Wired’s Bruce Schneier has posted what has to be a must-read op-ed piece for anyone who thinks they control their lives or data. The post called “Our Data, Ourselves” deals with something cyberpunks, hackers, net-advert pushers, and the NSA already know about (or should know about), but for the clueless herds of human cattle, it can be a real eye-opener.

No matter where you go, there you are… and so is your data. Before the Internet explosion, your data would have been on systems not linked to each other in any way. This would have made tracking your varied activities difficult. Now, one little piece of personal information can open hundreds or thousands of doors to the wrong people who don’t deserve to have that data. All too often, though, we allow our data to go through the nets without our consent… or knowledge… or so king Duh’bya would like us to believe. Worse yet, many tend to give that data out willingly for the “convenience” of advertisements cluttering their web browsers or choking their mailboxes. Phishing, spyware, malicious sites, warrantless wiretaps, … you know the deal.

But it doesn’t just stop there. That data is often resold to other sub-fecal types who would like nothing better than to further destroy your good name for their profits and “national security.” Identity theft… ’nuff said.

Then you get a whole new can of worms with Big Brother’s shenanigans; Your whole life cataloged in databases that never get erased even if you do. The FBI camped outside your door just because you made one visit to cyberpunkreview.com…

A call for action. Bruce Schneier sums up what people need to do in four words: TAKE BACK OUR DATA. He calls for data privacy laws to do the trick:

We need a comprehensive data privacy law. This law should protect all information about us, and not be limited merely to financial or health information. It should limit others’ ability to buy and sell our information without our knowledge and consent. It should allow us to see information about us held by others, and correct any inaccuracies we find. It should prevent the government from going after our information without judicial oversight. It should enforce data deletion, and limit data collection, where necessary. And we need more than token penalties for deliberate violations.

I would prefer to take my data back with an AK-47 with hollow-point depleted uranium ammo. But whatever way controlling our information is done, it ultimately has to start and end with YOU.

After all, you’re not a number in some megacorp database or a terrorist king Duh’bya should know about. Right?

After being up for over a year, and having collected so many questionable entries, I thought it was time to announce the winner of the “favorite author” poll and start a new one.

Some 3100 votes were cast, and the man behind Neuromancer gathered nearly 1000 votes, more than 30%. At a distant second was Phillip K. Dick (only 400 for him), with Neil Stephenson taking bronze for his 300 votes.

Now, the next poll is ready to be voted upon, and already has some votes. The question: What do you believe is the most significant contribution to cyberpunk? Some candidates for your consideration:

* Bruce Bethke’s short story, where the word is first used.

* The publication of Neuromancer.

* Blade Runner is released in theatres.

You can vote for one of these, or add an entry that you feel is an important contribution. Just make certain to vote/add because I’m not going to leave this poll running for a year.

Last week, cyberpunk legend and current futurist, Bruce Sterling wrote a nice piece in the Washington Post about how the time of the Greens has finally arrived. While this was predicted some years back, it took a while before things kicked in high gear.

In 1998, I had it figured that the dot-com boom would become a dot-green boom. It took a while for others to get it. Some still don’t. They think I’m joking. They are still used to thinking of greenness as being “counter” and “alternative” — they don’t understand that 21st-century green is and must be about everything — the works. Sustainability is comprehensive. That which is not sustainable doesn’t go on. Glamorous green. I preached that stuff for years. I don’t have to preach it anymore, because it couldn’t be any louder. Green will never get any sexier than it is in 2007. Because, after this, brown will start going away.

Sounds like the world is finally starting to take notice. But the message isn’t so positive:

The time for action isn’t now. The time for action was 40 years ago. Today we live in a stricken world that bypassed its time for action. We have wreaked science-fiction levels of havoc on the unresisting carcass of Mother Nature. The real trouble is ahead of us.

Ah yes, yet another indication that our cyberpunked future is quickly merging with our present circumstances. One has to wonder what will happen when the impacts of our excesses start to truly affect the global economy. Sterling seems to view the Balkans as a bellweather for our global future:

Serbia may be the world’s single-greatest locale for a professional futurist. Awful things happen there faster than awful things happen anywhere else. The Balkans is a tragic region that denied stark reality, broke its economy, started multiple unnecessary wars, and basically finger-pointed and squabbled its way into a comprehensive train wreck. It suffered all kinds of pig-headed mayhem, all unnecessary.

