Losing anonymous internet access means giving companies and government agencies more power than ever to track our activities online. It means transforming the American conception of the open internet into something reminiscent of the centralized tracking systems we’ve long opposed in China and similar countries. At this moment, the prospect of an internet linked to our real identity has never felt so threatening.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/08/facial-recognition-sham/683831/

Today's links

• AI turns Amazon coders into Amazon warehouse workers: A reverse-centaur in the loop.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• Object permanence: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020, 2024
• Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
• Recent appearances: Where I've been.
• Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Colophon: All the rest.

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AI turns Amazon coders into Amazon warehouse workers (permalink)

On a recent This Machine Kills episode, guest Hagen Blix described the ultimate form of "AI therapy" with a "human in the loop":

https://soundcloud.com/thismachinekillspod/405-ai-is-the-demon-god-of-capital-ft-hagen-blix

One actual therapist is just having ten chat GPT windows open where they just like have five seconds to interrupt the chatGPT. They have to scan them all and see if it says something really inappropriate. That's your job, to stop it.

Blix admits that's not where therapy is at…yet, but he references Laura Preston's 2023 N Plus One essay, "HUMAN_FALLBACK," which describes her as a backstop to a real-estate "virtual assistant," that masqueraded as a human handling the queries that confused it, in a bid to keep the customers from figuring out that they were engaging with a chatbot:

https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-44/essays/human_fallback/

This is what makes investors and bosses slobber so hard for AI – a "productivity" boost that arises from taking away the bargaining power of workers so that they can be made to labor under worse conditions for less money. The efficiency gains of automation aren't just about using fewer workers to achieve the same output – it's about the fact that the workers you fire in this process can be used as a threat against the remaining workers: "Do your job and shut up or I'll fire you and give your job to one of your former colleagues who's now on the breadline."

This has been at the heart of labor fights over automation since the Industrial Revolution, when skilled textile workers took up the Luddite cause because their bosses wanted to fire them and replace them with child workers snatched from Napoleonic War orphanages:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/26/enochs-hammer/#thats-fronkonsteen

Textile automation wasn't just about producing more cloth – it was about producing cheaper, worse cloth. The new machines were so easy a child could use them, because that's who was using them – kidnapped war orphans. The adult textile workers the machines displaced weren't afraid of technology. Far from it! Weavers used the most advanced machinery of the day, and apprenticed for seven years to learn how to operate it. Luddites had the equivalent of a Masters in Engineering from MIT.

Weavers' guilds presented two problems for their bosses: first, they had enormous power, thanks to the extensive training required to operate their looms; and second, they used that power to regulate the quality of the goods they made. Even before the Industrial Revolution, weavers could have produced more cloth at lower prices by skimping on quality, but they refused, out of principle, because their work mattered to them.

Now, of course weavers also appreciated the value of their products, and understood that innovations that would allow them to increase their productivity and make more fabric at lower prices would be good for the world. They weren't snobs who thought that only the wealthy should go clothed. Weavers had continuously adopted numerous innovations, each of which increased the productivity and the quality of their wares.

Long before the Luddite uprising, weavers had petitioned factory owners and Parliament under the laws that guaranteed the guilds the right to oversee textile automation to ensure that it didn't come at the price of worker power or the quality of the textiles the machines produced. But the factory owners and their investors had captured Parliament, which ignored its own laws and did nothing as the "dark, Satanic mills" proliferated. Luddites only turned to property destruction after the system failed them.

Now, it's true that eventually, the machines improved and the fabric they turned out matched and exceeded the quality of the fabric that preceded the Industrial Revolution. But there's nothing about the way the Industrial Revolution unfolded – increasing the power of capital to pay workers less and treat them worse while flooding the market with inferior products – that was necessary or beneficial to that progress. Every other innovation in textile production up until that time had been undertaken with the cooperation of the guilds, who'd ensured that "progress" meant better lives for workers, better products for consumers, and lower prices. If the Luddites' demands for co-determination in the Industrial Revolution had been met, we might have gotten to the same world of superior products at lower costs, but without the immiseration of generations of workers, mass killings to suppress worker uprisings, and decades of defective products being foisted on the public.

So there are two stories about automation and labor: in the dominant narrative, workers are afraid of the automation that delivers benefits to all of us, stand in the way of progress, and get steamrollered for their own good, as well as ours. In the other narrative, workers are glad to have boring and dangerous parts of their work automated away and happy to produce more high-quality goods and services, and stand ready to assess and plan the rollout of new tools, and when workers object to automation, it's because they see automation being used to crush them and worsen the outputs they care about, at the expense of the customers they care for.

