Civil War General-Purpose Computing | Cory Doctorow | Talks at Google
What it is
Cory Doctorow's Talks at Google lecture on the coming civil war over general-purpose computing. He argues that locked-down devices, DRM, and surveillance threaten user control of computers.
Why Hacker News recommends it
It is HN's go-to reference whenever device lockdown, DRM, or restrictions on installing software come up, with commenters noting how prescient it was.
- 4 people recommended it
- 6 different months
- 1 strong recommendations
- first 2012, last 2026
What HN commenters said
“I highly recommend reading up on what Cory has to say on DRM and the war on general purpose computing. It may change your mind.”
Doctorow talk on DRM and war on general purpose computing
freedomben, 2018-01 · Strong recommendation · in “Cory Doctorow: Persuasion, Adaptation, and the Arms Race for Your Attention”
“Also, you might enjoy Cory Doctorow's talk”
Doctorow on the coming civil war over general-purpose computing
jcr, 2014-06 · Recommendation · in “Cory Doctorow novel pulled from school reading for 'questioning authority'”
“you might be interested in some of Cory Doctorow's talks”
Doctorow on the war against general-purpose computing
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC, 2017-06 · Recommendation · in “Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption”
“It's slowly becoming reality.”
Doctorow's talk predicting restrictions on general purpose computing
est31, 2022-05 · Recommendation · in “Google has banned the training of deepfakes in Colab”
Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.
Topics: cory doctorow, drm, digital rights, device lockdown, surveillance
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