased hostage or forcing them to act inappropriately unless a ransom is paid.
Welcome to your new reality, more connected than ever to all the riches modern life has to offer, yet where truth has never been more insubstantial . Welcome to New San Joban.
