(Kist) Little Brother

 

Little Brother, a work of fiction by Cory Doctorow, can be found for free at Doctorow’s website.

Although this novel is a work of fiction, it represents some hard and fast truths about our society today. I can see this almost as a prediction for what could happen in our future. We are already experiencing smaller acts of terrorism. Schools are enacting more strict security measures such as security officers, metal detectors, ID badges and lockdowns. What is perhaps the most unique aspect of the novel was that is focused on the youth.

Many novels about terrorism and all that it entails focus on the older generations viewpoints, ideas and plans. However, this novel was from a direct student perspective. Keeping that in mind, there were some pretty cheesy moments along with hyper-geek speak. There are a lot of college students today who likely don’t understand what HTML really does or how to use it, let alone “The Onion Router,” which Marcus references to. I like the fact that Doctorow included such detailed information about the hacking techniques, coding sessions and internet lingo.

Perhaps what would surprise people is that someone is working on creating ParanoidLinux. The following is taken directly from Cory Doctorow’s Blog:

“Iain sends word of the ParanoidLinux project, inspired by the Linux distro used by the freedom fighters in my novel, Little Brother:

Paranoid Linux is an operating system that assumes that its operator is under assault from the government (it was intended for use by Chinese and Syrian dissidents), and it does everything it can to keep your communications and documents a secret. It even throws up a bunch of "chaff" communications that are supposed to disguise the fact that you're doing anything covert. So while you're receiving a political message one character at a time, ParanoidLinux is pretending to surf the Web and fill in questionnaires and flirt in chat-rooms. Meanwhile, one in every five hundred characters you receive is your real message, a needle buried in a huge haystack. ~Cory Doctorow (Little Brother, 2008)

When those words were written, ParanoidLinux was just a fiction. It is our goal to make this a reality. The project officially started on May 14th, and has been growing ever since. We welcome your ideas, contributions, designs, or code. You can find us on freenode's irc server in the #paranoidlinux channel. Hope to see you there!”

When it comes right down to it, the plot here is entirely plausible. Think about what we have seen our government hide in the past. Atrocious acts of war? Yes. Mass murders/ disappearances without orders? Yes. Torturing prisoners of war? Yes. All of these things have happened and are likely to do so again.

What does that say about our country? Our government? We have a lot to answer for, that’s for sure. However, what does that particular notion say about we, the people? For after all, as Marcus so proudly quotes:

“Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”

Besides a very annoying run-on sentence, what does that quote mean? We, the people, are allowed—supposed to, really—take back our government and mold it into something we feel would work better, should we take issue with it. How many people protest the government every day and get nowhere? How many individuals has the government bought off from spewing their truths to the media? The sad part is, that we will likely never know.

Revolution can happen with one person. That is definitely something to keep in mind.

 

---

I marked a few passages from the novel that I’d like to discuss in particular.

“I was no better than a terrorist” (141).

Being a revolutionist is nothing to scoff at. While Marcus couldn’t have anticipated the extent to which others would follow his lead, he surely had a movement behind the name M1k3y that is akin to a terrorist cell. They sought to provide confusion, slow things down, inconvenience people and on occasion, prod the country with a healthy dose of fear. In trying to make others see what terrorists were really doing, they did become like terrorists themselves, no matter how drastically different their original purpose was.

“Abuses of Authority—it’s the latest crazy on San Francisco’s notorious Xnet, and its captures the world’s attention. Called A-oh-A, the movement is composed of ‘Little Brothers’ who watch back against the Department of Homeland Security’s antiterrorism measures, documenting the failures and excesses” (228).

Does this remind you of anything? Wikileaks perhaps? Just last week, the New York Times had an article on a Swiss banker releasing mass amounts of information regarding high-up officials and individuals in many countries that have committed tax fraud. We already have these types of organizations in our society. How many of you knew that? How many of you cared?

“We used to have illegal math in this country” (267).