But life isn’t all bad. Sterling ends things on a high note, where he gives us a glimpse of his wonderful ability to juxtapose circumstances:

So what’s the good part? They never gave up around here. On the contrary: There’s a certain vivid liveliness in the way they’re scrambling and clawing their way out of yawning abyss. The food is great, the women dress to kill, and sometimes they even laugh and dance.

For some reason, the last line reminds me of Edger Allan Poe’s Masque of the Red Death. We laugh and dance now, but lets just hope Prince Prospero chose his guests more wisely this time…

Movie Review By: Mr. Roboto

Year: 2009

Directed by: Jonathan Mostow

Written by: Michael Ferris & John D. Brancato

IMDB Reference

Degree of Cyberpunk Visuals: Low

Correlation to Cyberpunk Themes: Medium

Key Cast Members:

Overview: After reading the graphic novels, I thought I was ready for the movie. Unfortunately, Hollywood decided to “tweak” certain elements until there’s little left resembling the books. Not that ink-on-single-colors would work for a live-action film, but they could have left the action in Georgia instead of moving it to Boston, and leaving Greer (Harvey, not John) as a city detective as opposed to an FBI agent. While some “tweaking” might not have hurt, totally deviating from the books doesn’t. This could probably be traced to the trio of Mostow, Ferris, and Brancato, who were also behind the train-wreck of Terminator 3.

The good news is the message remained intact.

The Story: In a near future (no exact year given), humans spend all their time at home jacked into stem-chairs while piloting their surrogates, robotic avatars that interact in the real world now abandoned by humanity.

Two surrogates are destroyed by a mag-pulse type weapon. The destruction kills the operators, one of whom is the son of the surrogate’s inventor. FBI agent Greer searches for the weapon and is lead to the walled “Dread Nation” where his surrogate is destroyed by the anti-surrogate group. He continues without it as he probes deeper into a conspiracy that involves the military, Virtual Self Inc., the company behind the surrogate phenomenon, and the surrogate inventor, Dr. Cantor.

What else went wrong? Another problem, other than the deviation from the books, is the look of the movie. Other than scenes showing the stem-chairs and a couple of scenes showing the “central control” of the surrogate grid, it is virtually impossible to tell if it is 2053 or 2009. Having live actors playing the robotic roles only adds to the confusion, though there were times where they not only looked like robots, but acted like robots. That was a surprisingly interesting touch.

… And the message? You can hear just as the movie starts: Does living life through a surrogate mean you’re actually living? Does being a robot make you less of a human? Have you been so plugged into your surrogate that you can’t unplug? And once you are unplugged… then what?

Those kind of questions about humanity being (over)connected to technology are what cyberpunk writers and fans have been asking since William Gibson’s first draft of Neuromancer.

Conclusion: If you’ve already read the books, the movie may only disappoint you with how far off it is. Bruce Willis fans and fans of action films may get a kick out Surrogates. Cyberpunk fans should find the message familiar, though you would be better off with the books.

Source: io9

Sci-Fi site io9 has posted its list of movies for 2009 to watch… or avoid; Some 30 such movies expected over the next twelve months. While some are predictable blockbusters (J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek, a live-action Dragonball, and the Wolverine movie), there’s a few we’ll be keeping an eye-cam out for and possibly reviewing so you can go watch… or avoid… as necessary.

Here’s what’s coming up, chronologically:

Terminator: Salvation (May 22). The latest of the series (this time sans-Schwarzenegger) looks and sounds like a big rebound from the T3 fiasco.

At least the Harvester is impressive.

Game (Sept. 4). Imagine playing your favorite FPS or shoot-em-up using REAL people and REAL weapons. For some convicts with controller chips in their heads, it becomes all-too REAL. Early reviews say it REALLY sucks, but we’ll give you our view of it… for REAL.

9 (Sept. 9). The machines have succeeded in exterminating humanity. Now, only one stands in the way of total mechanized domination… a RAG DOLL???!!!???

Believe it or don’t, this Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov production may have something to show John Conner in terms of fighting against killer robots.

The Surrogates (Sept. 25). In a world where “going out” means firing up your robot (a “surrogate”) and maneuvering it through reality like playing an FPS, Bruce Willis finally snaps from cabin fever and exclaims:

And he does just that… he goes outside… physically outside! It is based on a little-known graphic novel (I’ve got to look for it!), and has some real potential for reviews here.

Astro Boy (Oct. 23). Another classic anime get the Hollywood makeover, and a Pinocchio-esque storyline to boot. Might be worth a laugh… and a brief review… maybe.

