This is not the future sci-fi writer Charlie Stross predicted (Q&A)

By Seth Rosenblatt

Spreading computer viruses with human DNA. Stalking romantic partners with malware. Recording someone's every move with Internet-connected security cameras.

Modern hacking methods often sound like science fiction plots, which may be why award-winning author Charlie Stross delivered the keynote address at Europe's largest hacker confab, the Chaos Communication Congress, at the end of December.

With dozens of books under his belt, you might think that the famed wordsmith of Accelerando and Halting State, and more recently of Empire Games and The Apocalypse Codex, would be excited to see some of the ideas he explored as fiction become real-world developments. But the Edinburgh, Scotland-based author argues that the near future is broken.

"Nobody in 2007 was expecting a Nazi revival in 2017, right?" he quips. "There is stuff that is just totally screwing my mind over whenever I think about it, whenever I look around the Internet for half an hour these days."

23rd January 2018