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markyon 's review for:
Attack Surface
by Cory Doctorow
Attack Surface: “The sum of the different points where an unauthorized user (the "attacker") can try to enter data to or extract data from an environment. Keeping the attack surface as small as possible is a basic security measure.” (Wikipedia)
In today’s world of cyberterrorism and technology, in terms of ‘freedom of information’ and human rights, I think that you pretty much know where Cory Doctorow these days.
Just in case you didn’t, this one confirms where the author stands before you even start the book - in Attack Surface’s dedication Cory lists a number of ‘whistleblowers’ “who listened to the voice of their conscience and spoke the truth” and finishes with “especially Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was murdered for doing her job.”
This is one of those stories about someone who works under the radar. Masha Maximow initially works as a counterterrorism expert for a transnational cybersecurity firm named Xoth Intelligence, whose work is mainly creating hacks for organisations and governments to monitor dissidents in faraway police states. It’s complicated, requires skill and pays very well.
In her spare time, Masha works almost as a double agent, helping those same dissidents, whose causes she feels are just, to evade detection. For the thrills, the excitement, the danger – and to severely annoy her bosses.
When she is involved in a street riot in Slovstakia (where she has been helping local protestors against a dictatorship), Masha quickly finds herself without a job and having to go on the run.
She ends up working for Zyz, a military intelligence contractor who used to be the opposition but is now working covertly for the US military, and now finds herself in places such as Iraq and Mexico City secretly developing software that is used to covertly spy on those others feel need watching. Throughout all of this, the sassy (and rather sweary) Masha is monitored and promoted by her mentor Carrie Johnstone, a boss who is never far away from the centre of what is going on.
Whilst Masha finds herself travelling in luxury from military camp to military camp, enjoying a fast-paced life of parties, alcohol and sex, as well as repeatedly telling us that she is very well paid, she also now finds herself being passed information from people in the CIA who risk everything to do so in the hope that one day she will be able to make the information public – evidence of government torture, covert ops, rape and murder.
More worryingly, Misha finds that some of the work she has been developing is used against her friends and family. To add to Misha’s woes, back home, her lifelong friend Tanisha is involved in a Black Lives Matter type protest group named Black-Brown Alliance. Masha offers to help Tanisha despite being told by Johnstone that that Tanisha’s group may be (unbeknownst to her) partly supported by the Russians. Masha continues to help her friend, as part of her doing what is right, and this puts them all in danger.
Much of the final part of the novel finds Masha juggling so many different and at times conflicting elements where any mistake could have consequences for all involved. It also shows her wrestling with her conscience, making choices where no answer is easy and realising that her decisions affect others that know her.
As expected, Attack Surface is detailed with current cybertech terminology and vocabulary, a state of the art, super-contemporary novel of what may be happening now. As I type this, I’m looking at news headlines about Belarus, where a recent election have led to people protesting on the street. At the same time, various governments around the world have accused other countries of meddling with their previous political elections. This book could take place in any of them.
It helps that the book is filled with the sort of high-density ultra-smart dialogue that you’d expect cyberhackers to talk about. Cory clearly knows his stuff, and this adds a convincingly realistic feel to the context of the plot. Here’s a typical example:
I’m not particularly technical, but it could be intimidating for some readers. However, Cory does enough to explain such terms to even allow non-Internet dweebs like me to follow what’s going on.
It’s also a whip-smart techno-thriller, engagingly told with humour and some degree of peril for the characters. Masha is a complexly intelligent and endearingly sweary character who makes choices and finds her moral compass being subverted by what she is asked to do, to the point where she almost becomes amoral. I realised that I shouldn’t like what she does, and yet liked her enough to be interested in reading what happens to her, and how the plot plays out. In the end her choices, good or bad, affect lives.
For those who want a story that feels real, and that could be happening now, with enough technical detail to make what happens sound plausible, Attack Surface is a cracking read, even if a little scary. The three (yes, three!) afterwords - one by the founder and director of the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, one by someone who works in cybersecurity (and who could be a template for Masha) and Cory himself give a valuable background to the context of the novel.
However, if the idea of this is to reassure you at the end of the novel that it is just fiction, it doesn’t work! Even if you weren’t worried about the amount of reliance we all seem to have in our gadgets, this book might just make you think again. Never mind phones, I’m off to turn off my Kindle and Alexa now….
