Walter Jon Williams ’ Deep State , out next week , picks up the theme of viral merchandising and social mass medium from his previous novelThis Is Not A Game . And a mass of the hooey that Williams spell about is very interchangeable to what ’s been go on in Egypt and Tunisia . Is Williams a prophet of the internet geezerhood , or just lucky ? Here ’s his take on what encounter .
If Nothing ’s A Game , Then Everything Is
As I watch the Egyptian demonstration on CNN , I ’m fascinated . A people - power rotation against an Arab tyrant was all unknown until a couple week ago , when the Jasmine Revolution pitched Tunisia ’s Zine Ben Ali out of his luxe presidential spot and into exile . As I write this , it seems as if another people - index revolution is on the brink of achiever in Egypt .
I ’m fascinated as I watch out , but I am not surprised . I know that this was going to occur .
Oh , I did n’t cognise it would happen in Egypt , or first in Tunisia . But I was very confident it would happen somewhere , sufficiently sure-footed that I wrote the blueprint for this character of revolution in my novel , Deep State , which started appearing in stores just as uprising exploded across Egypt . Very interesting timing , this .
Once establish , the Internet is like a river : it tend to flow around obstacles . The Chinese authorities has employ tens of thousands of civil handmaid to maintain what has been called the Great Firewall of China , its monumental endeavor to limit entropy and discussion among Chinese . But any Taiwanese hacker deserving his salinity love about proxy servers and software program that will enable him to hide his IP speech , and that cyber-terrorist will flow around the Great Wall to do his surfing and communication in near guard .
Anyone with access to the Internet can find out what ’s blend on around the public whether his government activity wants him to or not . Anyone who wants to keep their discussions and interests private has a very good opportunity of succeed even against so formidable an obstacle as the Great Wall . The cock are there , ranging from Freenet to Tor to darknets .
In Deep State , a small cabal of puppetmasters misrepresent social medium to form a masses - great power revolt in a Middle Eastern autarchy — to “ astroturf an entire country , ” as my protagonist Dagmar puts it . To cause a gyration , and to have the revolutionaries mean it was all their own thought .
“ Man is by nature a societal animal , ” as Aristotle says . “ Society is something that precede the individual . ” What Dagmar start with is the realisation that everyone is already internet . Everyone has Friend they hang out with , old friends they see only every so often , loved ones , coitus , third cousin-german double removed , confrere , political affiliate , religious affiliates , superiors , subsidiary , fellow - hobbyists , fellow - reader . . . All those networks are canonical . Social media adds additional electronic connection , and make it easier to communicate with the meshwork you might already have , but they did n’t invent social networks . Those come as a given .
Dagmar begin with these networks . Through electronic medium , entire meshing can be mobilized very speedily and move into place . crowd can be assembled like flash bulb mobs , before the authorities can decent oppose . Local police or military would be overwhelmed , and the insurgents can dissipate before reinforcements arrive .
The gyration in Egypt began with a few people on Facebook foretell the times and places of demonstrations , then letting the information move along their networks , and their friends ’ mesh , and the networks of their friends ’ protagonist , until it start to reach X of thousands of people .
The technological name for this is “ open - source insurgence . ”
It ’s very hard for the authorities to cope with this kind of insurrection once it gets move . There are no drawing card to arrest . There ’s no power structure to disrupt . If a connection go down , other overlapping networks remain intact .
A successful people - mightiness revolt utilise a strategy that flows , like the Internet , around any likely confrontation .
For someone like me , who remembers Vietnam - geological era protestors gamely stapling mimeographed leaflets to power terminal , the variety of methods by which irregular can be mobilize is marvelous beyond belief : societal media like Facebook , Twitter , SMS , phone , instant electronic messaging , blogs , satellite phone , online bulletin boards , pic , Semacodes . . . I ’m certain I ’ve bequeath some out . Plus- if you ’re worried about communication security- there is a all-embracing assortment of public - key encoding uncommitted , military grade for all intents and function , plus more alien methods of hiding your messages , like steganography .
Or you could write the whole thing in l33 tetraiodothyronine and drive anyone trying to say it brainsick .
All this is tremendous , as long as you have access to modern communications systems . But what happens when the authorities decide to move around off the Internet ?
After all , this has bump . In Iran , in Burma , in Tunisia and Egypt .
In part , your reply will depend on what division of the communication grid goes down . If the Internet is down but cell phone networks are still up , you ’ve still get very good communicating . If the prison cell phone go down , you ’ve got land line .
In Deep State , I had the insurgents utilize country line to dial out of the country and get at the net from there . ( That ’s just what the rebels in Egypt are doing . )
Of course , if you ’re used to high-pitched - stop number net , finding a telephone dial - up modem may prove a bit of a job . ( Dagmar had a somewhat cunning way of find them . ) And if you ca n’t turn up any , I ’ve got a crowd of old modem in my closet- and if you ’re direct an insurgence against a despot , you could have them for free .
When the cyberspace goes down , you have to get creative , or get the boots on the solid ground . former - fashioned smash - on - the - door tactics may be ask . In Egypt , guerrilla walk into neighborhood and go shout “ Down with Mubarak ! ” When the great unwashed come up out of their home , they are led to the site of the demonstration .
For a government , though , turn over off the Internet is jolly much the thermonuclear option . In just a couple of decade , the Internet has become such an integral part of the economy- and of government itself- that close it down is the equivalent of committing economic seppuku . You have to hope the insurgents run out of hope before the saving melt out of cash .
In the interim , I continue to watch the Earth - shake drama played out in the Arab creation . I have to keep reminding myself that I be intimate that it was go to go on , if not in Egypt , then in Belarus , or Syria , or Algeria , or China .
I wrote the Scripture about this , I think to myself .
How about that ?
Top image via AP .
Ap photoBooks
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