Cory Doctorow's "Scroogled" read by Wil Wheaton
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0:02 - 0:09Doctorow: This story is from Cory Doctorow's new collection,
"With a Little Help". Visit craphound.com/walh -
0:09 - 0:14to buy the whole audio book on CD, a paperback
copy in one of 4 covers, or a super-limited -
0:14 - 0:17hard cover.
This story, and the whole text of "With a Little Help", -
0:17 - 0:22are licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution, Share Alike, Non Commercial license. -
0:22 - 0:26Copy it, share it, remix it. As Woody Guthrie said:
-
0:26 - 0:33"This song is copyrighted in the US
under a seal of copyright number 154085 for -
0:33 - 0:37a period of 28 years, and anyone caught singing
it without our permission will be a mighty -
0:37 - 0:40good friend of ourn, because we don't give
a dern. Publish it, write it , sing it, -
0:40 - 0:45swing to it, yodel it. We wrote it: that's all we wanted to do."
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0:56 - 1:04Wheaton: Scroogled by Cory Doctorow. Originally published in Radar Magazine, September, 2007.
-
1:04 - 1:06Read by Will Wheaton.
-
1:08 - 1:14"Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him."
-
1:15 - 1:17Cardinal Richelieu
-
1:17 - 1:22Greg landed at SFO at 8PM, but by the time
he made it to the front of the customs line -
1:22 - 1:27it was after midnight. He had it good --
he'd been in first class, first off the plane, -
1:27 - 1:33brown as a nut and loose-limbed after a month
on the beach at Cabo, SCUBA diving three days -
1:33 - 1:38a week, bumming around and flirting with French
college girls the rest of the time. When he'd -
1:38 - 1:43left San Francisco a month before, he'd been
a stoop-shouldered, pot-bellied wreck -- -
1:43 - 1:49now he was a bronze god, drawing appreciative
looks from the stews at the front of the plane. -
1:49 - 1:55In the four hours he spent in the customs
line, he fell from god back to man. His warm -
1:55 - 2:00buzz wore off, the sweat ran down the crack
of his ass, and his shoulders and neck grew -
2:00 - 2:06so tense that his upper back felt like a tennis
racket. The batteries on his iPod died after -
2:06 - 2:10the third hour, leaving him with nothing to
do except eavesdrop on the middle-aged couple -
2:10 - 2:11ahead of him.
-
2:11 - 2:15"They've starting googling us at the border,"
she said. "I told you they'd do it." -
2:15 - 2:21"I thought that didn't start until next month?"
The man had brought a huge sombrero on board, -
2:21 - 2:27carefully stowing it in its own overhead locker,
and now he was stuck alternately wearing it -
2:27 - 2:29and holding it.
-
2:29 - 2:35Googling at the border. Christ. Greg vested
out from Google six months before, cashing -
2:35 - 2:40in his options and "taking some me time,"
which turned out to be harder than he expected. -
2:40 - 2:44Five months later, what he'd mostly done is
fix his friends' PCs and websites, and watch -
2:44 - 2:50daytime TV, and gain ten pounds, which he
blamed on being at home, instead of in the -
2:50 - 2:54Googleplex, with its excellent 24-hour gym.
-
2:54 - 2:58The writing had been on the wall. Google had
a whole pod of lawyers in charge of dealing -
2:58 - 3:02with the world's governments, and scumbag
lobbyists on the Hill to try to keep the law -
3:02 - 3:08from turning them into the world's best snitch.
It was a losing battle. The US Government -
3:08 - 3:14had spent $15 billion on a program to fingerprint
and photograph visitors at the border, and -
3:14 - 3:20hadn't caught a single terrorist. Clearly,
the public sector was not equipped to Do Search -
3:20 - 3:21Right.
-
3:21 - 3:26The DHS officers had bags under their eyes
as they squinted at their screens, prodding -
3:26 - 3:31mistrustfully at their keyboards with sausage
fingers. No wonder it was taking four hours -
3:31 - 3:33to get out of the goddamned airport.
-
3:33 - 3:39"Evening," he said, as he handed the man his
sweaty passport. The man grunted and swiped -
3:39 - 3:46it, then stared at his screen, clicking. A
lot. He had a little bit of dried food in -
3:46 - 3:51the corner of his mouth and his tongue crept
out and licked at it as he concentrated. -
3:51 - 3:54"Want to tell me about June, 1998?"
-
3:54 - 3:59Greg turned rotated his head this way and
that. "I'm sorry?" -
3:59 - 4:06"You posted a message to alt.burningman on
June 17, 1998 about your plan to attend Burning -
4:07 - 4:13Man. You posted, 'Would taking shrooms be
a really bad idea?'" -
4:13 - 4:19It was 3AM before they let him out of the
"secondary screening" room. The interrogator -
4:19 - 4:24was an older man, so skinny he looked like
he'd been carved out of wood. His questions -
4:24 - 4:29went a lot further than the Burning Man shrooms.
They were just the start of Greg's problems. -
4:29 - 4:36"I'd like to know more about your hobbies.
Are you interested in model rocketry?" -
4:36 - 4:37"What?"
-
4:37 - 4:40"Model rocketry."
-
4:40 - 4:46"No," Greg said. "No, I'm not." Thinking of
all the explosives that model rocketry people -
4:46 - 4:48surrounded themselves with.
-
4:48 - 4:53The man made a note, clicked some more. "You
see, I ask because I see a heavy spike of -
4:53 - 4:59ads for model rocketry supplies showing up
alongside your search results and Google mail." -
4:59 - 5:05Greg felt his guts spasm. "You're looking
at my searches and email?" He hadn't touched -
5:05 - 5:09a keyboard in a month, but he knew that what
you put into the searchbar was more intimate -
5:09 - 5:14than what you told your father-confessor.
He'd seen enough queries to know that. -
5:14 - 5:20"Calm down, please. No, I'm not looking at
your searches." The man made a bitter lemon -
5:20 - 5:27face and went on in a squeaky voice. "That
would be unconstitutional. You weren't listening -
5:27 - 5:33to me. We see the ads that show up when you
read your mail and do your searching. I have -
5:33 - 5:37a brochure explaining it, I'll give it to
you when we're through here." -
5:37 - 5:43"But the ads don't mean anything -- I get
ads for Ann Coulter ringtones whenever I get -
5:43 - 5:46email from my friend who lives in Coulter,
Iowa!" -
5:46 - 5:52The man nodded. "I understand, sir. And that's
just why I'm here talking to you, instead -
5:52 - 5:58of just looking at this screen. Why do you
suppose model rocket ads show up so frequently -
5:58 - 6:00for you?"
