Bruce Sterling – “India india india hack hack hack”

Bruce Sterling, yes that one, has an “in-depth” analysis of an Economic Times article announcing India’s decision to give “shape to an IT infrastructure setup manned by a small army of software professionals to spy on the classified data of hostile nations by hacking into their computer systems.”

Somewhere there’s an Indian IIT graduate watching a Bollywood movie, and he’s leaning into the next seat to whisper into the fiancee’s shell-like ear, and he’s like: “Baby: I’ve gone to work for the ‘National Technical Research Organization.’ And, from now on, I can’t tell you any more than that.” And she’s, like, squeezing his hand, all proud of him.

The act of creating such an “army” is not the subject of the ridicule, or at least should not be. Calling it such should be, but what bears the brunt of Sterling’s jokes is the sensation-styled reporting of the journalist involved. It is a pity that there is still a lack of good quality reporting that goes beyond parroting of (un)official statements and fifth-standard level reconstruction of simple sentences into compound ones, without an iota of analysis in them.

(I realise this is an old article but in my defense, I had disappeared in that month from Vyūha. Slowly getting back into the groove, you know!)