McSweeney's Issue 54: The End of Trust

McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern #54

by Dave Eggers (Editor)

Is this era of unprecedented, low-level distrust―in our tech companies and our peers, our democracy and our justice system―we never know who's watching us, what they know, and how they'll use it.

Our personal data must be protected against Equifax hacks, doxxing, government tracking, and corporate data mining. Meanwhile, we wade through an unprecedented amount of disinformation and deception. Fake news and Russian-purchased propaganda are woven into our media diets, and anonymity on the internet leaves us ever suspicious.

In the face of this, rather than seek privacy where we can, we eagerly offer up our remaining details to social media, craving the surveillance and scrutiny of our peers. We're unsure of how all of this is affecting the moral development of a generation coming of age in this new culture of surveillance, but we continue on. It leads us to wonder if we've reached the end of trust, and if we even care.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Technology, Short Stories

343 pages, Hardcover

Published November 20, 2018

About the author

Dave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He is best known for his 2000 memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which became a bestseller and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Eggers is also the founder of several notable literary and philanthropic ventures, including the literary journal Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, the literacy project 826 Valencia, and the human rights nonprofit Voice of Witness. Additionally, he founded ScholarMatch, a program that connects donors with students needing funds for college tuition. His writing has appeared in numerous prestigious publications, including The New Yorker, Esquire, and The New York Times Magazine.

Reviews

[Paul Dembina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mcsweeneys first ever completely non-fiction edition and it's a corker. The articles all concern issues relating to privacy in the age of mass surveillance (both corporate and governmental) in the digital domain. Although very US-centric it's certainly very thought provoking

[derek allard · Rating 2 out of 5]

You know what would be wonderful? Reading a book on a complex topic (say, such as trust and privacy in the digital age) that explored all sides of the issue. That would be truly wonderful. But if you are looking for that book, this is not the one to pick up. Instead you get very very liberal talking points (in fact, so many of these essays feel like the authors were given a cheat sheet by the ACLU as there is a hideous amount of repetition of these points with a stunning dearth of original thought or even smart exploration of said points) that are painfully one sided in this debate. So, yes, this was a disappointing issue. I should point out that there were two exceptions. One was the "Should Law Enforcement Use Surveillance?" debate, which was, yes, an actual debate (even if a bit shallow) between one government intelligence employee and two liberal activists (one a community organizer and one a lawyer). (Aside: Why does every big issue have to have just two sides? It is such a gross oversimplification, but I suppose that is all we are capable of in our current world of two party politics. Everything starts to look two-sided when nothing could be further from the truth.) The other, and by far the best essay in this collection, was Douglas Rushkoff's "The Media Virus, My Problem Child" which is filled with smart, original (and unbiased) thinking about media and the social media age. It's as if Mr. Rushkoff wiped the provided cheat sheet aside in favor of deeper thinking and hearty writing. One wonders if he'll ever be invited back anytime soon to McSweeney's pages.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Riding strong on the freshly stoked vigilance following the arrival of a Trump presidency, a sense of urgency pervades McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern’s 54th issue, The End of Trust, a collaboration with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Although a sense of urgency is by no means unwarranted, urgency unfortunately seems to have excessively narrowed the potential field of investigation. Meanwhile, writers are covering ground in one essay already covered in another with neither enhancing the other nor delivering the expected nuance. The impression is that not all that much planning went into coordinating the issue. The overall focus is quite heavy on police surveillance, certainly a shadowy area ripe for exposure, but it’s only a subset of the billed “collection of essays and interviews focusing on issues related to technology, privacy, and surveillance.” And aside from a couple of the essays citing though not otherwise delineating a historical legacy of white-supremacist-motivated surveillance in the U.S. (nearly duplicating the same brief comment from one essay to the other), the overall impression is that privacy only became worth talking about at our current political juncture—as if these weren’t multi-administration concerns.

