‘How Stuff Works,’ Cyberpunk edition. Perhaps better known for his “How Stuff Works” website,Mr. Marshall Brain has since started his own site with some essays and stories. Out of curiosity, I did a search for “cyberpunk” on HowStuffWorks.com and they returned an article on “How Hackers Work,” so he/they seem to have an idea about cyberpunk. Manna also reflects this.
Synopsis. The story is told first-person by Jacob Lewis105, a burger-flipper at Burger-G when, on May 17, 2010, the end began. A simple PC in a back corner of the Burger-G had software installed on it called “Manna” (as in manage) that could micro-manage the workers via voice synthesis through headsets. Before long, other businesses replaced managers with Manna and clones. Eventually, this lead to a two-tiered society of the uber-rich execs and the minimum-wage slaves… until robotic technology advanced to the point where the slavers are no longer required, and a good portion of the human population ended up in unemployment tenement “projects.”
Short, but sweet. Brain’s story is surprisingly good, but the ending did leave me wanting more. I wanted to see if the Manna-net would try to take over the paradise Jacob finds. But for eight “chapters” of 2-3 pages each, it is a good, easy read. If only it was in PDF or some e-text form…
This article builds upon my previous work (Wall, 2007 & 2008) to map out the conceptual origins of cybercrime in social science fiction and other faction genres to explore the relationship between rhetoric and reality in the production of knowledge about it. The article goes on to illustrate how the reporting of dystopic narratives about life in networked worlds shapes public reactions to technological change. Reactions which heighten the culture of fear about cybercrime, which in turn, shapes public expectations of online risk, the formation of law and the subsequent interpretation of justice. Finally, the article identifies and responds to the various mythologies that are currently circulating about cybercrime, before identifying the various tensions in the production of criminological knowledge about it that contribute to sustaining those mythologies.
Academia strikes again. Professor Wall… maybe it’s Doctor Wall?…. David Wall from Leeds University has published a paper on how the media echo-chamber has turned harmless cyberpunk sci-fi into realtime panic of cybercrimes. It’s not exactly an easy read, unless you’re used to reading and/or writing them. Wall’s conclusion, as io9 puts it, not only is the threat of cybercrime is grossly exaggerated, it’s “social” science fiction, especially cyberpunk, that planted the seeds of this misplaced dread.
There’s probably some elite hackers out there who would disagree with that conclusion. Not only them, but CP legend Bruce Sterling as well:
(((I have to wonder if this British criminal justice professor has ever studied cybercriminals who don’t read scifi novels in English. I mean, we cyberpunks did our best — some of our best sources in the 80s were criminal justice professors — but you could pore through the cyberpunk canon and you’d never find much about today’s giant botnet spam engines.)))
(((I also note the conspicuous absence of HACKER CRACKDOWN from his bibliography. Kinda odd that he would overlook the only nonfiction book about computer crime written by a cyberpunk novelist.)))
(((I guess I can forgive him because he’s quoting Baudrillard. A sure sign that he’s more into semiotics and cultural transgression than he is in the merely factual existence of cybercriminals who are stealing a living from the rest of us every day.)))
Haxploitation, he wrote. Wall uses the term for movies like Sneakers and Hackers; Hollywood’s incestuous amplification of hacker lore to near-biblical mythology, and the sheeple believe the myths to be real.
Perhaps the sheeple needs to read this article. I’d like to find Wall’s other papers on this subject; They may provide some more insight.
This post has been filed under Internet Find by Mr. Roboto.
When Zed Shaw lost his V.P. job because Bear Stearns went FUBAR, he found himself with more free time (and severance $$$$$) than he can handle. So now he wants to start a special group for hackers:
This rant is about an idea I have for a group of geeks who fight to keep the art of hacking and invention alive. I want to call it The Freehacker’s Union. I want it to be against business, against the coopting and destruction of geek culture, and for preserving hacking and invention as methods of personal artistic expression.
His profile does make him sound like a dick, but he seems to have the tech ability to back it up. Plus his idea of a hacking group devoid of the co-opting that businesses and crime groups are now doing has to be good news for old-school hacker purists.
