Little Brother
I’m basking in the glory of having read the second half of Little Brother last night despite the knowledge that I would be sorry today. I’m in a sleep deprived, coffee driven euphoria and joyfully letting my mind digest the book.
So what is Little Brother all about then? Little Brother is a young adults spy thriller set in the near future and like Macleod’s Execution Channel, it explores ways in which the war on terror could escalate. Set in San Francisco, a group of school kids end up in conflict with the Department of Homeland Security over their increasing surveillance and suppression of liberty. This conflict divides the community down lines of class, age and race. The book takes a libertarian stance and can almost read as an apologetics course as our protagonist is drawn into ideological debates with his teachers, parents, friends, police and the DHS itself.
Some truly shocking passages describe the psychological trauma of abduction, imprisonment, interrogation and torture used by the American Government already in the War on Terror.
The book is also a bit of a howto guide to beating electronic surveillance, how the internet can be used to connect dissidents and the dangers of online surveillance. As the book progresses, we are exposed to various techniques used to hide identity online in a kind of birds eye view of symetric key cryptography, onion routing and trust networks.
Mainstream media plays a big part in the story as we see how the news spins what really happened to suit the mainstream agenda. We also see the importance of alternative media (ie. blogs) for being able to provide eye-witness accounts and a sort of counter-surveillance (hence the title of the book).
Part of the intensity of the book is that it covers some quite dodgy territory: is it really ok to be encouraging teenagers (the audience for this book) to be skilling up in these areas? The book challenged my beliefs about that, I mean I know all the techniques used in the book, they’re not big secrets but I was left questioning how much privacy is healthy and when does it become an effective cover for those wishing to harm others?
However, I can commend how the book leads the reader to understand how non-violent dissidence can work and that sometimes just embarrassing your opponents by peacefully illustrating what you think are flaws in their ideology are better than dissident actions which can be mistaken for terrorism.
Finally, the book is a bit of a tour of some of the history of human rights struggles in America and San Francisco especially, from the writing of the constitution to gay rights to the legalisation of encryption in the nineties.
As I said, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found it very convincing as well as challenging. You can read it online at Cory Doctorow’s Website if you like. Big Brother is watching you, are you watching back? Stay free!
[tags]book, cory doctorow, cryptography, fiction, liberty, little brother, terrorism, war on terror, young adult[/tags]
