Created by Saurabh Datta, border_ctrl explores future government agency, created to keep tabs of internet browsing of individuals. To keep a healthy control of one’s online activities, Internet Border Control [IBC] runs a daemon on individual’s computers.
The need for visas for certain country, for some citizens, is for safety of the foreign land from the traveller. Meaning, a visa is needed to keep tabs on a persons activities in the intended country, if he/she creates any damage. But today he or she doesn’t need to be physically present in a country to cause chaos to the land. It can easily be executed by the internet. Our rules of analog world doesn’t suffice for the digital activities. In the cybernetic realm, presence and agency do not necessarily need or mean a body to be there. Why bodies need visa while telepresence does not? How will digital bodies change perception of traveling?
The software is designed to detects any abrupt activities like, an individual trying to access a webpage from India but the servers of the webpage is in America, then the IBC daemon restricts the user’s access and prompts him to follow the rules to get access for browsing again. It is metaphorically similar as getting a physical visa to travel to a different country and is currently analogous to the existing International travel laws.
The software was created as a daemon and not as a browser plugin using python and applescript.