-
6:00 - 6:07He thought for a moment. "OK, just do this.
Go to Google and search for 'coffee fanciers', -
6:07 - 6:12all right?" He'd been very active in the group,
helping them build out the site for their -
6:12 - 6:16coffee-of-the-month subscription service.
The blend they were going to launch with was -
6:16 - 6:21called "Jet Fuel." "Jet Fuel" and "Launch"
-- that'd probably make Google barf up model -
6:21 - 6:27rocket ads. Not that he would know -- he blocked
all the ads in his browser. -
6:27 - 6:32They were in the home stretch when the carved
man found the Hallowe'en photos. They were -
6:32 - 6:37buried three screens deep in the search results
for "Greg Lupinski," and Greg hadn't noticed -
6:37 - 6:39them.
-
6:39 - 6:43"It was a Gulf War themed party," he said.
"In the Castro." -
6:43 - 6:47"And you're dressed as --?"
-
6:47 - 6:53"A suicide bomber." Just saying the words
in an airport made him nervous, as though -
6:53 - 6:58uttering them would cause the handcuffs to
come out. -
6:58 - 6:59"Come with me, Mr Lupinski."
-
6:59 - 7:06The search lasted a long time. They swabbed
him in places he didn't know he had. He asked -
7:07 - 7:12about a lawyer. They told him that he could
call all the lawyers he wanted once he was -
7:12 - 7:13out of the Customs sterile area.
-
7:13 - 7:19"Good night, Mr Lupinski." This was a new
interrogator, a man who'd wanted to know about -
7:19 - 7:23the reason that he'd sought both night diving
and deep diving specialist certification from -
7:23 - 7:28the PADI instructor in Cabo. The guy implied
that Greg had been training to be an al-Qaeda -
7:28 - 7:32frogman, and didn't seem to believe that Greg
had just wanted to do all the certifications -
7:32 - 7:38he could, pursuing diving the way he pursued
everything: thoroughly. -
7:38 - 7:42But now the man with the frogman fantasy was
bidding him a good night and releasing him -
7:42 - 7:47from the secondary screening area. His suitcases
stood alone by the baggage carousel. When -
7:47 - 7:53he picked them up, he saw that they had been
opened and then inexpertly closed. Some of -
7:53 - 7:56his clothes stuck out from around the edges.
-
7:56 - 8:00At home, he saw that all the fake "pre-Colombian"
statues had been broken, and that his white -
8:00 - 8:05cotton Mexican shirt -- folded and fresh from
his laundry-lady -- had a boot-print in the -
8:05 - 8:11middle of it. His clothes no longer smelled
of Mexico. Now they smelled of airports and -
8:11 - 8:11machine oil.
-
8:11 - 8:17The mailman had dropped an entire milk-crate
of mail off at his place that day, but he -
8:17 - 8:22couldn't even begin to confront it. All he
could think of, as the sun rose over the Mission, -
8:22 - 8:26turning the Victorian houses they called "painted
ladies" vivid colors, was what it meant to -
8:26 - 8:27be googled.
-
8:27 - 8:33He wasn't going to sleep. No way. He needed
to talk about this. And there was only one -
8:33 - 8:39person who he could talk to, and luckily,
she was usually awake around now. -
8:39 - 8:43Maya had started at Google two years after
him, but had gotten a much bigger grant of -
8:43 - 8:49stock than he had. She knew exactly what she
was going to do with it, too, once she vested: -
8:49 - 8:54take her dogs and her girlfriend and head
to Florence, for good. Learn Italian, take -
8:54 - 9:00in the museums, sit in the cafes. It was she
who'd convinced him to go to Mexico: anywhere, -
9:00 - 9:05she said, anywhere that he could reboot his
existence. -
9:05 - 9:10Maya had two giant chocolate Labs and a very,
very patient girlfriend who'd put up with -
9:10 - 9:16anything except being dragged around Dolores
Park at 6AM by 350 pounds of drooling brown -
9:16 - 9:17canine.
-
9:17 - 9:21She went for her Mace as he jogged towards
her, then did a double-take and threw her -
9:21 - 9:26arms open, dropping the leashes and stamping
on them with one sneaker, a practiced gesture. -
9:26 - 9:31"Where's the rest of you? Dude, you look hawt!"
-
9:31 - 9:35He took the hug, suddenly self-conscious of
the way he smelled after a night of invasive -
9:35 - 9:42googling. "Maya," he said. "Maya, what do
you know about the DHS?" -
9:42 - 9:47She stiffened and the dogs whined. She looked
around, then nodded up at the tennis courts. -
9:47 - 9:53"Top of the light standard there, don't look,
there. That's one of our muni WiFi access -
9:53 - 9:57points. Wide-angle webcam. Face away from
it when you talk. Lip-readers." -
9:57 - 10:04He parsed this out slowly. Google's free municipal
WiFi program was a hit in every city where -
10:04 - 10:08it played, and in the grand scheme of things,
it hadn't cost much to put WiFi access points -
10:08 - 10:13up on light standards and other power-ready
poles around town. Especially not when measured -
10:13 - 10:17against the ability to serve ads to people
based on where they were sitting. He hadn't -
10:17 - 10:22paid much attention when they'd made the webcams
on all those access points public -- there'd -
10:22 - 10:26been a day's worth of blogstorm while people
looked out over their childhood streets or -
10:26 - 10:31patrolled prostitution strolls, fingering
johns, but it had blown over. -
10:31 - 10:35Now he felt -- watched.
-
10:35 - 10:40Feeling silly, he kept his lips together and
mumbled, "You're joking." -
10:40 - 10:45"Come with me," she said, facing squarely
away from the pole. -
10:45 - 10:48The dogs weren't happy about having their
walks cut short, and they let it be known -
10:48 - 10:53in the kitchen as Maya fixed coffee for them
-- barking, banging into the table and rocking -
10:53 - 10:57it. Maya's girlfriend Laurie called out from
the bedroom and Maya went back to talk to -
10:57 - 11:01her, then emerged, looking flustered.