Take a moment to think about all of those crazy laws that our country still has on the books. You know the ones I’m talking about—no walking ducks without pants? You can’t tie your giraffe to a telephone pole? Those laws. Now think about what Marcus is referring to. Cryptology was seen as hazardous to the state of the nation. How true was this? How much did it really affect the government? Who knows. What is shows, is that the government isn’t infallible and they don’t really want that type of knowledge known. Why, you may ask? Because then we, the people, may go back and actually read our constitution and its bill of rights. We may actually learn that the government is supposed to listen to us. Who’da thunk?

“No writer creates from scratch—we all engage in what Isaac Newton called “standing on the shoulders of giants.” We borrow, plunder and remix the art and culture created by those around us and by our literary forebears” (375).

Alright, so that isn’t from Doctorow, but it is still important. Think about it. We write so many research papers, using the words of others, that we just get used to borrowing information. However, what happens when an aspiring author sits down to write something, even a blog? They inevitably say something along the lines of something that someone else once said. No matter how original we try to be, we are always picking and choosing from those who came before us. Our technology is building on its predecessors. There is no shame in that, unless we ignore the reasoning and importance of what came before. If we are still using “it” today, or some form of “it,” then it was obviously important enough for someone else to think about.

Think about it.

 

 

---

Now to the issue of multi-modal literacies from the novel. Doctorow did an astounding job of showing just how many forms of technology that assault students every day. Let’s list some from the book, shall we?

· Cell Phones

· Home Computers

· Schoolbooks

· Arphid readers/cloners

· Gait Recognition Software

· Facial Recognition Software

· Fastrak/ Fastpass

· Xbox

· ParanoidLinux

· Xnet

· Blogs

· Web servers

· Email

· IM/ Chat programs

· Cryptography

· Hacking

· TV

· Radio

· Wiretapping

· Service Providers

· The Onion Router

· Clockwork Plunder

· LARP’ing

· RPG’ing

And those are just the ones that stuck with me. All of these things are distracting students, pulling their attention away from class. How can teachers get around this? Banning these technologies outright has only made students find better ways to hide their activities. Why not incorporate these technologies into the classroom?

I, for one, am a big fan of online forums for literature. Students can openly share opinions without the fear of face-face confrontation that some individuals harbor. We all know that public speaking is nerve-wracking for a lot of people, so why not help the issue and get students talking comfortably in a place that is “safe.” Aside from the obvious partial-anonymity of using forums, students can also take the time for formulate better responses rather than having to give them spur-of-the-moment. I’m not saying that students shouldn’t think on their feet, but giving them the opportunity to think more in-depth about a topic can have a profound impact on discussion.

These types of technologies can be used as projects, assisting classroom discussion or giving students extra points. In the meantime, you are providing an outlet for the need to use technology and be “connected.”

There are many teachers who view things like Facebook as the worst creation of the internet. However, let’s look at some of the things that Facebook can provide for students.

· A way to connect with others outside of their own culture, class, ethnicity, etc.

· Individuals can connect with teachers, other classmates and have a network of individuals who know what the homework is and possibly provide assistance if needed

· There are groups for writing, reading and other shared-passion ventures where students can encourage others to explore their creativity

· Teachers themselves can join groups dedicated to their discipline and share information, vent about stressful days and learn new techniques from veteran teachers.

 

Why should schools force students out of their “network” for the day, if they can find so much benefit in using it?

Granted, there are definitely some situations where technology is not warranted or excessive, but it can provide so many resources for classrooms that teachers should be more technologically savvy and utilize the world at their fingertips.

 

---

On a nearly unrelated note to Little Brother, I must talk about a movie I just discovered. The movie is called “The Wild Hunt.”

This movie was directed by Alexandre Franchi. It was the Best Canadian First Feature Film at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. I just happened across it while browsing for movies.

This movie starts off in a LARP setting, where students are re-enacting medieval times with factions of barbarians, knights, elves, and shamans. Of course, the movie takes a “Shakespearian Twist” and everything falls to pieces.

Taken directly from the Wildhuntfilm.com:

“Capturing the culture of costume play and the potentially dangerous intersection of real and made-up worlds, The Wild Hunt is a timely and potent comment on the consuming nature of adopting another identity, even within a game, and the modern yearning for ritual.”

