Go see Cory Doctorow if he's coming anywhere near you on his February 2013 tour for the sequel to Little Brother, Homeland, which was released last week. I've only read two of his novels, the aforementioned Little Brother and Pirate Cinema, which was released in 2012 but I have so much respect for his online presence and activism that I knew I wanted to see what his book tour would be like and it exceeded all of my expectations. It was also my first time inside the main Seattle Public Library, which is a crazy-looking modern architectural building downtown. With the topics of discussion and the number of intelligent people around, the fact that the auditorium we were in is encased in concrete with gigantic black metal sliding barn doors and curtains closing it in definitely made me feel like I was part of some super-secret "question the system" club. The library representative began by introducing Doctorow and mentioning the blog post he did for the library blog. In case any of you aren't familiar with Doctorow, yes, he is a novelist, but he is also co-editor of Boing Boing and very active proponent of liberalizing copyright laws. (most if not all of his books are available for free online as well as through traditional outlets) Doctorow won my heart when he made a joke about one of my recent favorite reads, Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose. He read about twenty pages from his new novel and said beforehand that there would be some spoilers but they wouldn't really come as a surprise, just obvious ones, like if someone got angry that Twelve Angry Men had twelve angry men in it.
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After reading from the book, Doctorow talked quite a bit about several legal cases and current legislation battles he finds interesting. I had no idea a lot of it had gone on (and I'm guessing many of you are in the dark as well). In Robbins v. Lower Merion School District (2010), it was found that a school in Pennsylvania issued laptops to its students and was remotely monitoring their behavior AT HOME. (taking pictures of them in their bedrooms, etc.) Though that case was settled, providing students with school-issued laptops is extremely common and there are all sorts of suspect third-party programs on many of them. After talking a lot more about the creepiness of many anti-theft software companies and how far-reaching the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1984 (CFAA) goes, he segued into the most emotional discussion of the night.
Cory Doctorow at the Seattle Public Library
Doctorow was good friends with Aaron Swartz, an extremely intelligent programmer and activist who, sadly, committed suicide last month at 26. Swartz wrote a section of Homeland and also the afterword. Doctorow spoke about what an amazing person Swartz was and how extreme the charges brought against him were (if convicted, he could've faced 35-50 years in prison and over a million dollars in fines), essentially because he believed that people should have access to information. I do find it rather appalling that many Wall Street criminals get away with stealing money and people who commit horrific crimes often have significantly lighter sentences, but a programmer who makes publicly-funded research available to people faced such an enormous legal battle. (Yes, I do know that I am oversimplifying the situation but I can easily think of hundreds of things that the government could and should be spending its money on instead of prosecuting people like Aaron Swartz.) Doctorow said that if you'd like to be involved in keeping information more open-access, you should get involved with groups like DemandProgress or the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Because it was the first stop on Doctorow's tour, he got choked up speaking about Swartz's suicide. He said that he promised Aaron's family that he would discuss suicide at all of his stops to honor Aaron and I know I wasn't the only one whose eyes were watering up as Cory talked about what he wished he could've told Aaron. He said that in this age of technology, it is easier than it has ever been to know more about people than we ever have before, but we can't know how someone is feeling unless they tell us, and unless we ask. Later, in the question and answer section, an audience member thanked him for all of his words about depression and suicide and told the audience that we should keep in mind that for every murder in the US, there are two suicides, and we never hear much about them. (1) I've been thinking about this a lot recently, especially after reading my local suburb's weekly newspaper which informed me that two weeks ago we had four suicides. Four, in one suburb, in one week.
Because it was the first stop on Doctorow's tour, he got choked up speaking about Swartz's suicide. He said that he promised Aaron's family that he would discuss suicide at all of his stops to honor Aaron and I know I wasn't the only one whose eyes were watering up as Cory talked about what he wished he could've told Aaron. He said that in this age of technology, it is easier than it has ever been to know more about people than we ever have before, but we can't know how someone is feeling unless they tell us, and unless we ask. Later, in the question and answer section, an audience member thanked him for all of his words about depression and suicide and told the audience that we should keep in mind that for every murder in the US, there are two suicides, and we never hear much about them. (1) I've been thinking about this a lot recently, especially after reading my local suburb's weekly newspaper which informed me that two weeks ago we had four suicides. Four, in one suburb, in one week.
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The question and answer session followed and it was unlike any other at a book event I've been to, and most of you know I try to go to as many as I can. Doctorow's fans are intelligent. The first person just asked him how he felt being immortalized in the popular webcomic xkcd, to which Doctorow jokingly replied that he'd actually been in several, thank you very much. He is usually portrayed in a hot air balloon "up in the blogosphere" with goggles on, but he said he's actually afraid of heights so the only thing he'd actually ever be doing in a hot air balloon is cowering.
The next few questions were of interest to me but I was concentrating so hard on what Doctorow was saying that I probably messed up transcribing. An audience member asked what he thought of country to country cyber warfare, which Doctorow answered by saying that he finds it immensely irresponsible because the potential for blowback is so high. Malware can easily (and inadvertently) affect systems that were never intended to be involved, though he's not sure what we can do to support nonproliferation at this point. I'm not sure if it was at this point but sometime during the event he told a story about a programmer who showed that he could take control of pacemaker software and essentially insert a bug into it that could end up killing the users. Such dangerous potential. Along similar lines, another question was about why lawmakers would spend their time passing laws like the one from recent weeks which made it a felony to unlock your phone. (I wish I was kidding) Everything is dependent on computers these days and we all have an obsession with trying to lock them up and keeping people safe, but the answer is probably not keeping ourselves safe individually but by making the system safer--but not through censorware. (content filtering) Every word out of everyone's mouth at this event made me want to know more about computers and the internet. One audience member even said, "The more you talk, the more I feel like I am totally f*cked." To that, he said get involved. SOPA failed because so many people wrote to their lawmakers and spoke out against the proposed legislation.
