The Panopticon Singularity

By Charles Stross [with NOTES and additions from my own research to update]

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/rant/panopticon-essay.html

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Author’s note: This essay was originally commissioned by Alex Steffen for the projected 111st issue of Whole Earth Review, which was to focus on the Singularity. Sadly, WER effectively ceased publication with issue 110, and (the shorter, WER-edited version of) this article is not among the content you can find on their web site. I’m therefore releasing this draft.

I originally wrote this in early 2002. I have not updated the content significantly — I think it provides a useful historical context — but have checked and, where necessary, modified the URLs. Where I have made additions to the text, they are noted.

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The 18th century utopian philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon was a prison; a circle of cells with windows facing inwards, towards a tower, wherein jailers could look out and inspect the prisoners at any time, unseen by their subjects.

Though originally proposed as a humane experiment in penal reform in 1785, Bentham’s idea has eerie resonances today. One of the risks of the technologies that may give rise to a singularity is that they may also permit the construction of a Panopticon society — a police state characterised by omniscient surveillance and mechanical law enforcement.

Note that I am not using the term “panopticon singularity” in the same sense as Vinge’s Singularity (which describes the emergence of strongly superhuman intelligence through either artificial intelligence breakthroughs or progress in augmenting human intelligence), but in a new sense: the emergence of a situation in which human behaviour is deterministically governed by processes outside human control. (To give an example: currently it is illegal to smoke cannabis, but many people do so. After a panopticon singularity, it will not only be illegal but impossible.) The development of a panopticon singularity does not preclude the development of a Vingean singularity; indeed, one may potentiate (or suppress) the other. I would also like to note that the idea has been discussed in fictional form by Vinge. [A Deepness in the Sky - a Zones of Thought book]

Moore’s Law states that the price of integrated circuitry falls exponentially over time. The tools of surveillance today are based on integrated circuits: unlike the grim secret policemen of the 20th century’s totalitarian regimes they’re getting cheaper, so that an intelligence agency with a fixed budget can hope to expand the breadth of its surveillance rapidly. In the wake of the events of September 11th, 2001, the inevitable calls for something to be done have segued into criticism of the west’s intelligence apparatus: and like all bureaucratic agencies, their response to a failure is to redouble their efforts in the same direction as before. (If at first you don’t succeed, try harder.)

It is worth noting that while the effectiveness of human-based surveillance organizations is dependent on the number of people involved — and indeed may grow more slowly than the work force, due to the overheads of coordinating and administering the organization — systems of mechanised surveillance may well increase in efficiency as a power function of the number of deployed monitoring points. (For example: if you attempt to monitor a single email server, you can only sample the traffic from those users whose correspondence flows through it, but if you can monitor the mail servers of the largest ISPs you can monitor virtually everything without needing to monitor all the email client systems. Almost all traffic flows between two mail servers, and most traffic flows through just a few major ISPs at some point.) Moreover, it may be possible to expand an automated surveillance network indefinitely by simply adding machines, whereas it is difficult to expand a human organization beyond a certain point without having knock-on effects on the macroeconomic scale (e.g. by sucking up a significant proportion of the labour force).

Here’s a shopping-list of ten technologies for the police state of the next decade, and estimates of when they’ll be available. Of necessity, the emphasis is on the UK — but it could happen where you live, too: and the prognosis for the next twenty years is much scarier.

Smart cameras

Availability: today.

The UK leads the world in closed circuit surveillance of public places, with over two [2004: four] million cameras watching sixty million people. Cameras are cheaper than cops, and act as a force multiplier, letting one officer watch dozens of locations. They can see in the dark, too. But today’s cameras are limited. The panopticon state will want cheaper cameras: powered by solar panels and networked using high-bandwidth wireless technology so that they can be installed easily, small so that they’re unobtrusive, and equipped with on-board image analysis software. A pilot study in the London borough of Lambeth is already using face recognition software running on computers monitoring the camera network to alert officers when known troublemakers appear on the streets. Tomorrow’s smart cameras will ignore boring scenes and focus on locations where suspicious activities are occuring.

(Experience suggests that cameras don’t reduce crime — they just move it to places where there’s no surveillance, or displace it into types of crime that aren’t readily visible. So the logical response of the crime-fighting bureaucracy is to install more cameras …)

NOTE:

Here is information from the site of the leading manufacturer of the software that deals with the problems of CCTV:

First:

The CCTV Problem

“Closed Circuit Television cameras (CCTV) have always been crucial in supplying surveillance and security in the fight against crime.

However, all too often, CCTV has been reduced to a retrospective, forensic role; examining what went wrong and helping investigators in the aftermath of a crime.

The efficiency of CCTV systems is further blighted by the inability of the operator to pick up all the information that is being displayed.

Studies show, “After 12 minutes of continuous video monitoring an operator will often miss up to 45% of screen activity. After 22 minutes of viewing, up to 95% is overlooked.” (Security Oz, Oct / Nov 2002)” http://www.ipsotek.com/html/cctv.php

THEN:

“The Ipsotek Visual Intelligence Suite™ is the premier software package for pro-active surveillance of high-risk environments.

The Visual Intelligence Suite™ features flexible behavioural algorithms which are used for a variety of applications where human operators struggle to keep track of risks and threats as they arise:

• Border Security
• Suspect Packages
• Counter-terrorism
• Abandoned Vehicles
• Site Security
• ATM Surfing / PIN theft
• Prostitution & Kerb Crawling
• Graffiti
• Vandalism
• Abnormal Motion of Cars/People
• Muggings
• Anti-Social Behaviour
• Unauthorised Plant Removal
• Unauthorised Maintenance
• Disaster Recovery Site Protection
• Art Galleries & High Value Retail Items
• Critical Infrastructure Protection
• Platform Suicide
• Overcrowding, Vector Analysis
• Retail Fraud
• Iconic Buildings
• Trackside Intrusion

Please follow the links for further analysis of intrusion, suspect packages, loitering & overcrowding. – (so following them leads to:)

Intrusion

“Many competitors offer simple intrusion alerts based on motion detection, but the VI suite goes much further. Multiple areas of interest can be set within a single field-of-view and can be customised according to their sensitivity or interest.

Again, the instant replay feature allows the attendant security personnel to review and appropriate the correct response at the touch of a button.

Continual refinement of the video algorithms and an understanding of the depth of perception has virtually eliminated false positives from birds, paper bags, stray dogs or any other unwanted foreign intrusion.”

Suspect Packages

“Ipsotek’s Visual Intelligence Platform has unrivalled abandoned package detection rates due to the background learning nature of the software

It can recognise abandoned packages, secreted away under benches or partially hidden behind pillars, regardless of the levels of footfall interference. The instant alert replay feature allows the attendant operator to identify the culprit and take appropriate action, at the touch of a screen.

The ability to recognise stationary objects that are not part of the background can also be used to highlight collapsed or unconscious persons as well as illegally parked vehicles. This is just one example of how the flexibility inherent in Ipsotek’s algorithms allows the software to focus on the problems that have been identified.”

Loitering

“Loitering is the term used to describe a person standing around without any obvious purpose. This behaviour is often displayed by prostitutes, drug dealers, muggers ad PIN surfers ( card fraud experts)

There is also strong evidence to suggest that those intent on committing suicide by jumping onto the subway tracks will wait until several trains have passed before finally plucking up courage to commit the act.

The Visual Intelligence Platform™ can recognise loitering regardless of changeable ambient light conditions or overcrowding.”

Overcrowding / Congestion

“Overcrowding can be a serious threat to life. With sports stadiums boasting ever larger capacities and the continued popularity and growth of festivals, the ability to monitor and control crowds is becoming ever more crucial if we are to avoid a repeat occurrence of some of the tragic disasters of the past.

Ipsotek’s Vector Analysis algorithms can track individual movements within the crowded scenes, displaying them motion trends and thereby allowing operators to predicts where pressure will be greatest and react accordingly.

Vector Analysis also highlights discrepancies from the expected motion trends. Ticket touts and pickpockets thrive in dense, moving crowds; working against the flow, allowing them to gain maximum exposure to others in the shortest possible amount of time.”

NOW, back to the Ipsotek site:

“The Visual Intelligence Platform™ detects unusual activity by recognising behavioural patterns pre-programmed into the computer’s memory. Once any of the selected behaviour pattern is detected, the computer notifies CCTV operators, staff or management to the potential threat using visual and audio alerts. The technology then instantly reverses and replays the incident at the touch of a screen for users to examine.

It is at the discretion of the attendant operator to then take the appropriate action.

Unlike many other ‘real-time’ solutions offered on the market, Ipsotek can work equally effectively under ambient light conditions. Thus Ipsotek software is ideally suited to application in both indoor and outdoor environments, regardless of inclement weather or natural light variations.”

See demos at: http://www.ipsotek.com/html/demos.php

http://www.ipsotek.com/html/ipsotek.php

NOTE:

“British citizens live under the most intense surveillance on this planet. By the millennium’s dawn, there was one CCTV camera for every 14 people in the UK; work in a major city, and it’s likely you’ll be filmed at least 300 times per day. In the face of flawed technology and political duplicity, Gordon Brown’s cabinet is pressing ahead with plans to introduce identity cards which will be compulsory in all but name. This country already has the largest DNA database in the world (four million files) and our personal telephone records could soon be available to more than 650 governmental bodies. Prudence or paranoia? Novacon 37’s programme stared into Today, recalled the Past and extrapolated the Britain of Tomorrow.” http://www.novacon37.org.uk/

Peer to peer surveillance networks

Availability: 1-5 years.

