Technology Today and Our Writing

We had family in town this weekend, which was absolutely delightful--and very lucky, since we picked up our daughter-in-law at Los Angeles International Airport just in time to miss all the horror of the shooting and the aftermath.  Her plane was 45 minutes early! 

Although I saw our family on Sunday, they had other plans in the afternoon which gave me the ability, at the last minute, to head to the Sisters in Crime Los Angeles meeting.  I attend a lot of meetings of writers' organizations, and always try to get to the SinC LA meetings both to visit with friends and enjoy the program.

This one was particularly interesting.  Christopher Lynch discussed how technology has changed modern crime novels. 

All my current characters carry cell phones, often smart phones, and are comfortable using computers and the Internet and more.  But there's a lot more going on in reality today.  For example, bad guys can see the exact layout, at least the exterior, of joints they want to case these days by using online sites like Google Earth.  People can be tracked by the GPS in their phones.  Cars are harder to steal.   

I've figured for a long time that it's a good thing that I've been published.  If anyone in authority happened to track the Internet sites I view, such as those about how best to murder someone, they might assume I was some kind of killer.  Which I am.  The fictional kind. 

But a lot of what I learned, and realized already, is that privacy is becoming a thing of the past.  If people want to know things about you, they can generally find it, one way or another, by using current resources.  And that's only bound to become worse.

So... what we sometimes write that we put our characters through--stuff we used to imagine could never occur--could actually befall us as well.   

How about you--how do you like to read, or write about, technology in your mysteries?