In today’s world of cyberterrorism and technology, in terms of ‘freedom of information’ and human rights, I think that you pretty much know where Cory Doctorow these days.
Just in case you didn’t, this one confirms where the author stands before you even start the book - in Attack Surface’s dedication Cory lists a number of ‘whistleblowers’ “who listened to the voice of their conscience and spoke the truth” and finishes with “especially Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was murdered for doing her job.”
This is one of those stories about someone who works under the radar. Masha Maximow initially works as a counterterrorism expert for a transnational cybersecurity firm named Xoth Intelligence, whose work is mainly creating hacks for organisations and governments to monitor dissidents in faraway police states. It’s complicated, requires skill and pays very well.
In her spare time, Masha works almost as a double agent, helping those same dissidents, whose causes she feels are just, to evade detection. For the thrills, the excitement, the danger – and to severely annoy her bosses.
When she is involved in a street riot in Slovstakia (where she has been helping local protestors against a dictatorship), Masha quickly finds herself without a job and having to go on the run.
She ends up working for Zyz, a military intelligence contractor who used to be the opposition but is now working covertly for the US military, and now finds herself in places such as Iraq and Mexico City secretly developing software that is used to covertly spy on those others feel need watching. Throughout all of this, the sassy (and rather sweary) Masha is monitored and promoted by her mentor Carrie Johnstone, a boss who is never far away from the centre of what is going on.
Whilst Masha finds herself travelling in luxury from military camp to military camp, enjoying a fast-paced life of parties, alcohol and sex, as well as repeatedly telling us that she is very well paid, she also now finds herself being passed information from people in the CIA who risk everything to do so in the hope that one day she will be able to make the information public – evidence of government torture, covert ops, rape and murder.
More worryingly, Misha finds that some of the work she has been developing is used against her friends and family. To add to Misha’s woes, back home, her lifelong friend Tanisha is involved in a Black Lives Matter type protest group named Black-Brown Alliance. Masha offers to help Tanisha despite being told by Johnstone that that Tanisha’s group may be (unbeknownst to her) partly supported by the Russians. Masha continues to help her friend, as part of her doing what is right, and this puts them all in danger.
Much of the final part of the novel finds Masha juggling so many different and at times conflicting elements where any mistake could have consequences for all involved. It also shows her wrestling with her conscience, making choices where no answer is easy and realising that her decisions affect others that know her.
As expected, Attack Surface is detailed with current cybertech terminology and vocabulary, a state of the art, super-contemporary novel of what may be happening now. As I type this, I’m looking at news headlines about Belarus, where a recent election have led to people protesting on the street. At the same time, various governments around the world have accused other countries of meddling with their previous political elections. This book could take place in any of them.
It helps that the book is filled with the sort of high-density ultra-smart dialogue that you’d expect cyberhackers to talk about. Cory clearly knows his stuff, and this adds a convincingly realistic feel to the context of the plot. Here’s a typical example:
“Second, make sure your IMSI-catcher countermeasures are up to date. They just bought an update package for their fake cell towers and they’ll be capturing the unique IDs of every phone that answers a ping from them. The app your phone used last week to tell a fake tower from a real one? Useless now. Update, update, update. Check every signature, too.”
I’m not particularly technical, but it could be intimidating for some readers. However, Cory does enough to explain such terms to even allow non-Internet dweebs like me to follow what’s going on.
It’s also a whip-smart techno-thriller, engagingly told with humour and some degree of peril for the characters. Masha is a complexly intelligent and endearingly sweary character who makes choices and finds her moral compass being subverted by what she is asked to do, to the point where she almost becomes amoral. I realised that I shouldn’t like what she does, and yet liked her enough to be interested in reading what happens to her, and how the plot plays out. In the end her choices, good or bad, affect lives.
For those who want a story that feels real, and that could be happening now, with enough technical detail to make what happens sound plausible, Attack Surface is a cracking read, even if a little scary. The three (yes, three!) afterwords - one by the founder and director of the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, one by someone who works in cybersecurity (and who could be a template for Masha) and Cory himself give a valuable background to the context of the novel.
However, if the idea of this is to reassure you at the end of the novel that it is just fiction, it doesn’t work! Even if you weren’t worried about the amount of reliance we all seem to have in our gadgets, this book might just make you think again. Never mind phones, I’m off to turn off my Kindle and Alexa now….