Hax0ring it up Frisko Style

What better way to floss one's knowledge of all things hax0rz and anti-fair use than writing a book--and giving it away for FREE? What no blog?! No Twitter Updates? No IM blasts? SFTU! Yes, in this digital age, writing a book with actual paper seems downright steampunk-onian, but whom other web rockstar to subvert our almost intravenous digestion of digital banalities than Cory Doctorow, (of boingboing.net, a directory of wonderful things) with his new young adult novel titled Little Brother. Set in my lovely city of San Francisco (FRISKO!), it is a story of a band of teenage digital misfits in the near distant future, where Mission's Cesar Chavez High School uses gait recognition cameras to detect intruders, and provides standard issue, US Department of Education lap-books optimized for Vista4Schools! to keep students on-line but IN-line.

What intrigued me most about this book (disclaimer I am still e-listening to it, hence my photo above) is that they elaborate on sh%t I sometimes use to subvert all types of digital protections and copyright. Some examples: TOR, WiFi Hacking, $sys$firefox.exe--I mean, WHAT YOU KNOW 'BOUT $sys$ SON! This is far from precious metal gangster chants--$sys$ is a way conceal your nasties (computer programs people, computer programs) from big brother. GEEKSH%T. So moving on.

In addition to computer nerd references, these kidz are running around the 'hoods of the city, from the Mission, to the 'Loin getting into all sorts of hot messes with the Department of Homeland Security, and the author crazy links (if one could even hotlink in a book) to all these places-only-locals could remember. Among some of the references are Powell St. BART, Market St., Fisherman's Wharf, Hotel Nikko, Anzu; It's like this guy is a Yelp Elite or something. Listening to this story on the bus is rather fun, as I sometimes pass through said neighborhoods, and see said establishments.

The main character talks about partaking in a little mid-afternoon LARPing session (how whack is this), as well as Harajuku Fun Madness--some sort of super-hacked J-POP scavenger hunt on crack. I mean, look at that name "HARAJUKU FUN MADNESS". I don't even know what it means, but I want to buy it it's so hot. But not all in this book is cute and fun, as references to terrorism & the Department of Homeland Security, make the US of A seem like a military state bent on twisting truths to get what we want--or wait, we are.

Overall, I am looking forward to finishing this e-book (available in many forms, plain text, pdf, etc.) All flavors of which, come pre-basted with the lovely buttery-ness of Creative Commons Licensing, (to which Mr. Doctorow is a fervent supporter). All this for the low low price of FREE99. So kidz pick this up, I know it is a "young-adult" read, but it does tie all the weird parts of our current tech-savvy/tech-phobic/terror-phobic/copyright-bent society together in a neat way.

I recommend the audio, but if you are too cheap, hit me up and I can get it for you like Kanye's workout plan. jk.