In modern automation/labor theory, this debate is framed in terms of "centaurs" (humans who are assisted by technology) and "reverse-centaurs" (humans who are conscripted to assist technology):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

There are plenty of workers who are excited at the thought of using AI tools to relieve them of some drudgework. To the extent that these workers have power over their bosses and their working conditions, that excitement might well be justified. I hear a lot from programmers who work on their own projects about how nice it is to have a kind of hypertrophied macro system that can generate and tweak little automated tools on the fly so the humans can focus on the real, chewy challenges. Those workers are the centaurs, and it's no wonder that they're excited about improved tooling.

But the reverse-centaur version is a lot darker. The reverse-centaur coder is an assistant to the AI, charged with being a "human in the loop" who reviews the material that the AI produces. This is a pretty terrible job to have.

For starters, the kinds of mistakes that AI coders make are the hardest mistakes for human reviewers to catch. That's because LLMs are statistical prediction machines, spicy autocomplete that works by ingesting and analyzing a vast corpus of written materials and then producing outputs that represent a series of plausible guesses about which words should follow one another. To the extent that the reality the AI is participating in is statistically smooth and predictable, AI can often make eerily good guesses at words that turn into sentences or code that slots well into that reality.

But where reality is lumpy and irregular, AI stumbles. AI is intrinsically conservative. As a statistically informed guessing program, it wants the future to be like the past:

https://reallifemag.com/the-apophenic-machine/

This means that AI coders stumble wherever the world contains rough patches and snags. Take "slopsquatting." For the most part, software libraries follow regular naming conventions. For example, there might be a series of text-handling libraries with names like "text.parsing.docx," "text.parsing.xml," and "text.parsing.markdown." But for some reason – maybe two different projects were merged, or maybe someone was just inattentive – there's also a library called "text.txt.parsing" (instead of "text.parsing.txt").

AI coders are doing inference based on statistical analysis, and anyone inferring what the .txt parsing library is called would guess, based on the other libraries, that it was "text.parsing.txt." And that's what the AI guesses, and so it tries to import that library to its software projects.

This creates a new security vulnerability, "slopsquatting," in which a malicious actor creates a library with the expected name, which replicates the functionality of the real library, but also contains malicious code:

https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/12/ai_code_suggestions_sabotage_supply_chain/

Note that slopsquatting errors are extremely hard to spot. As is typical with AI coding errors, these are errors that are based on continuing a historical pattern, which is the sort of thing our own brains do all the time (think of trying to go up a step that isn't there after climbing to the top of a staircase). Notably, these are very different from the errors that a beginning programmer whose work is being reviewed by a more senior coder might make. These are the very hardest errors for humans to spot, and these are the errors that AIs make the most, and they do so at machine speed:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/23/maximal-plausibility/#reverse-centaurs

To be a human in the loop for an AI coder, a programmer must engage in sustained, careful, line-by-line and command-by-command scrutiny of the code. This is the hardest kind of code to review, and maintaining robotic vigilance over long periods at high speeds is something humans are very bad at. Indeed, it's the kind of task we try very hard to automate, since machines are much better at being machinelike than humans are. This is the essence of reverse-centaurism: when a human is expected to act like a machine in order to help the machine do something it can't do.

Humans routinely fail at spotting these errors, unsurprisingly. If the purpose of automation is to make superior goods at lower prices, then this would be a real concern, since a reverse-centaur coding arrangement is bound to produce code with lurking, pernicious, especially hard-to-spot bugs that present serious risks to users. But if the purpose of automation is to discipline labor – to force coders to accept worse conditions and pay – irrespective of the impact on quality, then AI is the perfect tool for the job. The point of the human isn't to catch the AI's errors so much as it is to catch the blame for the AI's errors – to be what Madeleine Clare Elish calls a "moral crumple zone":

https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/260

As has been the case since the Industrial Revolution, the project of automation isn't just about increasing productivity, it's about weakening labor power as a prelude to lowering quality. Take what's happened to the news industry, where mass layoffs are being offset by AI tools. At Hearst's King Features Syndicates, a single writer was charged with producing over 30 summer guides, the entire package:

https://www.404media.co/viral-ai-generated-summer-guide-printed-by-chicago-sun-times-was-made-by-magazine-giant-hearst/