Now look at this in the context of Little Brother. While they certainly didn’t adopt their characters to the point of slaughtering their opponents, they did create a scene of chaos and panic at the Civic Center. Perhaps their idea of falling to the ground, writhing in fictional pain was just as bad as taking a barbaric role too seriously. Many got trampled and hauled off to jail from their actions. It really isn’t that far of a stretch from one to the other.

Either way, I highly recommend watching The Wild Hunt, although it may get a bit too gruesome for the weak-hearted.

 

---

Would I use this book with my own classroom? Yes and no.

I love the premise of this book and students today would be able to relate to a lot of the story-line. However, there are some situations in the book that some school districts would have a hard time accepting. The sex scene, in particular, comes to mind. While it wasn’t very graphic or overly done, it could be seen as encouraging teen sex. Do other books high school students read offer such scenes? Yes. However, since this book is more modern, it may be a more influential scene than we think.

That aside, I think that there are many concepts and ideas that this book brings to light for students. Marcus, while being a sneaky teen surfing the net during class, still pays attention to his schoolwork. The fact that he is bolstered by the constitution and engages in a heated discussion is a good thing. We want our students to explore their opinions. On the other hand, I can see some teachers thinking that they will only encourage vigilantism in their students. Marcus does so many things outside of the box that are considered illegal or immoral.

This is a novel, much like Huckleberry Finn, where teachers just need to have a good introduction. There are many novels where knowing the background context alleviates a lot of immaturity, misunderstanding and ignorance about the events that are written. If we work hard to provide students with enough information which they can use to understand what is happening, their comprehension or further analysis of the material can be much more purposeful.

Will it be as easy as I’m making it out to be?

No, but it will most certainly be interesting.

 

This book can also be used to address technology in our everyday lives. How does it affect us? How much is too much? It is important for students to think about how much time technology really takes from their lives. It can be eye-opening to realize that you spend at least two hours on the computer every day yet can’t find the time to visit family.

 

---

If anyone has not checked out Cory Doctorow’s Blog, I highly recommend it!

In this blog, author Cory Doctorow seems to post whatever catches his fancy. That in mind, he links to other similar stories and resources that are worth looking into.

I must say, I very much enjoyed browsing through Alex Castro’s “animal portraits.”

Read it! That is my final answer.

(Kist) Articles on the Internet

While reading the article “How the Web Was Won,” I gained new information while reviewing a lot of knowledge that I already had.

I had learned a while ago the the internet came about as a means to alleviate communications issues during the Cold War. While ARPA itself was an unknown quantity to me, I was aware that the organization behind the creation of the internet had a lot of governmental support. The idea of cart blanche without red tape is astonishing to think about. Imagine if an organization today was given that sort of power—it would go to their head and we would have some major issues to contend with.

One concept from the article was very interesting: “The idea of Arpanet was that it was going to basically join up computational resources. It was not set up primarily to do e-mail—but the computational-resource connection turned out to be not so important, and the e-mail turned out to be the killer app.” When individuals today think of the internet, they likely associate it with email, social networking sites and a vast array of knowledge. The evolution of the internet is perhaps more interesting to me than the creation itself. As Paul Baran said, “it’s going to get invented by somebody. ”

“We didn’t even have a camera or a tape recorder or a written record of that event. I mean, who noticed? Nobody did.” The beginning of the internet was witnessed by only a handful of people. Was this because they doubted its forthcoming success? I really don’t think that’s the case here. As mentioned in the article, the year 1969 had so many major events happening that the internet was overlooked. Likely, many people had no idea what it was, how it worked, or why it was special. Thinking back on it now, I’m sure they wished that it had been documented somehow. We only have the accounts of individuals who were there, and until something like this article, not even that.