One avenue for spreading knowledge is advocacy, awareness-building, educational outreach with an ultimate goal of legislative change, of enacting knowledge into law. Knowledge can also be enacted more directly into the world by automating expertise into a piece of software or technology. The first strategy is the trend of the volume. It’s primarily not geared toward giving readers tools in the fight or directing them to those who are doing so but getting them worked up and bothered enough to get someone else—presumably a political representative—to get something done on their behalf.

Urgency and vagueness are a bad combination. Urgency in McSweeney’s 54 comes without prescription—even a general one. Not that each essay should spell out a precise plan of action, but if this is serving as anybody’s introduction to these topics there’s the feeling that they’ll be left with little idea about what they should do about any of this besides maybe following the writers that most impressed them on Twitter.

The EFF does plenty of litigating and political advocacy, but they also build privacy tools and educate people on how to take privacy into their own hands. The essays collectively fail to strike the EFF’s usual balance between shepherding and pushing for personal responsibility, between litigator and cypherpunk. In the forward by Cindy Cohn (EFF’s Executive Director), there is hint that the EFF ceded some curatorial control in the collaboration, stating that “We may not agree with every point made in this collection, but exploring these themes is important.” More than this on the underlying curatorial decisions is unclear.

At any rate, there was a real loss of opportunity in the narrowed focus to highlight what people are building to enhance privacy—that people even are building such things. The thematic framing essays urge us to steel ourselves against an incoming onslaught of “privacy nihilism”—misguided resignation to the notion that privacy simply isn’t possible anymore and therefore doubling down in the other direction of giving it all thoughtlessly away out of sheer exasperation over the degree and magnitude of privacy leaks and invasions.

As important as the activism angle is, things would really seem nihilistic to me if no one was building. It was about halfway through the issue I had the troubling realization when one of the essays laid out some of the ways the alt-right, finding themselves disenfranchised from the mainstream online media platforms, are building their own ecosystem (Gab, etc.); it made me a little nervous that this was the only mention (in addition to the military-industrial wing of America’s police forces) to that point of anyone building anything—all this making the green-leafed EFF crash-course insert on personal computer security (recommending their excellent Privacy Badger and HTTPS Everywhere browser extensions among other interventions) seem somewhat out of place. (Additionally, as far as building things—or at least built things—goes, there ended up being a not bad transcription of Edward Snowden explaining “blockchain” to his lawyer and a brief dismissive aside about Bitcoin by Douglas Rushkoff—demonstrating that he still doesn’t understand it.)

Little influence of the clever rebelliousness of earlier internet years makes its way into this collection. The internet was once a place of weird and diverse thought, and McSweeney’s 54 bellies the fact that it still is. The sense of urgency crowded out any more exploratory lines of thought. Rounding out the equation, it’s eternal vigilance that is liberty’s price, not vigilance only during periods when a Trump occupies the Whitehouse.

The volume wasn’t bad, and there were nearly as many highlights as missed opportunities and redundancies, but it could certainly have been much more tightly curated. If you’ve been even remotely concerned about privacy over the last few years there probably isn’t much new here for you. And for those newcomers looking for a good condensation of the terrain there’s unfortunately too much left out for this to serve as your primer. If you’re coming to this issue of McSweeney’s because of the EFF involvement—as I did—you’re better off just subscribing to EFF’s email newsletter.

[Keen Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars!

Encryption, surveillance, viruses and a whole encyclopedia of other dark aspects to modern government behaviour can be found in here. I’m pretty sure I’ve never come across a Cell tower “Stingray” simulator before?...

Filled with many of the well-established names in the genre, Snowden, Doctorow and Rushkoff, this is a largely pleasing and engaging mix of essays, Q&As, graphs and a compendium of law enforcement surveillance tools.

There is the odd rotten one, which can be a little tedious and lengthy, but overall this is a well-balanced enough collection and will help supercharge paranoia and mistrust into those not already filled with it.

