Communications - December 2008

last byte

Future Tense, one of the revolving features on this page, presents stories from the intersection of computational science and technological speculation, their boundaries limited only by our ability to imagine what will and could be.

DOI: 10.1145/1409360.1453248
Cory Doctorow
future tense
Pester Power
To a capable botmaster, the whole world is a Turing Test.

The NypD DoMes Tic Security Task Force executed its no-knock warrant against Annalisa Mor at 8: 17 p.m., June 3, 2013. Working the ram were three stout officers in none-more-black nanopore body armor and bulletproof boots, their goggles crowded with informa-tion-dense telemetry from an array of sensors embedded on their persons and hovering aerostatically around the 16th floor of the Lower Manhattan student residence in which Mor dwelled.

The ram blew through the solid-steel door like it was kleenex. The door was reinforced by charley-bars set deep into the frame, so the frame tore loose (along with the door) with a series of crunches and metallic snapping sounds, and the three officers on the ram dropped it as they crashed through into the one-room studio. They fanned out, making room for the officers behind them, who already had their arms drawn, set to full lethal/au-tomatic.

Mor rose slowly from her workbench—standard-issue third-hand student furniture stabilized with steel angle brackets at each corner—and held up her long, skinny hands over her face in a universal gesture of oh-god-please-don’t-kill-me. The ram squad impersonally body-checked her to the floor and saran-wrapped her while the follow-up team gusted her computer with great gouts of freon, turning the whole room into an ice palace that misted frozen air out into the sultry New York night through the pathetic window that had been cracked open to catch a breeze. Mor caught some of the freon, and when they lifted her up

to carry her down the 16 flights to the waiting van, she crackled like fresh powder under long skis.

Gina Genoese had visited the Ultra High Security wing at Rikers Island before— 22 years in the public defender’s office and you’ll see every nook of Rikers—but the Special Prisoners unit was a new one to her.

“I can’t believe you’re making me undress,” she said to the bull, a tough old gal named Elana with a Brooklyn accent like you hardly get any more. Gina and Elana went way back.

“Just be thankful I don’t have to give you a cavity search,” Elana said, handing over the paper coveralls. “You’ll look real cute in these anyway, Gina.” She turned her back and waited until Gina was done, then led her into the fMRI machine. “You don’t got any metal in you, do you? Maybe gunpowder residue? A pin or artificial hip?”

intelligence is
an emergent
property of
evolutionary
factors, not
central planning.
anarchism, not
stalinism. Get it?

“No,” Gina said, lying down on the belt.

“You sure?”

“Pretty sure,” Gina said. “I think I’d know.”

“Well, we’re about to find out,” Elana said, and hit the button that started the belt moving. The fMRI digested Gina, then spat her out with slow wheezing mechanical jerks, like being swallowed by an arthritic python. Elana helped her to her feet, saying, “You want a printout? Makes a good souvenir.”

“I’ll pass,” Gina said, and let Elana show her in to the eggshell-smooth room wherein rested her client, one Annalisa Mor, a desperate botmaster of unknown mettle and guilt.

“Hello, Annalisa,” she said, crouching down to offer her hand to her client. She was just a girl, 20 years old according to the sheet, though looked younger in her paper pajamas, sitting cross-legged on the floor, back yoga-straight, face yoga-calm. “I’m Gina. Your attorney.”

“Guilty,” the young woman said. “So guilty. Doesn’t matter at all, though; the Work goes on.” Gina could hear the capital W and began mentally drafting the petition to have the girl transferred to Bellevue. That kind of capital letter had non compos written all over it.

“They’re offering you a reduced sentence if you’ll hand over the keys to the botnet, though I think the offer will go away once the computer forensics team gets them off your workstation.”

“They’re not there to be gotten. I nuked them six months ago. Gave them a working over that even the crew that recovered the Challenger’s hard drive couldn’t do anything with. Big magnets are cheap these days, you know?”