Okay I have joked about this enough that I feel the need to actually ask properly: is there ACTUALLY a NWRF agent reading everyone's texts? I keep joking about it but I have no idea if it's actually a thing or if the general population would be aware of it if it is.
Haha excellent question my friend, and thank you for bringing this to the main!
So, I’ve discussed it with Lottie just now to re-confirm, but essentially the answer is both yes, and no. Basically, they could tap into the messages on PDDs since the PDDs are all one system, and use a private vein of Echo to function (kind of like the Infocoms).
So it’s possible to access message histories from the back end (up until a certain point), but the reality is, as Lottie so cleverly put it, it’s a bit like trying to hack into a windows 98 operating system to access old emails. It’s possible, but not necessarily worth the trouble all the time—that is to say, it’s a little sluggish, because the PDDs weren’t really designed with tracking like that in mind, so there is no filter feature, no program that can scan messages on a mass level looking for key words, etc. (However, who knows, maybe the NWRF will get desperate enough to try to build something like that one day…)
So, as it stands, they can look through people’s messages, but it’s also a little like the VIPE tracking devices—they don’t monitor them on a 24/7 basis because they don’t have the time or resources for that. They use it for when there is some kind of problem, or when they want to keep an eye on someone problematic. So if they think someone is plotting against them, yes, they probably have someone keeping an eye on the messages going in and out of their PDD. But otherwise, there may be little more than random searches, a bit like airport security—some unlucky Rep probably gets stuck with the duty of doing random checks of messages every so often.
So, if you’re a busy texter, but otherwise unproblematic citizen, you can probably assume that maybe 10-15% of your messages are getting lazily scanned. If you’re aClass 3, however, or a pain in the NWRF’s ass, it’s safe to assume that someone is probably monitoring it a little move closely.
Hope this helps, and thanks so much for asking!
