Smallest bug in the world only for 149 liras

By observing technology and by adding, subtracting and multiplying, it is not rocket science to calculate how far things will go, without the need of too much of an imagination.

Of course many of us who do not ponder on these matters cannot hide our surprise regarding the level technology has reached. Perhaps we are able to grasp in an instant that films are more real than life itself, but when it is science fiction in question, it looks as if what we are watching fantasies that will never come true or that it would take centuries for them to come true.

Whereas, take James Bond serials, for instance… The technologic toys of 007… Who would have thought that some of those toys would be sold in ordinary stores now?

For example, in China, you can buy those fountain pens with tiny cameras for a couple of dollars. In Guangzhou, the city where Turks frequent the most to buy goods, there is a market for them. Whoever visits that place grabs one and takes it home. Actually, one does not need to go all the way to China; just go to Istanbul’s Tahtakale, you can find anything about spying there.

If you are too lazy to take the tramway, the Internet brings it to your door. In an ordinary day, an ordinary mail comes to my inbox and says:

“With the smallest bugging device in the world, with SanalSPY, you can have audio surveillance with a limitless range. This device works with GSM technology and works in any environment where mobile phones work. With this device, you can easily listen to moving targets or a fixed environment. It costs only 149 Turkish Liras.”

Or, for example, right next to the perfumes in the airplane’s shopping magazine, a watch is sold for 100 euros that can record sounds and images.

I know I’m not talking about something new. I mean, we did not come to this stage overnight. However, this attitude of taking it for granted does bother me a lot in terms of the future and actually the present of this business.

Even though I am in my 30s, I feel like I am 100 when I see this speed and the means of intrusion into private lives.

I mean, while 15 or 20 years ago, the biggest threat to my privacy would have been reading my diary, but nowadays, anybody, just anybody can easily plant a 149-lira-bug in my room, in my apartment and monitor me for 24 hours.

For this, one does not need to be as powerful as the state, or the parallel, or vertical or diagonal. Just as well, the water bottle delivery person, or the market delivery boy could do this.

OK, we know that since the mediaeval times, states have been trying to enter people’s houses, to look behind the curtains, to infiltrate the inside and spy. As states became stronger and better armed, their passion to control everything also grew; they tried to learn even what was going on in people’s consciences, to investigate, try to explain and disclose secrets.

During the era of Montaillou because the struggle between individuals and institutional monitoring power became fiercer, individuals resisted and built the “privacy wall” that we today are trying hard to keep erect.

Well, ok, states are like that. OK, but, what is happening to us?

On what grounds do a bunch of firms, with the greatest of ease, sell hidden cameras, bugs, etc.?

Why is this bullshit not stopped?

Will there ever come a time when we will be able to discuss the ethics of technology, taking time from discussing presidential elections, ISIL, the resolution process, the parallel to vertical, from this or that?