Mark opened his eyes. Sun was shining and the sky he could see from his window was blue, without a cloud. He could smell the flowers from the garden through the open window and hear the wind, playing gently with leaves of the trees outside the house. “It is going to be a perfect day”, Mark said to himself.
Ana was still sleeping. Naked, besides him, with her right leg on top of his legs, with her right hand touching his face. With her head touching his head. She always falls asleep like that, Mark thought, touching his head with her hand during the night, as she would be trying to make up for the day before, and the day before that, and before that.
Mark moved a bit, to touch her face. It was so beautiful, in the morning light, her skin was so light and soft. With her eyes still closed, Ana smiled:
“I had the strangest dream …”
“Shh, not yet. Not before we put on the helmets!”
“Kiss me…”. And she took his head, with both her arms and embraced it with love, as she would want to touch every inch of it at the same time, with all herself. A moment of tenderness they both knew it cannot last too long. It was beginning to be late.
“Tell me about your dream”, said Mark while they were both putting on their helmets.
It has been twenty years since the Revolution. Some people hate it when someone calls it that way, because nobody actually died, but it had an impact on everybody’s life. Mark still remembers how it was to have a TV in the house, and a cellphone. And even a computer. All was nice and quiet and people were watching TV and were using their computers and cellphones. And then one day some people found out that most computers were spying on people, that their microphones and cameras were actually always on, recording data and sending it to the companies that made them. And this is how the witch hunt started: same people wanted to know what else was spying on them. And they did not have to search far away: the smartphones that everybody was carrying were also recording and sending the data all the time. And the smart TVs, and everything that was connected to Internet. And then everything that could be connected to Internet. And then everything.
The humanity’s dream, free internet everywhere, was becoming a reality. But it turned to nightmare when it was found that the main reason why it was built was to carry spy data. Some people were figuring it out that their smart TV may record sound and vision, and did not connect their TVs to their networks any more. But it did not matter: smart TVs were so smart that they were able to use the 6G network to send data anyway. And the wireless charging that came with 6G was so cool in the beginning: no need to charge your phone, ever, if you are inside the coverage area, which is … Everywhere. But soon it turned out the wireless charging was not for the people, but for the spy phones, so they never run out of battery and they can never be turned off.
It became possible to make a computer with a microphone, camera and wireless transmission which was just few millimeters. It never needed charging, because the 6G took care of that. And you could put it anywhere. And it was indeed, put anywhere. People started looking for them, and indeed, they found them. Somebody even found a small computer with a microphone in a wooden table. Somebody must have thought that one day somebody will plan to change the world near such a table.
“If there are spying devices everywhere and there is nothing we can do about them, let’s not care”, said someone. “Let’s show them that we have nothing to hide and they can spy us all they want! They can do nothing with all that data”. And people listened to him, and followed him.
But few years after that, a social study found out that there is a difference. The people who embraced the “let’s not care about our privacy” philosophy were acting differently. They were easier to manipulate, they did what they were told to do. Humankind found out that “I have nothing to hide” goes both ways: when you do nothing out of the ordinary you have no reason to hide it, but you will also do nothing out of the ordinary so that you do not feel the need to hide it.
“We still have encryption! Use encryption if you want that nobody finds out what you are communicating!” Was the message of the day. And everybody started using encryption for all the emails, messages, phone calls, video calls, well, everything. Very few people actually understood the encryption algorithms, but everybody thought them safe. Until one day, when one bright mathematician doubted everything and tried to find a way to break everything. And he actually succeeded. He managed to find a way to easily decrypt all the data that was encrypted. He wrote a mathematical proof for it. Very few people understood the mathematics behind, but actually very few people understood encryption algorithms anyway. But there was one conclusion that came out of the mathematical proof, that almost everybody understood: you cannot have unbreakable communication between two points unless they have a way to exchange some data privately. If all the communication between these two points can be intercepted then all the communication can be decrypted.
And so it became clear to everybody that there is only one way to truly have private communication between two people: they need to first physically meet and create the encryption key. Or, actually, the devices they use to communicate need to physically connect and create the key. And people needed to trust the devices. And this was by far the hardest part.
Some people thought “If we stop using cellphones and computers and TVs and all other electronic devices, we cannot be spied”. And so they stopped using them. But soon they realized this does not help: there were cameras and microphones already everywhere and it did not matter they did not have a spying device of their own, they were spied with somebody’s else devices.
“What if we wear a mask? ” asked someone. “If we wear a mask, cameras cannot trace us.” , figured somebody. And soon, most people started wearing masks. But then, somebody figured out that the masks have to be the same for everybody, otherwise they are of no use. And the first generation of helmets was born this way.
The problem of talking remained: microphones could record what you said at any time. The second generation of helmets solved this problem: to have a private conversation with someone, the two helmets must connect and create an encryption key. The voice was captured inside the helmet, encrypted and transmitted to the other helmet.
The third generation brought virtual reality. Or, actually, it brought part of the reality back: two connected helmets were able now to exchange video, so the connected persons did not see each other’s helmets, but they saw the real head, from inside the helmet. Everything looked so real, until you tried to touch the face of the other person: you would reach an invisible wall: the helmet.
***
“I dreamed, said Ana, that I was walking down the street and one moment I and everybody else stopped and took off our helmets. It felt like suddenly there was no need to hide anymore, that the world was a safe place were anybody could talk to anybody without fear. And you came by and we went to a park and kissed on a bench, and it felt so normal…. It was a really strange dream…”