Cory Doctorow's Blog, page 14

Privacy Without Monopoly: Data Protection and Interoperability (Part 1)

This week on my podcast, Part One of “Privacy Without Monopoly: Data Protection and Interoperability,” a major new EFF paper by my colleague Bennett Cyphers and me.

It’s a paper that tries to resolve the tension between demanding that tech platforms gather, retain and mine less of our data, and the demand that platforms allow alternatives (nonprofits, co-ops, tinkerers, startups) to connect with their services.

MP3

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (part 31 – CONCLUSION)

Here’s part thirty-one, the conclusion of my new reading of my novel Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (you can follow all the installments, as well as the reading I did in 2008/9, here).

This is easily the weirdest novel I ever wrote. Gene Wolfe (RIP) gave me an amazing quote for it: “Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town is a glorious book, but there are hundreds of those. It is more. It is a glorious book unlike any book you’ve ever read.”

Here’s how my publisher described it w...

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (part 30)

Here’s part thirty of my new reading of my novel Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (you can follow all the installments, as well as the reading I did in 2008/9, here).

This is easily the weirdest novel I ever wrote. Gene Wolfe (RIP) gave me an amazing quote for it: “Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town is a glorious book, but there are hundreds of those. It is more. It is a glorious book unlike any book you’ve ever read.”

Here’s how my publisher described it when it came out:

A...

Talking Attack Surface in the LA Review of Books

In an interview in the LA Review of Books, Technology and Politics Are Inseparable: An Interview with Cory Doctorow, Eliot Peper digs into the backstory and ethos of the Little Brother books in general and Attack Surface in particular:

Attack Surface explores how technology is not the solution to social problems, but a morally neutral accelerant to political action, and that ultimately only politics can solve social problems. How did you learn this lesson? How did it change your worldview? What...

A free Danish ebook of Little Brother

Science Fiction Cirklen is a Danish collective that works to translate and publish science fiction in Danish; years ago, they published a print edition of the book and have now released a free, Creative Commons-licensed ebook edition in Epub and PDF!

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (part 29)

Here’s part twenty-nine of my new reading of my novel Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (you can follow all the installments, as well as the reading I did in 2008/9, here).

This is easily the weirdest novel I ever wrote. Gene Wolfe (RIP) gave me an amazing quote for it: “Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town is a glorious book, but there are hundreds of those. It is more. It is a glorious book unlike any book you’ve ever read.”

Here’s how my publisher described it when it came out...

Launching a print edition of HOW TO DESTROY SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM

Last August, Onezero published my first nonfiction book in nearly a decade: HOW TO DESTROY SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM is a short book (or long pamphlet) that presents an anti-monopoly critique of the “surveillance capitalism” theory.

https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59

The book’s a free online read, and now it’s a paper artifact. Next Thursday, Onezero will launch both a DRM-free ebook and print edition of my book, and to celebrate, I’m doing a online chat...

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (part 28)

Here’s part twenty-eight of my new reading of my novel Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (you can follow all the installments, as well as the reading I did in 2008/9, here).

This is easily the weirdest novel I ever wrote. Gene Wolfe (RIP) gave me an amazing quote for it: “Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town is a glorious book, but there are hundreds of those. It is more. It is a glorious book unlike any book you’ve ever read.”

Here’s how my publisher described it when it came ou...

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (part 27)

Here’s part twenty-seven of my new reading of my novel Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (you can follow all the installments, as well as the reading I did in 2008/9, here).

This is easily the weirdest novel I ever wrote. Gene Wolfe (RIP) gave me an amazing quote for it: “Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town is a glorious book, but there are hundreds of those. It is more. It is a glorious book unlike any book you’ve ever read.”

Here’s how my publisher described it when it came ou...

Mashapedia

Well this is pretty terrific: Pavel Anni was so taken with my 2020 novel ATTACK SURFACE (the third Little Brother novel) that he’s created “Mashapedia,” a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of the real world technologies in the tale.

https://pavelanni.github.io/attack-surface-tech/attack-surface-tech.html

Pavel is both comprehensive and comprehensible, with short definitions and links for the mundane (MIT Media Lab, EL wire, PGP) to the exotic (binary transparency, reverse shells, adversarial preturba...