Little Brother is the common man fighting against Big Brother.

You might have heard of ‘enshittification‘.

Writer Cory Doctorow coined the neologism “enshittification” in November 2022, though he was not the first to describe and label the concept.

The American Dialect Society selected it as its 2023 Word of the Year. …

enshittification is a pattern in which online products and services decline in quality.

Initially, vendors create high-quality offerings to attract users, then they degrade those offerings to better serve business customers, and finally degrade their services to users and business customers to maximize profits for shareholders.

Córy Doctorow might just be the smartest tech pundit. And he’s incredibly well spoken.

I went back to read his 2008 book Little Brother.

The novel is about four teenagers in San Francisco who, in the aftermath of a terrorist attack on the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge and BART system, defend themselves against the Department of Homeland Security‘s attacks on the Bill of Rights. …

The Hollywood Reporter remarked, “The book tackles many themes, including civil liberties and social activism”.

… addressing “issues of political authority, social order, individual freedom and electronic security.

Though the technology is a bit dated in 2024, the themes are as important as ever.

Democracies must vote for those politicians who support the level of privacy and online security they want.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

---

I started the sequel — Homeland (2013) — but only made it about 30% through the audiobook.

The start at the Burning Man festival was entertaining. But I found it increasingly too geeky. The decision whether or not to release leaked data was not a compelling enough plot to keep me going.