i mentioned the newer “attack surface” book to somebody recently, and i think i erred when i said it looked to me like it complied with the state more than the previous, i developed this opinion from the medium.com link advertising it. it described the new book as “redeeming” readers, and it described it as “adult”-like and the older as “child”-like. in my experiences of intense authoritarian influence in the usa mid-2010s, grassroots views were considered “child”-like, while accepting authority was described as “growing up” to be an “adult”, similarly grassroots hacking was considered criminal and evil. it was distressing to me to see this messaging in the doctorow article, and i figured doctorow had sold out. since, i have learned that doctorow is strongly associated with medium.com, blogging there with high frequency (recent article on neuroimplants), and i found a different website that lists terms in the new masha attack surface book. i recognized every term i skimmed as something important for people to learn about. so, i am thinking i should judge it less quickly, but it still looks weird, i wonder who picked the phrasing i responded to.