Today’s camera networks are hard-wired and static. But cameras and wireless technology are already converging in the shape of smartphones. Soon, surveillance cameras will take on much of the monitoring tasks that today require Police control centres: using gait analysis and face recognition to pick up suspects, handing off surveillance between cameras as suspects move around, using other cameras as wireless routers to avoid network congestion and dead zones. The ability to tap into home webcams, private security cameras, and Neighbourhood Watch schemes will extend coverage out of public spaces and into the private realm. Many British cities already require retail establishments to install CCTV: the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2001) gives the Police the right to demand access to electronic data — including camera feeds. Ultimately the panopticon society needs cameras to be as common as street lights.

(Looking on the bright side: London Transport is experimenting with smart cameras that can identify potential suicides on underground train platforms by their movement patterns, which differ from those of commuters. So p2p surveillance cameras will help the trains run on time …)

NOTE:

“Camera software, dubbed Cromatica, is being developed at London’s Kingston University to help improve security on public transport systems but it could be used on a wider scale.

It works by detecting differences in the images shown on the screen.

For example, background changes indicate a crowd of people and possible congestion. If there is a lot of movement in the images, it could indicate a fight.”

Preventing suicide

“It could detect unattended bags, people who are loitering or even predict if someone is going to commit suicide by throwing themselves on the track,” said its inventor Dr Sergio Velastin.”

From above link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1953770.stm

See also: http://www.325collective.com/social-control_surveillance_capital.html

AND, lest you think this is purely U.K.:

“All Things Considered, October 26, 2007 · Chicago already has an elaborate network of surveillance cameras to detect crime — 560 cameras with plans to install 100 more.

Now, the city is teaming with IBM to launch what is being billed as the most advanced video security network in the United States: a system that could be programmed to recognize and warn authorities of suspicious behavior, such as a backpack left in a park or the same truck circling a high-rise several times.

IBM’s Roger Rehayem says smart cameras using analytic software can send out alerts for vehicles of certain colors, models and makes. And if a camera is positioned right, it can pick out license plates or even recognize faces….

Chicago officials say they’re not completely sold yet on the smart surveillance technology. They say visual and audio advancements, such as gunshot recognition, just haven’t been perfected enough yet to justify the cost of installing smart surveillance cameras citywide.” http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15673544

ALSO:

“Triggered Response

Dec 8, 2005, By Jim McKay

The sound of gunshots in high-crime neighborhoods may or may not move residents to call 911. In some neighborhoods, the sound of gunfire is unfortunately part of the landscape, and when they do call, residents can’t always be sure where the sound came from.
So what if the gunshot automatically triggered a 911 call, and captured video of the shooter? Police in Chicago are hoping to curb gun violence with technology that does just that.
The technology — Smart Sensor Enabled Neural Threat Recognition and Identification (SENTRI) — recognizes the sound of a gunshot within a two-block radius, pinpoints the location of the shot with a surveillance camera, focuses on the location, and in less than 1 second, places a 911 call.
The goal is to use the devices to prevent homicides in areas known for gang activity and gun violence.
Continued Vigilance
Chicago successfully deployed 53 surveillance cameras over the years, and has deployed the gunshot-recognition technology in about one-third of those. The cameras, by themselves, were credited with reducing the city’s 2004 crime rate to its lowest level since 1965 — sexual assault is down 5 percent from the previous year, robbery is down 8 percent, aggravated assault is down 5 percent, and total violent crime is down 7 percent — and it is hoped the SENTRI system will provide even more ammunition against crime.” http://www.govtech.com/gt/97507

AND:

The Sentri Solution: A New Age in Law Enforcement:

“Safety Dynamics specializes in the use of smart sensors for threat recognition and localization. Safety Dynamics is currently selling and supporting a system for law enforcement called SENTRI (Sensor Enabled Neural Threat Recognition and Identification). The system is a breakthrough technology that recognizes gunshots and explosions and sends range and bearing details to cameras which can then locate the source of the event.”http://www.safetydynamics.net/products.html

So, it is here, now.

Gait analysis

Availability: now to 5 years.

Ever since the first slow-motion film footage, it’s been clear that people and animals move their limbs in unique ways — ways that depend on the relative dimensions of the underlying bone structure. Computer recognition of human faces has proven to be difficult and unreliable, and it’s prone to disguise: it’s much harder to change the length of your legs or the way you walk.

Researchers at Imperial College, London, and elsewhere have been working on using gait analysis as a tool for remote biometric identification of individuals, by deriving a unique gait signature from video footage of their movement.

(When gait analysis collides with ubiquitous peer-to-peer smart cameras, expect bank robbers to start wearing long skirts.)

NOTE:

See the paper on “People Detection and Recognition using Gait for Automated Visual Surveillance by Imed Bouchrika and M S Nixon, University of Southampton, UK, presented at The Institute of Engineering and Technology at a conference on Crime and Security in London, 13-14th June, 2006: http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~lmg/IETConf_VisualSurveillPeopleRecogGait.pdf

So, this is here, now.

Terahertz radar

Availability: 2-8 years.

Very short wavelength radio waves can be tuned to penetrate some solid and semi-solid surfaces (such as clothing or drywall), and return much higher resolution images than conventional radar. A lot of work is going into domesticating this frequency range, with funding by NIST focussing in particular on developing lightweight short-range radar systems. Terahertz radar can pick up concealed hard objects — such as a gun or a knife worn under outer clothing — at a range of several metres; when it arrives, it’ll provide the panopticon society’s enforcers with something close to Superman’s X-ray vision.

(If they can see through walls, why bother with a search warrant?)

NOTE: See the same conference as above: “Advances in Through Wall Radar for Search, Rescue and Security Applications by Hugh Burchett, Imaging Detection and Tracking Group Leader, Cambridge Consultants, UK, presented at The Institute of Engineering and Technology at a conference on Crime and Security in London, 13-14th June, 2006: http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~lmg/IETConf_ThroughWallRadar.pdf

ALSO:

Physical optics modelling of millimetre-wave personnel scanners

Pattern Recognition Letters, Volume 27 , Issue 15 (November 2006),
Special issue on vision for crime detection and prevention, Pages: 1852 – 1862 by Beatriz Grafulla-González, Katia Lebart, and Andrew R. Harvey

“We describe the physical-optics modelling of a millimetre-wave imaging system intended to enable automated detection of threats hidden under clothes. This paper outlines the theoretical basis of the formation of millimetre-wave images and provides the model of the simulated imaging system. Results of simulated images are presented and the validation with real ones is carried out. Finally, we present a brief study of the potential materials to be classified in this system.” abstract http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1226520.1226532

ALSO:

“Is it possible to screen everyone that enters­—or exits—your facility, without screeching your operations to a virtual halt? Do you know what your visitors, customers, patrons, constituents and staff may be hiding without stopping and questioning each one? Would you like an easier way to know who to search or where to look?

The BIS-WDS^® GEN 2…

• Provides standoff threat detection without requiring subjects to stand still
• Detects concealed objects in as little as 0.5 second
• Presents a full-body area at the 10-foot optimal focal point
• Does not image specific body details, eliminating personal privacy issues
• Transmits no radiation or energy of any kind
• Integrates seamlessly with ancillary devices, enabling remote operation and event traps

Plus it can be…

• Monitored remotely
• In real time
• Without requiring cooperation
• Without a physical pat down

Can you see what they’re hiding? The BIS-WDS^® GEN 2 Can!” http://www.brijot.com/products/index.php

“See what you’re missing!
Some locations—like airports and other critical transportation hubs, have already invested in security screening technologies like X-ray machines, metal detectors, and added security staff.
But those technologies can’t see explosive materials, liquids and gels, or thick packets of currency. GEN 2 can be integrated into your existing security strategy, and by imaging subjects in motion, it can be used to direct subjects into secondary screening lanes for further investigation, focusing security efforts and eliminating profiling or ineffective random screening.” http://www.brijot.com/applicationsmarketsolutions/airport-and-transportation.php

“Stem the tide of product shrinkage!
Loss prevention personnel will find the GEN 2 invaluable in identifying hidden objects exiting a facility. The system can image metals, wood, electronic devices, bottles of liquor… even fresh or frozen foods! Managers and security personnel can pat down employees virtually without physical contact. Event logging functionality records the detection, providing ideal documentation in the event of an employee termination or theft prosecution.” http://www.brijot.com/applicationsmarketsolutions/lossprevention.php

“Proven Results –
Office of Law Enforcement Technology Commercialization (OLETC)
The GEN 2 system received positive, top-line results from its operational assessment trial of the GEN 2 Object Detection and People Screening System performed by the Office of Law Enforcement Technology Commercialization (OLETC) during a pilot trial at the Baltimore Police Department Headquarters Building. The results confirm state of the art screening technology characterized by advance capabilities beyond those offered by more traditional screening options such as metal detectors.
View full report details click here (link to white paper).” http://www.brijot.com/deploymentsandtrials/deployments.php

This is here now, and has been used in the U.S.

Celldar

Availability: 3-10 years.

Cellphones emit microwave radiation at similar wavelengths to radar systems. Celldar is a passive radar system that listens to the signals reflected by cellphone emitters. When a solid object passes between a transmitter and a cellphone it reduces the signal strength at a receiver.

