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May 11, 2008
Future Compliant, May 11, 2008
Cory Doctorow has a new book out this past week, and normally that would be something for my Media Glutton series, but in this case I think it falls squarely under the heading of future compliance. I was lucky enough to read the book several months ago when Cory sent me an electronic version to look at. By the way, you can download your own electronic version of the book for free right here if you like. Cory's following a trend that I have mixed feelings about, although less so in this case than most of the time - he's written a novel for Young Adults instead of for a more traditional sci-fi audience. When China Mieville did that for his last novel I was disappointed, because while Un-Lun-Dun was full of Mieville's imagination and style, it wasn't the thick literary soup that I love from him. With Little Brother, Cory has made the transition to Young Adult without giving up much of his normal techie style, and while the plot and characterizations might be slightly two-dimensional in some regards (especially compared to the bizarre yet compelling characters of his last novel), it all works and the story's a fast, exciting, fun read. Also, who knew you could say "tranny whore" in a young adult novel?
But that's not what makes the book future compliant. Little Brother is a novel about hacker teens fighting the Department of Homeland Security. That sounds almost outrageous when I put it that way, but this story is much more deft than that and it builds up the protagonist's indignation in a realistic way that'll have you wanting to sign on to fight the man right along with him, even as he and you both are scared for how dangerous it is. Little Brother weaves in a great deal of technical knowledge and explanation along the way. Cory does a solid job of explaining sometimes very complicated security and hacking facts. And while I already knew most of the stuff he's teaching here, I think a newcomer to these topics will learn a lot. I love the idea of teaching through fiction, but it's a tricky business. This novel slips just a little from storytelling to pedagogy in a few places, but not egregiously so and never for very long. I'm not the first reviewer to say this - according to the back of the book it was Neil Gaiman - but I'd definitely love to put this book in the hands of as many precocious young teens as I could and see what kind of hacking adventures it inspires in them.
Plus, and here's the real future compliant part of the post, Cory's teamed up with Instructables.com to do a series of how-to posts covering different hacks, tricks, and techniques described in the book. Originally I thought this material might actually have been included in the physical book, which would have been awesome. But having them online is pretty cool too. So go here to see how to fry RFID tags, start flash mobs, find pinhole cameras, and other important skills for the modern teen. I really like this idea of including how-to and instructional material alongside fiction, and down the line as e-books make more inroads (and I, unlike Cory, think that they eventually will) it'll be great to see how the two are integrated. In the meantime, I'd like to see some more of this kind of thing in today's books. I'm thinking about incorporating some similar how-to hacking sections into my next Geek Mafia novel, either in the text itself or as an online component.
It's the kind of information you might find useful next time you're traveling back into the US from abroad. Customs has apparently decided that they have the right to look at everything on your laptop as you're crossing the border. I think this is beyond insane, but the government doesn't agree with me. The idea that we don't have a right to privacy over our own data when we fly from one country to another is absurd. There are ways around it, including encrypting the data on your drive. But then the chances are that if they really think you're hiding something, they'll just take it from you. Of course there are many, much more effecient ways to move encrypted data across international borders. The internet springs to mind as a useful conduit, although I guess Fed Ex might work too. The idea that border agents will accomplish anything worthwhile snooping around people's private files at the airport boggles my mind. One option is of course to load all your files onto a server somewhere in the internet and then erase them from your machine before you travel and then download them again when you get to the other side. Of course then you have to trust the server you're using, and even then the government might be able to snoop if they want. Did I ever mention that privacy is dying, if not all the way dead in this world of ours?
Posted by rdakan at May 11, 2008 05:07 PM