Little Brother
by Cory Doctorow · first published 2008
47% recommend50% neutral3% critical
Why HN recommends it
Accessible young-adult techno-thriller about surveillance and abuse of power that gets technical details right; works as a primer on security, cryptography and open source, and suits teens and newcomers to these topics.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Seventeen year old Marcus and his friends are in the wrong place at the wrong time during a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. They are held by the Department of Homeland Security for days before being released only to discover that their city has turned into surveillance society police state. They decide to resist in the only way they know how by taking on the DHS. This book is distributed freely under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license from the author's website.
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Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
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My favorites were Decisive, by the Heath brothers, Little brother, by Cory Doctorow and I listened to the Graveyardbook, by Neil Gaiman.
on “Ask HN: Best books you read in 2013” ↗This is so completely out of Cory Doctorow's "Little Brother". Brilliant book, highly suggest reading. Goes to show how accurate his estimation of what censored youth will do was.
on “Cuban youth build secret computer network despite Wi-Fi ban” ↗Cory Doctorow's Little Brother. I could not put it down, and read it in one sitting.
on “Ask HN: Recommendations of good cybercrime novels?” ↗Surprised how no one mentioned Little Brother[1] by Cory Doctorow and the sequel Homeland[2] It's near-future Sci-Fi and since it was written in 2008, it's more or less present now. It dives into a lot of topics that are relevant nowadays 1. https://craphound.com/littlebrother/…
on “Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?” ↗…Friedman) -- Great book on a potential anarcho-capitalist society and how we could push the US government in that direction. The Game (Neil Strauss) -- See nopassrecover's response; he explained it well. Little Brother (Cory Doctorow) -- A fantastic novel about freedom and technology. Makers (Cory Doctorow) -- A great novel about people who create, whether technology or business models. Perhaps the best book I read…
on “Ask HN: Great books you read in 2009?” ↗…I hate to say it, but I won't read a book with advertisements in it. We're in for a storm. Edit: Maybe I will read a book with advertisements in it. In a sense, I've already done it. Cory Doctorow's _Little Brother_ and _For the Win_ both begin each chapter with "bookstore dedications". This wasn't advertising they paid for, but something he did on his own. Not only did I not find it intrusive, but I found it sort…
on “Self-publishing on the rise (no more 'vanity' press)” ↗I'd highly recommend Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. I read it last weekend and simply couldn't put it down. It's along the lines of 1984 but less extreme and thus more believable. The (free) ebook can be found at http://www.craphound.com/littlebrother/download/.…
on “Ask HN: What should I read next?” ↗That's awesome. Ever read Cory doctorow's "little brother"? That's what I think of every time I read one of these stories. I've said it before- there are two easy ways to avoid this 1. Drive, 2. Don't visit the USA. To us residents, especially if you live in…
on “Re-entry to US without backscatter or pat-down” ↗…them into a corner, but 1) that can easily backfire, and 2) it's hard to deal with the systematic problems. A great example of how to deal with a serious technological hurdle: In Cory Doctorow's book "Little Brother" (absolutely worth a read -- my favorite of all time, FWIW) everyone in the bay area has RFID passes for traveling on BART and paying tolls by car. One of the characters comes up with plans for a device…
on “Freedom: The Big American Lie” ↗I got bored reading this article but I generally like Cory Doctorow's sci-fi writing. His book Little Brother was great and every now and again I seek out a futuristic hacker* short story he wrote called "0nz0red". *the other meaning of the word
on “Cory Doctorow: Writing in the Age of Distraction” ↗its lifted right from Cory Doctorow's Little Brother. Which is a great read and a wonderful tool to teach the importance of the right to privacy and encryption.
on “TrackMeNot Firefox add-on protects search privacy by generating noise” ↗I'm fairly sure I've mentioned it with respect to the high school webcam controversy before, but I think it bears repeating: read Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. I can't say much about it that wikipedia doesn't without giving things away, but I assure you that you won't be disappointed; way too relevant...
on “Where Have All the Hackers Gone?” ↗this is the read that got me into doctorow, of course basically all of his other writing is great. 'little brother' was the 'one city, one book' selection by SF Library last year, and anyone concerned about the surveillance state should definitely give it a read.
on “When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth (2007)” ↗So Snowden is basically Marcus Yallow from "Little Brother" by Cory Doctorow. Great book even if it is young adult sci-fi.
on “Snowden’s First Move Against the NSA Was a Party in Hawaii” ↗…your own suspicion factor and increasing the adversaries uncertainty when facing big data. How a system fails is just as important as how it performs when it comes to security, the young-adult novel Little Brother by Doctorow goes into this in good detail.
on “Twitter Activist Security” ↗