Celldar was originally designed as a military system that would use reflected cellphone emissions to locate aircraft passing above the protected area. However, by correlating signal strength across a wide number of cellular transceivers (both base stations and phone handsets) in real time it should be possible to build up a picture of what objects are in the vicinity. Subtract the known locations of buildings, and you’ve got a system that can place any inhabited area under radar surveillance — by telephone. (As Rodney King demonstrated, we can already be tracked by cellphone. Now the panopticon society can place us under radar surveillance by phone. And as phones exchange data at ever higher bandwidth, the frequencies will shorten towards the terahertz range. Nude phone calling will take on an entirely different meaning …)

NOTE:
“CELLDAR™

“The CELLDAR™ passive radar system is now under joint development by ourselves and BAE Systems and is the world’s first passive radar to use cell phone basestation signals.” http://www.roke.co.uk/skills/radar/

OR:

“The Missouri Department of Transportation has begun anonymously monitoring cell phone signals as a high-tech way of tracking vehicle speeds and warning motorists of traffic jams. The goal is for motorists to get real-time traffic information over the Internet or road signs.

Privacy concerns have slowed down the Missouri project – the largest of its kind nationally – which was supposed to have been deployed statewide by summer 2006 under a contract with Markham, Canada-based Delcan Corp.” http://www.dailywireless.org/2007/09/21/celldar-monitoring-traffic-via-cell-radiation/

Ubiquitous RFID ‘dust’

Availability: 1-5 years.

Radio Frequency ID chips are used for tagging commercial produce. Unlike today’s simple anti-shoplifting tags in books and CD’s, the next generation will be cheap (costing one or two cents each), tiny (sand-grain sized), and smart enough to uniquely identify any individual manufactured product, by serial number as well as type and vendor. They can be embedded in plastic, wood, food, or fabric, and by remotely interrogating the RFID chips in your clothing or posessions the panopticon society’s agencies can tell a lot about you — like, what you’re reading, what you just ate, and maybe where you’ve been if they get cheap enough to scatter like dust. More insidiously, because each copy of a manufactured item will be uniquely identifiable, they’ll be able to tell not only what you’re reading, but where you bought it. RFID chips are injectable, too, so you won’t be able to misplace your identity by accident.

(And if the panopticon police don’t like the books you’re reading or the DVDs you’re watching, maybe they can use your tag fingerprint to order up a new you?)

NOTE:

In order to be use-friendly, one of the manufacturers of RDIF launched this site: http://www.discoverrfid.org/

And there is a Journal devoted to it: http://www.rfidjournal.com/

And the next generation IS here:

“Hitachi Develops World’s Smallest RFID Chip”
October 26, 2007 – Sarah Gingichashvili, The Future of Things (TOFT)

“The Japanese giant Hitachi has developed the world’s smallest and thinnest Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chip. Measuring only 0.15 x 0.15 millimeters in size and 7.5 micrometers thick, the wireless chip is a smaller version of the previous record holder – Hitachi’s 0.4 x 0.4 mm “Micro-Chip”.

Miniature RFID chips may also have advanced military applications such as smartdust. Smartdust is the concept of wireless MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems) sensors that can detect anything from light and temperature to vibrations. Using a large amount of sensors is not a new concept – the U.S. military experimented with this idea already during the Vietnam War (Operation Igloo White). While the older sensors were relatively large and only somewhat effective, Professor Christopher Pister from UC Berkeley suggested in 2001 to create a new type of micro sensor that could theoretically be as small as a grain of sand. Research into this idea is ongoing and is being funded by DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). What was only a theoretical concept in 2001 has now become a reality with the latest development by Hitachi, and could find its way to intelligence agencies across the world.

RFID chips are also a source for increasing controversy surrounding issues of privacy. An RFID chip can be used to track the location of unsuspecting individuals who have bought products that include RFID tags in their package. Having miniature cheap RFID chips, such as those developed by Hitachi, implanted inside anything we buy might make many people feel very uncomfortable. However, big businesses believe that consumers’ fears are dwarfed by the benefits of RFID chips, which include reduced theft, digital real time inventory, and better information on consumer shopping habits.” http://www.tfot.info/news/1032/hitachi-develops-worlds-smallest-rfid-chip.html

Trusted computing and Digital Rights Management

Availability: now-5 years.

Trusted Computing doesn’t mean computers you can trust: it means computers that intellectual property corporations can trust. Microsoft’s Palladium software (due in a future Windows release [2004: due in Windows Longhorn, renamed to NGSCB]) and Intel’s TPCA architecture are both components of a trusted computing platform. The purpose of trusted computing is to enforce Digital Rights Management — that is, to allow information providers to control what you do with the information, not to protect your rights.

Disney will be able to sell you DVDs that will decrypt and run on a Palladium platform, but which you won’t be able to copy. Microsoft will be able to lease you software that stops working if you forget to pay the rental. Want to cut and paste a paragraph from your physics text book into that essay you’re writing? DRM enforced by TCPA will prevent you (and snitch to the publisher’s copyright lawyers). Essentially, TPCA will install a secret policeman into every microprocessor. PCs stop being general purpose machines and turn into Windows on the panopticon state. It’s not about mere legal copyright protection; as Professor Lawrence Lessig points out, the rights that software and media companies want to reserve go far beyond their legal rights under copyright law.

If the trusted computing folks get their way, to ensure control they’ll need to pass legislation to outlaw alternative media. Jaron Lanier predicts that today’s microphones, speakers and camcorders could become contraband; and in case this sounds outlandish and paranoid, the US senate has seen more than one bill, (most prominent among them, the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act) that would require DRM interlocks in all analog-to-digital conversion electronics in order to prevent illicit copying.

(Presumably he wasn’t thinking of aircraft instrumentation, cardiac monitors, or machine tools at the time, but under the proposed law they would need copy-prevention interlocks as well … )

WIKI says about DRM and TCPA and Palladium:

“The Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB), formerly known as Palladium, is a software architecture designed by Microsoft which is expected to implement parts of the controversial “Trusted Computing” concept on future versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system. NGSCB is part of Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing initiative. Microsoft’s stated aim for NGSCB is to increase the security and privacy of computer users, but critics assert that the technology will not only fail to solve the majority of contemporary IT security problems, but also result in an increase in vendor lock-in and thus a reduction in competition in the IT marketplace.

NGSCB relies on hardware technology designed by members of the Trusted Computing Group (TCG), which provides a number of security-related features, including fast random number generation, a secure cryptographic co-processor, and the ability to hold cryptographic keys in a manner that makes them extremely difficult to retrieve, even to the machine’s owner. It is this latter ability that makes remote attestation of the hardware and software configuration of an NGSCB-enabled computer possible, and to which the opponents of the scheme chiefly object. Several computer manufacturers are selling computers with the Trusted Platform Module chip, notably the Dell OptiPlex GX620.”

“NGSCB and Trusted Computing can be used to intentionally and arbitrarily lock certain users out from use of certain files, products and services, for example to lock out users of a competing product, potentially leading to severe vendor lock-in. This is analogous to a contemporary problem in which many businesses feel compelled to purchase and use Microsoft Word in order to be compatible with associates who use that software. Today this problem is partially solved by products such as OpenOffice.org which provide limited compatibility with Microsoft Office file formats. Under NGSCB, if Microsoft Word were to encrypt documents it produced, no other application would be able to decrypt them, regardless of its ability to read the underlying file format.”

“When originally announced, NGSCB was expected to be part of the then next major version of the Windows Operating System, Windows Vista (then known as Longhorn). However, in May 2004, Microsoft was reported to have shelved the NGSCB project. This was quickly denied by Microsoft who released a press release stating that they were instead “revisiting” their plans. The majority of features of NGSCB are now not expected to be available until well after the release of Windows Vista. However, Vista includes “BitLocker“, which can make use of a Trusted Platform Module chip to facilitate secure startup and full-drive encryption. TPMs are already integrated in many systems using Intel’s Core 2 Duo processors or AMD’s Athlon 64 processors using the AM2 socket.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next-Generation_Secure_Computing_Base

FROM windows itself:

“Our first delivery on the vision is a hardware based security feature in Longhorn [Vista] called Secure Startup. Secure Startup utilizes a Trusted Platform Module (TPM 1.2) to improve PC security and it meets some of the most critical requirements we heard from our customers-specifically, the capability to ensure that the PC running Longhorn starts in a known-good state, as well as protection of data from unauthorized access through full volume encryption.

Subsequent to Secure Startup, Microsoft will be focused on continuing to build other aspects of the NGSCB vision. These will complement Secure Startup to enable a broad range of new secure computing solutions. The technical specifications, timing and delivery vehicles are TBD.” http://www.microsoft.com/resources/ngscb/default.mspx

Cognitive radio

Availability: now-10 years.

Radio waves can travel through one another without interacting. Radio ‘interference’ happens when radio transceivers use dumb encoding schemes that don’t let multiple channels share the same wavelength: interference is a side-effect of poor design, not a fundamental limit on wireless communications.

With fast microprocessors it’s possible to decode any radio-frequency signal on the fly in software, by performing Fourier analysis on the raw signal rather than by using hard-wired circuitry. Software radios can be reconfigured on the fly to use new encoding schemes or frequencies. Some such encoding schemes work to avoid interference; so-called cognitive radio transcievers take account of other transmitters in the neighbourhood and negotiate with them to allocate each system a free frequency. (The 802.11 wireless networking protocols are one early example of this in action.) SR doesn’t sound like a tool of the panopticon society until you put them together with celldar and TCPA. Cellphones and computers are on a collision course. If the PC becomes a phone, and every computer comes with a built-in secret policeman _and_ can be configured in software, the panopticon’s power becomes enormous: remote interrogation of RFID dust in your vicinity will let the authorities know who you’re associating with, reconfiguration of phones into celldar receivers will let them see what you’re doing, and plain old-fashioned bugging will let them listen in. If they can be bothered.

(Invest in tinfoil hat manufacturers; it’s the future of headgear!)