That is an impossible task, which is why the writer turned to AI to do his homework, and then, infamously, published a "summer reading guide" that was full of nonexistent books that were hallucinated by a chatbot:

https://www.404media.co/chicago-sun-times-prints-ai-generated-summer-reading-list-with-books-that-dont-exist/

Most people reacted to this story as a consumer issue: they were outraged that the world was having a defective product foisted upon it. But the consumer issue here is downstream from the labor issue: when the writers at King Features Syndicate are turned into reverse-centaurs, they will inevitably produce defective outputs. The point of the worker – the "human in the loop" – isn't to supervise the AI, it's to take the blame for the AI. That's just what happened, as this poor schmuck absorbed an internet-sized rasher of shit flung his way by outraged social media users. After all, it was his byline on the story, not the chatbot's. He's the moral crumple-zone.

The implication of this is that consumers and workers are class allies in the automation wars. The point of using automation to weaken labor isn't just cheaper products – it's cheaper, defective products, inflicted on the unsuspecting and defenseless public who are no longer protected by workers' professionalism and pride in their jobs.

That's what's going on at Duolingo, where CEO Luis von Ahn created a firestorm by announcing mass firings of human language instructors, who would be replaced by AI. The "AI first" announcement pissed off Duolingo's workers, of course, but what caught von Ahn off-guard was how much this pissed off Duolingo's users:

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/05/25/0347239/duolingo-faces-massive-social-media-backlash-after-ai-first-comments

But of course, this makes perfect sense. After all, language-learners are literally incapable of spotting errors in the AI instruction they receive. If you spoke the language well enough to spot the AI's mistakes, you wouldn't need Duolingo! I don't doubt that there are countless ways in which AIs could benefit both language learners and the Duolingo workers who develop instructional materials, but for that to happen, workers' and learners' needs will have to be the focus of AI integration. Centaurs could produce great language learning materials with AI – but reverse-centaurs can only produce slop.

Unsurprisingly, many of the most successful AI products are "bossware" tools that let employers monitor and discipline workers who've been reverse-centaurized. Both blue-collar and white-collar workplaces have filled up with "electronic whips" that monitor and evaluate performance:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/02/despotism-on-demand/#virtual-whips

AI can give bosses "dashboards" that tell them which Amazon delivery drivers operate their vehicles with their mouths open (Amazon doesn't let its drivers sing on the job). Meanwhile, a German company called Celonis will sell your boss a kind of AI phrenology tool that assesses your "emotional quality" by spying on you while you work:

https://crackedlabs.org/en/data-work/publications/processmining-algomanage

Tech firms were among the first and most aggressive adopters of AI-based electronic whips. But these whips weren't used on coders – they were reserved for tech's vast blue-collar and contractor workforce: clickworkers, gig workers, warehouse workers, AI data-labelers and delivery drivers.

Tech bosses tormented these workers but pampered their coders. That wasn't out of any sentimental attachment to tech workers. Rather, tech bosses were afraid of tech workers, because tech workers possess a rare set of skills that can be harnessed by tech firms to produce gigantic returns. Tech workers have historically been princes of labor, able to command high salaries and deferential treatment from their bosses (think of the amazing tech "campus" perks), because their scarcity gave them power.

It's easy to predict how tech bosses would treat tech workers if they could get away with it – just look how they treat workers they aren't afraid of. Just like the textile mill owners of the Industrial Revolution, the thing that excites tech bosses about AI is the possibility of cutting off a group of powerful workers at the knees. After all, it took more than a century for strong labor unions to match the power that the pre-Industrial Revolution guilds had. If AI can crush the power of tech workers, it might buy tech bosses a century of free rein to shift value from their workforce to their investors, while also doing away with pesky Tron-pilled workers who believe they have a moral obligation to "fight for the user."

William Gibson famously wrote, "The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed." The workers that tech bosses don't fear are living in the future of the workers that tech bosses can't easily replace.

