I’ve read Little Brother a while back. It’s a really fast-paced novel for teenagers. Especially tech-savvy teenagers. It is very well written IMHO and manages to address many concerns regarding a pro-active surveillance state. Truth to be told, I read it on the iPhone on a road-trip. I was kinda lost and literally divulged the e-book since I had many hours to spare. That’s the best book from Corry Doctorrow I’ve read so far. The other one Makers wasn’t as appealing.

Oh? It’s nice to be talking about this book, sure. I mostly agree with Peter Watts, who gave a talk on why he does not believe in the “transparent society” idea (pdf of his write-up). Note that he’s directly replying to David Brin, not to Cory Doctorow; Brin and Doctorow mostly agree on the topic, but this shouldn’t be taken as a rebuttal or anything.

My favorite part:

Brin claims that laws to limit government surveillance will never work, because we primates come with built-in dominance hierarchies. Telling our leaders they can’t spy on us would be tantamount to poking a silverback gorilla with a stick; they just won’t stand for it.

But, he says, they might let us look back — so we’ll watch the watchers. The camera will point both ways. The playing field will be level.

The dude’s a physicist, so I suppose he can be forgiven for thinking that it’s a good idea to get into a staring contest with an aggressive territorial 200-kg mammal who regards eye contact as a threat display. Speaking as a biologist, I really can’t recommend it.

If you enjoy the book and think it would benefit kids to read it, you can donate a copy to libraries: http://craphound.com/littlebrother/donate/