But wait… There’s more! Not only will these movies be reviewed… maybe… but there are some from the past year, and earlier years, I and my fellow reviewers will try to review for you. I have 6 DVDs planned for viewing and reviewing, so we’ll be busy getting the best of cyberpunk cinema to you this year.

If you like a little FUD with your kool-aid, the CIA’s latest claim of hacker acitivity will have you salivating:

Associated Press:

Hackers literally turned out the lights in multiple cities after breaking into electrical utilities and demanding extortion payments before disrupting the power, a senior CIA analyst told utility engineers at a trade conference.

All the break-ins occurred outside the United States, said senior CIA analyst Tom Donahue. The U.S. government believes some of the hackers had inside knowledge to cause the outages. Donahue did not specify what countries were affected, when the outages occurred or how long the outages lasted. He said they happened in “several regions outside the United States.”

“In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities,” Donahue said in a statement. “We do not know who executed these attacks or why, but all involved intrusions through the Internet.”

A CIA spokesman Friday declined to provide additional details

Washington Post:

In a rare public warning to the power and utility industry, a CIA analyst this week said cyber attackers have hacked into the computer systems of utility companies outside the United States and made demands, in at least one case causing a power outage that affected multiple cities.

“We do not know who executed these attacks or why, but all involved intrusions through the Internet,” Tom Donahue, the CIA’s top cybersecurity analyst, said Wednesday at a trade conference in New Orleans.

Donahue’s comments were “designed to highlight to the audience the challenges posed by potential cyber intrusions,” CIA spokesman George Little said. The audience was made up of 300 U.S. and international security officials from the government and from electric, water, oil and gas companies, including BP, Chevron and the Southern Co.

“We suspect, but cannot confirm, that some of the attackers had the benefit of inside knowledge,” Donahue said. He did not specify where or when the attacks took place, their duration or the amount of money demanded. Little said the agency would not comment further.

Hacker History 101. If you’ve never read Bruce Sterling’s The Hacker Crackdown, YOU NEED TO READ IT! Here’s a link to The Cyberpunk Project’s online version. You can also search for an e-text for offline reading. At least, listen to Cory Doctorow’s podcasts of him reading the book (linkage). The Hacker Crackdown shows how the timing of the “Operation Sundevil” raids, several AT&T system crashes, and the growing hysteria of “the hacker underground” in the popular media came together.

Now, timing seems to be working in favor of the US spy community as the CIA’s claim of hacker activity against utlities comes, suspiciously, only two days after the top US spy Mike McConnell claims that “the government must have the ability to read all the information crossing the Internet in the United States in order to protect it from abuse,” even though former spy Michael Tanji says “this is no way to win an intelligence war.”

Calling all conspiracy theorists… The timing of McConnell’s want of total information awareness and the CIA’s claim of hackers causing blackouts seems to be more than a coincidence. If the claim is true, it gives McConnell the credibility he needs for such absolute net traffic policing.

But if these outages did occur, how come no other media outlet has reported them?

Year: 1997

Directed by: Albert Pyun

Written by: Albert Pyun, Ed Naha

IMDB Reference

Degree of Cyberpunk Visuals: Low

Correlation to Cyberpunk Themes: Medium

Key Cast Members:

• Omega Doom: Rutger Hauer

Rating: 5 out of 10

Overview: In this strange apocalyptic tale, most all the humans have died out and now two different groups of androids spend their time killing one another. Unfortunately it appears as if the humans are returning, so they need to find weapons to protect themselves. In one western town, these two groups have reached a stalemate while looking for a hidden “treasure” stash of guns and ammo. Along comes the lone warrior, Bruce Willis (Last Man Standing), er, I mean Clint Eastwood (Fistfull of Dollars), er, I mean Toshirô Mifune (Yojimbo), er, I mean Rutger Hauer - only this time he’s a cross-over android with parts from both rival robot types. Did I mention that he’s fast with his whatever the fuck that gun-looking thing is at his side?

If you know any of these movies, you know the plot here. Some parts are done decently, but others could really be improved. In any event, Omega Doom wins on low-budget style points while it loses out on about 10 minutes of missing explanations. Why do the androids need water? Why do they breath air? Why do they both fear death but seem to be forced to follow their programming? More importantly, why can androids ignore their programming when their emotions are heightened in key scenes? Is this the same reason that my computer uses to crap out when I’m under an intense deadline?

The Bottom Line: Not a high quality picture, but maybe not quite as bad as others are saying. There are some interesting fighting scenes, and I find western cyborg films appealing. And truly, for as low budget as this movie was, Pyun produced at least a semi-watchable product.