"Bruce Sterling - Statement of Principle, A" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sterling Bruce)

statement of principle.
It has not escaped my attention that there are many people who
believe that anyone called a "cyberpunk" must be, almost by definition,
entirely devoid of principle. I offer as evidence an excerpt from Buck
BloomBecker's 1990 book, SPECTACULAR COMPUTER CRIMES. On page 53, in a
chapter titled "Who Are The Computer Criminals?", Mr. BloomBecker
introduces the formal classification of "cyberpunk" criminality.

"In the last few years, a new genre of science fiction has arisen
under the evocative name of 'cyberpunk.' Introduced in the work of
William Gibson, particularly in his prize-winning novel NEUROMANCER,
cyberpunk takes an apocalyptic view of the technological future. In
NEUROMANCER, the protagonist is a futuristic hacker who must use the
most sophisticated computer strategies to commit crimes for people who
offer him enough money to buy the biological creations he needs to
survive. His life is one of cynical despair, fueled by the desire to
avoid death. Though none of the virus cases actually seen so far have
been so devastating, this book certainly represents an attitude that
should be watched for when we find new cases of computer virus and try
to understand the motivations behind them.
"The New York Times's John Markoff, one of the

more perceptive and
accomplished writers in the field, has written than a number of computer
criminals demonstrate new levels of meanness. He characterizes them, as
do I, as cyberpunks."

Those of us who have read Gibson's NEUROMANCER closely will be
aware of certain factual inaccuracies in Mr. BloomBecker's brief review.
NEUROMANCER is not "apocalyptic." The chief conspirator in NEUROMANCER
forces Case's loyalty, not by buying his services, but by planting
poison-sacs in his brain. Case is "fueled" not by his greed for money
or "biological creations," or even by the cynical "desire to avoid
death," but rather by his burning desire to hack cyberspace. And so
forth.
However, I don't think this misreading of NEUROMANCER is based on
carelessness or malice. The rest of Mr. BloomBecker's book generally is
informative, well-organized, and thoughtful. Instead, I feel that Mr.
BloomBecker manfully absorbed as much of NEUROMANCER as he could without
suffering a mental toxic reaction. This report of his is what he
actually *saw* when reading the novel.
NEUROMANCER has won quite a following in the world of computer
crime investigation. A prominent law enforcement official once told me
that police unfailingly conclude the worst when they find a teenager
with a computer and a copy of NEUROMANCER. When I declared that I too
was a "cyberpunk" writer, she asked me if I would print the recipe for a
pipe-bomb in my works. I was astonished by this question, which struck
me as bizarre rhetorical excess at the time. That was before I had
actually examined bulletin-boards in the computer underground, which I
found to be chock-a-block with recipes for pipe-bombs, and worse. (I