CORY DOCTOROW · 100
switched to getting their Internet service from Pigspleen, and the more money there was for the artists. Inside of a year, the ISP had a hundred thousand new customers and now it had a million — more than half the broadband connections in the city. “An overhaul of the indienet code has been on my plate for months now,” Jolu said. “The original programs were written really fast and dirty and they could be made a lot more efficient with a little work. But I just haven’t had the time. One of the high-marked to-do items has been to encrypt the connections, just because Trudy likes it that way.” Trudy Doo was the founder of Pigspleen. She was an old time San Francisco punk legend, the singer/front-woman of the anarcho-feminist band Speedwhores, and she was crazy about privacy. I could totally believe that she’d want her music service encrypted on general principles. “Will it be hard? I mean, how long would it take?” “Well, there’s tons of crypto code for free online, of course,” Jolu said. He was doing the thing he did when he was digging into a meaty code problem — getting that faraway look, drumming his palms on the table, making the coffee slosh into the saucers. I wanted to laugh — everything might be destroyed and crap and scary, but Jolu would write that code. “Can I help?” He looked at me. “What, you don’t think I can manage it?” “What?” “I mean, you did this whole Xnet thing without even telling me. Without talking to me. I kind of thought that you didn’t need my help with this stuff.” I was brought up short. “What?” I said again. Jolu was looking really steamed now. It was clear that this had been eating him for a long time. “Jolu — ” He looked at me and I could see that he was furious. How had I missed this? God, I was such an idiot sometimes. “Look dude, it’s not a big deal — ” by which he clearly meant that it was a really big deal “ — it’s just that you know, you never even asked. I hate the DHS. Darryl was my friend too. I could have really helped with it.” I wanted to stick my head between my knees. “Listen Jolu, that was really stupid of me. I did it at like two in the morning. I was just crazy when it was happening. I — ” I couldn’t explain it. Yeah, he was right, and that was the problem. It had been two in