“In the early days there were these big computers. They cost millions of dollars and they occupied entire rooms. And there was usually one or two per city. Then personal computers came along, Apple in the late 70s. But mostly, the big event was IBM in August of 1981. That was a huge event. Because those P.C.’s became business tools.” Let’s stop to process this for a moment. Computers that took up a whole room were around not that long ago. The whole computer trend started out in universities in order to share information. Then, it leaped to business usage. Why the just straight to businesses? It is very possible that only large businesses could afford the monstrosities that computers used to be. I know someone who has held on to his first portable computer just for posterity’s sake. It is about three two feet wide by a foot tall and that is just the case. It weighs about twenty pounds on a light day and it just a pain to move around. Therefore, businesses who could install and maintain a secure area for a computer were easy targets. Coming up with applications for businesses probably wasn’t a far stretch from what Universities were already using at the time. Therefore, it makes sense that the computer went straight from universities to businesses—after all, Vint Cerf admits that “We had some idea of how powerful this was. What we didn’t know was the economics of it.” That means that businesses purchasing units would provide a more secure foundation from which ARPA could pull funds and expand its current product.

Ahh, the invention of the malicious hack. “Robert Morris finds a couple of security problems in Unix systems and figures he can write a worm.” While I can admit that being the first one to create a worm had to be exciting, look at what it has evolved into. In today’s internet society, one cannot even click on a newspaper article without having ads that likely contain some sort of malicious rider. How many times a week do we scan something for harmful content? I know that I do it daily. Every time I go to open a file on my computer, it’s scanned. Most of the time it is an automatic process initiated by my own security settings, but even then, I still double-scan items. Why? I am constantly worried that my files are going to be wiped or shared. How many of us have had email accounts rendered useless by a spambot? Would it shock you to know that most of those spambots are completely automated and not monitored by humans? There are programs written just to handle spam traffic and bring to life these computers like a horde of evil minions when the time is right. Your computer could be infected and you’d never know.

“One of the things that struck me at that early embryonic state was that the Internet was going to mutate the newspaper industry, was going to change the classified-ad business, and change the music business. And so I went around and met with Rolling Stone magazine. I met with the Times Mirror Company, Time Warner. We demonstrated how you could play music over this thing, how you could shop for records, shop for CDs. We demonstrated a bunch of shopping applications. We wanted to show the newspapers what they were going to undergo.”  This is perhaps the most interesting thing I’ve read in a while. Even from the beginning, ARPA anticipated what changes the internet would make. They didn’t have a clue where their funding and/or economic standpoint was, but they understood that the internet would change everything. The mere fact that they had shopping applications to demonstrate has some sort of deeper-seeded meaning that even I cannot fully grasp. Did they have a plan for the internet to change how we shop and how businesses market products? Was it just an idea that sprang out of nowhere and caught on? I’d really like to know. If this group created this project in order to create a web-based market, then they are more than geniuses.

Competition. It is what brought about the internet in the first place. We wanted better communication systems that theirs couldn’t destroy. “On the one hand, you know, they were the David and we were the Goliath.” Even though it seems strange to think of internet browsers battling it out, it was a major issue. Today we have so many free applications and browsers that it wouldn’t make sense for them to get lawyers involved and have such a large dispute. While there are instances of one browser perhaps coming a little too close to another’s coding, it isn’t like the original war. When there is only one browser available, then the market is cornered and that company can make users pay whatever they ask for the service. However, when another one gets involved, then they have price wars and begin pushing for better resources faster. This can really complicate things if the original company had a long-term plan for upgrades and new services. Now, they have to both drop their price and up their service content. That is a lose-lose deal.

“I think what eBay has shown is that, in fact, you can trust a complete stranger.” This is an interesting idea. Consider that today we have entire units of internet police, browsing for pedophiles and enforcing intellectual property rights laws. All we hear about today is that the internet is an unsafe place and full of bad things/ people. Have you had a bad internet deal? I know that I have, including one particularly sore incident with eBay itself. While there are numerous ways to see if a seller is “good,” things happen and even the good ones have negative feedback. Can I inherently trust someone on eBay just because its founder says so? I’m sorry, but my answer is no.

