John Brunner's 1975 science-fiction novel The Shockwave Rider is an amazing piece of work in many ways. It describes a future where a complete and totalitarian information network controls the lives of citizens in a dystopian society dangeling over a precipice (and in which a village of a few rebels flying underneath the radar of total information gathering is, aptly enough, actually called Precipice).
We follow renegade government program member Nick Haflinger as he struggles to circumvent the network and reveal the government's secrets to the people, giving them the choice to take the power that is information into their own hands.
Among the things predicted in this work from the 1970s are: a network not unlike the Internet (called "the Web"), cracking, computer viruses and worms (as a matter of fact, the term "worm" comes from this very novel), "smart mobs", anonymity services for the Internet, and a futures market on world events which resembles the US Department of Defense's planned (and, after a public outcry, cancelled) Policy Analysis Market. It also describes an interesting abstract board game called Fencing which can be thought of as a cross between Battleship and Go.
Definitely recommended reading for those enjoying this blog.
monochrom is an art-technology-philosophy group having its seat in Vienna and Zeta Draconis. monochrom is an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop attitude, subcultural science, context hacking and political activism. Our mission is conducted everywhere, but first and foremost in culture-archeological digs into the seats (and pockets) of ideology and entertainment. monochrom has existed in this (and almost every other) form since 1993. [more]
