A key element in cyberpunk fiction is digital archeology. The Internet has collapsed at least once under a tide of scams and spam, corporations have crusted over every archive with DRM, etc. People have to dig through mountains of shit to find useful things, basically. - ThreadSky

pookleblinky.bsky.social • 431 days ago

A key element in cyberpunk fiction is digital archeology. The Internet has collapsed at least once under a tide of scams and spam, corporations have crusted over every archive with DRM, etc.

People have to dig through mountains of shit to find useful things, basically.

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beesnotbombs.bsky.social•431 days ago

Yeah that seems super plausible

pookleblinky.bsky.social•431 days ago

it is a common cyberpunk trope that the internet has already completely collapsed into ruins under the weight of scams and spam and malware at least once before the story actually begins.

pookleblinky.bsky.social•431 days ago

This is the official reason why early Shadowrun runners used wired comms, but later games that take place in earlier years use wireless: internet had collapsed *again* into a toxic wasteland, new one had to be rebuilt basically from scratch and quarantined from the old one.

technomancergoat.bsky.social•225 days ago

Really hate to be "Um, actually" but the first internet crashed because of a virus in the 30s, and made the matrix to fight it. The second crash is because an AI took over the stock market to control the world, but after his defeat, he took a big chunk of the matrix with him in the 60s.

plognark.bsky.social•431 days ago

I think in newer editions they retconned the wired/wireless stuff to keep up with modern tech, so it’s basically faraday cages everywhere you go for digital security against wireless access.

penllawen.favrd.social•225 days ago

It’s not even a retcon, it’s presented in the game as just new and improved tech. But the games canon remains that it’s still only 20-30 years old.

But the game never had a Google; its “hosts” aren’t like web servers, they’re like BBSs. Each one is its own world.

(Shadowrun is my _jam_, AMA!)

pookleblinky.bsky.social•431 days ago

Hm, in shadowrun I'm not sure but in cyberpunk red you now have to again be within the same room as the access point iirc

plognark.bsky.social•431 days ago

This was the newer post-FASA TTRPG stuff, maybe 3rd edition? I think the PC games and other handful of licensed products have stuck with hard-wired tech.

venividivamoose.bsky.social•431 days ago

A recreation of urban decay in digital spaces.

modusponens.org•35 days ago

Tech companies: “At long last we have created the strata of machine generated nonsense from the sci-fi classic Don’t Create The Strata of Machine Generated Nonsense”

castouroboros.bsky.social•35 days ago

Neal Stephenson’s book Fall had a fun concept where economic class essentially corresponded to how good your filters were at keeping spam out and letting you actually use the internet productively, with the rich being able to afford human filters and the poor drowning in spam and misinformation.

derrylm.bsky.social•226 days ago

A theme taken up wonderfully by Walter Jon Williams in his 2004 story “The Green Leopard Plague.”

plognark.bsky.social•431 days ago

Well… shit, I guess I know what part of the story arc we’re in then.

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