From: Michael Nielsen (mnielsen@theory.caltech.edu)
Date: Wed Sep 02 1998 - 15:50:27 MDT
On Wed, 2 Sep 1998, Bryan Moss wrote:
> Here's the plan:
>
> A student at Temple University buys Brin's book
> thinking its science fiction; he doesn't discover
> that it is, in fact, speculative non-fiction until
> he reaches page 296. (Bare with me here - I'm
> trying to establish a scenario in which someone
> would willingly read the entire book.)
I read the entire book willingly. I'm surprised at the
vehemence of people who dislike the book. I thought
the book was quite well done, even though by and large
I'm not in agreement with Brin. The most gaping flaw is
that he doesn't say enough about how to break
cryptosystems. That didn't bother me especially, as
pervasive surveillance technology definitely puts a big
dint in the hopes of crypto fans. If you assume that
surveillance becomes pervasive, then being able to
break crypto or not is irrelevant to the larger
point of the book.
Michael Nielsen
http://www.theory.caltech.edu/~mnielsen/
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