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
Institute for the Advanced Study of Information Warfare. A lot of links to interesting and useful information.
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
Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace
Molecular Nanotechnology and the World System
Social implications of Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology and International Security
Regulating Nanotechnology Development
An appraisal of technologies of political control
Commercial Surveillance Equipment in Yahoo
Wired's Encyclopedia of the New Economy
Security without Identification: Card Computers to make Big Brother Obsolete
Digital Signatures and Smart Cards
E-gold. An electronic monetary system backed by gold.
The Ludwig von Mises Institute
Atlas Economic Research Foundation
SEAQ and Destroy by Charlie Stross. Not entirely serious, but may give some ideas for economic warfare.
Chemical and biological warfare
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.
World Transhumanist Association
Will Robots Inherit the Earth? by Marvin Minsky (Scientific American October 1994)
How electronic encryption works and how it will change your business. Good introduction to the field.
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
Intelligence Community. The 13 US agencies hat carry out the intelligence activities.
Intelligence and CounterIntelligence. Big index with links to everything related.
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.
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.
PRELIMINARY DRAFT OF A UNIVERSAL DECLARATION ON THE HUMAN GENOME AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Chemical and Biological Terrorism: the Threat According to the Open Literature by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
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).
http://www.fairacre.demon.co.uk/index.htm
Defence Science Media Room Articles
Cyborg101: The Warrior's Guide to the Blackboard Jungle. A study handbook for the Concordat.
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.
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.
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.
Magasin 2000 (in Swedish)
Dolly (in Swedish)
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.
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.
Other suggestions:
U96, Das Boot and EnergieDifferent groups can also have different theme music:
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!)
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
Total Annihilation for a more recent outlook than Command & Conquer, but it is a bit too futuristic for InfoWar.
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.
