How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The first bit of dumb luck came disguised as a public embarrassment for the European Center for Defense Against Disease. On July 23, schoolchildren in Algiers claimed that a respiratory epidemic was spreading across the Mediterranean. The claim was based on clever analysis of antibody data from the mass-transit systems of Algiers and Naples. (Prologue.1)
In the future of Rainbows End, power isn't completely centralized, especially if we're talking about computing power. The book starts off with this notion in the very first lines: the government program didn't catch the disease, a group of schoolchildren did. In this future, kids can sometimes do things that governments have trouble doing.
Quote #2
In another year or so, he'd have developed higher semantic controls. With that, he could reliably control those immediately around him. Much more important, he could spread the new infection across whole populations and engineer a few universally viewed transmissions. Then he would be in control. For the first time in history, the world would be under adult supervision. (1.88)
This is Vaz thinking/gloating about how close he is to world domination. This paragraph begins with Vaz thinking about how mind control is the only way to save the world—which sounds weird but not necessarily self-centered. But notice where he ends the paragraph, talking about being the one in control. When someone says the world will be under "adult supervision" and means "me," we might wonder how well meaning his search for power is.
Quote #3
The details were a cloud of contradiction, some agreeing with what Bob told him, some not. It was this damn Friends of Privacy. It was hard to imagine such villains, doing their best to undermine what you could find on the net. A "vandal charity" was what they called themselves. (3.62)
Just because schoolchildren can figure out a disease is spreading, doesn't mean that every individual has all the information they could want. Take, for example, Robert looking up his dead (he thinks) ex-wife. Thanks to a "community" of people who think that privacy is important, Robert has trouble finding info on her. In this case, the person who wants privacy has more power than the person doing the investigating.