TITLE: Information, Dystopia, and a Hook
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: October 29, 2008  9:11 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
On my drive to Purdue today, I listened to the first
3/4 of Caleb Carr's novel, "Killing Time".  This is
not a genre I read or listen to often, so it's hard
for me to gauge the book's quality.  If you are
inclined, you can read
<A HREF="http://www.rambles.net/carr_killtime.html">
   reviews</A>
<A HREF="http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/0679463321.asp">
   on-line</A>.
At this point, I would say that it is not a very good
book, but it delivered fine escapism for a car ride
on a day when I needed a break more than deep thought.
But it did get me to thinking about...  computer
science.  The vignette that sets up the novel's plot
is based on a typical use case for Photoshop, or a
homework assignment in a
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2006-11.html#e2006-11-14T16_32_15.htm">
   media computation CS1 course</A>.

Carr describes a world controlled by "information barons",
a term intended to raise the specter of the 19th century's
rail barons and their control of wealth and commerce.  The
central feature of his world in 2023 is deception -- the
manipulation of information, whether digital or physical,
to control what people think and feel.  The novel's opening
involves the role a doctored video plays in a presidential
assassination, and later episodes include doctored photos,
characters manufactured via the data planted on the
internet, the encryption of data on disk, and real-time
surveillance of encrypted communication.

If students are at all interested in this kind of story,
whether for the science fiction, the intrigue, or the
social implications of digital media and their
malleability, then we have a great way to engage them
in computing that matters.  It's CSI for the computer
age.

Carr seems to have an agenda on the social issues, and
as is often the case, such an agenda interferes with
the development of the story.  His characters are
largely cut-outs in service of the message.  Carr
paints a dystopian view striking for its unremitting
focus on the negatives of digital media and the
science's increasing understanding of the world at a
molecular level.  The book seems unaware that biology
and chemistry are helping us to understand diseases,
create new drugs, and design new therapies, or that
computation and digital information create new
possibilities in every discipline and part of life.
Perhaps it is more accurate to say that Carr starts
with these promises as his backdrop and chooses to
paint a world in which everything that could go wrong
has.  That makes for an interesting story but ultimately
an unsatisfying thought experiment.  For escapism,
that may be okay.

After my
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2008-10.html#e2008-10-29T09_16_55.htm">
   previous entry</A>,
I couldn't help but wonder whether I would have the
patience to read this book.  I have to think not.
How many pages?  274 pages -- almost slender compared
to Perec's book.  Still, I'm glad I'm listening and
not reading.
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