NOTE:

Scientific American Magazine – March, 2006

Cognitive Radio

“Engineers are now working to bring that kind of flexible operating intelligence to future radios, cell phones and other wireless communications devices. During the coming decade, cognitive radio technology should enable nearly any wireless system to locate and link to any locally available unused radio spectrum to best serve the consumer. Employing adaptive software, these smart devices could reconfigure their communications functions to meet the demands of the transmission network or the user.

Cognitive radio technology will know what to do based on prior experience. On the morning drive to work, for instance, it would measure the propagation characteristics, signal strength and transmission quality of the different bands as it rides along with you. The cognitive radio unit would thus build an internal database that defines how it should best operate in different places and at specific times of day. In contrast, the frequency bands and transmission protocol parameters of current wireless systems have been mostly fixed.” http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=000C7B72-2374-13F6-A37483414B7F0000

Lab-on-a-chip chemical analysers

Availability: now-5 years.

Microtechnology, unlike nanotechnology, is here today. By building motors, gears, pumps, and instruments onto silicon wafers using the same lithographic techniques that are used for making microcircuitry, engineers are making it possible to build extremely small — and cheap — analytical laboratories. Devices under development include gas chromatography analysers, mass spectroscopes, flow cytometers, and a portable DNA analyser small enough to fit in a briefcase. The panopticon society is lavish with its technologies: what today would occupy a Police department’s forensic lab, will tomorrow fit into a box the size of a palmtop computer.

(And they won’t have to send that urine sample to a lab in order to work out that you were in the same room as somebody who smoked a joint two weeks ago.)

SEE:

https://www-eng.llnl.gov/mic_nano/mic_nano.html

http://www.mitsi.com/

and here’s one from the above company:

“The Miniature DVR with built in color pinhole camera, battery, and monitor with video motion and sound activation. Ideal for Investigations in hospitals, offices, retail or hotel rooms – anywhere you need to be in and out quickly. Options available such as external camera connection, body worn and network connection shown in MD-2000 model below.”

OR from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories (LLNL):

“A dime-sized amplifier makes fiber-optic communications faster and clearer. A portable DNA analyzer helps detect and identify organisms in the field, including human remains and biological warfare agents. A tiny gripper inserted in a blood vessel treats aneurysms in the brain to ward off potential strokes. What do these technologies have in common? Each one is smaller than any comparable product, opening up a host of new applications. And each originated in Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Microtechnology Center.” https://www.llnl.gov/str/Mariella.html

Data mining

Availability: -5 years to +10 years

Total Information Awareness. Department of Homeland Security. NSA. ECHELON. This article was emailed to Whole Earth Review’s staff; by including these keywords it almost certainly caught the attention of ECHELON, the data mining operation run by the NSA and its associated intelligence agencies. ECHELON has monitored all internet, telephone, fax, telex, and radio traffic for years, hoovering up the data. But analysing electronic intelligence is like trying to drink water from a firehose; the problem is identifying relevant information, because for every Al Qaida operative discussing the next bomb plot, a million internet denizens are speculating and gossiping about the same topic. And if the infoglut seems bad now, wait until your every walk down the high street generates megabytes of tracking data. The Department of Homeland Security is just one of the most obvious agencies trying to tackle the information surplus generated by the embryonic panopticon society. The techniques they propose to use entail linking up access to a variety of public and private databases, from credit rating agencies and the INS to library lending records, ISP email and web server logs, and anything else they can get their hands on. The idea is to spot terrorists and wrongdoers pre-emptively by detecting patterns of suspicious behaviour.

The trouble is, data mining by cross-linking databases can generate false inferences. Imagine your HMO with access to your web browsing records. Your sister asks you to find her some books about living with AIDS, to pass on to a friend; you go look on Amazon.com, researching the topic, and all the HMO knows is that you’re looking for help on living with AIDS. And how does the Department of Homeland Society know whether I’m planning a terrorist act … or doing my research before writing a novel about a terrorist incident? To make matters worse, many databases contain corrupt information, either by accident or malice. The more combinations of possible corrupt data you scan, the more errors creep into your analysis. But to combat these problems, the Office of Information Awareness is proposing to develop new analytical techniques that track connections between people — where they shop, how they travel, who they know — in the hope that if they throw enough data at the problem the errors will go away.

(Guess they think they need the panopticon surveillance system, then. After all, if data mining never worked in the past, obviously you can make it work by throwing more data at it …)

The pressure to adopt these technologies springs from our existing political discourse as we struggle to confront ill-defined threats. We live in a dangerous world: widespread use of high technology means that individuals can take actions that are disruptive out of all proportion to their numbers. Human nature being what it is, we want to be safe: the promise of a high-tech surveillance “fix” that will identify terrorists or malefactors before they hurt us is a great lure.

But acts of mass terror exist at one end of a scale that begins with the parking ticket, the taping of a CD for personal use in a Walkman, a possibly-defamatory statement about a colleague sent in private email to a friend, a mistakenly ommitted cash receipt when compiling the annual tax return … the list is endless, and to a police authority with absolute knowledge and a robotic compulsion to Enforce The Law, we would all, ultimately, be found guilty of something.

This brings up a first major point: legislators do not pass laws in the expectation that everybody who violates them will automatically be caught and punished. Rather, they often pass new laws in order to send a message — to their voters (that they’re doing something about their concerns) and to the criminals (that if caught they will be dealt with harshly). There is a well-known presumption that criminals are acting rationally (in the economic sense) and their behaviour is influenced by the perceived reward for a successful crime, and both the risk and severity of punishment. This theory is implicitly taken into account by legislators when they draft legislation, because in our current state of affairs most crimes go undetected and unreported. A panopticon singularity would completely invalidate these assumptions.

Furthermore: many old laws are retained despite widespread unpopularity, because a vocal minority support them. An estimated 30 percent of the British population have smoked cannabis, currently an offense carrying a maximum penalty of 6 months’ imprisonment (despite rumours of its decriminalization), and an absolute majority of under-50’s supports decriminalization, but advocating a “soft on drugs” line was perceived as political suicide until very recently because roughly 25% of the population were strongly opposed.

Some old laws, which may not match current social norms, are retained because it is easier to ignore them than to repeal them. In Massachusetts, the crime of fornication — any sex act with someone you’re not married to — carries a 3 month prison sentence. Many towns, states, and countries have archaic laws still on the books that dictate what people must wear, how they must behave, and things they must do — laws which have fallen into disuse, and which are inappropriate to enforce. (There’s one town in Texas where since the 19th century it has been illegal for women to wear patent leather shoes, lest a male see something unmentionable reflected in them; and in London, until 1998 all taxis were required to carry a bale of hay in case their horse needed a quick bite to eat. Diesel and petrol powered cabs included.)

These laws, and others like them, highlight the fact that with a few exceptions (mostly major felonies) our legal systems were not designed with universal enforcement in mind. But universal enforcement is exactly what we’ll get if these surveillance technologies come together to produce a panopticon singularity.

A second important side-effect of panopticon surveillance is the chilling effect it exerts on otherwise lawful activities. If you believe your activities on the net are being monitored for signs of terrorist intent, would you dare do the research to write that thriller? Nobody (with any common sense) cracks a joke in the waiting line at airport security — we’re all afraid of attracting the unwelcome attention of people in uniform with no sense of humour whatsoever. Now imagine the straitjacket policing of aviation security extended into every aspect of daily life, with unblinking and remorseless surveillance of everything you do and say. Worse: imagine that the enforcers are machines, tireless and efficient and incapable of turning a blind eye.

Surveillance need not even stop at our skin; the ability to monitor our speech and track our biological signs (for example: pulse, pupillary dilation, or possibly hormone and neurotransmitter levels) may lead to attempts to monitor thoughts as well as deeds. What starts with attempts to identify paedophile predators before they strike may end with discrimination against people believed to be at risk of “addictive behaviour” — howsoever that might be defined — or of harbouring anti-social attitudes.

We are all criminals, if you dig far enough: we’ve broken the speed limit, forgotten to file official papers in time, made false statements (often because we misremembered some fact), failed to pay for services, and so on. These are minor offenses — relatively few of us are deliberate criminals. But even if we aren’t active felons we are all potential criminals, and a case can be — and is being — made for keeping us all under surveillance, all the time.

A Panopticon Singularity is the logical outcome if the burgeoning technologies of the singularity are funneled into automating law enforcement. Previous police states were limited by manpower, but the panopticon singularity substitutes technology, and ultimately replaces human conscience with a brilliant but merciless prosthesis.

If a panopticon singularity emerges, you’d be well advised to stay away from Massachusetts if you and your partner aren’t married. Don’t think about smoking a joint unless you want to see the inside of one of the labour camps where over 50% of the population sooner or later go. Don’t jaywalk, chew gum in public, smoke, exceed the speed limit, stand in front of fire exit routes, or wear clothing that violates the city dress code (passed on the nod in 1892, and never repealed because everybody knew nobody would enforce it and it would take up valuable legislative time). You won’t be able to watch those old DVD’s of ‘Friends’ you copied during the naughty oughties because if you stick them in your player it’ll call the copyright police on you. You’d better not spend too much time at the bar, or your insurance premiums will rocket and your boss might ask you to undergo therapy. You might be able to read a library book or play a round of a computer game, but your computer will be counting the words you read and monitoring your pulse so that it can bill you for the excitement it has delivered.

