Finished Reading

Cryptonomicon was an interesting read. It is quite a long read, but a couple of recent trips I took gave me an opportunity to finish it off. Stephenson’s style of weaving 2, sometimes 3, fairly orthogonal storylines with shared character names took some bit of adjustment to get used to reading. It also meant that I couldn’t really read it late in the evening when I was feeling tired, as my brain just couldn’t follow along any more. The story itself was good and reasonably topical for those that fiddle with things like Tor and PGP/GPG. I’m a bit skeptical of the kid gloves that the governments in the story seem to have toward what the end of the story, but that’s why it’s fiction.

It would be hard to call the story science fiction, given that the technology described was well-established when the book was written.

This last week I picked up a copy of the decidedly-nonfiction Beyond Fear by Bruce Schneier. I’ve made some progress on it and will write more when I finish it. My impression at the moment, about half way through, is that it is a bit ponderous and self-contradictory in places. But then when it comes to describing a need for a more realistic evaluation of threats, I’m the choir and don’t need much preaching to agree.