-
11:01 - 11:05"It started with China," she said. "Once we
moved our servers onto the mainland, they -
11:05 - 11:10went under Chinese jurisdiction. They could
google everyone going through our servers." -
11:10 - 11:15Greg knew what that meant: if you visited
a page with Google ads on it, if you used -
11:15 - 11:20Google maps, if you used Google mail -- even
if you sent mail to a gmail account -- Google -
11:20 - 11:23was collecting your info, forever.
-
11:23 - 11:28"They were using us to build profiles of people.
Not arresting them, you understand. But when -
11:28 - 11:31they had someone they wanted to arrest, they'd
come to us for a profile and find a reason -
11:31 - 11:38to bust them. There's hardly anything you
can do on the net that isn't illegal in China." -
11:38 - 11:42Greg shook his head. "Why did they put the
servers in China?" -
11:42 - 11:46"The government said they'd block them if
they didn't. And Yahoo was there." They both -
11:46 - 11:50made a face. Somewhere along the way, Google
had become obsessed with Yahoo, more worried -
11:50 - 11:55about what the competition was doing than
how they were performing. "So we did it. But -
11:55 - 11:57a lot of us didn't like the idea."
-
11:57 - 12:02She sipped her coffee and lowered her voice.
One of the dogs whined. "I made it my 20 percent -
12:02 - 12:08project." Googlers were supposed to devote
20 percent of their time to blue-sky projects. -
12:08 - 12:13"Me and my pod. We call it the googlecleaner.
It goes deep into the database and statistically -
12:13 - 12:18normalizes you. Your searches, your gmail
histograms, your browsing patterns. All of -
12:18 - 12:20it."
-
12:20 - 12:21"The search ads?"
-
12:21 - 12:28"Ah," she grimaced. "Yes, the DHS. So we brokered
a compromise with the DHS. They'd stop asking -
12:28 - 12:33to go fishing in our search records and we'd
let them see what ads got displayed for you." -
12:33 - 12:39Greg felt sick. "Why? Don't tell me Yahoo
was doing it already --" -
12:39 - 12:46"No, no. Well, yes. Sure. Yahoo was already
doing it. But that wasn't it. You know, Republicans -
12:47 - 12:52hate Google. We are overwhelmingly registered
Democrat. So we're doing what we can to make -
12:52 - 12:58peace with them before they clobber us. This
isn't PII --" Personally Identifying Information, -
12:58 - 13:04the toxic smog of the information age "--
it's just metadata. So it's only slightly -
13:04 - 13:06evil."
-
13:06 - 13:09"If it's all so innocuous, why all this cloak-and-dagger
stuff?" -
13:09 - 13:15She sighed and hugged the dog that was butting
her with his huge, anvil-shaped head. "The -
13:15 - 13:20spooks are like pubic lice. They get everywhere.
Once we let them in, everything suddenly got -
13:20 - 13:27a lot more -- secret. Some of our meetings
have to have spooks present, it's like being -
13:27 - 13:32in some Soviet ministry, with a political
officer always there, watching everything. -
13:32 - 13:37And the security clearance. Now we're divided
into these two camps: the cleared and the -
13:37 - 13:44suspect. We all know who isn't cleared, but
no one knows why. I'm cleared. Lucky me -- -
13:44 - 13:50being a homo no longer disqualifies you for
access to seekrit crap. No cleared person -
13:50 - 13:55wants to even eat lunch with an un-clearable.
And every now and again, one of your teammates -
13:55 - 14:01will get pulled off your project 'for security
reasons', whatever that means." -
14:01 - 14:07Greg felt very tired. "So now I'm feeling
lucky I got out of the airport alive. I suppose -
14:07 - 14:11I might have ended up in Gitmo if it had gone
badly, huh?" -
14:11 - 14:16She was staring at him intently, her eyes
flicking from side to side. He waited, but -
14:16 - 14:17she didn't say anything.
-
14:17 - 14:19"What?"
-
14:19 - 14:24"What I'm about to tell you, you can't ever
repeat it, OK?" -
14:24 - 14:31"Um, OK? You're not going to tell me you're
a deep-cover Al-Quaeda suicide bomber?" -
14:31 - 14:38"Nothing so simple. Here's the thing: the
airport DHS scrutiny is a gating function. -
14:39 - 14:45It lets the spooks narrow down their search
criteria. Once you get pulled aside for secondary -
14:45 - 14:51at the border, you become a 'person of interest,'
and they never, ever let up. They'll check -
14:51 - 14:56the webcams for your face and gait. Read your
mail. Log your searches." -
14:56 - 14:58"I thought you said the courts wouldn't let
them --" -
14:58 - 15:04"The courts won't let them indiscriminately
google you. But once you get into the system, -
15:04 - 15:10it becomes a selective search. All legal.
And once they start googling you, they always -
15:10 - 15:11find something."
-
15:11 - 15:16"You mean to say they've got a boiler-room
of midwestern housewives reading the email -
15:16 - 15:20of everyone who ever got a second look at
the border? Sounds like the world's shittiest -
15:20 - 15:21job."
-
15:21 - 15:28"If only. No, this is all untouched by human
hands. All your data is fed into a big hopper -
15:29 - 15:34that checks for 'suspicious patterns' and
gradually builds the case against you, using -
15:34 - 15:39deviation from statistical norms to prove
that you're guilty of something. It's just -
15:39 - 15:44a variation of the way we spot search-spammers"
-- the "optimizers" who tried to get their -
15:44 - 15:49Viagra scams and Ponzi schemes to come to
the top of the search results "-- but instead -
15:49 - 15:55of lowering your search rank, we increase
your probability of being sent to Syria. And -
15:55 - 16:00of course, they google all of us, everyone
who works on anything 'sensitive.'" -
16:00 - 16:05"Naturally," Greg said. He felt like he was
going to throw up. He felt like never using -
16:05 - 16:12a search engine again. "How the hell did this
happen? It's such a good place. 'Don't be -
16:12 - 16:18evil,' right?" That was the corporate motto,
and for Greg, it had been a huge part of his -
16:18 - 16:23reason for taking his fresh-minted computer
science PhD from Stanford directly to Google. -
16:23 - 16:30Maya's laugh was bitter and cynical. "Don't
be evil? Come on, Greg. Don't you remember -
16:32 - 16:36what it was like when we started censoring
the Chinese search results, and we all asked -
16:36 - 16:41how that could be anything but evil? The company
line was hilarious: 'We're not doing evil -
16:41 - 16:46-- we're giving them access to a better search
tool! If we showed them search results they -
16:46 - 16:52couldn't get to, that would just frustrate
them. It would be a bad user experience. If -
16:52 - 16:58we hadn't lost our don't-be-evil cherry by
then, we surely did the day we took that one." -
16:58 - 17:03"Now what?" Greg pushed a dog away from him
and Maya looked hurt. -
17:03 - 17:09"Now you're a person of interest, Greg. Googlestalked.