I had no idea until the next question came up that the Seattle Police were experimenting with a drone program, which basically included using unmanned small aircraft for monitoring. The questioner asked what Doctorow thought of the city using CCTV to monitor Seattle's harbors for Homeland Security and using drones. (incidentally, Mayor McGinn grounded the drones just a day or two after this event because there were so many privacy concerns) Doctorow talked about how prevalent CCTV is in London, where he resides. He said it hasn't really had much effect on how much crime is committed, though it has had some effect on how many people are convicted of crimes. To this, he said that prevention should be the actual goal. He told an anecdotal story about a friend of his, a lawyer, who was stabbed and killed outside a tube station. Did the recently installed CCTV prevent his murder? No. Even if it did eventually provide evidence against his assailants, what good is it if it doesn't prevent the actual crime? He said that use of surveillance also lessens the feeling of community we have with our neighbors. No one likes being watched.
To a question about why he decided to write a sequel to Little Brother, Doctorow said he never intended to do so but that he had an idea for a scene and he went with it. He said it was immensely satisfying to revisit all of his old characters. He also said that he'd recently written a short story for the White House about emerging technology. His task was to write short fiction on how some sort of technology could be applied in the field. Imagine their surprise when he turned in a story about how activists and protesters could manipulate a police drone program by tapping into it and then maneuvering entire crowds of people around to evade police. Everyone had a laugh about that one.
I had my copy of Pirate Cinema signed after the event and Doctorow was pleasant and approachable to everyone despite having been up since 2am that day. He even drew a skull and crossbones on my title page. The only (and I mean ONLY) downside to this event was the fact that I had to listen to some douchebag coder from Google treat an out-of-town intern at Amazon like an infant while I was waiting in line. I was this close to calling him out on his nonsense. Learn some social skills, dude.
Seriously, go see him on tour if he's coming anywhere near you. Your brain will thank you.
The next few questions were of interest to me but I was concentrating so hard on what Doctorow was saying that I probably messed up transcribing. An audience member asked what he thought of country to country cyber warfare, which Doctorow answered by saying that he finds it immensely irresponsible because the potential for blowback is so high. Malware can easily (and inadvertently) affect systems that were never intended to be involved, though he's not sure what we can do to support nonproliferation at this point. I'm not sure if it was at this point but sometime during the event he told a story about a programmer who showed that he could take control of pacemaker software and essentially insert a bug into it that could end up killing the users. Such dangerous potential. Along similar lines, another question was about why lawmakers would spend their time passing laws like the one from recent weeks which made it a felony to unlock your phone. (I wish I was kidding) Everything is dependent on computers these days and we all have an obsession with trying to lock them up and keeping people safe, but the answer is probably not keeping ourselves safe individually but by making the system safer--but not through censorware. (content filtering) Every word out of everyone's mouth at this event made me want to know more about computers and the internet. One audience member even said, "The more you talk, the more I feel like I am totally f*cked." To that, he said get involved. SOPA failed because so many people wrote to their lawmakers and spoke out against the proposed legislation.
I had no idea until the next question came up that the Seattle Police were experimenting with a drone program, which basically included using unmanned small aircraft for monitoring. The questioner asked what Doctorow thought of the city using CCTV to monitor Seattle's harbors for Homeland Security and using drones. (incidentally, Mayor McGinn grounded the drones just a day or two after this event because there were so many privacy concerns) Doctorow talked about how prevalent CCTV is in London, where he resides. He said it hasn't really had much effect on how much crime is committed, though it has had some effect on how many people are convicted of crimes. To this, he said that prevention should be the actual goal. He told an anecdotal story about a friend of his, a lawyer, who was stabbed and killed outside a tube station. Did the recently installed CCTV prevent his murder? No. Even if it did eventually provide evidence against his assailants, what good is it if it doesn't prevent the actual crime? He said that use of surveillance also lessens the feeling of community we have with our neighbors. No one likes being watched.
To a question about why he decided to write a sequel to Little Brother, Doctorow said he never intended to do so but that he had an idea for a scene and he went with it. He said it was immensely satisfying to revisit all of his old characters. He also said that he'd recently written a short story for the White House about emerging technology. His task was to write short fiction on how some sort of technology could be applied in the field. Imagine their surprise when he turned in a story about how activists and protesters could manipulate a police drone program by tapping into it and then maneuvering entire crowds of people around to evade police. Everyone had a laugh about that one.
I had my copy of Pirate Cinema signed after the event and Doctorow was pleasant and approachable to everyone despite having been up since 2am that day. He even drew a skull and crossbones on my title page. The only (and I mean ONLY) downside to this event was the fact that I had to listen to some douchebag coder from Google treat an out-of-town intern at Amazon like an infant while I was waiting in line. I was this close to calling him out on his nonsense. Learn some social skills, dude.
Seriously, go see him on tour if he's coming anywhere near you. Your brain will thank you.
