CM1.08 - A Rabble Roust

Within the week after its appearance in its original venue, the following editorial had scrolled, in its entirety, across the marquees of at least seven international stock market exchanges, twelve major news media outlets, and twenty-three malls:

"ReSults Count.

"For most commercial entities, this would be an earnest slogan, enough marketable mush to keep the PR lackeys busy for a good two years.

"At Roar-Sol Codifiers, Inc., however, it's become a war cry.

"ReSults do indeed Count at RSC. The latest ReSult is one more body in the bag, one more unnecessary vegetable. A hapless youth, a joy-riding runner wanna-be, a teenager out for some thrills, buzzed Roar-Sol's Archives by mistake, and pays the price--catatonia, major neural trauma, permanent brain damage. Call it what you will. RSC calls it ReSults. You can read about it in our feature article.

"By mistake, mind you. The boy, i'm afraid to said, was your true weef. He's as much a cowboy as your Aunt Matilda. Was the node marked as belonging to RSC? No. Are any of RSC's nodes ever marked? No. Was it guarded by something innocuous? No.

"And what is RSC's Official Response?

"I quote: 'Roar-Sol has not yet had time to fully investigate the allegations, but we sincerely regret any harm that may have come to an intruder. Rest assured that we use only protective measures that have been deemed legal by the appropriate authorities. We will comment further when our investigations are complete.'

"Are they sorry? Do they acknowledge any fault? Any measure of obligation to the boy's mother in the mental crippling of her only son?

"You can read between the lines as well as i can, dear reader, but let's focus for a minute on that phrase, 'appropriate authorities.' Did you know that Roar-Sol now controls or outright owns 23% of all privatized government administration resources? Did you know that with only 4% more, they could have more influence than any five other government stockholders combined? And that is only the executive branch.

"Who cares about government, you ask? Nobody. Nobody except Roar-Sol. Why do they care? I'll tell you why.

"Roar-Sol has been developing, is developing, and has plans to develop security protocols so fundamentally absurd that no one who hears about them can possibly take seriously. But those protocols are coming into play.

"Get This: They know WHO YOU ARE. Don't believe me? Try a run on their R&D. Then go watch a buddy try it. Go on, try it. You'll see that the node responds differently to each intruder. How do they know? i can't tell you, but i have my suspicions. They call it Dynamic Response [tm].

"I call it, and those who take our liberties seriously call it, at the very least, Invasion of Privacy.

"Not enough for you? Okay, then.

"Get This: Right now, RSC has on the table plans to geographically map out the physical location of every single login location on the globe.

"Yeah, yeah. You're laughing right? You're thinking that they'd have to figure out exactly where every satellite was being received from, the length of each cable, the twist in each cable, the location of each mobile unit (console or palm), et cetera ad infinitum.

"Why, you're saying to yourself, it would take some serious AI processing to accomplish all that, and the AI would have to have access to a lot more data than Turing cops would allow, and any AI with that much data gets too hard to control anyway.

"You're thinking to yourself that, sure RSC has that Krummy old AI they bought five years ago, it's the only one they have, and it's so unstable they have to reset it every five months.

"Let me ask you This: When's the last time you had a verified report on Krumz? Where is it right now? I can't find it anywhere."