Improved Government Transparency in a Future World
In a world where a group of hackers, known as the Shadow Brokers United, has released highly confidential government information to the public, Glass Walls leverages our understanding of secret government coded terms and recent political events to provide more knowledge to U.S. citizens, making us the only organization that helps to protect your personal cyber security.
Our current world is set in the year 2027 which has been shaped by a variety of social, political, and technological events that have happened over the past ten years. One of the most memorable, yet terrifying, events that happened within the past decade was the nationwide social media hackings in 2019. Millions of American citizens found their social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.) having been hacked into, lead to multiple instances of identity theft through the revealing and sharing of their personal information.
This caused a widespread stir in the online community, as citizens began to create fake social media accounts in a bid to stay connected yet protected. The increase of fake accounts became so drastic in the year 2020 that President Trump issued an address aimed at resisting this behavior and to assure everyone that any hackings would be personally shut down by the government.
In 2021, the international North Korean War began, pitting North Korea against the United States of America, while other countries joined one of the two main factions. Tensions slowly built up over fears of nuclear missile threats and China cut off exporting resources to the isolated country. Many U.S. citizens opposed going to war with North Korea, and approval ratings for Trump plummeted even further.
Many of America’s natural resources were used up within the following years to support the war efforts, which caused the U.S. to look towards international support for extra resources. These resources included anything from metal, to wood, to fuels.
Once news had spread that America had to rely on other countries for support, fears rose over the coming of a Second Great Depression. This led many citizens to withdraw their money from banks all across the U.S., causing bank runs that nearly shut down multiple banks in the spring of 2023.
In the following year the media began to cause a series of tumultuous events. Information war had become a major cause-and-effect system within American media, and this caused greater division between citizens on whether to trust the government or not.
These events led to one of the most major political scandals in U.S. history in 2025. Comparative to the Snowden leaks in 2013, and the security breach of the N.S.A. by Shadow Brokers in 2017, this scandal involved hackers leaking highly confidential government information related to the North Korean War to the public worldwide.
As a result, citizens began to demand radical government transparency. This included government buildings becoming more open to the public (24/7). Overall education evolved to expose greater behind the scenes insights into the processes and practices of the working gears of politics. Thus, more and more citizens began to visit governmental buildings. Henceforth, all forms of media were used from pamphlets to interactive social media websites as a way to increase knowledge of the inner workings of the government.
As of January 1st, 2027 Glass Walls’ goal is to increase political literacy by providing the most up-to-date information within our booklets that are distributed at all government buildings. All booklets are free, however we are accepting donations to help make government buildings more accessible to the public. We do this through adding wider viewing spaces and creating online virtual tours for those who are unable to visit a building that is too far from their homes. Glass Walls is run by the Shadow Brokers United, a group of hackers that evolved from the Shadow Brokers, giving power to the citizens. Our aim is to help all citizens to become better educated about knowing how to handle their personal information and cyber security.
My idea for Glass Walls started in the Fall of 2017 when I received an assignment from my Post-Disciplinary class to look into my commute from my apartment to my school, California College of the Arts. My commute itself was very short as it only took about seven minutes to walk to the school, and the apartment was just a block away from it. The few things that I could observe on this short journey were the small, yet popular restaurants and coffee shops that kept the traffic flowing along my route.
As we moved further along with the project, discussion amongst my peers about their own commutes brought up issues of gentrification, isolation, and housing. Many of these themes seemed to tie in to how the government affected peoples’ commutes through sectioning off neighborhoods and creating POPOS (privately owned public open spaces). Through this, I began to look more into the spectrum of government, private, and public spaces.
I had found many surprising articles in my research of how privately owned public spaces are usually hidden from public view so that most citizens don’t even know about their existence unless they have close ties to that area. One of the most prominent examples of this was when I found out that Trump Tower, owned by the 45th President of the United States himself, was required by the New York City government to create POPOS within his tower in order to be able to create a taller building. He made these spaces into outdoor gardens and patios, however, whenever someone tries to gain access to these gardens, they are either turned away by security or find that it is blocked off.
Part of my idea of turning government buildings into more open spaces stemmed from my anger over these events. I also wished to create a more open view into how the government works, as a lot of citizens have had doubts about this or fears arising over political scandals that could affect everyone.
My final hope for my future is that there is more openness in internal government workings, and for there to be better political education so that we may better understand the importance of being involved in our country.