Now, you live your life with someone watching -
17:09 - 17:14over your shoulder, all the time. You know
the mission statement, right? 'Organize all -
17:14 - 17:19human knowledge.' That's everything. Give
it five years, we'll know how many turds were -
17:19 - 17:24in the bowl before you flushed. Combine that
with automated suspicion of anyone who matches -
17:24 - 17:29a statistical picture of a bad guy and you're
--" -
17:29 - 17:30"I'm scroogled."
-
17:30 - 17:31"Totally."
-
17:31 - 17:38"Thanks, Maya," he said. "Thanks anyway."
-
17:38 - 17:43"Sit down," she said. The dog that had been
bumping at his legs was at it again. Maya -
17:43 - 17:48took both dogs down the hall to the bedroom
and he heard her muffled argument with her -
17:48 - 17:51girlfriend. She came back without the dogs.
-
17:51 - 17:57"I can fix this," she said in a whisper so
low it was practically a hiss. "I can googleclean -
17:57 - 17:58you."
-
17:58 - 18:01"But you're under constant scrutiny --"
-
18:01 - 18:07"By DHS agents. Once they fired all non-native-born
Americans from the DHS, it got a lot fatter -
18:07 - 18:11and stupider. I can googleclean you, Greg."
-
18:11 - 18:13"I don't want you to get into trouble."
-
18:13 - 18:18She shook her head. "I'm already doomed. I
built the googlecleaner. Every day since then -
18:18 - 18:22has been borrowed time -- now it's just a
matter of waiting for someone to point out -
18:22 - 18:27my expertise and history to the DHS and, oh,
I don't know. Whatever it is they do to people -
18:27 - 18:31like me in the War on Abstract Nouns."
-
18:31 - 18:37Greg remembered the questioning at the airport.
The search. His shirt, the bootprint in the -
18:37 - 18:38middle of it.
-
18:38 - 18:42"Do it," he said.
-
18:42 - 18:46The ads were weird. He hadn't really paid
attention to them in years. The blocker got -
18:46 - 18:50rid of most of them, but Google changed its
code often enough that their little text ads -
18:50 - 18:56showed up on a lot of his pages. They stayed
subliminal mostly -- only clunkers like that -
18:56 - 19:00Ann Coulter ringtone ad made it past his eyes
into his brain. -
19:00 - 19:07Now the clunkers were everywhere: Intelligent
Design Facts, Online Seminary Degree, Terror -
19:07 - 19:14Free Tomorrow, Porn Blocker Software, Homosexuality
and Satan. He clicked through a couple of -
19:14 - 19:19these and found himself in some kind of alternate
universe Internet, full of weird opinions -
19:19 - 19:25about the evils of being gay, the certainty
of the young Earth, the need for eternal national -
19:25 - 19:26vigilance.
-
19:26 - 19:31Then he started to notice something weird
about the search results themselves. After -
19:31 - 19:35unpacking his suitcase and opening his mail,
he spent two weeks sitting at home on his -
19:35 - 19:41ass, surfing. His pre-Mexico belly was reemerging,
so he decided to do something about it. No -
19:41 - 19:46burritos for lunch today -- he'd go to that
holistic place Maya had told him about. Vegan -
19:46 - 19:50low-fat cuisine couldn't possibly be as gross
as it sounded. -
19:50 - 19:54"Did you mean 'Hungarian Restaurants'?"
-
19:54 - 20:01He snorted. No, he'd meant "holistic restaurants,"
you dumbass search-engine. It nagged at him. -
20:01 - 20:05He pulled up his search history and went back
through the results, printing out the pages. -
20:05 - 20:09Then he logged out of his Google account and
went back through the same searches, comparing -
20:09 - 20:14the results to the logged-in pages. The differences
were striking. A search for "democratic primary" -
20:14 - 20:19pointed to anti-Hillary rants on angry blogs
when he was logged in, and to information -
20:19 - 20:24on volunteering for the DNC when he was logged
out. Searching for "abortion clinic" while -
20:24 - 20:29logged out listed the nearest Planned Parenthood
office; searching while logged in gave him -
20:29 - 20:34information about Campaign Life, ProLife.com,
and the ProLife alliance. Good thing he wasn't -
20:34 - 20:35pregnant.
-
20:34 - 20:39This was Maya's googlecleaner at work. It
was like the stories of people who asked their -
20:39 - 20:43TiVos to record an episode of "Queer Eye"
and then got inundated with suggestions for -
20:43 - 20:48other "gay shows" -- "My TiVo thinks I'm gay,"
was the title of one article he remembered. -
20:48 - 20:53Google had been experimenting with "personalized"
search results before he left the country -
20:53 - 20:56-- here it was, in all its glory.
-
20:56 - 21:00Google thought he was a conservative Christian
Republican who supported the War on Terror -
21:00 - 21:03and many other abstract nouns.
-
21:03 - 21:08He logged out of Google -- that was simple.
Five minutes later, he logged in again. His -
21:08 - 21:13entire address book was in there. He logged
out again. Logged back in. His calendar -- -
21:13 - 21:19when was his parents' anniversary again?
Logged out. Logged back in. Needed his bookmarked -
21:19 - 21:21locations in Maps. Logged out.
