Cory Doctorow's Little Brother, from Tor
Apr. 21st, 2008 09:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
etumukutenyakI got an ARC of this by getting an email in fast enough, and I'm glad I did. Even though the book will be released Real Soon Now (April 29th), it was worth reading so I could post about it.
Buy this book!
It's a Young Adult book, but don't let that stop you. I'm old enough to be the protagonist's mother, and I stayed up way past my bed time to read this.
It's science fiction that is set in our near future, and chillingly so. Those of you who live outside the US will note two things: (1) it will support what you've been telling everyone inside the US and (2) it will remind you of your own experiences with tyranny (which Americans do not have).
It's the "homeland security" mindset run amok. As the book points out, using technology to spy on people doesn't make everyone safer; on the contrary, it sets up an "us versus them" situation, and the definitions of "us" and "them" will vary depending on who's in charge. That's a prescription for tyranny and for totalitarianism.
The way to make the world safer is not to use every excuse that "the terrorists will win if you don't [x]", where [x] is the latest deprivation or invasion of privacy or other violation of civil rights. The way to make the world safer is to use a version of "web of trust": you start with people that you can trust, and the people they can trust, and you build outwards from there. Anyone who can't be vouched for is now outside the net of trust, and that's who you identify. The friend of my friend is my friend. The internet allows us to spread this network across the world, where in previous incarnations we were stuck trusting those in our families, neighborhoods, churchs/synagogues, etc., and where we'd eventually run out of people to network to -- thus only supporting the "us versus them" (xenophobia, fear of strangers -- because there was no way to verify their trustworthiness).
The way to make the world safer is to make things more transparent, not less. Good security relies on open source code, because the more people you have looking at something, the less likely it is to have a flaw. Bad security relies on segregation, separation, "need-to-know", and fear-mongering. What you don't know you can't respond to appropriately, so you fear all unknowns. People are hard-wired to fear what they can't name; we name everything and control it, and diminish our anxiety. When we can't do that -- either through lack of knowledge or through limited access -- we develop alternative theories and based on fear, we react to protect what we do know.
The more we know, the less we need to fear. The more people we know, the fewer strangers we need to fear.
There's more to this book than the social aspects of "security", but I'll let others address those -- I'll just say I plan to follow up on the listed references for myself.
Buy this book!
It's a Young Adult book, but don't let that stop you. I'm old enough to be the protagonist's mother, and I stayed up way past my bed time to read this.
It's science fiction that is set in our near future, and chillingly so. Those of you who live outside the US will note two things: (1) it will support what you've been telling everyone inside the US and (2) it will remind you of your own experiences with tyranny (which Americans do not have).
It's the "homeland security" mindset run amok. As the book points out, using technology to spy on people doesn't make everyone safer; on the contrary, it sets up an "us versus them" situation, and the definitions of "us" and "them" will vary depending on who's in charge. That's a prescription for tyranny and for totalitarianism.
The way to make the world safer is not to use every excuse that "the terrorists will win if you don't [x]", where [x] is the latest deprivation or invasion of privacy or other violation of civil rights. The way to make the world safer is to use a version of "web of trust": you start with people that you can trust, and the people they can trust, and you build outwards from there. Anyone who can't be vouched for is now outside the net of trust, and that's who you identify. The friend of my friend is my friend. The internet allows us to spread this network across the world, where in previous incarnations we were stuck trusting those in our families, neighborhoods, churchs/synagogues, etc., and where we'd eventually run out of people to network to -- thus only supporting the "us versus them" (xenophobia, fear of strangers -- because there was no way to verify their trustworthiness).
The way to make the world safer is to make things more transparent, not less. Good security relies on open source code, because the more people you have looking at something, the less likely it is to have a flaw. Bad security relies on segregation, separation, "need-to-know", and fear-mongering. What you don't know you can't respond to appropriately, so you fear all unknowns. People are hard-wired to fear what they can't name; we name everything and control it, and diminish our anxiety. When we can't do that -- either through lack of knowledge or through limited access -- we develop alternative theories and based on fear, we react to protect what we do know.
The more we know, the less we need to fear. The more people we know, the fewer strangers we need to fear.
There's more to this book than the social aspects of "security", but I'll let others address those -- I'll just say I plan to follow up on the listed references for myself.
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Date: 2008-04-21 09:55 pm (UTC):)
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Date: 2008-04-22 12:42 pm (UTC);-)
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Date: 2008-04-22 02:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-22 04:14 pm (UTC)(I seriously need to get a proper head start on next year, because it Actually Counts. *wibble*)
:)
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Date: 2008-04-23 01:57 pm (UTC)In a few years, when you get your brain back, it'll still be around. We might even know where the ARC is, and someone can send it to you then!
:-)
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Date: 2008-04-23 06:48 pm (UTC)