And don’t think you can escape by going and living in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere. It is in the nature of every police state that the most heinous offense of all is attempting to escape from it. And after all, if you’re innocent, why are you trying to hide?” http://www.antipope.org/charlie/rant/panopticon-essay.html

TO ADD TO THIS:

“The Ambiguous Panopticon: Foucault and the Codes of Cyberspace” by Mark Winokur, from ctheory.net

“David Lyon’s The Electronic Eye: The Rise of Surveillance Society — contains a lengthy discussion of the way in which panopticism is defined by “uncertainty as a means of subordination” (in other words by how the authoritarian gaze is unverifiable), his discussion of panopticism per se is largely concerned with the various data-collecting agencies that use the Internet to exert an external coercion on the individual, not with how such authority is internalized: ‘The prison-like society, where invisible observers track our digital footprints, does indeed seem panoptic.’ A little less often, scholars are interested in the ways that the Net limits our ability to think outside the Net, in other words in questions about discourse and discipline.”

From the footnotes: David Lyon, The Electronic Eye: The Rise of Surveillance Society, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minneapolis Press, 1994, p. 65.

“An even more recent book states the case more baldly: “[W]e have every reason to believe that cyberspace, left to itself, will not fulfill the promise of freedom. Left to itself, cyberspace will become a perfect tool of control” (Lawrence Lessig, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, NY: Basic Books, 2000, pp. 5-6).”

http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=371#_ednref4

AND check out the articles in the Surveillance and Society’s “Foucault and Panopticism Revisited” issue of their Journal: http://www.surveillance-and-society.org/journalv1i3.htm

AND check out this article on some recent comments on the Panopticon Society and what is happening in Britain with ID cards and iris scans, etc.:http://www.wombles.org.uk/article2007061046.php

AND read “Who is watching you?” by Deborah Pierce, Seattle Press On-line, http://archive.seattlepressonline.com/article-9464.html

AND for more from the Correctional News, CN Nov/Dec 06, Facility of the Month Nov/Dec 2006:

” A Centrifugal Force: A Round Addition in El Paso County, Colo., Updates a Historic Design”

” Each of the tower’s three floors contains a control room and an additional mezzanine level for extra bed space, giving the facility the appearance of having six floors.

“It’s based on the concentric ring theory,” says Greg Gulliksen, project architect. “The hub is the central control area in the middle; the next ring out is a circulation area around the control room; the next ring out is the dayroom; and the last ring contains the sleeping areas and the shower and toilet area.”

Each ward contains nine dormitory-style sleeping bays where inmates are grouped together without doors or bars. Each bay contains eight bunk beds and eight lockers.”

http://www.correctionalnews.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=88327817A39E494AA4A426AF092D33D2

AND I saved the best for last:

The NYPD Panopticon Imprisons Harlem”, November 27, 2006, David W. Boles’ Urban Semiotic

“The Panopticon — a prison so built radially that a guard at a central position can see all the prisoners – is also known as the infamous and ever-vigilant Foucauldian unblinking eye of authority watching every move a prisoner makes while remaining rough and ready to strike punishment as often as needed, has come to the streets of Harlem as “Sky Watch.”

The Sky Watch, about two stories tall, consists of a booth for a cop that stands atop a tower that collapses when the officer is ready to leave.

The booth, which gives the cop a line of sight from 20 feet up, has four cameras, a high-powered spotlight and various sensors. The digital cameras, which continue recording when the booth is unstaffed, save the video to a hard drive.

The units, which cost from $40,000 to $100,000 apiece, are also being used by the U.S. Border Patrol and cops in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Dallas and Fort Worth.

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said the department has leased one or two of the devices and hopes to eventually have five.

Since they’re moveable, they’re more flexible than fixed cameras.

One tower was installed about three weeks ago at 129th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard in Harlem – drawing cheers and jeers.

What does this mean for the innocent residents of Harlem who now live in an open-air prison?

Here’s a traditional prison Panopticon where a central watchtower sits at the center of the structure surrounded by prisoners in their cells. The prisoners cannot see the watchtower but sunlight pouring through outer windowed cell walls shows all movement of the prisoners in shadow to the unblinking Panopticonic eye:

[Several tiers of inmates in this round cell block at Stateville Prison near Joliet, Illinois, are easily visible from the guard tower in the middle.]

Here’s the Harlem Sky Watch box in action — have you ever seen an uglier obelisk wannabe? — where the sentry tower becomes the center tower of the Panopticon while the buildings and apartments surrounding it become the windowed prison cells from which there is no escape from the unblinking eye of punishment:

A watched cauldron never boils, but an observed populace ultimately overthrows its gaoler.

Just who are being protected in Harlem and just who are being watched?

The unblinking eye of authority stings us all from the NYPD Harlem Panopticon and we are all made more guilty because of it ominous presence.” http://urbansemiotic.com/2006/11/27/the-nypd-panopticon-imprisons-harlem/

SO, BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU!

Greg Egan’s Distress – a SciFi book review

Here are two “jokes” from my Cracker Jack “prize” (when did they stop with the toys?) that are not half-way bad – they made my daughter laugh?

1. What did the alien say to the plant?

2. What do planets read?

Answers below!

Now for a critique/commentary on Greg Egan’s Distress. I warn you, the book is full of existentialist introspection; bio-technology and it’s impact on people; Utopian ideals set in motion/reality; and most of all, the field of TOEs, ATMs, and SUFTs, all described with lots of math, physics, and incomprehensible stuff for the layperson. I don’t know if you can summarize those concepts for someone with no math background, but if you can, he didn’t do it. I have only a rudimentary understanding of it all, so if this review is a bit crazy, then so am I on this subject. Still, the book worked, until the end. I started writing this piece when I had about 100 pages to go, and I was still puzzled about the disease that is the title of the book – so far it was merely a bit-player. I loved the existential feel and discussions in the book, and the way it made you stop, put down the book and actually think! about your life, and how you view it. Good read, at that time. How 100 pages can change your perspective 180°!

Don’t forget the answers to the jokes are below.

First of all the plot: a journalist, who has trouble with relationships, is finishing up a piece for the netzine he works for, SeeNet, called Junk DNA. It consists of four parts – one on VAs, voluntary autists – a cult group of people with mild autism who want to surgically remove part of their brain in order to make them fully autistic and free of society’s falsehoods and relationships. The same operation can cure autism, but they want to be made more autistic.

The second part is on a revival process. If a victim of a violent crime is clinically dead, past all hope of resuscitation, and might have witnessed the crime that killed him/her, then that person can be biologically/chemically reanimated for a short time, in order to be able to tell the detectives who “done it.” Revolting in some ways, but the piece is all about what the protagonist, Andrew, calls frankenscience – or science gone wrong.

The third is about a man who is a walking biosphere – a man who’s body was “swarming with engineered algae and alien genes.” In short, he is a walking recycling machine. His body can convert sunlight to glucose, and the “symbionts” living in his blood can turn carbon dioxide to oxygen in any amount – thus assuring him of clean air even in the worst cases of pollution. His 37 symbionts can “eat” just about any matter, from paper to old tires, and convert it to the needed energy. He’s immune to famine, mass extinctions, and he has engineered himself total viral immunity (more on him later).

The last piece is on the HealthGuard implant – an assay chip embedded in the subject’s body, sending back information on the owner’s state of health at any given time for actuarial (insurance) purposes. That part of the piece has some relevance to another “project” I’m working on – Clarke’s 3rd Law about when technology becomes sufficiently advanced so as to be indistinguishable from magic. This has been a subject of some controversy on my HardSF book group, and I hope to do a post on it later on. But for now here’s what Egan says:

“It was a technical advance worth communicating, worth explaining, worth demystifying. Whatever the social implications of the HealthGuard implant, they could no more be presented in a vacuum, divorced from the technology which made the device possible, than vice versa. Once people ceased to understand how the machines around them actually functioned, the world they inhabited began to dissolve into an incomprehensible dreamscape. technology moved beyond control, beyond discussion, evoking only worship or loathing, dependence or alienation. Arthur C. Clarke had suggested that any sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic – referring to a possible encounter with an alien civilization – but if a science journalist had one responsibility above all else, it was to keep Clarke’s Law from applying to human technology in human eyes.”

This is a powerful idea and one that I will explore at a later date – for now, just think of how some people today can’t even program a VCR or use add someone to their MyFaves. To them, some of the technology on the drawing boards is an incomprehensible as a light-bulb would be to one of the founding fathers. Using magic in it’s broadest sense.

In Andrew Worth’s world, he is surrounded by technology – notepads that function as a wireless computer, with a built in dataminer, called Sisyphus. He has an implant in his eye, that he can “invoke,” called Witness, and it will date/time stamp and record any event for future use. It is then later simply downloaded, through an umbilical implant attachment, to his notepad, or other device. The cities are deserted as nearly everyone works at home on-line. The cities are figurative”ruins” that can be full of gangs and criminals, but a few have tried to revive parts and brought in theatres and restaurants, many featuring “experimental cuisine,” a bio-engineered food substitute, made from various things that are made to taste like regular food, although they look completely different.

The book is full of existential themes and angst. In one crucial scene, while he is going over the demise of his latest relationship, his friend, who had long ago declared he would never marry, but now has a wife and kids, said: “‘I meant it, though. At the time. The whole idea of a family–’ He shuddered. ‘It sounded like being buried alive. I couldn’t imagine anything worse.’ Andrew replies: ‘So you grew up. Congratulations.’ His friend replied ‘No one grows up. That’s one of the sickest lies they ever tell you. People change. people compromise. People get stranded in situations they don’t want to be in … and they make the best of … glorious preordained ascent into emotional maturity. It’s not.’ Andrew asked him if everything was okay with his wife and kids. he replied: ‘No. Everything’s fine. Life is wonderful. I love them all. But … only because I’d go insane if I didn’t. Only because I have to make it work.