This week, the New York Times's veteran Amazon labor reporter Noam Scheiber published a deeply reported piece about the experience of coders at Amazon in the age of AI:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/business/amazon-ai-coders.html

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is palpably horny for AI coders, evidenced by investor memos boasting of AI's returns in "productivity and cost avoidance" and pronouncements about AI saving "the equivalent of 4,500 developer-years":

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/andy-jassy-8b1615_one-of-the-most-tedious-but-critical-tasks-activity-7232374162185461760-AdSz/

Amazon is among the most notorious abusers of blue-collar labor, the workplace where everyone who doesn't have a bullshit laptop job is expected to piss in a bottle and spend an unpaid hour before and after work going through a bag- and body-search. Amazon's blue-collar workers are under continuous, totalizing, judging AI scrutiny that scores them based on whether their eyeballs are correctly oriented, whether they take too long to pick up an object, whether they pee too often. Amazon warehouse workers are injured at three times national average. Amazon AIs scan social media for disgruntled workers talking about unions, and Amazon has another AI tool that predicts which shops and departments are most likely to want to unionize.

Scheiber's piece describes what it's like to be an Amazon tech worker who's getting the reverse-centaur treatment that has heretofore been reserved for warehouse workers and drivers. They describe "speedups" in which they are moved from writing code to reviewing AI code, their jobs transformed from solving chewy intellectual puzzles to racing to spot hard-to-find AI coding errors as a clock ticks down. Amazon bosses haven't ordered their tech workers to use AI, just raised their quotas to a level that can't be attained without getting an AI to do most of the work – just like the Chicago Sun-Times writer who was expected to write all 30 articles in the summer guide package on his own. No one made him use AI, but he wasn't going to produce 30 articles on deadline without a chatbot.

Amazon insists that it is treating AI as an assistant for its coders, but the actual working conditions make it clear that this is a reverse-centaur transformation. Scheiber discusses a dissident internal group at Amazon called Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, who link the company's use of AI to its carbon footprint. Beyond those climate concerns, these workers are treating AI as a labor issue.

Amazon's coders have been making tentative gestures of solidarity towards its blue-collar workforce since the pandemic broke out, walking out in support of striking warehouse workers (and getting fired for doing so):

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/14/abolish-silicon-valley/#hang-together-hang-separately

But those firings haven't deterred Amazon's tech workers from making common cause with their comrades on the shop floor:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/19/deastroturfing/#real-power

When techies describe their experience of AI, it sometimes sounds like they're describing two completely different realities – and that's because they are. For workers with power and control, automation turns them into centaurs, who get to use AI tools to improve their work-lives. For workers whose power is waning, AI is a tool for reverse-centaurism, an electronic whip that pushes them to work at superhuman speeds. And when they fail, these workers become "moral crumple zones," absorbing the blame for the defective products their bosses pushed out in order to goose profits.

As ever, what a technology does pales in comparison to who it does it for and who it does it to.

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Hey look at this (permalink)

• The CIA Secretly Ran a Star Wars Fan Site https://www.404media.co/the-cia-secretly-ran-a-star-wars-fan-site/

• Atomic Highway – Post Apocalyptic Roleplaying https://archive.org/details/atomic-highway-ebook-v-2/mode/1up

• THE SILICON VALLEY EFFECT https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/SJIL_61-1_Arun.pdf

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Object permanence (permalink)

#20yrsago Bulk of American calories comes from sweet drinks https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/05/050527111920.htm

#20yrsago Chicago’s Bean sculpture is free to photograph, at last https://memex.craphound.com/2005/05/27/chicagos-bean-sculpture-is-free-to-photograph-at-last/

#15yrsago Man single-handedly building a metro rail https://englishrussia.com/2010/05/24/the-most-unusual-metro-in-the-world/

#15yrsago Canada’s copyright minister: superinfringer https://memex.craphound.com/2010/05/27/canadas-copyright-minister-superinfringer/

#15yrsago Pinkwater’s ADVENTURES OF A CAT-WHISKERED GIRL, sequel to Neddiad and Yggyssey https://memex.craphound.com/2010/05/27/pinkwaters-adventures-of-a-cat-whiskered-girl-sequel-to-neddiad-and-yggyssey/

#10yrsago Real estate bubble drives urban blight https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/why-are-there-so-many-shuttered-storefronts-in-the-west-village

#10yrsago IRS leaks 100K taxpayers’ data to identity thieves https://theintercept.com/2015/05/27/data-breaches-wreak-havoc/

#10yrsago Swiss cops’ dawn raid snags top FIFA officials https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/27/sports/soccer/fifa-officials-face-corruption-charges-in-us.html

#5yrsago The Toronto Star's new owners donated to far-right Tories https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/27/literal-gunhumping/#plutewatch