“People used the Internet heavily on 9/11. You couldn’t call your friends in D.C. or Boston or New York within about an hour or so, because the cellular system was overloaded, so people started reaching out via the network. The Internet became extremely important. It was suddenly the key source of news: What do I do? What do I need to be worrying about?” When you can’t figure something out, search the internet. How many times do we hear that? Google it has become just another action of our everyday lives. While 9/11 completely blocked cellular towers and rendered mobile phone communication useless, the internet was still ablaze with information. People began opening up websites just to find survivors. They started sites with theories and ideas about who was behind the attacks, only encouraging the propaganda and terror flooding the country. I will admit, in a class that I’m taking now I was asked to read a newspaper every day. My first reaction was to log on and read something on the web. I could get the same news from the New York Times that I would get in the actual paper, right? Wrong. While some stories may be the same, a lot of them are written differently—those on the web are shorter and catered to the fast-paced browsing style we engage in today.

“I was introduced to the Net as a community, which it is. Very few politicians have understood that it’s not an A.T.M. machine. It’s a community of people.”  In the beginning, I certainly understand how the internet was seen in only economic terms. It was too new to do otherwise. However, as we look it now, I have to say that there is still a primarily money-driven view of the internet. How many ads do you see on the sites you visit? How many of those ads are revolving, changing every time you refresh or on a timer? The internet is not free, no matter how many free things are available on it. Having a politician admit that he sees the internet as a community of people is like saying that the sky is blue—most of the time. Most of the time, the internet really is a community of people. However, there are times when the internet is just a jumble of dollar bills trying to outrank one another. It’s sort of a toss-up as to what you encounter even day to day.

We get right down to it now. “The fact that a 12-year-old in the Philippines can affect global markets with the release of one virus, all of a sudden it’s kind of a wake-up call.” What does the internet really provide?  It is an arena of change. In all aspects of the word, it enacts change. We gain knowledge that we didn’t have before. We purchase something that we were lacking. I am writing these words that I previously have not said. Every time something happens on the internet, change is being instituted.

Can we stop it? Do we really want to?

---

The article “The Battle For Facebook” provides an interesting, yet obvious look at the creation and insidious background of networking genius Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook.

Fortune wrote, "There may be a new kind of Internet emerging — one more about connecting people to people than people to Websites." Perhaps the most interesting thing behind this sentiment is the idea that the web had been created to link people to people. It was the involvement of businesses that prompted the web’s voracious hunger toward targeting specific audiences for business markets.

"People," he summarized later in a deposition, "are more voyeuristic than what I would have thought." This seems like such a simple concept in retrospect. We watch movies about other people so we can see what their lives are like. We read books to find out about others. We constantly blab useless information about our daily lives to friends and, consequently, anyone within listening distance. This information was not new. What was new was that Zuckerberg pounced on it and used it against us. While it is nice to see what other people are doing, think about how many photos you see of drunk individuals at parties, sporting who knows what clothing and spouting all sorts of inappropriate comments. Now, think about the fact that most businesses Google/ Myspace/ Facebook search potential employees before hiring them. What has our voyeurism done for us? It has really just served to create more complicated issues in our everyday lives. Yes, we all have dirty little secrets about the things we do when no one is looking. However, having a friend snap a photo of said illicit activity and posting it all over Facebook really gives us little chance of preventing social catastrophes. What does this mean for us? Do we need to act like angels all of the time or just be better about who we hang around with? Are we forced to make everything in our online profiles private and carefully screen comments before they’re posted for the world to see? After all, once something is out on the internet, it’s there forever.

“College students, it seemed, were eager to use Zuckerberg's invention obsessively, to share their most personal details online and stalk each other virtually, diving into Facebook with unbridled enthusiasm.” What is amusing about this is that anyone could have done it. College students are eager to latch onto the next big thing and will do so no matter who stands behind it. I’m guessing that the majority of new enrollees onto Facebook had no idea who Zuckerberg was or his history with coding. I hate to say it, but it really is a dog-eat-dog world out there and the first one to reach the food typically eats it.