-
21:21 - 21:27He stopped trying. Google was where his friendships
lived -- all those people he stayed connected -
21:27 - 21:31to on Orkut. It was where his relationships
lived: all that archived email, all those -
21:31 - 21:38addresses in his address-book. It was his
family photos, his bookmarks. Hell, his search -
21:38 - 21:42history -- his real search history -- was
like an outboard brain, remembering which -
21:42 - 21:46parts of the unplumbable Internet he cared
about, so that he didn't have to remember -
21:46 - 21:50it the hard way, with the meat in his skull.
-
21:50 - 21:54Google had a copy of him -- all the parts
of him that navigated the world and the people -
21:54 - 22:01in it. Google owned that copy, and without
it, he couldn't be himself anymore. He'd just -
22:01 - 22:03have to stay logged in.
-
22:03 - 22:08Greg mashed the keys on the laptop next to
his bed, bringing the screen to life. He squinted -
22:08 - 22:14at the toolbar clock: 4:13AM! Christ, who
was pounding on his door at this hour? -
22:14 - 22:19He shouted "Coming!" in a muzzy voice and
pulled on a robe and slippers. He shuffled -
22:19 - 22:24down the hallway, turning on lights as he
went, squinting. At the door, he squinted -
22:24 - 22:27through the peephole, peering at -- Maya.
-
22:27 - 22:31He undid the chains and the deadbolt and yanked
the door open and Maya rushed in past him, -
22:31 - 22:35followed by the dogs, followed by her girlfriend,
Laurie, whom he'd last seen at a Christmas -
22:35 - 22:40party at Google, in a fabulous cocktail dress
and an elaborate up-do. Now she was wearing -
22:40 - 22:45a freebie Google Summer of Code sweatshirt,
jeans, and a frown that started between her -
22:45 - 22:48eyebrows and intensified all the way down
her face. -
22:48 - 22:53Maya was sheened with sweat, her hair sticking
to her forehead. She scrubbed at her eyes, -
22:53 - 22:55which were red and lined.
-
22:55 - 22:58"Pack a bag," she said, in a hoarse croak.
-
22:58 - 22:59"What?"
-
22:59 - 23:02"Whatever you can't live without. A couple
changes of clothes. Anything you're sentimental -
23:02 - 23:06about -- shoebox of pictures, your grandfather's
razor, whatever. But keep it small, something -
23:06 - 23:09you can carry. We're traveling light."
-
23:09 - 23:10"Maya, what are you --"
-
23:10 - 23:15She took him by the shoulders. "Do. It," she
said. "Don't ask questions right now. There's -
23:15 - 23:15no time."
-
23:15 - 23:17"Where do you want to --"
-
23:17 - 23:23"Mexico, probably. Don't know yet. Pack, dammit."
She pushed past him into his bedroom and started -
23:23 - 23:25yanking open drawers.
-
23:25 - 23:30"Maya," he said, sharply, "I'm not going anywhere
until you tell me what's going on." -
23:30 - 23:33She glared at him and pushed her hair away
from her face. "The googlecleaner lives. I -
23:33 - 23:38shut it down, walked away from it, after I
did you. It was too dangerous to use anymore. -
23:38 - 23:42But I still get buginizer notifications when
new bugs get filed against it, I'm still in -
23:42 - 23:47B as the project's owner. Someone filed eight
bugs against it this week. Someone's used -
23:47 - 23:52it six times to smear six very specific accounts."
-
23:52 - 23:54"Who's using it?"
-
23:54 - 23:58"Well, I'll give you a hint. Let me tell you
who's been cleaned this week --" She listed -
23:58 - 24:04six candidates, four Republican and two Democrat,
who were all in the running for the primaries. -
24:04 - 24:07"Googlers are blackwashing political candidates?"
-
24:07 - 24:13"Not Googlers. This is all coming from offsite.
The IP block is registered in DC. And the -
24:13 - 24:17IPs are all also used by Gmail users. And
those Gmail users --" -
24:17 - 24:19"You spied on gmail accounts?"
-
24:19 - 24:22"I'm leaving in two minutes, with or without
you. You can interrupt me to ask me questions, -
24:22 - 24:27or you can listen." She gave him another look.
Laurie stood in the door of the bedroom, holding -
24:27 - 24:31the dogs by the collars and looking down at
the floor. -
24:31 - 24:35"Good. OK. Yes. I did spy on their email.
Of course I did. Everyone does it, now and -
24:35 - 24:38again, and for a lot worse reasons that this.
-
24:38 - 24:43"It's our lobbying firm. The ones who invented
the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Remember -
24:43 - 24:46them? It was a stink when we hired them, but
Google couldn't afford to be 'that company -
24:46 - 24:51full of registered Democrats' forever. We
needed friends in Congress. These guys could -
24:51 - 24:52do it for us."
-
24:52 - 24:55"But they're ruining politicians' careers!"
-
24:55 - 24:58"Yeah. They certainly are. And who benefits
when they do that?" -
24:58 - 25:02Laurie spoke, at last. "Other politicians."
-
25:02 - 25:05He felt his pulse beating in his temples.
"We should tell someone." -
25:05 - 25:11"Yeah," Maya said. "How? They know everything
about us. They can see every search. Every -
25:11 - 25:15email. Every time we've been caught on the
webcams. Who is in our social network -- -
25:15 - 25:19you know that if you've got more than fifteen
Orkut buddies, it's statistically certain -
25:19 - 25:23that you're no more than three steps to someone
who's contributed money to a 'terrorist' cause? -
25:23 - 25:28Remember the airport? Imagine a lot more of
that." -
25:28 - 25:34"Maya," he said, carefully. "I think you're
over-reacting. You don't need to go to Mexico. -
25:34 - 25:39You can just quit. We can do a startup together
or something. Or you can move to the country -
25:39 - 25:44and raise dogs. Whatever. This is crazy --"
-
25:44 - 25:47"They came to see me today," she said. "At
work. Two of the political officers -- the -
25:47 - 25:52minders who monitor our sensitive projects.
And they asked me a lot of very heavy questions." -
25:52 - 25:54"About the googlecleaner?"
-
25:54 - 25:59"About my friends and family. About my search
history. About my political beliefs." -
25:59 - 26:00"Jesus."
