2078 Robot Eavesdropping

I don’t know who she is, but that’s the lady behind the eavesdropping. Her name is Magda.

How do they do this?  

Three of us were sitting around early one recent morning exchanging emails about the works of Victor Hugo, who died in 1885.  As they often do, these discussions devolved into wisecracks. Among them:

--Someone call Victor and ask him to weigh in.

--Anyone have his phone number?

--How’s your French?

--Nonexistent.

--Maybe one of us can send him an email using Google Translate.

Not five minutes later, there’s an email in the inbox from a company that says its specialty is “real time transcription and translation.”

That was scary fast.

The email inbox is ad blocked.  Usually, a targeted ad like that would go to spam or would just appear in the margins of an open page.  This was a personally addressed email from a real person TO a real person.

The temptation is to investigate how they do things like that. When you visit a bunch of car websites or guitar websites the gods of Google will detect a pattern and start sending you suggested sites or even some ads.

But one exchange, and a quick one?

Somewhere along the information super highway, key words jump out in microseconds and trigger pre-written responses.  Responses in waiting.

The temptation is to write back.

Dear Magda,

Thank you for the communique about your company’s services.

The conversation someone or some THING monitored on your behalf was eavesdropping on joking among friends.  And Hugo spoke English.

SHRAPNEL:

--trump called Jimmy Carter over the weekend and talked about trade problems with China.  Carter says he pointed out that China has all those resources pouring into construction, roads and rails while we pour all of ours into wars.  The White House confirms the conversation.

--Fudged figure figuring.  The Long Island Railroad says it’s on-time performance last month improved to 96+ percent. Just remember that the number of trains times how late each was evens the figure “late” is defined as being at the destination within five minutes of schedule, and “at the destination” and at the destination’s platform are not the same thing.

--Note to the correction bot “Grammarly.” You will never convince me to hyphenate everything-I-write.  And you will never get me to stop using fragments. Ever.

--Here’s a headline the likes of which we haven’t seen since the 1980s: “Islanders finish off Penguins 3-1 in stunning playoff sweep.” No one was more stunned than the fans. NHL playoffs last forEVERRRR but still, there’s hope.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Comments? Send them here: wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2019