[B_rodger · Rating 3 out of 5]

The good stuff is really good — In particular, Jennifer Kabat’s “The Digital Blues” and Elizabeth Stix’ “Search Queries...” (it’s a longer title, but I’m lazy). Some of the police surveillance stuff starts getting pretty anvilicious — after about the third essay on the exact same aspect, although it’s an important aspect, you’re like, I GOT IT ALREADY. And there is some stuff that is just pure nutbaggery. In others words, pretty much what I expected. 😉 Worth the read, though.

[Ostap Bender · Rating 4 out of 5]

McSweeney’s first all-nonfiction issue, this one is devoted to issues related to privacy and trust in the modern world, where cameras and all sorts of other surveillance technology are pervasive, and both government and big companies like Facebook and Google are harvesting massive amounts of our personal data. The loss of privacy is real, and the possible negative ramifications are broad, including identity theft, abuses by law enforcement, and the state operating in an Orwellian manner to suppress dissent or nonconformity. It’s all a bit chilling to think about.

There are a total of 19 articles (aggregating the compendium of law enforcement surveillance tools into one, as the table of contents does), and 8 of them focus on surveillance impacting marginalized people, including people of color, far more than Caucasians. It’s a valid point and I was glad to understand it better, e.g. when Malkia Cyril mentions that under the Trump administration, the FBI’s ‘Countering Violent Extremism’ program was changed to ‘Countering Islamic Extremism,’ and that it would no longer target white supremacists (good lord!). However, I just thought that as a whole, the issue had more than it needed of this, and could have used a little more diversity in another way, subject matter.

On the other hand, there were these highlights:
- The letter to the editor from Carson Mell, who at first seems like a crotchety old man complaining about cell phone usage, but who relates some interesting personal anecdotes and makes a powerful observation about the possible effects of excess ‘screen time’ at the expense of engagement (when with others) or introspection (when alone). “What happens to people constantly pacified? You end up with a bunch of goddamned babies. You end up with ghosts,” he writes.

- “The Economics of Mistrust” by Ethan Zuckerman. He points out the pros and cons of centralized vs. decentralized places trust, such as Google mail (pro: obviates the considerable difficulty to set up one’s own mail server; con: Google has your private correspondences on their servers and may abuse your trust), and Bitcoin (pro: completely removes the idea of a trusted central bank; con: extraordinary amount of energy is being consumed worldwide to mine bitcoins, currently as much as the entire country of Colombia). Note the cost of mistrust in both cases. He also points out the significant erosion of trust in institutions (branches of government, newspapers, banks, etc), and the cost of what’s come along with that (a demagogue reaping the benefit), reminding us along that way that “When Americans look nostalgically to a period of post-WWII prosperity and growth, they are looking back at a movement when people trusted the government to build highways and bridges, to support college educations and mortgages, and to use the powers of taxation and spending to build public goods and reduce inequality.”

- “Search Queries of Visitors Who Landed at the Online Litmag ‘The Big Ugly Review,’ but Who, We Are Pretty Sure, Were Looking for Something Else,” by Elizabeth Stix. Because her website uses Google Analytics, she’s able to see (among several other things) what their Google search query was that took them to her site. The results she shares are funny, disturbing, and often just really strange. I loved this pondering of hers: “They shared their most poignant fears and insecurities. They were turning to Google the way people used to kneel down before an oracle, humble and beseeching. To a generation that can type any question, any time, with the illusion of privacy, perhaps Google is the new God.”

- “Edward Snowden Explains Blockchain to His Lawyer – and the Rest of Us” by Ben Wizner. Educational as an overview of bitcoin/blockchain, and also intelligent in its speculation of where the technology might lead. I probably would have rather had an article talking about the NSA leak, e.g. patriot or traitor, and the pros/cons of what he did, but this one was pretty interesting too.

