Links

Living in a bookshop is like living in a warehouse of explosives. Those shelves are ranked with the most furious combustibles in the world -- the brains of men.
Christopher Morley

Information Warfare

Seven Pillars Lots of useful information. See especially:

I-War Research Group

Institute for the Advanced Study of Information Warfare. A lot of links to interesting and useful information.

Winn Schwartau's InfoWar.com

In Athena's Camp: Preparing for Conflict in the Information Age, John Arquilla, David Ronfeldt eds. Fulltext book about information warfare, published by Rand Corp.

An introduction to Information Warfare

A Theory of Information Warfare

Information Warfare in Yahoo

Philosophy

The Weapon of Openness. Openness as a weapon for democracy.

Principia Cybernetica

Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace

The Extropian Principles

Nanotechnology

The Foresight Institute

Engines of Creation

Molecular Nanotechnology and the World System

Social implications of Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology and International Security

Regulating Nanotechnology Development

Nanotechnology in Yahoo

Futurism

Computer Generation: Visions and Demands

Scenario Planning

Surveillance

http://www.rock2000.com/

An appraisal of technologies of political control

Commercial Surveillance Equipment in Yahoo

The Transparent Society

Economics

Internet to Create Laissez-Faire Banking.

Wired's Encyclopedia of the New Economy

Security without Identification: Card Computers to make Big Brother Obsolete

Achieving Electronic Privacy

Digital Signatures and Smart Cards

E-gold. An electronic monetary system backed by gold.

The Capitalism Tour

The Ludwig von Mises Institute

Atlas Economic Research Foundation

Adam Smith Institute

SEAQ and Destroy by Charlie Stross. Not entirely serious, but may give some ideas for economic warfare.

Military conflict

Tips on Writing Military Science Fiction by William S. Frisbee Jr. Also useful for roleplaying games such as InfoWar.

Chemical and biological warfare

Rec.guns

Activists

Modern Militiaman, issue about politics and warfare. Contains some articles about cell organization and political sabotage, as well as plenty of materials useful for getting an idea of the mindset of the right-wing activist movements.

The Militia Watchdog Gives a mainstream America view of the threat from militia groups; useful to get a bit of the mood of the beleaguered US mainstream in 2015 as well as ideas for various rightwing activist organisations.

Transhumanism

Transhumanist Resources

Extropy Institute

World Transhumanist Association

Will Robots Inherit the Earth? by Marvin Minsky (Scientific American October 1994)

Robotics

Hans Moravec- Roboticist and transhumanist.

Robot Magazine

Encryption

The Cypherpunks Home Page

How electronic encryption works and how it will change your business. Good introduction to the field.

Cyphernet

Index of Cryptography Papers Available Online. Mostly technical papers, but good for getting a hang of the technical jargon.

Computer Security and Encryption in Yahoo

Organizations

World Intelligence and Security Agencies. An overview from American Federation of Scientists.

CIA for kids

Intelligence Community. The 13 US agencies hat carry out the intelligence activities.

Intelligence and CounterIntelligence. Big index with links to everything related.

INTERPOL

The U.S. Intelligence Community

NSA Handbook Security Guidelines. Describes the security guidelines at NSA, useful to get a feel for how security at a FOG agency is run.

Memetics

Memetics

Propaganda Analysis Home Page

Information

Information as a Weapon: Reality versus Promises

TAZ Servers and the Rewebber Network: Enabling Anonymous Publishing on the World Wide Web

http://www.news.com/News/Item/Textonly/0,25,21084,00.html?pfv

The Emergence of The Internet In Modern China

The Jargon File. Hacker jargon -- the current jargon will of course be quite obsolete in 2015, but the file might give some ideas for infohacker slang and mindset.

Rootshell.com Security holes in various systems. Gives a frightening view of just how many holes there are.

Biotech

PRELIMINARY DRAFT OF A UNIVERSAL DECLARATION ON THE HUMAN GENOME AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Life Extension Foundation

Chemical and Biological Terrorism: the Threat According to the Open Literature by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

Internationalism

An Onomastikon (Dictionary of Names)

The Transnationalist

The Alternative Dictionaries -- Slang from around the world, quite useful to give local character.

