Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
May 1, 2023 34 tweets 43 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: When you hear "fintech," think "unlicensed bank"; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2023/05/01/usu…

#Pluralistic

1/ A stately, columnated bank ...
Tomorrow (May 2) at 7PM, I'll be at the Cedar Hills Crossing (#PDX) @Powells with @waxy:

powells.com/book/red-team-…

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When you hear "fintech," think "unlicensed bank": "...with a computer."



3/  Image: Andre Carrotflower ...
Hey look at this

* Fuck the Monarchy antipope.org/charlie/blog-s…

* Punctuation Personified (1824) publicdomainreview.org/collection/pun…

* Cory Doctorow's Red Team Blues: a refreshingly hopeful finance thriller about cryptocurrency boingboing.net/2023/04/27/cor…

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#20yrsago Corporate lobbyists get US into treaties that ban #DMCA reform web.archive.org/web/2003123103…

#15yrsago Musicians tricked into appearing in anti-piracy propaganda movie theage.com.au/technology/mus…

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#15yrsago HOWTO keep your laptop from being searched at the border (it’s hard) eff.org/deeplinks/2008…

#15yrsago EFF and security experts to Congress: We need hearings on Customs #LaptopSeizures and snooping eff.org/press/archives…

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#10yrsago @mozilla to #FinSpy: stop disguising your “lawful interception” spyware as Firefox wired.com/2013/04/finfis…

#10yrsago @EFF challenges bogus #3DPrinting patents eff.org/deeplinks/2013…

#10yrsago How Congress flies bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

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#10yrsago Necessary Evil – a triumphant end to the Milkweed Triptych where Nazi X-Men fight English warlocks memex.craphound.com/2013/04/30/nec…

#10yrsago What’s big, corrupt, terrifying and worse than #ACTA? #TPP. Here we go again! memex.craphound.com/2013/04/30/wha…

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#10yrsago Teaching TCP/IP headers with #legos righteousit.wordpress.com/2010/06/27/pra…

#10yrsago Future Tense: @nealstephenson and @superwuster talk future, sf and tech slate.com/articles/podca…

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#10yrsago #SOPA’s daddy is now in charge of government science funding, and he hates peer-review science.org/content/articl…

#5yrsago @hopelarson’s “All Summer Long,” lively YA graphic novel about tween friendships, rock and roll, and being yourself memex.craphound.com/2018/05/01/hop…

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#5yrsago Speaking in my professional capacity as a dystopian science fiction writer… memex.craphound.com/2018/05/01/spe…

#5yrsago It’s back! British Conservative politicians’ habitual “go ahead, kick me in the balls, I can take it” pose theguardian.com/politics/2018/…

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#5yrsago McDonald’s workers across the UK are striking theguardian.com/business/2018/…

#5yrsago #GeorgeMason economics department admits it sold hiring control to anonymous, super-rich donors crookedtimber.org/2018/05/01/the…

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#5yrsago Thousands of prominent AI researchers tell Nature they won’t have anything to do with its new paywalled journal openaccess.engineering.oregonstate.edu

#5yrsago Parliament to Zuck: show up or else theverge.com/2018/5/1/17306…

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#5yrsago Right wing snowflakes moaning about #MichelleWolf’s hilarious White House Press Corps monologue show us real “PC” currentaffairs.org/2018/04/what-b…`

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#5yrsago The UK is finally cracking down on its Russian money-laundry, but hasn’t hired people to do the job heraldscotland.com/news/16192718.…

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#5yrsago The UK’s surveillance regulator changed names and dropped its domain, which is now squatted by a premature ejaculation scammer vice.com/en/article/ywx…

#5yrsago In just 7 months, the US #PublicDomain will get its first infusion since 1998 theatlantic.com/technology/arc…

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#5yrsago Debullshitifying Microsoft’s smear campaign against the recycler it helped send to prison techcrunch.com/2018/04/27/mic…

#5yrsago A #LaTeX mod to draw coffee cup rings on your technical papers legacy.hanno-rein.de/hanno-rein.de/…

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#5yrsago For $4k/year, Moscow cyber-arms-dealer Gleg will sell you 25 0-day bugs for attacking hospitals vice.com/en/article/j5a…

#1yrago Disney's writer #WageTheft, a year on pluralistic.net/2022/04/30/dis…

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Saturday's threads: The seductive, science fictional power of spreadsheets; and more!



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My latest novel is Red Team Blues, available wherever books are sold!

Signed copies at @DarkDel:

darkdel.com/store/p2873/We…

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My latest nonfiction 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…

21/
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/

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Upcoming appearances:

* Red Team Blues at @Powells with @waxy (#PDX/Cedar Hills Crossing), 5/2
powells.com/book/red-team-…

* Red Team Blues at @BooksIncStores with @mkapor (#MountainView), 5/5
booksinc.net/event/cory-doc…

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Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

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

* Red Team Blues event with @christreilly (#Nottingham), 5/30
waterstones.com/events/an-even…

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Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* Red Team Blues event with @cubicgarden (#Manchester), 5/31
waterstones.com/events/in-conv…

* @uclcs Peter Kirstein Lecture, 6/1 (#London):
eventbrite.co.uk/e/peter-kirste…

* @CymeraF, 6/3 (#Edinburgh)
cymerafestival.co.uk/cymera23-event…

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Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* Red Team Blues with @Marthalanefox at the @bl, 6/5 (#London):
bl.uk/events/an-even…

* @republica keynote, 6/7 (#Berlin)
re-publica.com/de/news/rp23-k…

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Recent appearances:

* The Next Chapter/CBC
cbc.ca/player/play/21…

* @mediadeathcult


* Slingshot
thesling.org/video/slingsho…

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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/2023/05/01/usu…

31/
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 "Weak Institutions: It's not a fair fight"

doctorow.medium.com/weak-instituti…

32/
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: mail.flarn.com/mailman/listin…

33/
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).

eof/

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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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