Did Little Brother come true?
Close to a clean sweep: bulk domestic surveillance, toll and plate tracking, and gait recognition all arrived within about a decade, and the book's argument about false positives was echoed by the government's own watchdog. Its weakest bet is the hero's tool: protest mesh networks exist, but none has yet proved safe enough to stake your liberty on.
Read the review · 6.9/10 →
How this P(n) was calculated
Each prediction is weighted 1–5 by how pivotal it is to the story: 5 is the core premise, 1 is background detail. Arrived scores 1, arriving 0.5, everything else 0. P(n) is the weighted points divided by the total weight.
| Claim | Prediction · why this weight | Weight | Status | Value | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LB-1 | Toll tags and roadside readers log where every driver goes, building a searchable record of movements for the authorities. Supporting: toll-tag tracking is surveillance the Xnetters actively game with cloned tags. |
3 | ARRIVED | 1 | 3 |
| LB-2 | Surveillance cameras identify people by the way they walk. Texture: gait cameras open the book as a gravel-in-shoes gag. |
2 | ARRIVING | 0.5 | 1 |
| LB-3 | Protesters use encrypted phone-to-phone mesh networks to organise without the internet and out of sight of the authorities. Core premise: the Xnet is how Marcus organises the resistance; the plot runs on it. |
5 | ARRIVING | 0.5 | 2.5 |
| LB-4 | A domestic security agency secretly collects bulk records of ordinary citizens' communications, and the dragnet mostly catches the innocent. Major: the DHS dragnet catching innocents is the antagonist and the book's argument. |
4 | ARRIVED | 1 | 4 |
| Total | 14 | 10.5 |
P(n) = 10.5 ÷ 14 = 75% · unweighted average 75%
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LB-1
Toll tags and roadside readers log where every driver goes, building a searchable record of movements for the authorities.
Weight 3/5 · Supporting: toll-tag tracking is surveillance the Xnetters actively game with cloned tags.
Automated licence-plate readers on poles, overpasses and patrol cars capture every passing plate, and the same technology assesses tolls. Networks like Flock's let thousands of agencies search the records, often with a one-word justification. The tracking was well established long before 2025; that is the year it was documented at national scale through public records. 12
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LB-2
Surveillance cameras identify people by the way they walk.
Weight 2/5 · Texture: gait cameras open the book as a gravel-in-shoes gag.
Police in Beijing and Shanghai were using Watrix's gait-recognition software by 2018, with the company claiming identification from 50 metres with the subject's back turned. At the time it could not run in real time and its accuracy figures were the company's own. Wider, real-time deployment is plausible but not well documented. 34
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LB-3
Protesters use encrypted phone-to-phone mesh networks to organise without the internet and out of sight of the authorities.
Weight 5/5 · Core premise: the Xnet is how Marcus organises the resistance; the plot runs on it.
Protesters have used mesh apps at scale since Hong Kong in 2014, but the popular ones failed the novel's real test. FireChat messages were public, readable by police, and Bridgefy, promoted for protests, was shown in 2020 and again in 2022 to allow tracking and interception. A mesh tool that is both popular and secure remains to be proved. 567
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LB-4
A domestic security agency secretly collects bulk records of ordinary citizens' communications, and the dragnet mostly catches the innocent.
Weight 4/5 · Major: the DHS dragnet catching innocents is the antagonist and the book's argument.
The Snowden documents showed in 2013 that the NSA was collecting the call records of millions of Americans daily under secret court orders. In 2014 the government's own oversight board said it knew of no instance where the programme directly uncovered an unknown plot or disrupted an attack, an echo of the novel's false-positive argument. The programme is older than 2013; that is when it became public. 8910
- FOR EFF's Investigations Expose Flock Safety's Surveillance Abuses: 2025 in Review. Electronic Frontier Foundation, 2025-12-30. Over 12 million searches by over 3,900 agencies, December 2024 to October 2025, typically justified by a few words.
- CONTEXT Automated License Plate Readers. Electronic Frontier Foundation (Street Level Surveillance), 2026-11-01. Explains how fixed and mobile ALPRs capture every plate in view and are also used to assess tolls on roads and bridges. Page undated; accessed 2026-11-01.
- FOR China can apparently now identify citizens based on the way they walk. TechCrunch, 2018-11-07. Reports AP's finding that Chinese police are using Watrix gait recognition.
- FOR Briefing: Chinese gait recognition technology spots the way you walk. TechNode, 2018-11-07. Summarises the AP report on Watrix's deployment and claimed range.
- FOR FireChat in Hong Kong: How an app tapped its way into the protests. CNN, 2014-10-16. 500,000 downloads in Hong Kong in the first two weeks of protests; a student notes police could read the messages.
- AGAINST Using messaging service, Bridgefy, could have dire consequences for users if privacy protection issues aren't fixed. Royal Holloway, University of London, 2020-08-25. Researchers show Bridgefy users could be tracked and messages intercepted, and advise protesters to avoid it.
- AGAINST Breaking Bridgefy, again: Adopting libsignal is not enough. USENIX Security 2022, 2022-08-10. The rebuilt app's security claims are broken again.
- FOR NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily. The Guardian, 2013-06-06. Secret court order requires Verizon to hand over all call records on an ongoing daily basis.
- FOR Privacy Oversight Board Agrees with EFF: Mass Surveillance Is Illegal and Must End. Electronic Frontier Foundation, 2014-01-23. On the PCLOB report finding the Section 215 programme of minimal counterterrorism value and recommending it end.
- CONTEXT PCLOB report: Watchdog review group says NSA phone call surveillance is illegal and should stop.. Slate, 2014-01-23. Independent summary of the same oversight report.
Ledger updated 1 Nov 2026. All works on the P(n) Board · Method