#5yrsago How to pay artists while fighting censorship and Big Tech https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/27/literal-gunhumping/#pay-artists

#5yrsago Ammosexuals point their guns at their crotches https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/27/literal-gunhumping/#youll-shoot-your-eye-out

#5yrsago Twitter's porn filters are dampening discussions of "cumgate" https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/27/literal-gunhumping/#cumgate

#5yrsago West Virginia's governor Jim Justice: billionaire, deadbeat https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/27/literal-gunhumping/#injustice

#5yrsago Hertz's bankruptcy was caused by private equity looting https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/27/literal-gunhumping/#hertz-uranus

#5yrsago Facebook shelved research that showed they were sowing division https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/27/literal-gunhumping/#joel-kaplan

#5yrsago Youtube is automatically blocking criticism of the Chinese Communist Party https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/27/literal-gunhumping/#communist-bandit

#1yrago Against Lore https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/27/cmon-do-it-again/#better_to_remain_silent_and_be_thought_a_fool_than_to_speak_and_remove_all_doubt

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Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• Seattle: Cascade PBS Ideas Festival, May 31
  https://www.cascadepbs.org/festival/speaker/cory-doctorow

• Virtual: Fediforum, Jun 5
  https://fediforum.org/2025-06/

• PDX: Teardown 2025, Jun 20-22
  https://www.crowdsupply.com/teardown/portland-2025

• PDX: Picks and Shovels with bunnie Huang at Barnes and Noble, Jun 20
  https://stores.barnesandnoble.com/event/9780062183697-0

• Tualatin Public Library, Jun 22:
  https://www.tualatinoregon.gov/library/author-talk-cory-doctorow

• London: How To Academy with Riley Quinn, Jul 1
  https://howtoacademy.com/events/cory-doctorow-the-fight-against-the-big-tech-oligarchy/

• Manchester: Picks and Shovels at Blackwell's Bookshop, Jul 2
  https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-1308451968059

• Manchester: Co-operatives UK Co-op Congress keynote, Jul 4
  https://www.uk.coop/events-and-training/events-calendar/co-op-congress-2025-book-your-place

• New Orleans: DeepSouthCon63, Oct 10-12, 2025
  http://www.contraflowscifi.org/

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Recent appearances (permalink)

• Kick 'Em In the Dongle (Understood)
  https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/1353-the-naked-emperor/episode/16148346-kick-em-in-the-dongle

• The Big Story
  https://www.seekyoursounds.com/podcasts/the-big-story/cory-doctorow-explains-who-broke-the-internet

• Keynote (Pycon)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydVmzg_SJLw

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Latest books (permalink)

• • Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).
• The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (the-bezzle.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3062/Available_Feb_20th%3A_The_Bezzle_HB.html#/).

• "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/)

• "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

• "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/.

• "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

• "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html

• "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)

• "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

• "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/.

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Upcoming books (permalink)

• Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

• Unauthorized Bread: a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026

• Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

• The Memex Method, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026

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Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

• Enshittification: a nonfiction book about platform decay for Farrar, Straus, Giroux. Status: second pass edit underway (readaloud)

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

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This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

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Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

---

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ISSN: 3066-764X

[Heathrow, the] biggest airport in the country & a major global hub… taken out via a single substation. Who designed a single point of failure into the infrastructure? People absolutely lose their shit if you do that in cloud tech.

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I am currently listening to an audiobook of The Digital Republic by Jamie Susskind, and it’s charmingly terrible, filled with “Regulation And Certificated Proper People And Tech Tribunals Will Fix All This Technology Chaos, Just Look At How *Real* Industries Operate”

…and, no. There is no fix.

There is only better, greater understanding of risk.

I initially thought that my overview of the AWS re:Invent conference would focus on the details of a bunch of new features and services. But on Thursday morning, Amazon CTO Werner Vogels took the stage and proceeded to outline a future of computing that’s utterly distributed and tailor-made for the internet of things, yet still leaves Amazon in control.

Vogels in his talk touched on everything from AWS’s new wide area network monitoring services to IoT Greengrass, APIs — even a satellite service that pulls in data from space. Vogels called the outer reaches of this distributed computing the “rugged edge.” But whatever terminology Amazon wants to use, it’s clear the computing giant recognizes that computing happens outside of its own servers. Moreover, its executives have recognized that it needs to build services designed to help its customers bridge their local compute-ingesting sensor data back to the cloud, and do so in a manner that’s both easy and secure.