- “The Digital Blues” by Jennifer Kabat. She spent quite a long period pondering the color blue and all of its varying shades in digital spaces, and at first I was thinking (as those in her life did), why? But along the way in her article, as she touched on areas related to trust and had insights into the rise of personal computing and the internet, she also mentioned things relating to culture, the arts, language, human biology etc … and won me over with the breadth of what she was talking about, as well as her intelligent writing. The ending sections are very strong, relating just how utopian the early computer scientists were and how this shifted over time with the internet’s inevitable monetization, and then referring to the balance between the individual (the “American ideal” and “core of capitalism”) with the collective good without preaching for one side or the other.

- “The Postcards We Send – Tips on Staying Vigilant in the Information Age” by Soraya Okuda. Lots of solid tips here as well as great primers and explanations for why she suggests them: using HTTPS Everywhere, Privacy Badger, Signal, public keys, ensuring backups are also encrypted, keeping software updated, not plugging your phone into USB ports without a power adapter, being wary of phishing messages, using two-factor authentication, and a password manager such as Diceware. This article is the most direct about the things we can actual do as device users, and is essential.

- “The Media Virus, My Problem Child” by Douglas Rushkoff. Very perceptive on the trends in the media, misinformation and manipulation on the internet, and political polarization that got us to our sorry state of current affairs. Interestingly, he also relates it back to earlier periods of history - for example, citing Howard Lippmann, who argued in his 1922 book ‘Public Opinion’ that people were too uneducated to make the best decisions, politicians couldn’t be trusted, and therefore a ‘council of experts’ should be employed to craft public policy. Rushkoff isn’t advocating this view, he just points out that the idea of complete trust in democracy has been challenged before. He also points out how much the outrageous stories that serve to further divide America act like real viruses in the body. The possible avenues for fighting back? He argues that to attack bad memes with good ones or to try to insulate people are inherently flawed, and that a better approach is to “strengthen the cultural immune response of the society under attack,” through education and better dialogue. Essentially, to increase our collective resiliency to these things, and to understand that when trust in others (who are online strangers) is threatened, to realize that it’s the low fidelity of the digital medium we should be wary of, and not necessarily the other person. Perhaps this article was the best of the bunch, and it was very interesting to ponder his points about strengthening our resiliency in connection with those made in the book “The Coddling of the American Mind” by Lukianoff and Haidt.

[Timons Esaias · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is McSweeney's's first all-nonfiction issue, and it tackles a very complex, difficult, and perilous subject: privacy in the Age of Surveillance.

The articles and essays do follow a worried-but-optimistic movement-oriented viewpoint, but they clash over a number of issues. It's very much a discussion and debate. (One piece is itself a debate, and three of them are Q+As that add to the back-and-forth feeling.)

There's also a feeling of fending off nihilism and despair. Folks who've been burned by police or government or surveillance can be understandably absolutist; and one of the problems of our database world is that we've already given away the store and the homestead; so the potential threat is essentially actual, already. That makes many of the commentators angry. Whoever you are, somebody in here will offend you.

I found the Elizabeth Stix essay on "Search Queries of Visitors Who Landed at the Online Litmag The Big Ugly Review, but Who, We Are Pretty Sure, Were Looking for Something Else" brilliantly illuminating. And it gave me story ideas.

That's true for the whole issue, actually. The final piece "Foreseeing FOIAs from the Future with Madeline Ashby" is an overt SF exercise from SXSW, and it gave me ideas. Ditto "The Media Virus, My Problem Child" by Douglas Rushkoff. Indeed, I must reread that one.

I was particularly struck by the arguments over anonymity, which (on the pro side) seemed to me to parallel the NRA arguments on the subject of gun control. In fact, I found many of the arguments by people who probably think of themselves as leftist, using fundamentally Fascist reasoning. Yep, that was interesting.

Recommended. And it will not give you any easy answers.

[Eileen · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://www.eff.org/the-end-of-trust

This issue of McSweeney's feels perfect for someone who likes tech and is relatively new to current conversations around surveillance and privacy--some background is helpful, but too much background may hamper one's enjoyment of the book, since some of the pieces feel a bit 101-level. As a whole, this piece also takes a certain stance: that privacy is important and worth defending.

