« Bad Meme. Bad Karl. | Main | The Holy Grail Of Alcoholism Does Not Exist »
May 18, 2005
Digital Fortress
Despite what some people think of them, I really liked Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. Yeah, it's all fluff, but it was entertaining fluff. I steered clear of Digital Fortress, though. Don't know why, I just had a feeling I wouldn't like it.
Well, my darling daughter bought me Digital Fortress for my birthday. With her own money. Because she knew I liked Dan Brown's other books. So when your daughter buys you a book with her own money, you read it, and you like it. End of story.
So what did I learn from this book? A few things (spoilers, some of them):
1. The EFF is a bunch of naive do-gooders who have no clue what kind of carnage would be wrought if the government couldn't spy on us.
2. The NSA clearly needs to be able to listen in on all of the world's electronic communications any time they want to, for purely noble reasons. They would never abuse this trust.
3. Bits, bytes, alphabetic characters, alphanumeric characters, and ASCII characters are, oh, pretty much all the same thing, right? For instance, this is an 8-bit key: "APQRDX34".
4. The villian is named TANKADO. His shadowy accomplice is called "NORTH DAKOTA". All of the most talented cryptographers at the NSA will fail to recognize the obvious anagram here until the last chapter. Anagrams are hard, I guess.
5. Computers at the NSA have this futuristic feature where with a couple of keystrokes, the user can "lock" their terminal so that nobody can use it unless they enter the user's password. This technology is so mind-bendingly high-tech that it requires a half-page of explanation.
6. Passwords at the NSA are all fixed-length keys of 5 alphanumeric characters, case-insensitive.
7. The NSA is an overwhelmingly male-dominated organization. However, if you are a female who is also the most brilliant code breaker who ever lived, you can work there if the director thinks you're hot.
8. If the power in the NSA Crypto division goes out, the backup power will only be sufficient to keep the main codebreaking computer running. All other power, including doors, door locks, and lights, will be unusable.
9. However, if the power door locks are not functioning, all doors in the most secure facility in the world can be forced open with a little muscle. As a general rule, all men in the NSA are strong enough to open them. The lone woman is not.
10. If the main NSA database loses power, all data contained within it will be lost forever.
11. Given a cryptic phrase written by a scientist including the words "prime" and "difference", a room full of mathematicians and crypographers and scientists will not notice that these are mathematical terms until disaster is less than 10 seconds away.
12. When riding a Vespa scooter across oil-slick pavement at 50 miles an hour, frantically pumping your brakes will allow you to stay upright for dozens of yards and then continue riding once you are through.
13. In Spain, all punk rockers are dumb, illiterate stoners, but they speak flawless English with an American accent.
My girl bought this for me, so I read it, and I thanked her. I'm such a good daddy.
And you know what else? It was still better than Cryptonomicon.
Posted by ray at May 18, 2005 11:35 AM | Permalink
Categories: [books ]
Comments
Hey, Cryptonomicon ruled. Only, everything else Stephenson's done sucks.
Posted by: Karl Elvis at May 18, 2005 3:06 PM
If Stephenson had cut out 50% of the bulk and used the time saved to come up with an actual ending, it would have been a decent book.
The guy needs to knock off the meth, and he desperately needs an editor with the cajones to tell him to shut the fuck up already when he can't stop talking.
I liked Snow Crash, but Diamond Age blew and Cryptonomicon made me swear off Stephenson forever. Never again.
The main thing that Digital Fortress had going for it over Cryptonomicon? It was mercifully over after three nights of reading.
Posted by: Ray at May 18, 2005 3:36 PM
You're seriously comparing Dan Brown to Cryptonomicon? So much fucking WHATEVER.
Posted by: Doxy at May 18, 2005 5:18 PM
Snow Crash didn't suck for cyberpunk, but unless you're Gibson, get the fuck over it already, VR is like having your whole book set in a dream. But Cryptonomicon, while I'll agree it's a bit too long, rocked on several levels. The WWII part was *excellent*, the stuff about startups was spot on, and the way it all connected up was inspired.
Yes, the ending was a *little* weak. It's not in my top ten books list. But it's flaws are minor.
On the other hand, his latest... Run away. Run away. Everything you say about Cryptonomicon is true of quicksilver, and more. It's terrible.
Posted by: Karl Elvis at May 18, 2005 5:27 PM
I read Cryptonomicon the same year I read Alan Turing: The Enigma, and the real-life crypto geek was way more interesting.
I liked Snow Crash more for the richly imagined future than all the "jacking in" hoohah. It stunk brilliantly of technological corporate excess the same way that Gibson's books do, or Bladerunner did.
Stephenson's problem is that he can't write; his style is not just bad, it is actively irritating, so his ideas have to be that much more stellar to keep me slogging through the mess. Snow Crash had just enough fun in it to get me through. Cryptonomicon with a better ending would have made a decent 400 page book. As it was, it was weeks of torture. As compared to Digital Fortress, which was, OK, clearly a worse book, but I only had to hate it for days, not weeks.
Posted by: rayinaustin at May 18, 2005 9:47 PM
Wow did I read a different Cryptonomicon than you did. But I love you anyway. B^)
Posted by: Karl Elvis at May 18, 2005 11:01 PM
Post a comment