Little Brother
An intense tale of terrorism, torture and techie rebellion.
17-year-old w1n5t0n (aka Marcus) lives in a post-911 world dominated by high tech security and almost no privacy. His high school runs gait-recognition software, which records students and identifies them based on the way they walk. His school laptop monitors every keystroke. To get around this, w1n5t0n uses TOR, an onion router that makes it impossible to tell what sites he’s visiting, and a disguised copy of Firefox. Even library books are monitored through radio frequency identification tags (RFID tags).
The story starts as w1n5t0n and his friends Vanessa, Darryl and Jolu cut class to play Harajuku Fun Madness, an ARG, i.e. a game that combines real world searching and online puzzles. Using wifinders, they reach their target destination, only to get caught in the middle of a bomb attack on the Bay Bridge. Moments later, caught up in a frenzied crowd fleeing for safety, Darryl gets stabbed. The friends push their way out of the crowd, but are soon attacked and forced into the back of a truck.
Eventually, w1n5t0n finds out they have been taken into questioning by the Department of Homeland Security. The rest of the tale unravels like a super scary, high tech version of George Orwell’s 1984. The same thing that got Marcus into trouble in the first place (i.e. his ability to hack and circumvent the system) gives him a way to fight back against the DHS in the end. He creates a secret network using an Xbox Universal and an operating system called ParanoidXbox. Through this network, called Xnet, he rallies his fellow citizens to fight for their privacy under the banner ‘Trust No One Over 25.”
I read this for book club this month. The bookclubbers gave it mixed reviews. Some people thought all the techie stuff bogged down the story, while others found the characters flat. I agree that the characters all sounded the same in the beginning, but I think Doctorow fleshes them out by the end. As for the techie chatter, I have to admit it made me a little hot and bothered. Can you say “invisible to the network’s snoopware” one more time?
Seriously, I completely loved this book. It’s got suspense, action, big brother and an amazing hero/hacker who uses his skills to fight the Man. What more do you need in a novel?
DweebMeter: 4/5
Links
Sep 14, 2008 at 7:00 am
Excellent work thanks.
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http://hacker-book.blogspot.com/
Sep 21, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Your site looks very professional, and I think you need to be getting PAID!!!. PLease re-consider my offer. (Big Smile) Esther. Bye
Oct 27, 2008 at 8:01 am
[...] Little Brother by Cory Doctorow « Book Dweeb I read this for book club this month. The bookclubbers gave it mixed reviews. Some people thought all the techie stuff bogged down the story, while others found the characters flat. I agree that the characters all sounded the same in the beginning, but I think Doctorow fleshes them out by the end. As for the techie chatter, I have to admit it made me a little hot and bothered. Can you say “invisible to the network’s snoopware” one more time? (tags: blog-reviews cory-doctorow little-brother) [...]
Jul 6, 2009 at 3:09 am
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Oct 19, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Chack out this annotated version of Litte Brother on digress it!! Add your anotations today!