Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Mar 6, 2023 23 tweets 29 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Biden set to appoint mass foreclosure cheerleader to the Fed; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2023/03/06/per…

#Pluralistic 1/ A bombed out neighborhood. Over the crumbling houses is the
Tomorrow (3/7) I'm doing a remote talk for #TUWien:

informatics.tuwien.ac.at/news/2373

On 3/9, I'm in person in #Austin at @utsdct:

eventbrite.com/e/the-buckman-…

And remote at #UManitoba:

eventscalendar.umanitoba.ca/site/science/e…

On 3/10, @Rgibli and I kick off @SXSW's readings:

schedule.sxsw.com/2023/events/PP… 2/
Biden set to appoint mass foreclosure cheerleader to the Fed: Janice Eberly provided cover for Tim Geithner's policy of No Banker Left Behind.

3/  Image: Medill DC (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/w
Hey look at this

* Dumb Password Rules dumbpasswordrules.com (h/t Schneier)

* How to Photobash Art for your Zines! (h/t @Jstruan)

* can everyone kindly shut the fuck up about AI botharetrue.substack.com/p/can-everyone… (h/t @Metafilter) 4/
#15yrsago #TSA endangers child’s life by contaminating his feeding tube despite pleas web.archive.org/web/2008030817…

#15yrsago Treasury Dept confiscates domain names of Brit travel agent who booked #Cuba tours nytimes.com/2008/03/04/us/… 5/
#15yrsago TSA: laptops will stop making planes explode if you just build a bag like this one web.archive.org/web/2008030616…

#15yrsago @NineInchNails made at least $750k from @CreativeCommons release in two days gondwanaland.com/mlog/2008/03/0… 6/
#10yrsago @Wikipedia and #libraries: a match made in heaven everybodyslibraries.com/2013/03/04/fro…

#10yrsago Transcript of @Lessig’s talk: “Aaron’s Law” nakedcapitalism.com/2013/03/transc…

#10yrsago How to be better at being pissed off at #BigTech locusmag.com/2018/03/cory-d… 7/
#10yrsago Access files on locked, encrypted Android phones by putting them in a freezer for an hour cs1.tf.fau.de/research/syste…

#10yrsago Fix the #DMCA! Repeal #AntiCircumvention and truly own your devices web.archive.org/web/2013031111… 8/
#10yrsago Random House launches ebook imprint that’s run like a predatory vanity press memex.craphound.com/2013/03/06/ran…

#5yrsago Six immortal superweapons the Democrats made for the president, which Trump gets to wield truthdig.com/articles/six-w… 9/
#5yrsago How #401k's created a class of suckers to be fleeced by the investor class nytimes.com/2018/03/05/opi…

#5yrsago Rhode Island proposes blocking all online porn and charging $20 to unblock it arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20… 10/
#5yrsago @GeekSquad’s secret spying on behalf of the #FBI went on for a decade and involved constant, ongoing collaboration eff.org/deeplinks/2018…

#5yrsago #Stalkerware vendor #RetinaX capitulates to vigilante hacker, shuts down “indefinitely” vice.com/en/article/neq… 11/
#5yrsago The UK government declined a chance to get £364m out of #Carillion before it failed, and public purse is now on the hook for that money theguardian.com/business/2018/…

#1yrago #StudentDebt strike called for May 1 pluralistic.net/2022/03/06/i-w… 12/
Saturday's threads: Solving the Moderator's Trilemma with Federation; and more!

13/
My latest book is Chokepoint Capitalism (with @rgibli), nonfiction about monopoly and fairness in creative labor markets.

chokepointcapitalism.com

Signed copies available from @BookSoup:

booksoup.com/book/978080700… 14/
My latest novel is Attack Surface, a sequel to my bestselling Little Brother books, now in paperback, wherever books are sold.

Signed copies at @darkdel:

darkdel.com/store/p1840/Co… 15/
My ebooks and audiobooks (from @torbooks, @HoZ_Books, @mcsweeneys, @beaconPressBks et al) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."

craphound.com/shop/ 16/
Upcoming appearances:

* Seize the Means of Computation (TU Wien), 3/7
informatics.tuwien.ac.at/news/2373

* @utsdct (#Austin), 3/9
eventbrite.com/e/the-buckman-…

* Ethics of Emerging Tech Lecture (@umanitobasci), 3/9
eventscalendar.umanitoba.ca/site/science/e… 17/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* @SXSW #ChokepointCapitalism reading (#Austin), 3/10
schedule.sxsw.com/2023/events/PP…

* @Ostrom_Workshop: Beyond the Web Speaker Series, 3/20
events.iu.edu/ostromworkshop…

* Red Team Blues event with @TimHarford (#Oxford), 5/29
eventbrite.co.uk/e/cory-doctoro… 18/
Recent appearances:

* Making Big Tech Better vs Making it Smaller (@BruxConf2023):


* @elevatefestival
elevate.at/medienarchiv/e…

* @ANUmedia/@canberratimes Meet The Author
soundcloud.com/experience_anu…

* The Gould Standard
pod.link/thegouldstanda… 19/
You can also follow these posts as a daily blog at pluralistic.net: no ads, trackers, or data-collection!