Really, what’s his motivation? “This town needs an enema,” proclaims Zed as he describes the New York City hacking scene being co-opted and corrupted. He remembers when hacking was for the adventurous, not venture capitalists:
Then it hit me, it’s the business that’s killing tech in this city. The business of technology in New York values douchebag asswipes and “idea guys” over the real people who built this world. Their ideas are shit, but because they have an MBA from Columbia (they didn’t do much to earn) they are listened to and valuable. Me and the other hackers are just tools, cogs, and slave labor designed to be subservient to a real man’s passions.
The problem is, because none of these dicks do anything they don’t know what’s a real technically challenging innovation. They would rather try to make a little bit of money making a slightly better version of whatever everyone else is making. They want the lottery tickets and the fast payout where they take all the fucking money and trade the geeks over to Google or Microsoft like some fucking slave exchange.
Zed’s rules of The Freehacker’s Union:
I want the rules of The Freehacker’s Union to be:
1. If it’s art, wires, or code you can bring it. This will be our triad: art/wires/code. Remember it.
2. NO FUCKING BUSINESS ASSHOLES This isn’t your personal fucking recruiting station. Take your “game changing” ideas and fuck the hell off.
3. If you can’t sling at least one of the three in the A/W/C triad then you can’t come. No exceptions.
4. Everyone who attends has to eventually show something. If it’s your first night, you have to present something. It can be anything, but you gotta show that you belong. If you can’t then you can’t come back until you can. For those who absolutely can’t talk in front of people, you can get someone to show your stuff on your behalf.
5. No girlfriends or boyfriends unless they’re hardcore too. Keep your fucking groupies at home.
6. Organized using simple software that’s open. No special hidden jabber servers, no yahoo groups, no fucking evite or someone’s favorite latest startup website. Just a simple mailing list, a website anyone can manage, and maybe a channel on IRC.
7. Frequent meetings at a regular time and spot. I like twice a month, but hell if people can handle more then I want to do it.
8. Clear guidelines on how to become a member, including the benefits and responsibilities.
Other than that, I’m open to suggestions. I’m going to be doing more writing on this subject, and coming up with ideas with friends, and then I’ll announce our first meeting. If you have thoughts, or you want to attend, then let me know.
If you’re an Alpha Biz Guy then fuck off. I don’t want to hear about how you can kick my ass and how I’m never going to get hired again.
I don’t give a fuck about you, I just want to hack and you’re fucking that up for me.
6 kindofbrandnew cyberpunk-twisted tracks. At first I tried to make the music sound like Blade Runner or Deus Ex but I failed hard at that, so I made my own musical take on the cyberpunk style. There’s a little bit of industrial, a little bit of breaks, doused in ambient and then downsampled to hell, as usual.
Ambient - No lyrics on how to hijack NSAT&T with a buffer overflow worm or what it feels like to surrender flesh to silicon and steel. Just some background music for reading Neuromancer or Altered Carbon, or for playing your favorite cyberpunk mod for whatever game you’re playing right now.
As you can see in this YouTube video of “Evaporative Air Coolers,” OverCoat used a music tracker program to create his works.
SPOON???!!!???
Being an EP, it’s a short but sweet bit of work, and it does sound like OverCoat has the general idea of cyberpunk. At least, the price is good. Maybe if he spent some time here to learn more about cyberpunk…
Best advice: Download it and see if it’s ambient enough for your favorite books and games. I’m going to try it by burning a CD.
I actually found this article on Friday, but forgot to bookmark it. Fortunately, I re-found it via Reddit’s search.
Bill Frezza was a weekly columnist for InternetWeek (now known as InformationWeek). This short piece does not have a date to it, but from what little I was able to find on the net it may be from 1997.
Our civic fabric is unraveling. And as it does, uncontrolled, undigested and unmanaged information is spewing out. Free reign is being given to a wild cornucopia of ideas and opinions that would never have passed into broad circulation filtered through the conformity of the old media.
Watch carefully as the various organs of state waken to the threat and fire up their immune systems.
We’re already seeing what those “immune systems” are doing, or attempting; Lawsuits for “piracy,” corporate controlled newsrooms, telco immunity for conspiring to create a security-surveillance grid. But as Bill wrote, “each assault on freedom-of-the-Net will breed 10 technical work-arounds. Cybercrats can’t outfox cypherpunks.” Wishful thinking these days? Maybe, but it can inspire people to rally to take the Internet back and make it the Great Equalizer to corporate-government tyranny it once was… and can still be.
