Cory Doctorow's Blog, page 67

Free cybersecurity MOOC

The Open University's "Introduction to Cyber Security" is a free online course -- with optional certificate -- that teaches the fundamentals of crypto, information security, and privacy; I host the series, which starts on Oct 13."

The course is designed to teach you to use privacy technologies and good practices to make it harder for police and governments to put you under surveillance, harder for identity thieves and voyeurs to spy on you, and easier for you and your correspondents to communi...

Podcast: Petard from Tech Review’s Twelve Tomorrows

Here's a reading (MP3) of the first part of my story "Petard: A Tale of Just Desserts" from the new MIT Tech Review anthology Twelve Tomorrows, edited by Bruce Sterling. The anthology also features fiction by William Gibson, Lauren Beukes, Chris Brown, Pat Cadigan, Warren Ellis, Joel Garreau, and Paul Graham Raven. The 2013 summer anthology was a huge hit -- Gardner Dozois called it "one of the year’s best SF anthologies to date, perhaps the best."

MP3

Adversarial Compatibility: hidden escape hatch rescues us from imprisonment through our stuff

My latest Guardian column, Adapting gadgets to our needs is the secret pivot on which technology turns, explains the hidden economics of stuff, and how different rules can trap you in your own past, or give you a better future.

Depending on your view, the stuff you own is either a boon to business or a tremendous loss of opportunity.

For example, your collection spice bottles in your pantry means that I could possibly sell you a spice rack. On the other hand, it also means that I can’t design a...

Tech Review’s annual science fiction issue, edited by Bruce Sterling, featuring William Gibson

The summer annual features stories "inspired by the real-life breakthroughs covered in the pages of MIT Technology Review," including "Petard," my story about hacktivism; and "Death Cookie/Easy Ice," an excerpt from William Gibson's forthcoming (and stone brilliant) futuristic novel The Peripheral.

Other authors in the collection include Lauren Beukes, Chris Brown, Pat Cadigan, Warren Ellis, Joel Garreau, and Paul Graham Raven. The 2013 summer anthology was a huge hit -- Gardner Dozois called...

Neal Stephenson and Cory speaking at Seattle’s Town Hall, Oct 26

We're getting together to talk about Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future , a project that Stephenson kicked off -- I've got a story in it called "The Man Who Sold the Moon."

The project's mission is to promote "Asimovian robots, Heinleinian rocket ships, Gibsonian cyberspace… plausible, thought-out pictures of alternate realities in which... compelling innovation has taken place." Tickets are $5.

Neal Stephenson and Cory Doctorow: Reigniting Society’s Ambition with Science Ficti...

My London Worldcon schedule

I'll be joining thousands of fans and hundreds of presenters at Loncon 3, the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention, later this week. I hope to see you there!

Weds, Aug 13

* 18h: Group signing at Forbidden Planet, Shaftesbury Ave, with Chris Achilleos,

Madeline Ashby,

Gregory Benford,

Adam Christopher,

Wesley Chu,

Phil & Kaja Foglio,

Anne Lyle,

Ramez Naam,

Kim Newman,

V. E. Schwab,

Charles Stross,

Mike Shevdon and

Danie Ware

Thurs, Aug 14

* 15.00-16.30 - Panel: Digital Vigilantes, Capital Suite 2 (ExCeL);

wit...

Disrupting elections with Kickstarter-like campaigning apps

The UK parliamentary farce over #DRIP showed us that, more than any other industry, the political machine is in dire need of disruption.

In my latest Guardian column, How the Kickstarter model could transform UK elections, I suggest that the way that minority politicians could overcome the collective action deadlock of voters being unwilling to "throw away" their ballots on the parties they support, and so holding their nose and voting for the mainstream party they hate least, or not voting at...

Documentary on the making of the Homeland audiobook with Wil Wheaton

Skyboat Media produced this great little documentary about Wil Wheaton's recording sessions for the audiobook of my novel Homeland, in which he had to read out Pi for four minutes straight, read out dialog in which the narrator had a fanboy moment about meeting Wil Wheaton, and many other fun moments.

Homeland wins the Prometheus award!

I am delighted and honored to announce that my novel Homeland has won the Prometheus Award for best novel, tying with Ramez Naam's excellent novel Nexus. I am triply honored because this is the third Prometheus I've won -- the other two being for Little Brother and Pirate Cinema. My sincere thanks to the Libertarian Futurist Society; I'll see you at the Worldcon in London this year to accept it!

How to save the CBC, making it a global online participatory leader

In my latest Guardian column, What Canada's national public broadcaster could learn from the BBC, I look at the punishing cuts to the CBC, and how a shelved (but visionary) BBC plan to field a "creative archive" of shareable and remixable content could help the network lead the country into a networked, participatory future.

The CBC, at least, has only limited delusions about the importance of commercialising its archives, especially when that comes at the expense of access to the archives for...