Here's today's edition: pluralistic.net/2023/03/06/per… 20/
If you're a @Medium subscriber, you can read these essays - as well as previews of upcoming magazine columns and early exclusives on doctorow.medium.com.

My latest Medium column is "They’re still trying to ban cryptography"

doctorow.medium.com/theyre-still-t… 21/
If you prefer a newsletter, subscribe to the plura-list, which is also ad- and tracker-free, and is utterly unadorned save a single daily emoji. Today's is "👩🏻‍🚀". Suggestions solicited for future emojis!

Subscribe here: pluralistic.net/plura-list 22/
Are you trying to wean yourself off Big Tech? You can read my work elsewhere, but it is now a #TwitterCrime to tell you how. Please visit my site, pluralistic.net, for links to find me on less-unhinged places (I can only imagine that my days here are numbered). 23/

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More from @doctorow

Mar 25
A law professor friend tells me that LLMs have completely transformed the way she relates to grad students and postdocs - for the worse. And no, it's not that they're cheating on their homework or using LLMs to write briefs full of hallucinated cases.

1/ Norman Rockwell’s ‘self portrait.’ All the Rockwell faces have been replaced with HAL 9000 from Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey.’ His signature has been modified with a series of rotations and extra symbols. He has ten fingers on his one visible hand.    Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg  CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/03/25/com…

2/
The thing that LLMs have changed in my friend's law school is *letters of reference*. Historically, students would only ask a prof for a letter of reference if they knew the prof really rated them.

3/
Read 36 tweets
Mar 22
I have an excellent excuse for this week's linkdump: I'm in Germany, but I'm supposed to be in LA, and I'm not, because London Heathrow shut down due to a power-station fire.



1/ mystgalaxy.com/32425DoctorowA bloody mary stacked high with many absurd, over-the-top garnishes.   Image: TDelCoro https://www.flickr.com/photos/tomasdelcoro/48116604516/  CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/03/22/omn…

2/
Which meant I spent all day yesterday running around like a headless chicken, trying to get home in time for my gig in San Diego on Monday (don't worry, I sorted it):

3/
Read 50 tweets
Mar 19
Paula Le Dieu is one of the smartest, most committed archivists I know. Many years ago, she shared a neat analogy with me about the paywalling of public archives.

1/ The Columbia University library, a stately, columnated building, color-shifted to highlight reds and oranges. The sky behind it has been filled with flames. In the foreground, a figure in a firefighter's helmet and yellow coat uses a flamethrower to shoot a jet of orange fire.   Image: Ajay Suresh https://www.flickr.com/photos/ajay_suresh/52009406881/  CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/03/19/sel…

2/
This phenomenon has become rampant as public institutions have been pushed to seek private funding to close the gaps left by swingeing cuts.

3/
Read 26 tweets
Mar 18
AI can't do your job, but an AI salesman (Elon Musk) can convince your boss (the USA) to fire you and replace you (a federal worker) with a chatbot that can't do your job:



1/ pcmag.com/news/amid-job-…The capital building, crossed by a yellow hazmat tape emblazoned 'DANGER ASBESTOS.' Behind the tape stands a figure in an old-fashioned hazmat suit. In the background are the blown-up faces of a group of grubby, miserable child miners. The capital dome has been replaced with the glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.'     Image: Krd (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DASA_01.jpg  CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en  --  Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg  CC BY 3.0 https://creati...
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/03/18/asb…

2/
If you pay attention to the hype, you'd think that all the action on "AI" (an incoherent grab-bag of only marginally related technologies) was in generating text and images. Man, is that ever wrong.

3/
Read 26 tweets
Mar 15
Even by Amazon standards, this is extraordinarily sleazy: starting March 28, each Amazon Echo device will cease processing audio on-device and instead upload all the audio it captures to Amazon's cloud for processing.

1/ A cylindrical black Alexa speaker on a coffee table; it is wearing a Darth Vader helmet.  Image: Stock Catalog/https://www.quotecatalog.com (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alexa_%2840770465691%29.jpg  Sam Howzit (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SWC_6_-_Darth_Vader_Costume_(7865106344).jpg  CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/03/15/alt…

2/
This will happen even if you have previously opted out of cloud-based processing:



3/arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/0…
Read 48 tweets
Mar 13
My theory of the "shitty technology adoption curve" holds that you can predict the future impact of abusive technologies on you by observing the way these are deployed against people who have less social power than you:



1/ pluralistic.net/2023/06/11/the…A magnified image of the inside of an automated backup tape library, with gleaming racks of silver tape drives receding into the distance. In the foreground is a pile of dirt being shoveled by three figures in prisoner's stripes. Two of the figures' heads have been replaced with cliche hacker-in-hoodie heads, from which shine yellow, inverted Amazon 'smile' logos, such that the smile is a frown. The remaining figure's head has been replaced with a horse's head. Behind the figure is an impatiently poised man in a sharp business suit, glaring at his watch. His head has been replaced with the ...
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/03/13/ele…

2/
When you have a new, abusive technology, you can't just aim it at rich, powerful people, because when *they* complain, they get results.

3/
Read 71 tweets

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