‘But you do make it work.’ ‘Yes!’…’and it’s not even that hard, anymore. It’s pure habit. But…I used to think there’d be more. I used to think that if you changed from … valuing one thing to valuing another, it was because you’d learned something new, understood something better. And it’s not like that at all. I just value what I’m stuck with. That’s it, that’s the whole story. People make a virtue out of necessity. They sanctify what they can’t escape.’

‘But I do love Lisa, and I do love the girls … but there’s no deeper reason than the fact that that’s the best I can make of my life, now. I can’t argue with a single thing I said when I was nineteen years old – because I don’t know better now. I’m not wiser. That’s what I resent: all the f&*^ing pretentious lies we were fed about growth and maturity. No one ever came clean and admitted that ‘love’ and ’sacrifice’ were just what you did to stay sane, when you found yourself backed into a different kind of corner.’”

This passage made me really think – to put down the book and examine my own life. Did I truly love my family, or was it only because that’s the path I followed, the “right” thing to do, given the situation I wandered into, letting life sort of pull me along. I never made any conscious decisions to marry or have children – I was brought along for the ride, so to speak, by my ex-husband, who at around age 45 had a mid-life crisis, and decided there had to be more; dumping me faster than a hot potato and leaving me with the girls and no future. So what could I do? I couldn’t be selfish and say no thanks! I did what was right, what was expected of me. And I realized that there was no one else to do it – to love and cherish these girls. I love my children to death, but I also was “trapped” into it. I didn’t have “free will” and was backed, like many, into this corner of family life. I think that this is one of the reasons the divorce rate is so high. It’s not because of a decline in social morals, but rather a realization that there are/were other choices that could have been or still be made, and often people discard those old corners they were backed into, and break out on their own, for better or worse. So, an existential question – does “life’ have meaning by itself, or is just a series of compromises we make with what we have?

The title of the book comes from a disease called “Distress,” a disease that is growing, and has nightmarish consequences – the victims live in a perpetual state of distress – sort of a PTSD taken to the limits, and are filled with dread, fear, and anxiety, which manifests itself in thrashing about, muttering and moaning, etc. The importance of the disease seems to be irrelevant for most of the book – which makes the title puzzling, even after the book is done.

Andrew is asked to do a piece on Distress, but is seemly afraid (the reason he chooses not to do this prestigious piece is not fully realized in the book) and instead “steals” a different piece from a junior reporter on a major conference on TOEs (Theory of Everything), ATMs (All Topology Models), and SUTFs (Standard Unified Field Theory), and Egan does a fine job (although maybe not from a lay perspective) on describing these mathematical and physics models, and the reason for their importance in both physics/math, but in life as well. The heart of the conference is that one of the speakers might present a true, complete TOE, and that might be the “end” of physics as we know it. Of course that’s not true – it is just the starting point, but all sorts of “ignorance” cults have come to the island nation of “Stateless.”

Stateless is a “rogue” nation, boycotted by most countries because of it’s origins. A group of scientists stole some bio-specimens and bio-tech, and “grew” their own island in the South Pacific. The island is full of artists, musicians, and scientists, etc. There is no government, and people have formed into various knots of cultural ties/religions, but there is no government – it’s an “anarchy” in the basest sense. What Andrew can’t figure out is why it stays that way, and why the residents feel it always will – why they don’t worry about the next generation dissolving into absolute anarchy. Part of it is in the fact that the people who emigrate there do so voluntarily – they have a vested interest in the “state,” and in part, of the nature of the island itself, something you’ll have to discover yourself. But the island works, which is apparently in the best interest of the group the bio-tech was originally stolen from – that their “product” can be so used, and be so useful, can only enhance their stature (which brings us to a point in the last 100 pages that I will explain later).

Andrew is assigned to interview and tape one of the TOE presenters, Violet Masala, from South Africa. What starts out as being an easy “vacation” piece becomes fraught with information overload, bizarre fringe cults that impact the conference and himself, and various other things that bring the focus away from the “easy” interview and into the realm of a major assignment. He was not prepared for what he found, and the reporter who did all the background work won’t return his calls.

What he makes of it all, you’ll have to read. But, except for a lack of information on the titular disease (later explained in the book in some part), and a few other missing details, Egan does a marvellous job of world-building in the near-future. The ubiquitous cults, the island, the existential crises his friend, and later himself, go through, are all intricately detailed and held out for our inspection, and it passes mine. It’s the ending that left be feeling that I’d been robbed.

And the characters were flat to me (mentioned by someone years ago in a discussion of this book in my HardSF group), and I agreed with their assessment – to me, I have to have someone I can root for, and I just couldn’t get anywhere with Andrew – although his personal life, and existential crises are detailed out, it never rings quite true, and indeed, his one rant (when he was ill) was rather odd. And Violet Masala – she started out as a witchy sort – later became “cool,” and at the end finally, seemed to thaw. But she never was more than a buzz in his ear, and his ostensible reason for going to the conference, as well as a vehicle to truly describe the TOE that is the heart of the book.

I’d give it a 6 (originally an 8, and that was because it’s premise is slight, but it’s treatment was first class, until those last 100 pages).

So, SPOILERS AHEAD!!! Read at your own risk, because in order to do justice to my opinion of the book, I have to give some stuff away. I’ll try and limit it, but if you plan to read the book and love surprises, don’t read further, but scroll to the bottom for the joke answers.

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SPOILERS AHEAD:

There is much discussion of some of the cults that exist, throughout the book, and in particular, a few which attend the conference to protest the TOEs. One of these Mystical renaissance, is a front-runner, but in the last 100 pages, sort of disappears, and you’re left wondering why they were given so much space.

Another important cult are the Anthrocosmologists, one of the cults embracing “technolibération, which means the “empowerment of people through technology, and the ‘liberation’ of the technology itself from restrictive hands” – in other words, supporting technology in all it’s bizarre applications (like in Junk DNA), but also taking it away from the White Male West, and into the hands of the people, especially science starved Africa. The term started there, with a distinguished scientist.

ACs, as they are called, believe (at least the moderate wing) in merging information theory, an old science, with the TOE, to achieve what they believe is the “end” result. As the books explains “Imagine this cosmology. Forget about starting the universe with just the right finely-tuned Big Bang needed to create stars, planets, intelligent life, and a culture capable of making sense of it all. Instead, take as your ’starting point’ the fact that there’s a living human being who can explain an entire universe, in terms of a single theory. Turn everything around, and take it as the only thing given that this one person exists.”

“From this person, the universe ‘grows out’ of the power to explain it: out in all directions, and forward and backward in time. Instead of being blasted out of pre-space – instead of being ’caused’ inexplicably at the beginning of time – it crystallizes quietly around a single human being.”

“That’s why the universe obeys a single law- a Theory of Everything. It’s all explained by a single person. We call this person the Keystone. Everyone, and everything, exists because the Keystone exists.”

“We can’t watch the universe emerge; we’re part of it, we’re trapped inside the space-time created by the act of explanation. All we can hope to witness, in the progression of time, is one person become the first to hold the TOE in vis [an asex term for him/her asexual humans] mind, and grasp its consequences, and – invisibly, imperceptibly – understand us all into being.

So this group of moderates wishes to “protect” the TOE presenters, in particular, Mosala, who has had threats against her for many things, in order that she might be the Keystone that unlocks the universe, and “understands it into being.” Without it, we’re locked into the same dead space we still occupy.

Then there are extremist ACs, who believe that only ONE person is designed to be the Keystone and that person is predetermined. So, no matter what they, or who they kill, the real Keystone will still exist, because they can’t get it wrong. But other extremists believe that having NO TOE is the more desirable state, as it leaves no end to the possibility of transcendence. Some of the TOE theories leave open (to them) the possibility of other universes, other cosmologies. But these people want more – transcendence.

They believe that “information space,” at the time the Keystone comes the Keystone, in it’s initial configuration, is called the “Aleph.” The Aleph is the pure information preceding all physical things. “The Keystone’s ‘knowledge’ and ‘memory’ come first. The brain which encodes them follows.” The Keystone doesn’t have to think everything into being – it follows by logical implication.

In Violet Masala’s TOE, she uses the concept of forgetting the fine-tuning of the Big Bang theory. Taking our own existence as given, which in some ways parallels the AC’s views, she uses various experiments in which she knows the variables, etc., and assigns them a probability of existing as 100%, something the other TOE theorists won’t do – they want to start with a clean empty slate of physical constraints, and bring it down to pure mathematics. She takes these established facts (the results and conditions of known experiments) as a kind of anchor, and then she “reach[es] down into the level of the TOE, down to the level of infinite sums over all topologies. I calculate what the consequences of my assumptions are, and then I follow them all the way back up again to the macroscopic level, to predict the ultimate results of the experiment.”

And here’s where it starts to get a little mystical, cosmic energy sort of thing, to me – Masala explains to Andrew that (and she reaches out to hold his hand) “without pre-space to mediate between us – without an infinite mixture of topologies able to represent us all with a single flicker of asymmetry – nobody could even touch. That’s what the TOE is. And even if I’m wrong in every detail… I still know it’s down there, waiting to be found. Because there has to be something which lets us touch.”

The extremist AC’s believe that physics, without information, and vice versa, is meaningless, and so the TOE needs to take both into account, and Violet’s TOE does that – she is the only one that does. But once the TOE is completed by the Keystone, the universe will unravel, as complete understanding goes back onto to itself into the beginnings of the universe, effectively obliterating our universe. So they try and stop her – by a bio-weapon.

