Cory Doctorow's Blog, page 37

San Franciscans! Come celebrate the launch of the EFF/McSweeney’s special privacy issue with me on Dec 11!

I’m heading to San Francisco next week for a launch party on December 11th celebrating the release of The End of Trust, a collaboration between EFF and McSweeney’s on internet surveillance and the future of the net; the event is at 7:30PM at Manny’s at 3092 16th Street (RSVP here), and I’ll be on a panel with EFF exec director Cindy Cohn, moderated by the amazing Annalee Newitz! end of trust,san francisco,events,happy mutants,privacy, mannys-730pm

Sole and Despotic Dominion: my story about the future of private property for Reason

Reason’s December issue celebrates the magazine’s 50th anniversary with a series of commissioned pieces on the past and future of the magazine’s subjects: freedom, markets, property rights, privacy and similar matters: I contributed a short story to the issue called Sole and Despotic Dominion, which takes the form of a support chat between a dishwasher owner and its manufacturer’s rep, who has the unhappy job of describing why the dishwasher won’t accept his dishes.

The story is part of a s...

Talking about the DMCA and 20 years of tech law malpractice on PRI’s Marketplace

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act — tech’s stupidest law — turns 20 this year; I chatted with Molly Wood on Marketplace Tech about the law’s history and how dismally little we’ve learned from it, repeating and even magnifying its mistakes today. (MP3)

The internet is made up revolutionary technologies, but isn’t revolutionary

My latest Locus Magazine column is What the Internet Is For: it describes the revolutionary principle (end-to-end communications) and technologies (general purpose computers, strong cryptography) that undergird the net, but also cautions that these are, themselves, not sufficient to revolutionize the world.

All these tools are available to establishments just as much as they are available to insurgents: and given time, these technologies will eventually add to the advantage the establishme...

My keynote for Ethereum Devcon: without the rule of law, crypto fails

I was one of the keynote speakers at last week’s Ethereum Devcon in Prague, where I gave a talk called “Decentralize, Democratize, or Die,” about the way that bad tech policy (crypto backdoors, the DMCA’s ban on security disclosures, etc) come from weak states where the super-rich get to call the shots, and how things like money-laundering creates these weak states. The core message: if you don’t figure out how to make more pluralistic, less plutocratic states, you will never get the kind...

Reminder: I’m speaking in Berlin tonight at the DTK-Wasserturm

I’m in Berlin today, promoting the German edition of my novel Walkaway: the kindly folks at Otherland Books are hosting me tonight at a free event at DTK Wasserturm, where I’ll be presenting with Marcus Richter. Hope to see you there! Tell your friends!

I’m speaking in Berlin on November 5!

I’m going to be in Berlin next week to promote the German edition of my novel Walkaway: I’ll be appearing at DTK-Wasserturm from 20h-22h, sponsored by Otherland Books. Entry is free — I hope to see you there!

“Radicalized” will be my next book!

I’ve just closed a new book deal: Tor Books will publish “Radicalized,” which tells four stories of hope, conflict, technology and justice in the modern world and near future in March 2019; along with the book deal is a major audiobook deal with Macmillan Audio and a screen deal with Topic Studios (a sister company to The Intercept) for one of the tales, “Unauthorized Bread.”

I’ll have lots more to say about this in the upcoming months! I just finished the last of the stories, “Masque of th...

Talking about Ron Howard’s Haunted Mansion album with the Comedy on Vinyl podcast

It’s been two years since I last sat down with Jason Klamm for his Comedy on Vinyl podcast (we were discussing Allan Sherman’s My Son, The Nut); we were past due for a rematch.

Jason asked me to come on one more time (MP3) to discuss the Disneyland Little Long Playing Record The Story and Song of the Haunted Mansion, which features the voice talents of a young Ron Howard (!!).

As always, we ranged far and wide, discussing narrative and non-narrative artforms, the history of Disney and D...

Hey, Swarthmore! I’m headed your way next week

I’m heading to the east coast next week, first for a lecture series in NYC for Columbia University (including a conversation with Radiolab’s Jad Abumrad about Big Tech, monopolies and democratic technology); and from there I’m headed to Pennsylvania for a talk about my novel Walkaway at Swarthmore, on Sept 28 from 7-9PM at the Lang Performing Arts Center Room (LPAC) 101 Cinema. All the events are free, though some require tickets, so be sure to check in advance. Hope to see you there!