The Net will subvert the centralized economic and social control mechanisms that allowed the great welfare-warfare states of the 20th century to dominate our commerce, our psychic landscape and even our definition of who we are.
Just something to wrap your carbon/silicon - based brains around.
When you have two respected veterans in network news saying something’s fubar in the newsroom, there’s something REALLY fubar in the newsroom.
Case in point: While trying to get information about HR6304 (aka the “telecom immunity bill”) being passed and made into “law,” I don’t remember any of the major news outlets reporting anything of the bill’s progress. That might be my bad; I don’t bother to watch the news anymore, except for the weather. But unless one had access to an insider’s blog or a government site that tracks bills in Congress, one would not know of the HR6304’s progress or passage. Without coverage from the mainstream news outlets, virtually nobody knew of the bill’s passage. It was like the corporate newsrooms didn’t want the public to know that the fourth amendment was being revoked. (You can LART me on the lack of mainstream news coverage if I’m wrong. I was expecting something more than just a quick on-screen scroll.)
What could be worse than getting no information? Maybe getting the wrong information:
Democracy without honest information creates the illusion of popular consent at the same time that it enhances the power of the state and the privileged interests that the state protects. And nothing characterizes corporate media today more than its disdain toward the fragile nature of modern life and its indifference toward the complex social debate required of a free and self-governing people.
Need more proof that corporate control of information is dangerous? Moyers references incidents with Comcast’s shills at a net-neutrality meeting being exposed by SaveTheInternet.com and Verizon trying to censor NARAL text-messages. Information control = mind control.
How to reclaim democracy. Moyer’s solution to the lies dispensed by the corporate board-newsroom is quite simple… and dare I say… a bit of punkish DIY (!):
But we’re not alone and we know what we need to say. So let us all go tell it on the mountains and in the cities. From our websites and laptops, the street corners and coffeehouses, the delis and diners, the factory floors and the bookstores. On campus, at the mall, the synagogue, sanctuary and mosque, let’s tell it where we can, when we can and while we still can.
Like starting your own newspaper… or maybe a blog…
This post has been filed under Internet Find by Mr. Roboto.
With the vast expanse of the Internet, you can come across some pretty amazing… and unbelievable… finds. Such as this description for a “Radio Police Automaton,” aka Robocop done steampunk.
Originally, I found it via a Reddit link from Wired. But had to do a web search due to some technical problems at Reddit. The search lead me to the website of one David S. Zondy who had the images of the Gernsback-bot (a “Gernsbot”?) on his site.
Hugo Gernsback’s take on Alex Murphy. Only three years after Karel Čapek introduces the world to the word “robot” with his play “Rossum’s Universal Robots” (which came only one year after his brother, Josef, coined the word), Hugo puts his idea of a radio-controlled mechanical cop down on paper, complete with illustrations:
Click on the image to see it full size (1161 x 1645)
As if the bot wasn’t intimidating enough, looking like it might be a good twelve feet high at least, Hugo added some non-lethal armaments:
For fighting mobs use is made of tear gas which is stored in a tank under pressure and which alone will quickly disperse a mob if neccssary. The arms are provided with rotating discs which carry lead balls on flexible leads. These act as police clubs in action.
Ouch.
In addition, they would also have headlight “eyes” and a loudspeaker “mouth,” and caterpillar-tread “feet” to advance on a mob while the police controllers operating the bots are safe “behind the lines” in their radio cars observing the action.
Wonder where the US military got the idea for a robot army from? Gernsback’s bot looks like a killer weekend project, just not many applications for such an army. Fortunately, we’re a long ways away from seeing police or soldier robots…
This post has been filed under Internet Find by Mr. Roboto.
Every so-often, someone declares cyberpunk is dead… mostly out of wishful thinking. When that happens, there are others who declare cyberpunk is still alive and kicking (ass). Wired’s Bruce Sterling discovered a blog by chirsminotaur that starts off with a question: “Is Cyberpunk Over?” Unfortunately, he doesn’t tell us where the question, or the discussion it triggered, was located. Instead, his reflection of the question becomes a rather interesting read as he gives his own answer:
Cyberpunk isn’t over- in more than one sense, cyberpunk is (becoming) everything.