The last 100 pages differed dramatically from the first 400+. At the place of Egan’s “departure” from normalcy, the island is being closed in on by mercenaries, backed by the company that the bio-tech was stolen from. Now why this is has suddenly become an issue for the company, after about 10 years of lawsuits and small petty attempts of harassment, is unclear; either he glossed over it, or Egan changed his view completely that the island was a living testament to the bio-tech, and as such, it did no harm for the company. The only thing I can think of is that there has been a boycott of the island by most major countries, due to it’s questionable origins and the desire of the nations to stay on the good side of the bio-tech companies, and now Violet Masala, a leading South African scientist, is contemplating a permanent move there – to become a citizen of Stateless. This is supposedly a move on her part, because of her stature in the world’s eye, to try and add credibility to the island and help force the hand of those who boycott the island. But how and why this will hurt the company that owned the stolen bio-tech, I must have missed, when I turned a page. Actually, I just found it – it’s a short paragraph where our hero theorizes that the company, although not wanting to turn Violet into a martyr by killing her (see radical ACs later), wants to reduce the island to panic and “anarchy,” thus proving to the world “that the naive experiment had been doomed from the start.” But how this helps the company is still murky for me. And why Violet’s move is so controversial, must be a small footnote, somewhere.

It turns out this self-same company (En-Gen-Uity) is behind a group of mercenaries who have seized the airport in a bloodless coup (to start a panic and reduce the island to complete anarchy, and later takes to shelling the city; driving the people, in orderly fashion, and by their own volition, to the edges of the island – for the islanders know something the mercenaries don’t; but you, the reader, will find out. Not that it has anything to do with the plot, except that we/I seem to have a vested interest in the success of this tiny island. When our hero Andrew keeps asking them if they are afraid, they say, don’t worry – it’s all been taken care of and planned for.

But then Violet turns sick – from the same kind of bio-warfare that hit our hero earlier – his goes off too early- the bio-weapons seem to be “timed, – and they are able to get an antidote onto the island, which has primitive medical capabilities, by the rest of the world’s standards, and he is saved from a horrendous case of cholera, which gave rise to many of his existentialist musings, as he lay dying. But now Violet is brought down with the same type of bio-weapon, although a different strain/disease, as did one of the Japanese TOE presenters, who never even made it to the island and eventually died from it, and no antidote can be flown in, due to the boycott, plus she is sicker. Just where and how they contracted these disease is a mystery until the end (you find out a part, but not all). Violet is flown back to South Africa, after much wheeling and dealing by our hero with the mercenaries, for safe passage and her government for transportation (a private jet) to the boycotted island (no direct flights there from almost anywhere – you just can’t get there from here). On the way to the airport, in the ambulance, she records for posterity her visions of the TOE, and what she has done with it – she has made a “clonelet”, some type of computer software, and has given it the instructions needed to complete her TOE, once the calculations that will confirm her theory are shortly finished, and to publish it simultaneously to every scientist and university on the planet, in an attempt to bypass the “killing” orders of a radical branch of the group of “Anthrocosmologists.”

What happens next, in the crazy environment that is Stateless during the “siege” and Violet’s extreme illness, and the clonelet’s work on finishing the TOE by a specified time, becomes, in those last few pages, an exercise in self-indulgence, even “self-stimulation” if you get my drift. It’s as if the author is experiencing an orgasmic religious fervour – a mystical look into the cosmos. He describes it in lyrical prose, and while it may feel right to him, it simply doesn’t fit the tone of the earlier 3/4 of the novel, which relied heavily on science and physics/mathematics in particular. It’s as if “The Little Prince,” “What the Bleep! Do We Know,” and “The Secret” have all melted into one small section of a SciFi novel to become an author’s over-indulgent rapturous look at the cosmos, the universe, ourselves,and the interconnectedness of it all. For when the Toe is eventually “read,” what happens is pure New Age. and the epilogue is bizarre.

Some earlier parts from the book just sort of “pop” back up, with no real excuse, except perhaps as red herrings – but this isn’t a mystery novel, it’s Hard SciFi. Take his Junk DNA piece – the human genome experiment guy turns out to be manufacturing viruses for which he of course has total immunity. His “species self-knowledge” had allowed him to make himself the definition of what Egan calls the “H-word” or humanity. So what? There are several instances of this “mystery” theme. The journalist who was supposed to be doing the piece, and from who he stole it, and had collected so much information, seems to be missing, etc. The book is replete with little “mysteries” and lots of red herrings that have no real part of the story – they are interesting in their own right, but end up just “floating” in the story line – not a part of it at all.

It was an extreme disappointment, in a novel that held much promise, from an author that has been widely touted. It was just too touchy-feely, too mystical, too New Age for my tastes. It spoiled the book for me, and I doubt I would ever re-read it. Indeed, it’s going back to be traded in, something I rarely do.

And now for the answers to the Cracker Jack jokes of the week:

1. What did the alien say to the plant?
a. Take me to your weeder!

2. What do planets read?
a. Comet books!

LOL! A somewhat enjoyable book, and you can skim across the more detailed math and physics (if you are a lay person – I couldn’t even begin to know if he was writing it in a manner that most could understand – I’m that lacking in basic math and physics – it’s the big picture stuff, or should I say the quantum level, that I am interested in) and focus on the interactions, the sociological implication of the ubiquitous cults, and the notion of a “stateless” state. The book is a study in near-future – what SciFi SHOULD be, when done right (at least the first part). This is the first book of his I have read, and it definitely will NOT be my last, as I’m curious if this is a fluke, since others have thoroughly enjoyed his books, and even gone so far as to say “since when is there a BAD Egan book.”? Well, I might quibble with that, but later reflection might find that the ideas presented outweigh the negative ending, and move it up a notch.

The Mythos of Star Wars: a reader’s perspective and research

This started out as a comment on the use of technology in Star Wars on my SF reading group:

“Now when does any Star Wars movie appreciate laws of physics?” asked one gentleman.

It then took on a life of its own as shown below. I have added to the comments I made for further study and clarification.

In answer to the above question, I found the SW databank, which outlines all the tech, starships, vehicles, weapons, etc. Sort of like Orion’s Arm? But nowhere does it say anything about the science – merely expounding on the fantasy world he created. And it’s a Lucasfilm site, so it’s officially sanctioned:
http://www.starwars.com/databank/. I found the real answer in that Star Wars is not a “hard” SciFi story as the group defines Hard SciFi (technically plausible science as based on our understanding today), but rather it was a fantasy, a myth.

The Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian had an exhibition called Star Wars: the Magic of Myth, which closed back in 1999 (toured until 2003), but some info remains. See: http://www.nasm.si.edu/exhibitions/StarWars/sw-unit1.htm

From the opening page:
“Star Wars: The Magic of Myth was inspired by Joseph Campbell’s story of the “hero’s journey” presented in Hero With a Thousand Faces, and by comments on the Star Wars films in the book and video series The Power of Myth.”

It’s interesting how some view it as fantasy, others as a mythos. One thing is clear to me – it’s a part of our culture and will be for generations to come. We have invested too much of ourselves into the movies and their world for it not to be.

A long reply ensued, which I can’t quote here verbatim for privacy reasons, legal etc., but she had said that we (meaning the average moviegoer) are “uncomfortable with SW and such being ‘myths’”. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythology

Her reply included that the “connotation of ‘myth’ is much more epic than ‘legend, and far more so than ’story’, even though that’s what it literally means.” And it sounds so much better “than ‘fantasy’ or ‘world’, which is why you hear countless references to the Harry Potter or Buffy or Star Wars ‘mythologies’. It kind of has an implication of something that goes so far beyond the original that it can almost be considered functionally separate.”

She mentioned Henry Jenkins and his book “Texual Poachers” that talked about this and fan fiction. The blurb on the book says in part:

“‘Get a life,’ William Shatner told Star Trek fans. Yet, as ‘Textual Poachers’ argues, fans already have a ‘life,’ a complex subculture which draws its resources from commercial culture while also reworking them to serve alternative interests. Rejecting stereotypes of fans as cultural dupes, social misfits, and mindless consumers, Jenkins represents media fans as active producers and skilled manipulators of program meanings, as nomadic poachers constructing their own culture from borrowed materials, as an alternative social community defined through its cultural preferences and consumption practices.

Written from an insider’s perspective and providing vivd examples from fan artifacts, ‘Textual Poachers’ offers an ethnographic account of the media fan community, its interpretive strategies, its social institutions and cultural practices, and its troubled relationship to the mass media and consumer capitalism.”

She said that most people would view Star Wars and such being myths. I replied that I wouldn’t bet my last supper on that. I would think that most people would NOT view it as a myth – I replied that I used mythos as a way of primitizing the word. To pull it back to it’s origins.

Jospeh Campbell’s “The Power of Myth,” which I fondly recall watching all umpteen episodes of (and I have the book), was a huge influence on Lucas:

“George Lucas was the first Hollywood filmmaker to openly credit Campbell’s influence. Lucas stated following the release of the first Star Wars film in 1977 that its story was shaped, in part, by ideas described in “The Hero With a Thousand Faces’ and other works of Campbell’s.”