I particularly liked the following pieces:

"Search Queries of Visitors Who Landed at the Online Litmag 'The Big Ugly Review'" - Elizabeth Stix
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I recommend this to anyone who has ever worked with Google Analytics or other user-behavior data. The writing is both conversational and poetic.

"The Digital Blues" - Jennifer Kabat
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Why are all those internet icons and buttons blue? Another interestingly-told, interestingly-structured piece.

"The Postcards We Send: Tips on Staying Vigilant in the Information Age" - Soraya Okuda
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Never before have I encountered such pleasant, easy-to-follow metaphors for things like data encryption.

Three other highlights:
"Julie Angwin and Trevor Paglen in Conversation"--there are some good thoughts here; if for no other reason, read it for the trucker anecdotes on page 0069.

"Edward Snowden Explains Blockchain to His Lawyer--and the Rest of Us"--I think I get how blockchain works now!

Mike Cole's contributions to "Should Law Enforcement Use Surveillance"--anti-surveillance folks probably won't like the content of what he says, but I appreciate the clarity with which he communicates his ideas.

[Pouliewaeg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read a lot of the newsier literature around the current surveillance state, was not expecting to learn as much as I did picking up this Internet Tendencies dispatch from McSweeney's. Was pleasantly surprised, and left with plenty of fodder for my anxieties that overcame the details of the dystopia to question even the basic building blocks of the web we see. As an example, my favourite essay was concerning the colour blue and its growing ubiquitousness on the graphic web, as a palatable and lulling psychological concealer to the questionable business practices of those who rely on shades of blue for their corporate personas.

The interview between Edward Snowden and his lawyer, in which Snowden explains blockchain and also why it will not make the web better but perhaps make it worse, was extremely fun. Malkia Cyril's article delving into the personal history of their resistance to an all-knowing, all-seeing state was necessary reading. And Gabriella Coleman's examination of anonymity in the face of all this unsettling data rendering, leaves an avenue by which the reader can consider their future engagement with the treacherous web. All in all, a vital addition to the McSweeney's library, and any library.

[Mundy · Rating 5 out of 5]

McSweeny’s has really set forth a couple of gems in recent issues. Marketed as their first entirely non-fictional issue, this compilation is a versatile challenge in terms of merging humanity and sociology with technology. On a daily basis, I find myself flustered by details I don’t understand about social media devices we use constantly. For example, one essay about improving password encryption truly sailed over my head (and the only portion of this issue I ended up skimming). On the other hand, “The Digital Blues” by Jennifer Kabat goes into surprising depth on the philosophy behind the use of the color blue in digital spaces— it was delightful. Just the kind of niche nerdery I love. Towards the end, “The Media Virus, My Problem Child” is the shining star. Douglas Rushmore unpacks a brief history of memetics (yes, memes) and urges us against complacency as our attention spans are shuddering faster and faster into the future. I would recommend this issue to anyone; these topics touch every citizen in America. Keep going, McSweeney’s!

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern is a wonderful literary journal as a whole, but Issue 54 is one of my favorites. ‘The End of Trust’ contains a variety of essays on surveillance and privacy in our time. As with any compilation of essays and articles, there are strong works and weak ones. Oddly enough one that caught my attention was ‘The Digital Blues’ a look at the use of the color blue by companies and institutions on the internet. Another was ‘The Media Virus’ which distilled down to its basic elements is a study of divisiveness on the internet, misinformation and Memes. ‘The Postcards We Send’ is how we can work to stay more secure on the Internet (although its more for the techy crowd than the casual Internet surfer). ‘Reconsidering Anonymity in the Age of Narcissism’ is difficult to distill into a one word sentence, but I will try. Using Anonymous as an example, looks at how much people should make public on the Internet. For me the weak link was ‘Foreseeing FOIAs in the Future’ cute, but I glossed over it after the first few pages.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first issue of McSweeney's I've read, and from what I understand the first to be feature 100% non-fiction. The overall theme is privacy in a digital and online world, and the extent to which both corporates, governments and law enforcement agencies have access to more personal information than ever before. In addition many articles question the use and misuse of certain technologies, and how they can exploit vulnerable and marginalised populations. Overall very interesting, but at times some of the themes and issues become repetitive between the articles. Indeed I had to ultimately take a break of a few months half way through reading this collection, otherwise it was all a little bit too much to take in. Also it was interesting to see the acceptance or otherwise of certain technologies in the US, versus my own experience in the UK and Europe.