Vogels started out talking about the edge, specifically the launch of 30 new local regions for Amazon’s cloud, which helps bring it closer to end users. He also touted the success of services such as IoT Greengrass, which links edge devices back to Amazon’s core cloud.

Vogels’ point was that, with the IoT, things will be massively distributed going forward, yet they will still be centralized using Amazon’s cloud and its Identity and Access Management (IAM) service. And to prove that AWS can handle the strain of a distributed-yet-still-centralized world, Vogels dropped the fact that Amazon’s IAM handles 500 billion API calls a second!

Another example of the distributed-but-not-decentralized view was the launch of AWS Cloud WAN, which lets companies link their disparate work sites under one service and control them like a single network. This is a service designed for the hybrid work world where valuable corporate data or functions are just as likely to be on an official campus as they are in someone’s garage while they work from home.

But back to Vogels and his talk. He also did a deep dive on APIs — or application programming interfaces — that had me nodding in fervent agreement. That talk was tied to the launch of AWS Amplify Studio, a new service designed to help developers build applications with visual design tools, and then the service turns those designs into code.

Back in 2018, I explained why APIs were both a bridge and a battlefield for the IoT (and frankly, all of enterprise software) as businesses rely more on software and data to derive value. In that story, I also laid out rules for folks building APIs that are almost exactly the same as the six rules that Vogels elucidated onstage. Those rules are:

1. APIs are forever
2. Never break backward compatibility
3. Work backwards from customer use cases
4. Create APIs with explicit and well-documented failure modes
5. Create APIs that are self-describing and have a clear, specific purpose
6. Avoid leaking implementation details at all costs

With the exception of the last point about leaking implementation details, which I did not include in my 2018 story, I’ve been waiting for developers to get on board the high-quality API train. It’s no surprise that Amazon, which designs everything it builds to be used as a service, has figured out a way to make it easy for developers with the Amplify Studio product.

I’m not sure if Vogels’ distributed-not-decentralized worldview is the way to move forward with the IoT, but I did shout in agreement with Matt Coulter, a technical architect at Liberty Mutual, who joined the keynote to say, “Code is a liability, not an asset.” His focus was on creating faster code execution environments and using AWS services to do so, but it applies at so many other levels.

For example, every line of code increases the complexity of your software, the complexity of integrations, and the complexity associated with keeping that software secure and free of bugs. Going forward, there is tremendous value in cleaning up the wasteful code that is slopping around our computing systems and building cleaner code.

Indeed, if the entire world is going to rely on software, then we need to view that software as a source of potential trouble, not just a means to get to a solution.

We saw a lot of other good news coming out of AWS re:Invent, such as the new version of the Arm server chips (for an excellent take, read this story) and the launch of private 5G networks, which is a really interesting option that pits Amazon against telcos and telco gear providers. For more thoughts on the conference, check out the first 10 minutes of this week’s podcast, too.

The post Amazon tries to sell distributed-not-decentralized computing appeared first on Stacey on IoT | Internet of Things news and analysis.

Sigfox’s problem is IoT’s problem: This profile on the trials of 10-year-old Low-Power Wide-Area Network (LPWAN) provider Sigfox is a lovely little microcosm of the overall trials of the internet of things. After so much hype, the reality of fewer connected devices connecting to its network combined with the rise of a slightly more open technology have forced Sigfox to shift its business model. I wrote about that here, but for those wondering about the fate of IoT’s LPWAN unicorn, this is a nice read. (VentureBeat)

Maker of smart fitness gear acquires maker of dumb fitness gear: Peloton, maker of a $2,000 connected bike that went public pitching itself as a media company, will pay $420 million to buy Precor, the formerly high-end fitness equipment company whose treadmills, ellipticals, and assorted other gear can be found in gyms, hotels, and homes. I don’t write about Peloton a lot, but to me it’s a quintessential IoT company in that it uses connectivity to change the business model and opportunity around fitness equipment. That’s clear in the price it paid for what is arguably an older and better-known fitness brand (among fitness gym bunnies). Back in 2018, when Precor last reported sales publicly, it had $427 million in revenue, a number that it expected would get an 11% boost thanks to a new deal with the Planet Fitness chain of gyms in 2019. This is not a deal with high multiples, is what I’m saying. And the reason is that while companies like Precor were trying to snap on connected modules to their equipment to talk to people’s phones or Apple watches, the Peloton executives were realizing that they could change the entire workout experience with a connected bike. So now Peloton gets Precor’s factories to boost its product, because even when you’ve mastered the bits, you still have to make sure the atoms are taken care of as well. (Engadget)