“I [Lucas] came to the conclusion after American Graffiti that what’s valuable for me is to set standards, not to show people the world the way it is…around the period of this realization…it came to me that there really was no modern use of mythology…The Western was possibly the last generically American fairy tale, telling us about our values. And once the Western disappeared, nothing has ever taken its place. In literature we were going off into science fiction…so that’s when I started doing more strenuous research on fairy tales, folklore, and mythology, and I started reading Joe’s books. Before that I hadn’t read any of Joe’s books…It was very eerie because in reading ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’ I began to realize that my first draft of Star Wars was following classic motifs…so I modified my next draft [of Star Wars] according to what I’d been learning about classical motifs and made it a little bit more consistent…I went on to read ‘The Masks of God’ and many other books.”

see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell

see also: http://virtual.clemson.edu/groups/dial/sffilm/camplink.html which also has an essay on the Hero…, and Star Wars and also The Matrix.
see also: http://www.online.pacifica.edu/cgl/lucas
which details Campbell’s very favorable impressions of Star Wars.

Indeed, according to Wiki, the “Power of Myth” documentary for PBS was filmed at Skywalker Ranch. There is also a companion DVD available at the PBS store (no, I don’t have a financial stake in PBs, just an interest in seeing it survive… )

Wiki goes on to talk about later connections including the Smithsonian exhbit I mentioned earlier.

See also:

An American Mythology: Why Star Wars Still Matters http://www.decentfilms.com/sections/articles/starwars.html

Star Wars: A Myth for Our Time by Andrew Gordon: http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/agordon/starwars.htm

And at the The Center for Storty and Symbol, see also “Move over Odysseus, here comes Luke Skywalker, by Steve Persall, St. Petersburg Times Film Critic, at: http://www.folkstory.com/articles/petersburg.html

and last, but not least, “Episode One – The Phantom Menace: Star Wars as Personal Mythology,” by Jonathon Young at: http://www.folkstory.com/articles/starwars.html

Jonathon Young was interviewed in the History Channel’s documentary entitled “Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed.”

So my use of mythos was purposeful. To bring the concepts back to their origins. Myth connotates something less to some, something “not true,” since it has dual meaning, and many use the latter meaning. Mythos has only one meaning – mythology with it’s archetypes.

In “Myth and Ideology in Contemporary Brazilian Fiction,” the author, Daphne Patai, writes that the word mythos derives from the Greek word mu, which came to signify “word”:

“Over time, mythos came to be distinquished from other Greek terms for word – “eops” and “logos”: ‘Mythos became the word as the most ancient, the original account of the origins of the world, in divine relevation of sacred tradition, of gods and demi-gods, and the genesis of the cosmos, cosmogony: and it came to be sharply contrasted with epos, the word as human narration, and – from the
Sophists on – with logos, the word as rational construction.

Today the term myth seems to be used in all three senses, and in additional ones as well. The range of uses in which the word is used is matched only by the vagueness of the claims put forth in the name of myth, on the one hand, and by the contradictory defintions of it and it’s functions, on the other.” pg.27

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=IR194Q_AS-sC&dq=myth+and+ideology+in+contemporary+brazilian+fiction&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=uNN1N0c8Ra&sig=OehOeKSFyNqPE_NVZk3AlitnBa8

For more on myth and it’s origins, should anyone even care (I find it fascinating, but then Campbell was integral to my earlier life): http://www.indigogroup.co.uk/foamycustard/fc042.htm

So, does mythos explain the power of Star Wars – that it grabs at our most inner belief structure? Or is it just entertaintment?

Currently reading : Uglies (Uglies Trilogy, Book 1) By Scott Westerfeld Release date: 08 February, 2005

Book Burning or Fahrenheit 451 for the Golden Compass?

A friend’s blog/post that she thought should go here:

So here’s the scoop: I was on a list for one of my AI diseases that shall remain nameless. I was brand new, and should have lurked for a while, but I had just gotten into a minor dust-up over some stupid thing on the other health list that I don’t even recall, so I thought – fresh beginnings. Not so, I’m a stinky old fish.

I was looking at the back messages list on the web for the group, and they show only the top few lines of each back post. The majority had some sort of religious slant, and one kept starting with a biblical quote – the poster puts her sig line at the top so that’s what always shows. The intro had made a point about how they welcome people of all beliefs and were tolerant towards all. So I was a little concerned as I am an agnostic/aethist (depends on the day) and had rejecting trying religious oriented groups. Then I see a post on The Golden Compass, a popular teen book by Philip Pullman. I was curious what it had to do with this disease, so I looked at the message. The poster warned everyone at the top about this message she was passing on and to beware…

The message she was forwarding was from someone about a religious watchdog type organization called Snopes. It was on the Golden Compass and the new movie with Nicole Kidman.

Here’s what the message said: (I feel free to quote as this part wasn’t the poster’s and wasn’t cited)
_______
Check out what snopes has to say about this new movie coming out. It is kind of scarry to think that it is targeting kids.

Subject: New Children’s Movie–The Golden Compass
You may want to check into information on a children’s movie that will be coming out in December. It is the atheist response to C S Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia. The intent is to entice children to purchase a series of anti-Christian books for Christmas.
The movie stars Nicole Kidman and will be heavily promoted. It would be too bad of well-intended parents took their children to see it, not knowing that it attempts to glorify the “darker side.”

For further information see
http://snopes.com:80/politics/religion/compass.asp..

Okay, now this made me start to burn a little around the edges, just crisping. So I went to the link and read the article. Nice piece of incorrect, intolerant, and out of context imflammatory work. They cite an interview with Pullman (although no info or actual cite is given to check on it) in which he says he wants to kill God. Now he is an aetheist, a self-avowed one, so they say. In actually, on his website, Pullman states:”Question: His Dark Materials seems to be against organised religion. Do you believe in God?”" I don’t know whether there’s a God or not. Nobody does, no matter what they say. I think it’s perfectly possible to explain how the universe came about without bringing God into it, but I don’t know everything, and there may well be a God somewhere, hiding away.” Does that sound like he wants to kill god for kids?

When interviewed in the Guardian in 2003, it was said:”If all that didn’t fuel a chap’s vanity, Pullman has also been labelled anti-God because his good guys take on God. This, though, is to misread His Dark Materials, which tells the story of Lyra. In his trilogy, Lyra re-enacts the story of the original Eve. He takes, I say, the Jewish view of Eve. Namely, that what happened in the Garden of Eden was the beginning of the world as we know it (the story appears in Bereishit, the beginning of the Five Books of Moses, for that reason), and not the great Fall, or end of all good, which is the Christian version. “Exactly right,” says Pullman”
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1103617,00.html

So what he is doing is using the Jewish form of the creation story, not the Christian form of Armageddon and the end of God.

I read two of the articles listed as sources, and neither presents such a negative view of Pullman or his books. Instead he is portrayed as a secular humanist:”

That religious theme [Lyra's struggles] drew heavily from On theMarionette Theatre, an essay by the 19th-century Prussian playwright Heinrich von Kleist, which had made a profound impression on Pullman 15 years earlier.”‘ Everything that I managed to say in 1,300 pages is in that essay. Kleist says we exist on a spectrum that goes from the unconscious to the fully conscious, and once we’ve left unconscious grace behind we can’t go back, we can only go on – through life, through education,through suffering, through experience to the thing we come to call wisdom, which is right at the other end of the spectrum.’”
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article2176386.ece

Also, I AM concerned over this controversy on The Golden Compass which I see as a modern day book burning. They have the aim/philosophy of the book wrong, and are publicly condemning the book, the author and the movie, many without having read or seen it (it isn’t out yet as far as I know). So I guess I see it as a warning of things to come…

For those of you who are younger and may not know the book, Fahrenheit 451 is by Ray Bradbury and is the story of a futuristic society in which all books are banned as subversive and anyone caught with one would be punished severely. The central character is a fireman, one who burns books, while the rest of society lives meaningless, hedonistic lives. 451 degrees is the temperature at which paper burns.

Interestingly, although generations have been taught that the story is about censorship, in reality, according to a recent interview, Bradbury claims it’s about the damaging effects of television on reading habits. In the book, the inhabitants have large colorful wall-sized TV screens called “walls” that continuously stream endless junk (the show’s characters are called “family).” http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenheit-451-misinterpreted/16524/

Although I’m not that certain that was the focus back when he wrote it, as very few people had TVs and they were small little B&W sets, with little programming. But his use of the term wall for TV and the TV charcaters as family – as I recall you were encouraged to care about them and their happenings, begs otherwise. It is possible to me, that over the years, and as he aged, he came to see the book in a different light. Or else why bring it up now and not when the books first came out? Or after the 1960s movie? But most likely it is an amalgam of the two.

Indeed Wikipedia states:

“Yet in the paperback edition released in 1979, Bradbury wrote a new coda for the book containing multiple comments on censorship and its relation to the novel. The coda is also present in the 1987 mass market paperback, which is still in print.

‘There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist / Unitarian, Irish / Italian / Octogenarian / Zen Buddhist, Zionist / Seventh-day Adventist, Women’s Lib / Republican, Mattachine / FourSquareGospel feel it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse….Fire-Captain Beatty, in my novel Fahrenheit 451, described how the books were burned first by the minorities, each ripping a page or a paragraph from this book, then that, until the day came when the books were empty and the minds shut and the library closed forever.
… Only six weeks ago, I discovered that, over the years, some cubby-hole editors at Ballantine Books, fearful of contaminating the young, had, bit by bit, censored some 75 separate sections from the novel. Students, reading the novel which, after all, deals with the censorship and book-burning in the future, wrote to tell me of this exquisite irony. Judy-Lynn Del Rey, one of the new Ballantine editors, is having the entire book reset and republished this summer with all the damns and hells back in place…’”

So I will use it as my example of narrow thinking and censorship and will always love the ending. But I will take into account his current view of the book. I’ll have to read it again, and see if I can find more info. Check Wikipedia – “Fahrenheit 451″ for more info and links. Bradbury has always been controversial.