[Dug · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first entirely nonfiction McSweeney's, and not coincidentally, the first issue I've read. The title is a bit off – this is concerned with the decline of privacy much more than that of trust (the Committee on Public Information of a century ago is even cited in opposition to the title). Skip the tedious "The Digital Blues" in the middle, and i'd like to see higher quality content from a literary journal than the scattered transcribed conversations, but this was a great overview of the state of privacy concerns. Allowing both sides to state their cases in the "Should Law Enforcement Use Surveillance?" debate was especially welcome.

[Sammy Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to put this book down for a while and come back to it later, because I thought it was a bit redundant, but it's still definitely worth a read. I learned a few new ways to combat tech surveillance, but what was really eye-opening was hearing others express how surveillance impacts them and their communities. As a white man, it's important to listen to others talk about topics that I may not feel pertain to me, but which have quite an impact on others. I have a much deeper understanding of the importance of privacy, especially in a technologically-advancing and fearful society.

[Dan Moses · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not your typical McSweeney's, this is entirely non-fiction and focuses on the growing issues of data, privacy and digital rights. I appreciate the essays that highlight the effect surveillance has on minorities and how it more broadly impacts a democratic society. There are a few suggestions along the way for minimizing tracking of one's own digital footprint, but it's really more of a book about the world we now live in and the pitfalls that may be overlooked by the average digital consumer.

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really impressive non-fiction dive into an important topic: privacy/trust/digital democracy. Some of the essays feel a bit woolly around the edges but generally it's a great, great collection. Proud to support an org that does crazy shit like an issue printed on balloons AND an issue devoted entirely to educating and raising the profile of a hot-button topic.

[Jim Lang · Rating 4 out of 5]

Equally frightening and informative, this collection of articles and conversations around government surveillance, technological encroachment on our rights, and the implications of how we live today, shines a light on a number of issues that aren't discussed enough. At times, this book becomes repetitive, but overall, it's an important read.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection is definitely a departure from the "usual" McSweeney's Quarterly Concern — it's completely non-fiction and totally focused on one topic: privacy. The subject matter is important and timely, and I learned some new things, but overall it was a little difficult to get into for someone not already familiar with the technical language of surveillance and information gathering.

[Brandon Forsyth · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating issue that sometimes verges into the infomercial. It’s a great collection of really smart writing around some of the problems around both state and corporate surveillance, but some of the pieces feel repetitive and there’s an earnestness that comes across as politically naive at times. Lots to consider here though!

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really spectacular issue on a very important topic. I really learned a lot from reading this and made some changes in both my practice as well as my philosophy about privacy issues. Extremely timely and eye-opening. Highly recommended!

[D'Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

My love for Mcsweeney's runs deep. This issue is impressive and important, though I found myself skimming a lot. That said, it did make me think more deeply about surveillance, especially surveillance as a tool of white supremacy.

[Douglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Increasingly experts seem to like to use the word Trust over Surveillance or Privacy

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Viktig och skrämmande

[Mike Garrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrifying nonfiction.

[Kris Freedain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone should read this.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Indispensably informative and relentlessly bleak.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

a little bit redundant and some of it skimmable, but this is some essential material.

[Isla McKetta · Rating 5 out of 5]

An essential (but hard) read in today's era. Not because of the pandemic, but because of the digital lives we've embarked on (whether we like it or not).

[Pia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published 7 years ago at this point, which means everything is soooo much worse now.

[Alessandro Mingione]

A tourist’s perspective into issues of privacy and surveillance. Cursory and partisan, but approachable.