CIA World Factbook (of course, the data is obsolete in 2015, but it can still provide maps, basic local information and good ideas).

Demography

http://www.sciam.com/1998/0598issue/0598scicit5.html

http://www.fairacre.demon.co.uk/index.htm

Miscellanous

Federation of American Scientists. About Government Secrecy, Arms Sales Monitoring, Military Analysis, Space Policy and other InfoWar-relevant stuff.

Cryptome

History of Street Tech

Defence Science Media Room Articles

Cyborg101: The Warrior's Guide to the Blackboard Jungle. A study handbook for the Concordat.

Books

Fiction

True Names and Other Dangers, Vernor Vinge. Collection of short stories. "True Names" is a classic, and together with "Run, Bookworm, Run!" describe some of the threats and possibilities as technology escalates.

Sanctuary Written by Sho Fumimura, art by Ryouichi Ikegami. Manga about two young men bent on totally changing the future of Japan. A great source of inspiration for InfoWar, even if it has some soap elements and the women are uniformly passive. There are some websites out there, such as http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/ctkwok/sanctuary/sanctuary.html and http://www.ex.org/1.5/20-sanctuary.html

The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Robert A.Heinlein. This book is good old classic science fiction about a lunar rebellion against an overwhelming Terran government. The Concordat's main principle is also present, TANSTAAFL. Many of the technological tools that might appeared unlikely in Heinlein's day (e.g. untraceable secure communications) are becoming quite feasible today.

The Bohr Maker, Tech Heaven, Linda Nagata. The Bohr Maker: The technology is far ahead of InfoWar, but the struggle is very similar. Tech Heaven: Set in the InfoWar era. Good at cryonics, many arguments for and against the new technologies. The origin of the Knights of the Oppressed Earth.

Distraction, Bruce Sterling. Lots of InfoWar ideas, everything from automated assassination by email over the confusion when politics goes nonlinear to a lot of clever tricks very suited for InfoWar. Especially suitable to for the ever weirder society of the US.

Islands in the Net, Bruce Sterling. Partially set in the InfoWar era, and shows how strongly the forces of order and stability will try to pressure the TU as well as the pressing problem of what to do when there are deeply incompatible systems in the same small world.

Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand. Rand's popular epic novel captures much of the essence of InfoWar. Few pieces of fiction can compare to Atlas Shrugged's epic scope and philosophical conflict. If you manage to get into the book you will understand much of what the InfoWar is about. It explains the philosophical premises of most groups in the conflict in an exciting way.

Interface by Steven Bury. A not-quite-perfect global conspiracy, a wired politician, advanced spin-doctoring and a presidential election -- plenty of ideas to borrow from.

Dilbert, cartoon by Scott Adams. Describes the awful realities of working in a world run by FOG and dilbertism. Dogbert is a fine example of the WETF attitude.

Luminous, anthology of short stories by Greg Egan. Several great ideas usable in InfoWar. 'Chaff' has plenty of ideas for biohacking, 'Mitochondrial Eve' suggests some interesting racist groups, 'Luminous' gives a brief glimpse of the PRC, 'Cocoon' show how even fairly simple inventions can have complex social effects, 'Silver Fire' gives a chilling vision of how widespread Mumbo-Jumbo is in 2015. His other novels and stories contain plenty of good ideas about the philosophical implications of advanced technology, although their technological level are often significantly beyond InfoWar. Especially worth reading is 'The Moral Virologist' in Axiomatic and TAP (which also shows how detective work can be done in 2015).

The Stainless Steel Rat books by Harry Harrison. Not very serious, but Slippery Jim diGriz is a fine example of what a Concordat agent could aspire to.

Earth, by David Brin. May give some ideas about technological conspiracies, the society the Brinists seek, ecoterrorism, software agents and explosive change. The ending might be a bit too neat, but the book describes a very alive and complex setting.

