outstanding

what happens when the British Prime Minister uses data from surveillance of citizens (Britain is the most heavily surveilled democracy) to maintain his political power ( )

Not my usual fare, but I enjoyed this book because it is a modernized version of George Orwell's 1984. In The Dying Light, the UK government has partnered with big business to collect and use data on citizens through drones, CCTVs, and mandatory ID cards that include your cell phone number. It's scary because it is so plausible that such action is possible even today.

The plot was good....complex but never confusing and the book was a real page turner for me. ( )

I just read a review of this book that makes it sound like a 21st Century update to 1984, with more account of how the road to tyranny is paved with good intentions, and perhaps some redeeming cracks in the dystopia.

http://www.economist.com/books/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14164441

I just read a review of this book that makes it sound like a 21st Century update to 1984, with more account of how the road to tyranny is paved with good intentions, and perhaps some redeeming cracks in the dystopia.

http://www.economist.com/books/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14164441

A great summer read. It starts a bit slow, but soon it grows into a page-turner. The story about the government spying on its people has been told numerous times, but Porter takes it to the next level. Here the government not only spies on its citizens, but also uses the results of its spying to supply the various government departments with actionable requests. So if your tax return was too low, but you had a couple of vacation trips, you may be served with a new tax bill, or imprisonment, by the department of revenue. Given that all machine learning algorithms get it right, when they do, on average, that means that there are a lot of innocent people that go to jail in this world...kind of scary since we are almost there. ( )