Let’s put the future behind us. Among chisminotaur’s inspirations include a blog by Charlie Stross, who rips into sci-fi and explains his own attraction to cyberpunk. Stross sees SF being threatened by several factors:
1) Star Wars and how every SF novel wants to be like it.
2) Today’s technology has made sci-fi less necessary to prepare for the future:
We don’t need SF for pre-adaptation to the future: the future is now.
3) Sci-fi for baby-boomers won’t work for the millennium generation.
4) Advances in computer technology itself has made highly realistic special effects for movies and TV:
Meanwhile, we’re competing in the special effects stakes with TV, film, and increasingly, computer games. Back in the 1950s or even 1960s, special effects were so poor that, for real sense of wonder, no visual medium could compete with written literature. But today, if you’re a writer who strives for versimilitude or believability, you can’t compete with film! (After all, you know damn well you can’t hear explosions in space, even if those bloody franchise productions insist on putting them in …)
The gap between the visual imagination of things, and the literary imagination of the universe, has narrowed.
While there seems to be nothing to cure #2 and #4, Stross sees cyberpunk as a relief from #1 and #3.
One more thing… A link from WordPress’ blogroll gives this blog from David Mendoza, who proudly proclaims that CP is NOW.
Enjoy!
UPDATE: Ryan “Winter” Span gives his two bytes. Our burgeoning Street scribe also has something to say about cyberpunk’s “death:”
What we’re doing now in science-fiction — what I certainly am trying to do — is to investigate the effects of these predicted futures (increasing computerisation of humanity, the promise of true artificial intelligence, the growth of the internet) on the individual human psyche, rather than some great collective unconscious or Earth itself. We’re using characters as characters rather than set-pieces in some big statement about human nature or the dangers of science. We’re taking modern-day phenomena and anomalies that no one foresaw twenty years ago, and we’re running with them. Instead of showing you a window through which you can look at causes, effects and possibilities, we’re trying to figure out how the future is going to feel to each of us. I’ve seen many visions of how it’s going to turn out. What I want to look into is how we’re going to cope.
Anyone who’s still not convinced that CP is still operating should head over to the Street of Eyes, order his book, and READ IT!!!!!
This post has been filed under Internet Find by Mr. Roboto.
The Internet is like a box of chocolates; You never know what you’re going to find.
…So there I was, using Songbird to find some good music to load onto my Creative Zen player. On a whim, I searched for songs with “Heavy Metal” in the title as I was looking for Sammy Hagar’s “Heavy Metal Noise.” Never found that tune, but another tune jumped out at me. It was called “Heavy Metal Kids.” Take a listen to it.
First time I listened to it, I would have sworn upon Satan’s testicles that the tune was from Black Sabbath; It certainly sounded like Sabbath. But NO! It was from Kraftwerk!
Yes! THAT Kraftwerk!
Behind the music. Ralf and Florian formed Kraftwerk in 1970, working with other musicians at the time. Their big breakthrough was the 1974 album “Autobahn,” which would set the standard for their future albums… and the electronic/dance music to come. Before “Autobahn,” Kraftwerk was a “krautrock” band; A band that experimented with various music styles and even some electronics at the time. Two members of Kraftwerk at the time were guitarist Michael Rother and drummer Klaus Dinger, both of whom would form Neu!. “Heavy Metal Kids” features Rother and Dinger along with Ralf and Florian, but it’s not the only tune they play on. There’s a rare album on the net where Kraftwerk rocks out to challenge Sabbath.
K4: Bremen Radio 1971. Live at Gondel Kino, Bremen, Germany, June 25, 1971. This is an apparently rare live recording of the band that hasn’t been released… until now.
From BigO Worldwide:
“There isn’t any extra information about this unofficial release either in the liner notes or on the interweb thing - however, as you listen it becomes obvious that this is indeed a recording of the rather short-lived lineup of Kraftwerk that includes Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger in its ranks! That’s right - Neu! as part of Kraftwerk!!!