Fact

Out of Control, Kevin Kelly. Deals with how modern technology is becoming more and more lifelike and ecological. We are leaving the industrial age control thinking where everything in a system had to be regulated top-down to work, moving towards a "neobiological" world where influence, group dynamics and evolution instead are used to make things work out well.

The Hacker Crackdown, Bruce Sterling The Hacker Crackdown describes the electronic frontier, and how FOG tried to suppress the emerging digital undeground.

Engines of Creation by Eric Drexler. Described what nanotechnology is, what it can do, why it is likely to be developed, some consequences and what to do about them.

The Art of War, Sun Tzu and The Prince, Nicolo Machiavelli. Two classics with much wisdom. However, FOG has read them too.

The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich A. Hayek. The modern classic about how totalitarianism is born "from the best of intentions".

What Has Government Done to Our Money?, Murray Rothbard. Economics for laymen. Contains the scientific background for the IOU system.

In Swedish

Makt som Hobby, Tönis Tönisson. Handbook in how to avoid being manipulated and how to become the manipulator. A lot of useful ideas.

Mannen som köpte världen, Bill Persson. A story about how a future dictator could conquer the world in a Politically Correct fashion. The story is a bit too fantastic sometimes, but it still is in the mood of the game.

Det automatiska paradiset, Göran Hägg. Novel about loosing all one's ideals and selling out to become a cynical, corrupt FOG bureaucrat. Uncanny.

Sverige: Sluten anstalt, Ulf Nilson. Required reading for everyone that wants to play an InfoWar campaign in Sweden. It is one of the most clear-sighted books on Sweden in the '90s. Too clear-sighted, as all publishers in Sweden refused to publish it since it would have angered people in high places.

In French

Le Mal Français by Alain Peyrefitte. An interesting book about centralism in France. Peyrefitte doesn't really sympathize with the InfoWar's ideology (he's a French intellectual, after all), and sometimes falls in the same pitfalls that he is warning about, but there are still some concepts that are usable for InfoWar (especially if you play an adventure in France).

Magazines

Wired

Magasin 2000 (in Swedish)

Dolly (in Swedish)

Movies

Strange Days. One of the best movies for InfoWar. Contains a perfect example of an Interfacer, a feeling of time running away from you and a good plot. Unfortunately the end is an unimaginative anticlimax. Still, if you can cope with that, it is a very good movie. Contains Deep Forest's and Peter Gabriel's song "While The Earth Sleeps" that is perfect for InfoWar with lyrics in Kikongo, Bulgarian, and Mongolian among other languages. Very evocative! The song is found both on the movie's soundtrack and Deep Forest's CD "Boheme".

The Truman Show. On the surface not an InfoWar movie, but actually it is about taking charge of one's life, overcoming a surveillance society and all limits.

Wag the Dog. Why Media is such an important skill in InfoWar.

All the President's Men -- yes, conspiracies can be toppled.

The Lawnmower Man. A lot more spectacular (and unrealistic) than InfoWar, but gives a hint of what happens when explosively advancing technology collides with the FOG and ordinary people.

Sneakers. Rather implausible in many places, but can give useful ideas for Concordat activities. Quantum computers might be as risky as the black box.

John Carpenter's Escape from New York, extended version. Quite good. Shows the desperation of FOG and what they are prepared to do to keep the status quo. The sequel Escape from LA is decent.

Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. This is an excellent movie about youth gangs and FOG methods. The image of future is not completely corresponding to the InfoWar, but it shows what happens when FOG meets bunkers.

Runaway -- maybe not a very good film, but a fine example of WETF in action.

They Live. Paranoid science fiction thriller.

Beck, Beck 2 and too many additional sequels. These Swedish movies have been shown in some European countries too. They are FOG propaganda at its worst; the Internet is depicted as a gathering place for pedophiles and makes the youths insane. All new technologies and developments in society are showed as destructive. Youths in particular are showed as strange and nearly inhuman. As an alternative to complete nihilism the movies offer cynical pragmatism and a dreary sense of duty. The Beck movies are essential to understanding Foggies' mindset, if you can stand watching really bad acting for an hour or two.