“College students, it seemed, were eager to use Zuckerberg's invention obsessively, to share their most personal details online and stalk each other virtually, diving into Facebook with unbridled enthusiasm.” This idea is particularly intriguing. The internet is full of false information, be it identity or otherwise. Making students register with a working school email address was smart. It encouraged students to be themselves. However, I’m pretty sure that this is no longer in effect. Even when it was, you could tell the school a student went to, but the rest of the information could be just as false as ever. We constantly hear talk about being ourselves and remaining true who we want to be, but Facebook does not encourage that. If you don’t post scandalous things, people rarely comment. If you over-post, people get annoyed and ignore you. This seems like real life until you realize that the majority of things shared in Facebook status updates are things we otherwise would have kept quiet or hidden. How truthful are we really being, even with ourselves?

Perhaps change is even too mild of a word for what the internet provides. “The student who had once been threatened with expulsion for posting pirated photos of fellow students had succeeded in altering Harvard's entire culture.” While Zuckerberg had change in mind, I’m sure that Harvard hadn’t planned on incorporating his invention into their admissions repertoire. It is sort of amusing that everyone around Zuckerberg has gotten burned by their dealings with him. Considering his first social networking site, Facemash, what can you expect? The whole purpose behind that site was to berate other people and compare them to farm animals. How much maturity and selflessness does that show?

Articles like this always amuse me because of statements like this: “Despite the management shake-ups, users still flocked to the site.” Of course people are going to continue signing up for the site. They’re not there to learn about the management team, but for other people. The majority of people signed up for the site had probably never heard of Zuckerberg or any of his business associated until the movie about Facebook came out, The Social Network. There is a relative “don’t ask” policy when it comes to information on the web. If it’s there and easy to access, why would anyone ask the how or why? There are obvious reasons to do so, but many just don’t care. 


I must admit that Mark Zuckerberg sounds like an idiot for almost everything excepting his coding skill—I won’t argue that. However, this statement has some merit: “"Once every hundred years, media changes," Zuckerberg said. "The last hundred years have been defined by the mass media. In the next hundred years, information won't be just pushed out to people: It will be shared among the millions of connections people have."” The last generation of media was focused more on generalized audiences with the use of television, phones and radio. Now, businesses can target specific age groups with a liking for industrial music. It’s a much more personalized form of marketing that is relatively easy with resources like Facebook. I’m not sure how expensive it is to market using sites like this, but I’m sure it pays off to target the actual audience who is buying your products. Take that and combine it with the friends and family of these individuals who buy from these companies, and you have now created a network of buyers. It really is a coveted tool for marketing.

So what is there to say about Facebook? Do I use it? Yes. Am I addicted to it? Sort of. Will something else come along and replace it?

Most likely.

(Kist) Multigenre Autobiography Status

This assignment has brought back some interesting memories, but it has also stumped me. For the most part, my middle and current life have been easy. My problem is remembering the books and other texts that influenced me when I was younger. I enlisted my mother's help to try and brainstorm some of the books I read, movies I watched and anything else that would be relevant.

At this point, I have a folder right on the desktop which has a running list of ideas, plus images, music, and other miscellaneous items for my presentation. Organizing it will be easy, as chronological order only makes sense. Following that, I will likely stick to a sub-order within each period of my life.

While most items on my list are obvious, I am finding that some things may not be considered "texts" by other people. The main example of this--and perhaps the most influential text in my life to date--is the language of horses. Although it may seem strange, horses have taught me more about life and what it means to interact with others than humans have. I could stand out in the pasture all day and watch the herd interact, knowing that I was witnessing something that many people miss out on.

Take this video for example:

The horse here is young, full of energy, and loose in an arena. I am using my body language to influence her actions. This interplay between us is very similar to interpreting gestures, emotions, and body signals of other people. By knowing more about them, I can have a more meaningful interaction with other individuals.

I would say that the autobiography is coming along very well. I have a ton of work to do, as I plan to make it fun and interesting. Already, I've been browsing my albums and picking music that I would like to showcase.

Well, it is time for me to actually go and work on this project.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!