“It’s basically a whole CD of extended “side-long” jams in the style of the first Kraftwerk albums performed in front of a small but enthusiastic audience and broadcast on Bremen Radio in 1971. The members of Neu! really take a forward role here, with Rother’s guitar driving things for most of the time and sounding quite rocking, with glimpses of his future soaring melodic sound in the extended jam passages. The guitar and drums are backed up by synth and I believe organ bass, with notable exceptions of flute taking the forefront on the great version of Ruckzack (from the first Kraftwerk LP) and is it distorted electric violin on K4? Maybe just Rother taking a violin bow to his guitar strings! Proto-Kraftwerk and proto-Neu! It’s exciting stuff, and on top of that the sound quality is excellent - a professional radio recording.
“How has this recording not become better known over the past 35 years since it was made?! I don’t know. It appears to be a newly released CDR edition with good-quality (but privately printed) packaging. Maybe it has stayed in the Radio Bremen archives until now? If you’re sceptical about the authenticity I’m sure a listen will persuade you… and hearing someone in the crowd shout “Michael!” in the last second of the recording is the icing on the cake.” - Little Bear [who shared the recording on the internet]
Proto-Kraftwerk and proto-Neu? After hearing parts of the tunes, I was thinking “proto-industrial metal.” Knowing how Kraftwerk pioneered electronic music, hearing what could be the prototype of industrial metal bands like KMFDM, Nine Inch Nails, and Orgy is just… WOAH!!!!!!
Various reports between 23-Jan-08 and 04-Feb-08 have the nets buzzing with conspiracy theories. Over that period, there have been five underwater cables cut or damaged. Here are some of the details:
23-Jan-08: A FALCON cable near Bandar Abbas in Iran was cut. There were no initial reports of the damage at the time; I found out about it from Wikipedia of all places!
30-Jan: Two cables, SEA-ME-WE 4 and FLAG Telecom, are cut in separate incidents near Alexandria, Egypt and Marseilles, France. Wide net disruption in the Middle East and India reported. New York Times report.
01-Feb: The FACLON cable suffers a second cutting, this time 56 km from Dubai.
03-Feb: Qtel reported that a cable called DOHA-HALOUL connecting Qatar to the United Arab Emirates had been damaged.
04-Feb: SEA-ME-WE-4 suffers a second cut near Malaysia.
The casualty count so far is five cuts in four cables in six days.
Mermaids with scissors? Cables, even underwater ones, are bound to fail sooner or later. But the rate of failures and who is being affected has some calling conspiracy. Here’s what is being claimed so far:
Anchors away… the wrong way. The two simultaneous cable cuts were first attributed to ship’s anchors. Egypt, however, reportedly has evidence to the contrary: ITP.net report:
Egypt’s Transport Ministry said footage recorded by onshore video cameras of the location of the cables shows no maritime traffic in the area when the cables were damaged.
“The ministry’s maritime transport committee reviewed footage covering the period of 12 hours before and 12 hours after the cables were cut and no ships sailed the area,” a statement by the Communications Ministry said.
“The area is also marked on maps as a no-go zone and it is therefore ruled out that the damage to the cables was caused by ships.”
One conspiracy disproved…
Mother nature on PMS. It’s possible storms in the area(s) may have generated underwater currents strong enough to snap the cables. Some people believe that sharks may be chewing on the lines, being confused by electromagnetic fields around the cables.
Probable, but I have doubts…
Information warfare. Perhaps the most likely answer may be Iran.
From Arabian Business.com:
The location of the breaks and short space of time in which they have happened has sparked fears the cables were intentionally damaged by the US and Israel to deprive Iran of internet access.
…
“Clearly Iran, who was most affected, would gain nothing from such an action and is perhaps the target of those responsible,” said another reader.
…
It is not clear how badly Iran’s internet access has been affected by the cable breaks.
The Iranian embassy in Abu Dhabi told ArabianBusiness.com that “everything is fine”, but internet connectivity reports on the web, citing a router in Tehran, appear to indicate that there is currently no connection to the outside world.
Unfortunately, India is America’s outsourced call center and was affected as well. Cutting the cables would have a negative effect on companies, and the government does not want to make their corporate masters angry.
There are also theories that certain agencies cut the cables to stop file sharing, and a YouTube video proclaiming this as a Neo-Con pretext to more Mid-East wars to make up for Duh’bya’s failures in Iraq.
The TRUTH is out there. Maybe. It’s going to take a couple of weeks before the cables are repaired and service is fully restored. Maybe the truth of how and why the cables were cut will be found out. Until then, the conspiracies are going to fly.