Television

House of Cards, To Play the King and The Final Cut, directed by Paul Seed based on the novels by Michael Dobbs -- British political satire/thriller, very relevant to InfoWar and well played. Francis Urquhart is the perfect gerontocrat: wily, clear headed and definitely not going to quit just because he is old. There is even a Francis Urquhart Homepage.

Profit, produced by John McNamara, David Greenwalt, and Steven Cannell. A brilliant guide to corporate intrigue, the private sector's reflection of "House of Cards". Jim Profit may be more pure ambition than a human being, but he is just the kind of ruthless genius that can succeed in the dilbertified corporations of InfoWar -- an extremely dangerous enemy or ally. http://www.pcnet.com/dpcc/assoc/lpetix/profit/ http://math.rice.edu:80/~gsclark/profit.html

Wild Palms, directed by Oliver Stone -- great ideas about memetic warfare, but becomes incoherent. InfoWar is realism rather than surrealism.

Music

The best music in general for InfoWar is techno -- quick, unrelenting and digital.

Other suggestions:

U96, Das Boot and Energie
Antiloop
Sven Väth, The harlequin, the robot, the ballet-dancer
The soundtrack of Akira
Jean Michel Jarre, Revolutions
Busta Rhymes, Turn it up
Vacuum
Queen -- A kind of magic. Perfect to evoke those pompous moments of glory.
Apex Twin- Come to Daddy. A first approximation to Bunk.
Falco- Nachtflug. Falco is an Austrian singer and his album Nachtflug has some very good InfoWar lyrics. He sings in German, though.
Atari teenage riot
Cat rapes dog
Eurythmics -- For the love of big brother (the 1984 soundtrack)
Utah Saints (the music might not be as interesting as the cover text:
Utah saints use samples to FREE us from the confines of popular instruments. THE sample may be a vocal phrase, 100 guitars, or everyday MACHINES and animals. These are all just instruments to us. No tape was used in the making of this album. TAKE CONTROL of the machine NOW!)
Different groups can also have different theme music:
Walter Carlos- A Clockwork Orange. Contains THE official EU version of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The symphony has been completely deconstructed and left is only symbolic representation, into which you can put any meaning you like. Beethoven rotates in his grave when he hears this version. The rest of record is brilliant too, and is available on CD.
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony -- FOG, especially the EU
Straight edge -- the greens
WETF -- wipeout 2097, My baby's got an Atom Bomb (Some sample music)
Sex pistols -- mindless activism
"Jesus knows me" from Genesis' album "We can dance" -- Church of the Holy Cross

Computer games

Command and Conquer -- the original, not Red Alert! A perfect depiction of warfare in the 21st century and the plot isn't completely wrong either. The basic ideas of a quickly nano-built force are here.

Total Annihilation for a more recent outlook than Command & Conquer, but it is a bit too futuristic for InfoWar.

Roleplaying games

Millennium's end -- great, but skip the racism. Blackeagle & Blackeagle Operations Manual is recommended for tactics, but FOG has also read it.

Cybergeneration. While the basic concept is quite different from InfoWar, there are enough similarities to warrant a mention.

Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads, sourcebook for Cyberpunk 2020. About gamemastring a cyberpunk game. Some useful advice that can be used in InfoWar too.

GURPS Ultratech 2, sourcebook for GURPS. Contains both a discussion of how to deal with technology in the game, and plenty of nanotechnological systems that might be more or less possible in InfoWar. To our knowledge the first roleplaying module with a discussion of matter compilers.

Mage: The Ascension and Vampire: The Masquerade - partially deals with the same issues as InfoWar, but presents them in a metaphorical way instead. A lot of good advice about roleplaying and storytelling.

Shadowrun -- a fine example of what InfoWar is NOT! If your play is starting to look like SR, stop at once. Relying on heavy firepower rather than smarts in InfoWar is a good way of loosing it all.

InfoWar