-
26:00 - 26:04"They were sending me a message. They were
letting me know that they were onto me. They're -
26:04 - 26:09watching every click and every search. It's
time to go -- time to get out of range." -
26:09 - 26:12"There's a Google office in Mexico, you know."
-
26:12 - 26:15"Are you coming, Greg? We're going now."
-
26:15 - 26:18"Laurie, what do you think of this?"
-
26:18 - 26:24Laurie thumped the dogs between the shoulders.
"Maya showed me what Google knows about me. -
26:24 - 26:29It's like there's a little me in there, a
copy of me. Like I'm pinned down under a jar -
26:29 - 26:36with a ball of ether. My parents left East
Germany in '65 -- they used to tell me about -
26:36 - 26:41the Stasi. They'd put everything about you
in your file -- even unpatriotic jokes. Lately -
26:41 - 26:47I've been feeling...watched. All the time.
Like I can't live without leaving a trail. -
26:47 - 26:52Like I'm throwing off a smog of data and it
can't be gotten rid of." -
26:52 - 26:56"We're going now, Greg. Now. Are you coming?"
-
26:56 - 27:02Greg looked at the dogs. "I've got some pesos
left over," he said. "You take them. Be careful, -
27:02 - 27:04OK?"
-
27:04 - 27:07She looked like she was going to slug him.
Then she softened and gave him a ferocious -
27:07 - 27:13hug. "Be careful yourself," she whispered
in his ear. -
27:13 - 27:17They came for him a week later. At home, in
the middle of the night, just as he'd imagined -
27:17 - 27:24it. Their knock was nothing like Maya's tentative,
nervous thump. They went bang-bang-bang, confident, -
27:24 - 27:29knowing that they had every right to be there
and not caring who else came after them. -
27:29 - 27:35Two men. One stayed by the door and didn't
say anything. The other was a smiler, short -
27:35 - 27:39and rumpled, in a sports coat with a small
stain on one lapel and a cloisonn⊠American -
27:39 - 27:44flag on the other. "Computer Fraud and Abuse
Act," he said, by way of introduction. "'Exceeding -
27:44 - 27:51authorized access, and by means of such conduct
having obtained information.' Ten years for -
27:51 - 27:55a first offense, ever since the PATRIOT Act
extended it. I have it on the best of authority -
27:55 - 28:01that what you and your friend did to your
Google records qualifies. And oh, what will -
28:01 - 28:06come out in the trial. All the stuff you whitewashed
out of your profile." -
28:06 - 28:10Greg had been playing this scene out in his
head for a week. He'd had all kinds of brave -
28:10 - 28:15things to say, planned out in advance. He'd
even written some down, to see how they looked. -
28:15 - 28:19It had given him something to do while the
knots in his stomach tightened, while he waited -
28:19 - 28:20to hear from Maya.
-
28:20 - 28:26"I'd like to call a lawyer," is all he managed.
It came out in a whisper. -
28:26 - 28:31"You can do that," the man said. "But hear
me out first." -
28:31 - 28:35Greg found his voice. "I'd like to see your
badge." -
28:35 - 28:42The man's basset-hound face lit up as he hissed
a laugh. "Oh, Greg, buddy. I'm not a cop. -
28:43 - 28:50I work for --" He named the DC firm in Google's
employ. The inventors of swiftboating. "You're -
28:50 - 28:55a Googler. You're part of the family. We couldn't
send the police after you without talking -
28:55 - 29:00with you first. There's an offer I'd like
to make." -
29:00 - 29:03Greg made coffee. It gave him something to
do with his hands while he tried to find that -
29:03 - 29:08bravery he'd been honing all week. "I'll go
to the press," he said. "I've written this -
29:08 - 29:11all up. I'll go straight to them."
-
29:11 - 29:16The guy nodded as if thinking it over. "Well,
sure. You could walk into the Chronicle's -
29:16 - 29:20office in the morning and spill everything
you need. They'd try to find a confirming -
29:20 - 29:25source. They won't find it. Maybe you'll try
to show them what your profile looks like -
29:25 - 29:31today? Well, tell you what, it looks just
like it looked the day you landed at SFO. -
29:31 - 29:36Greg, buddy, why don't you hear me out before
you start trying to figure out how to fight -
29:36 - 29:42me? I'm in the win-win business. I'm in the
business of figuring out how to get all parties -
29:42 - 29:48what they need. I'm very good at it. You don't
even want to know what I'm billing Google -
29:48 - 29:52for this little tete-a-tete. By the way, those
are excellent beans, but you want to give -
29:52 - 29:57them a little rinse first, takes some of the
bitterness out and brings up the oils. Here, -
29:57 - 30:00pass me a colander?"
-
30:00 - 30:03Greg watched in numb bemusement as the man
took off his jacket and hung it over a kitchen -
30:03 - 30:08chair, then undid his cuffs and rolled them
up, slipping a cheap digital watch into his -
30:08 - 30:13pocket. Then he poured the beans back out
of the grinder and into Greg's colander and -
30:13 - 30:14did things at the sink.
-
30:14 - 30:21He was a little pudgy, and very pale. He needed
a haircut -- had unruly curls at his neck. -
30:21 - 30:27It made Greg relax, somehow. This guy had
the social gracelessness of a nerd, felt like -
30:27 - 30:33a real Googler, obsessed with the minutiae.
He knew his way around a coffee-grinder, too. -
30:33 - 30:35"We're drafting a team for Building 49 --"
-
30:35 - 30:39"There is no building 49," Greg said, automatically.
-
30:39 - 30:45"Yeah," the guy said, with a private little
smile. "There's no Building 49. And we're -
30:45 - 30:51putting together a team, with its own buginizer,
to own googlecleaner. Maya's code wasn't very -
30:51 - 30:55efficient. Every time someone runs it, it
clobbers the whole farm. And it's got plenty -
30:55 - 31:01of bugs. We've asked around and there's consensus
on this. You'd be the right guy, and it wouldn't -
31:01 - 31:04matter what you knew if you were back inside
--" -
31:04 - 31:07"No, I wouldn't," Greg said. "You're on crack."
