Little Brother

IN THE L33T OF THE NIGHT Harvey plays password.

Photo: Michael Brosilow

Ever wonder if someone could exploit CTA data to track you via your Chicago Card? Why do we trust that toll plazas are the only places our I-PASS gets scanned? And how secure is that free Wi-Fi connection at the corner café? These are a few of the questions that will likely crop up after viewing Massolia’s trenchant adaptation of Doctorow’s 2008 novel.

Journalist Doctorow, an editor of the massively trafficked blog Boing Boing, is a leading voice in discussions about keeping the Internet open and maximizing privacy rights. Little Brother directly addresses these interrelated interests. After a terrorist attack levels the Bay Bridge and BART, San Fran teen Marcus and his compatriots are secretly “detained” for a week. (The word hacker is eschewed, but it’s safe to say they’re interested in unapproved uses of technology.) Using the handle M1K3Y, Marcus decides to fight back against the police state he finds himself in, but his techno futzing and online community organizing only fuel the MSM’s positive spin on the new authoritiarianism.

Massolia’s adaptation subtly, efficiently informs an audience that may be unfamiliar with tech topics like RFIDs and open-source operating systems, yet it can’t fix some minor weaknesses in Doctorow’s plot; the emergence of a video proving a Karl Rove–like adviser colluded with DHS to exploit fear for electoral purposes, for instance, is a pandering deus ex machina. Still, Doctorow raises many worthy points about the relationship between our safeties and our freedoms, and in Milne’s bracing production, newcomer Mike Harvey as Marcus makes a confident tour guide.

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