Spying makes a comeback

That is the theme of my latest Free Press article, here is one excerpt:

It may look like merely the latest story of a wealthy, powerful man making an irresponsible decision. But below the surface, it is also a harbinger of the erosion of privacy today, as well as the acceleration of espionage and the increasing value of secrets. More time and resources are going to be devoted to uncovering secrets, with honeypotting only one part of a larger picture: more spying, more attempted honeypotting, more private surveillance, more attempts to record (and search, using AI) conversations, more hacks of phones and computers, and more attempts to use AI to figure out the details of people’s lives and plans. Life is going to feel much more cloak-and-dagger, especially for the wealthy and influential…

The wealthy and influential are likely to take ever-greater care to minimize public scrutiny, protect their digital privacy, prevent journalists from going through their trash, and travel incognito, and their language in (supposedly) private conversations will have to be more guarded as well. We now live in an era where NDAs for hookups and even dinner dates are a thing.

Worth a ponder, as in the pending world secrets will be more valuable than before.  The super-wealthy and their companies can be decisive actors, there are more prediction markets than before, and AI is equalizing the value of high-quality but publicly available information.