-
31:07 - 31:12"Hear me out. There's money involved. Good
work, too. Smart colleagues. A direction for -
31:12 - 31:16your life. A chance to participate in the
political life of your country --" -
31:16 - 31:22Greg gave a bitter laugh. "Unbelievable,"
he said. "If you think I'm going to help you -
31:22 - 31:29smear political candidates in exchange for
favors, you're even crazier than I thought." -
31:29 - 31:36"Greg," he said, "Greg, you're right. That
was dumb. No one is going to do that anymore. -
31:37 - 31:44We're just going to -- clean things up a little.
For some select people. You know what I mean, -
31:44 - 31:50right? Every Google profile is a little scary
under close inspection. Close inspection is -
31:50 - 31:54the order of the day in politics. You stand
for office and they'll look at your kids, -
31:54 - 31:59your brothers, your ex-girlfriends. Now that
your search history is available to so many -
31:59 - 32:04people, it won't be that hard to look into
that too. Your Orkut network, your old Usenet -
32:04 - 32:10messages, your searches, all of it." He loaded
the cafetiere and depressed the plunger, his -
32:10 - 32:16face screwed up in solemn concentration. He
held out his hand and Greg got down two coffee -
32:16 - 32:21mugs -- Google mugs, of course -- and passed
them to him. -
32:21 - 32:26"We're going to do for our friends just what
Maya did for you. Just give them a little -
32:26 - 32:32cleanup. Preserve their privacy. That's all
-- I promise you, that's all." -
32:32 - 32:37Greg sipped the coffee, but didn't taste it.
"And whichever candidates you don't clean -
32:37 - 32:38--"
-
32:38 - 32:43"Yeah," the guy said. "Yeah, you're right.
It'll be tough for them." -
32:43 - 32:44"You can go now," Greg said.
-
32:44 - 32:51"Oh, Greg," the guy said. He plucked his jacket
off his chair-back and shrugged it on, felt -
32:52 - 32:57in the inside pocket and produced a small
stack of paper, folded into quarters. He smoothed -
32:57 - 32:59it out and put it on the table.
-
32:59 - 33:03Greg looked quickly and saw the rows of results
he'd seen on the DHS man's screen, back at -
33:03 - 33:08the airport, when this all started. "I don't
care," he said. "Tell the world about my search -
33:08 - 33:12history. Go ahead. In five years, everyone
will have had their search history ruptured. -
33:12 - 33:13We'll all be guilty."
-
33:13 - 33:19"It's not your history," the man said. He
divided the stack into two piles, and pointed -
33:19 - 33:25to names on the top sheet of each. One was
Maya's. The other was a candidate whose campaign -
33:25 - 33:28Greg had contributed to for the last three
elections. -
33:28 - 33:32"You get five weeks' vacation a year. You
can go to Cabo for the SCUBA. The options -
33:32 - 33:35package is very generous, too."
-
33:35 - 33:40The man sat down and drank some coffee. Greg
tried some more of his own. It didn't taste -
33:40 - 33:46so bad. It was, in fact, more delicious than
anything that had ever come out of his kitchen. -
33:46 - 33:48The man knew what he was doing.
-
33:48 - 33:53The best years of Greg's life had been spent
at Google. Smart people. Amazing work environment. -
33:53 - 33:59Wonderful technology. Nothing in the world
like it. When you worked at G, you had the -
33:59 - 34:05best model train set in the universe to play
with. Organizing all of human knowledge. -
34:05 - 34:08"You can pick your team, of course," the man
said. -
34:08 - 34:11Greg poured himself another cup of delicious
coffee. -
34:11 - 34:16The new Congress took eleven working days
to pass the Securing and Enumerating America's -
34:16 - 34:21Communications and Hypertext Act, which authorized
the DHS and the NSA to outsource up to 80 -
34:21 - 34:25percent of its intelligence and analysis work
to private contractors. -
34:25 - 34:29Theoretically, the contracts were open to
a competitive bidding process, but within -
34:29 - 34:33the secure group at Google, in building 49,
there was no question of who would win those -
34:33 - 34:39contracts. If Google had spent $15 billion
on a program to catch bad guys at the border, -
34:39 - 34:42you can bet that they would have caught them
-- governments just aren't equipped to Do -
34:42 - 34:44Search Right.
-
34:44 - 34:48Greg looked himself in the eye that morning
as he shaved -- the security minders didn't -
34:48 - 34:52like hacker-stubble, and they weren't shy
about telling you so -- and realized that -
34:52 - 34:57today was his first day as a de facto intelligence
agent in the US government. -
34:57 - 35:02How bad would it be? Wasn't it better to have
Google doing this stuff than some ham-fisted -
35:02 - 35:02spook?
-
35:02 - 35:07He had himself convinced by the time he parked
at the Googleplex, among the hybrid cars and -
35:07 - 35:13bulging bike-racks. He stopped for an organic
smoothie on the way to his desk, then sat -
35:13 - 35:15down and sipped.
-
35:15 - 35:19The rumpled man hadn't been to the G since
Greg went back to work, but it often felt -
35:19 - 35:23like his influence was all around them in
building 49. He wasn't any less rumpled today -
35:23 - 35:27-- he could have been wrapped in saran-wrap
on the day he brought Greg back to work and -
35:27 - 35:30refrigerated for all that he hadn't changed
a hair. -
35:30 - 35:35"Hi, Greg," he said, sliding into the chair
next to his. His podmates stood up in unison -
35:35 - 35:36and left the room.
-
35:36 - 35:42"Just tell me what it is," Greg said. "Just
spit it out. You want me to pwn NORAD and -
35:42 - 35:44start World War III, right?"
-
35:44 - 35:49"Nothing so obvious," the man said, patting
his shoulder. "Just a little search-job." -
35:49 - 35:50"Yeah?"
-
35:50 - 35:54"There's a person we want to find. A person
who's left the country, apparently headed -
35:54 - 35:59for Mexico. She knows certain things that
are, as of today, classified. She needs to -
35:59 - 36:02be briefed on her new responsibilities."
-
36:02 - 36:06Greg stood up. "I'm not going to find Maya
for you." He pulled on his jacket. -
36:06 - 36:11"There are plenty of people here who will.
