Bit Stories: Cory Doctorow, "Privacy Isn't Dead -- Let's Not Kill It"

By Josh Bancroft (Intel) (69 posts) on September 20, 2007 at 10:08 am

Video thumbnail. Click to play
Click To Play

This episode of Bit Stories was recorded at the O'Reilly Executive Briefing held at OSCON 2007 - the O'Reilly Open Source Convention in Portland, Oregon, on July 24, 2007.

At the briefing, Cory Doctorow gave a talk titled "Privacy Isn't Dead -- Let's Not Kill It", in which he talked about making software that we control, instead of letting software control us, and how we face the danger of becoming willing members of a police and surveillance state.

Cory Doctorow is one of my favorite science fiction authors, and writes more understandably about complex topics like privacy, DRM, open software and culture, and how technology affects our lives than anyone I've read. He's one of the main contributors to the most popular blog on the Internet, BoingBoing.net. His personal blog is craphound.com, where you can find and download complete copies of all of his books under a Creative Commons license (as well as read about why he, as an author, thinks this is a great idea). Can you tell I'm a fan? ;-)

I was thrilled to hear him speak at OSCON, and even happier when he agreed to let me publish this recording of his speech. Cory also asked me to crossload the audio file to the Internet Archive, which I was happy to do. Just as a note, all Bit Stories media files are available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial license, and automatically crossposted to the Internet Archive via blip.tv, in no small part because of Cory's influence on my thinking and work. :-)

This Bit Stories episode is audio only, about 30 minutes long. You can listen in the streaming player above, download the MP3 file directly at this link (weighs about 30MB), or subscribe to the Bit Stories feed in your favorite podcast aggregator (like iTunes) to receive this and other Bit Stories episodes automatically and for free. Check out the Bit Stories home page for other episodes and more information, and let me know what you think of the show!

Categories: Bit Stories, Intel® Software Network 2.0

Comments (2)

September 21, 2007 1:57 AM PDT

Jon Mountjoy
Jon Mountjoy
 I think this talk: http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail1897.html by Eben Moglen over at the excellent IT Conversations, especially the latter half, does a god job at exploring privacy too.
September 26, 2007 12:29 AM PDT

Josh Bancroft (Intel)
Josh Bancroft (Intel)Total Points:
3,504
Status Points:
3,004
Brown Belt
 @Jon - yeah, I just heard that talk by Eben via IT Conversations the other day. It was a great one.

Eben is quite the character - it was interesting to see him eviscerate Tim onstage at the O'Reilly Executive Briefing. ;-)

Trackbacks (3)


Leave a comment  

To obtain technical support, please go to Software Support.
Name (required)*

Email (required; will not be displayed on this page)*

Your URL (optional)


Comment*