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