It's up to you, though. You can work here -
36:11 - 36:15with her, being productive, or you can find
out just how rotten life can get -- while -
36:15 - 36:20she works here, being productive with your
co-workers." -
36:20 - 36:24Greg stared at him, his hands balled into
fists. -
36:24 - 36:30"Come on," the rumpled man said. "Greg, we
both know how this goes. When you said yes -
36:30 - 36:35to me in your kitchen, you lost the option
of saying no. It's not so bad, is it? Who -
36:35 - 36:39would you rather have doing the nation's intelligence:
you and your pals here in the Valley, or a -
36:39 - 36:43bunch of straight-edge code-grinders in Virginia?"
-
36:43 - 36:46Greg turned on his heel and left. He made
it all the way to the parking lot before he -
36:46 - 36:51stopped and kicked a wall so hard he felt
something give way in his foot. -
36:51 - 36:57Then he limped back to his desk, hung his
jacket on his chair, and logged back in. -
36:57 - 37:02It was a week later when his key-card failed
to open the door to Building 49. The idiot -
37:02 - 37:07red LED shone at him every time he swiped
it. He swiped it and swiped it. Any other -
37:07 - 37:11building and there'd be someone to tailgate
on, people trickling in and out all day. But -
37:11 - 37:16the Googlers in 49 only emerged for meals,
and sometimes not even that. -
37:16 - 37:20Swipe, swipe, swipe.
-
37:20 - 37:23"Greg, can I see you, please?"
-
37:23 - 37:27The rumpled man hadn't shaved in a couple
of days. He put an arm around Greg's shoulders -
37:27 - 37:32and Greg smelled his citrusy aftershave. It
was the same cologne that his divemaster in -
37:32 - 37:36Baja had worn when they went out to the bars
in the evening. Greg couldn't remember his -
37:36 - 37:40name. Juan-Carlos? Juan-Luis?
-
37:40 - 37:44The man's arm around his shoulders was firm,
steering him away from the door, out onto -
37:44 - 37:49the immaculate lawn, past the kitchen's herb
garden. "We're giving you a couple of days -
37:49 - 37:52off," he said.
-
37:52 - 37:57Greg felt a cold premonition that sank all
the way to his balls. "Why?" Had he done something -
37:57 - 37:58wrong? Was he going to jail?
-
37:58 - 38:04"It's Maya." The man turned him around, met
his eyes with his bottomless basset-hound -
38:04 - 38:11gaze. "It's Maya. Killed herself. In Guatemala.
I'm sorry, Greg." -
38:13 - 38:18Greg seemed to hurtle away from himself, to
a place miles above, a Google Earth view of -
38:18 - 38:24the Googleplex, looking down on himself and
the rumpled man as a pair of dots, two pixels, -
38:24 - 38:29tiny and insignificant. He willed himself
to tear at his hair, to drop to his knees -
38:29 - 38:31and weep.
-
38:31 - 38:36From a long way away, he heard himself say,
"I don't need any time off. I'm OK." -
38:36 - 38:39From a long way away, he heard the rumpled
man insist. -
38:39 - 38:45But one-pixel Greg wouldn't be turned aside.
The argument persisted for a long time, and -
38:45 - 38:49then the two pixels moved into Building 49
and the door swung shut behind them. -
39:02 - 39:08Doctorow: This one came as a commission from Radar magazine
-- now defunct, a casualty of the 2008 crash, -
39:08 - 39:13but in 2007, this was the most widely circulated
"lifestyle" magazine in the US. They asked -
39:13 - 39:19me to write about "the day Google became evil."
I didn't want to cheap out and just write -
39:19 - 39:23about the company selling out to some evil
millionaire. If Google ever turned evil, it -
39:23 - 39:27would be because a) evil had a compelling
business-model and b) evil lay at the end -
39:27 - 39:29of a compelling technical challenge.
-
39:29 - 39:34I spent a lot of time talking off-the-record
to Googlers, who are, to a one, the nicest -
39:34 - 39:38people I know (OK, one exception springs to
mind, but let's not air our dirty laundry -
39:38 - 39:42in public, right?). I also had an incredibly
productive conversation with the Electronic -
39:42 - 39:47Frontier Foundation's Kevin Bankston, a profound
and sharp-witted privacy lawyer. -
39:47 - 39:51I wanted to capture a company that was full
of good people who do bad. There are lots -
39:51 - 39:56of these. For example, all the Microsoft employees
I know are fantastic and smart and caring -
39:56 - 40:01and principled. But ethically and technically,
most of what comes out of Redmond is a train-wreck. -
40:01 - 40:06It's anti-synergy: a firm that is far less
than the sum of its parts. I could easily -
40:06 - 40:11see Google turning into that. I wish I understood
how groups of good people trying to do good -
40:11 - 40:12can do bad.
- Title:
- Cory Doctorow's "Scroogled" read by Wil Wheaton
- Description:
-
Update: sorry, Blip has changed the video file URLs, so this ag does not work anymore. New page that works: http://www.universalsubtitles.org/en/videos/3W6eCWh6h2HI/info/
This "video" is just a support for multilingual subtitling of the audio recording of Cory Doctorow's "Scroogled" short story, from his With a Little Help collection, as read by Wil Wheaton.Sources:With a Little Help
craphound.com/walh
(collection of all versions of all stories, and description of the publishing project);Audio of Will Wheaton's recording downloadable from craphound.com/walh/audiobook/download-audiobook
Translations of "Scroogled" and derived works: craphound.com/?p=1902
. - Video Language:
- English
Claude Almansi edited English subtitles for Cory Doctorow's "Scroogled" read by Wil Wheaton | ||
Claude Almansi edited English subtitles for Cory Doctorow's "Scroogled" read by Wil Wheaton | ||
Claude Almansi edited English subtitles for Cory Doctorow's "Scroogled" read by Wil Wheaton | ||
Claude Almansi edited English subtitles for Cory Doctorow's "Scroogled" read by Wil Wheaton | ||
Claude Almansi commented on English subtitles for Cory Doctorow's "Scroogled" read by Wil Wheaton | ||
Claude Almansi edited English subtitles for Cory Doctorow's "Scroogled" read by Wil Wheaton | ||
Claude Almansi edited English subtitles for Cory Doctorow's "Scroogled" read by Wil Wheaton | ||
Claude Almansi edited English subtitles for Cory Doctorow's "Scroogled" read by Wil Wheaton |