Cory Doctorow

Returning to the world of Little Brother and Homeland, Attack Surface takes us five minutes into the future, to a world where everything is connected and everyone is vulnerable. Masha Maximow has made some bad choices in life – choices that hurt people. But she's also made some pretty decent ones. In the log file of life, however, she can't quite work out which side of the ledger she currently stands. Masha works for Xoth Intelligence, an InfoSec company upgrading the Slovstakian Interior Ministry's ability to spy on its citizens' telecommunications with state-of-the-art software (at least, as state-of-the-art as Xoth is prepared to offer in its middle-upper pricing tier). Can you offset a day-job helping repressive regimes spy on their citizens with a nighttime hobby where you help those same citizens evade detection? Masha is about to find out. Pacy, passionate, and as current as next week, Attack Surface is a paean to activism, to courage, to the drive to make the world a better place.

Attack Surface

Katheryn

"Depression is a fucking liar, but it's a convincing one and I could hear it whispering to me already telling me that I'd ruined everything that I would never work again that I'd never be loved by anyone."

Industry was pumping private data into its clouds like the hydrocarbon barons had pumped CO2 into the atmosphere like those fossil fuel billionaires. The barons of the surveillance company had a vested interest in sowing confusion about whether or how all this was going to bite us in the ass. By the time climate change could no longer be denied, it'll be too late. We'll have pumped too much CO2 into the skies to stop the seas from swallowing the world. By the time the data apocalypse is obvious, even to people whose paychecks depended on denying it, it would be too late. Any data you collect will probably leak. Any data you retained will definitely leak and we're putting data collection capability and fucking light bulbs now. It's way too late to decarbonize the surveillance economy.

Economist call this a "Ulysses pact." The bargain your strong present day self makes with your weak future self. You can make a Ulysses pact by throwing away all your Oreos the night before you go on a diet or only taking enough cash to buy three beers when you go to the bar... Ulysses pacts aren't an admission of weakness, they're a show of strength, a way to use your strong self against your weak self.

Turns out progress bars are a lot more watchable with the right opioids.

Now, fuck off. Then keep fucking off. Fuck off until you come up to a gate with a sign saying "you can't fuck off past here." Climb over the gate, dream the impossible dream, and keep fucking off forever.

Attack Surface quotes

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