Book Review: For The Win

I was excited to be able to do an official HiR book review, especially for an internationally acclaimed author. Really, I was happy to read a thick tome of investigation into the social interactions of modern teenagers and the digital economy. Cory Doctorow has skills as an author that I enjoy, especially his ability to take concepts and event of real life, shake them up into a story and present us with a very plausible near future, a-la Little Brother.

For The Win began in just such a fashion and I worked my way through the nearly 500 page volume in under a week. Well researched, check. Developed characters with believable interactions, check. Locations, real and virtual, check and check. An interesting story line and plot, well, sorta check. You see, For The Win fell apart for me because I couldn't get into the importance of the overall plot. Unioinizing the distributed workers of virtual worlds through the virtual world is a great concept but I just couldn't make it work out in my head. Maybe it's because I am beyond the idealistic stage that the book targets in it's YA market. Maybe my very centrist politics couldn't be suspended in disbelief enough to get into that aspect of the story.

In my view Doctorow wrote the story from the angle that oppressed workers need a union to emerge from under the thumb of their oppressors. I can agree with that, to a point - the "need" point. Doctorow danced with the issue in the plot, trying to make the heirarchy of the unions into a community driven grass-roots effort and I've spent time since finishing the book contemplating if the SPOILER ALERT!!!!!111!!!one1!! failure of the union effort was an example for the failure of such a organisation or if it was merely an attempt to provoke thought as to how the idea of a union needs updating for a modern hyper-communication driven society by showing a possible mode of failure.

I finished the book with a profound sense of meh. And, I didn't want to. In the end I felt the story ran a good 200 pages more than it needed to, even though the book didn't feel padded. The story just seemed that it could fit into the confines of a shorter book and be even more though provoking and relevant to a YA reader. Having been a young reader back in my, well, younger, days I know just the size of this novel would have been off putting for many. I know a good number of young readers can handle novels of this length but there is always that nag in the back of a teenage mind that there is something important that might take precedence over knocking out hundreds of pages. I can easily see the novel being applied to a political or economical theory course and and can hear the goans of much of the class as the instructor hands out stacks of thick paperbacks.

Teaser: Cory Doctorow's new novel, For The Win

It was an odd bit of coincidence this morning. Frogman had shared a story with me from Boing Boing: 200 advance-release promo copies of Cory Doctorow's newest novel, For The Win, are being given away to teenage gamers to review. I should mention that I am thankful to have a few friends who skim Boing Boing for the really awesome and interesting stuff. There's far too much content for me to wade through in my RSS reader, so folks like Frogman are my Boing Boing filter.

Thinking back to an email conversation I had with Cory back in late November (in which I requested a preview copy for HiR), I was wondering if we were going to actually get one of the them. Not 5 minutes later, UPS knocked on my door and dropped off a special package:

At any rate, we're excited to be able to get a sneak peek of Cory's latest work. Frogman will be doing the review. Look for it in the coming weeks!

HiR Reading Room: Beyond Fear

Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security In An Uncertain World by Bruce Schneier is a Post-9/11 look at security for normal people. It arms the reader with the knowledge and understanding to distinguish FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) and "Security Theater" from things that really do improve security.

While Schneier overly simplifies or dilutes certain security concepts that have well-established definitions in the industry, I feel that the book itself was a worthwhile read for anyone because the concepts are presented in a clear, easy-to-understand manner.

The book itself starts off by describing what security entails, and what elements are at play. From there, it starts giving examples of various scenarios and explains why certain countermeasures would work or fail. Security, versus Security Theater.

For those of us who are already working in or have an understanding of security and how it works, this book will be a little bit repititious at some spots. Conversely, it's entertaining enough to read through from beginning to end. If you often find yourself critical of the effectiveness of so-called "security" protocols, this might be the book for you. If you already have a firm grasp of the security mindset but want to be able to explain security in simple terms that anyone can understand, this book is packed with anecdotes and verbiage that simply make sense.

Overall, I enjoyed Beyond Fear quite a bit. I wouldn't dare cite it as a serious reference in a research paper on security, but I'd most certainly recommend it to technical and non-technical people alike who seem to have succumbed to FUD from a lack of understanding.

Exploiting Online Games

Kansas City native game hacker, tinkerer and developer Josh Kriegshauser discussed Greg Hoglund and Gary McGraw's book, Exploiting Online Games.  Josh is an old friend, former co-worker, and former classmate to various HiR writers.  He went from tinkering with Ultima Online while he was in school, to being a big name in the MMO industry in the last decade.  

I found Josh's discussion about the book interesting, and thought I'd share it here.  I'm definitely not a gamer in any sense of the word, but things like this interest me enough that I'm seriously considering picking up a copy.