Some thoughts on the ready-made Homebridge box: Over the holidays, Kevin tried the HOOBS hub, which combines the Homebridge smart home automation software with a Raspberry Pi in a branded case. It’s an easy way for a consumer to play with the Homebridge open source home automation software, and we were excited to try it. HOOBS is for people that love Apple’s Home app and want to bring in non-HomeKit devices. But as Kevin discovered, there are some caveats. (StaceyonIoT)

PE firm to buy real estate tech firm RealPage: Thoma Bravo will acquire RealPage in a deal valued at $10.2 billion. Normally I wouldn’t cover this type of news, but the impetus behind the deal is technology, specifically technology that can make managing and leasing apartments easier and more efficient. RealPage recently purchased Stratis IoT, which makes a smart apartment platform, and has invested hundreds of millions in the last few years on tech-related startups to bring apartments and other multiple dwelling units into the 21st century. (RealPage)

IoT’s continuing e-waste problem: I’ve spent a large portion of this year staring sadly at a box of defunct IoT devices and questioning the wisdom of buying more gadgets as the realities of climate change and our disregard for the environment slap me in the face. So over at IEEE Spectrum, I wrote a column about how companies need to start taking responsibility when marketing and designing their products, as well as when it comes to helping consumers dispose of them. (IEEE Spectrum)

Words matter: In this story about living without Amazon, I came across a significant tell in the copy. The author, in describing Amazon’s varied interests, wrote: “The sheer scope of Amazon’s business interests — including surveillance devices (Ring), government contracts (through Amazon Web Services), and…” Describing Ring’s products as surveillance devices is a confirmation of the worst opinions about Ring’s portfolio and a pretty damning bit of editorializing. Ring makes home security devices, which by design are also surveilling your property. The issue isn’t that Ring provides home surveillance, it’s that users aren’t sure how the surveillance data is used and by whom. And until smart home device makers offer users actual control and transparency — even at the expense of useful services that require data aggregation — they run the risk of the public losing faith in them. (NYT)

The FAA’s new drone rules include one that should apply to all robots: The Federal Aviation Administration has adjusted its rules around drones, adding a requirement that all drones should broadcast their registration to anyone with the equipment to receive it, creating a digital license plate. Personally, I think any robot that roams the public needs something like this, so I’m hopeful we see municipalities or states adopt such rules as part of their own laws. The rules also allow drones to fly at night (with lights) and to fly over people who aren’t operating the drone. This will help push drone deliveries, but I’m not excited about the sound of thousands of drones whirring overhead, even if it does mean I get my package faster. (FAA)

Cisco backs out of selling the smart city: Cisco has stopped selling its Cisco Kinetic for City product line because apparently cities weren’t buying it. This was confirmed by a Cisco spokesperson, who said sales would stop and eventually support would as well. Two weeks ago, Qualcomm announced a service designed to help cash-strapped cities buy connected tech. Qualcomm used pandemic marketing, noting that remote delivery of education, contact tracing, and more meant that cities needed some kind of smarts more than ever. However, as I look at the landscape, I see smart cities facing the same practical headwinds discussed in my first article. Companies wanted to own the whole stack and lock cities in, but the promise of the IoT (and the internet) is that it makes it so easy to share. And when you share, the returns are exponential. So it’s no surprise that Cisco, of all companies, had a hard time selling its vision of smart cities as opposed to one that would truly leave cities in control of their data and destiny. (Wall Street Journal)

The post IoT news of the week for Jan. 1, 2020 appeared first on Stacey on IoT | Internet of Things news and analysis.

Honeywell acquires Sine to take its Honeywell Forge platform mobile: Industrial giant Honeywell said it has acquired Australian company Sine so it can boost the mobile capabilities of its Honeywell Forge automation and building management software. Sine makes visitor access software for mobile devices that is managed from the cloud. The deal’s terms were not disclosed, but it sounds like Honeywell will use Sine’s capabilities to bring Forge into a more mobile era. This is especially important in a post-COVID world where people don’t want to touch or otherwise physically interact with people or kiosks and compliance with things related to visitor logging is more important than it’s ever been. (Honeywell)

Forget counting stars, counting new satellite efforts is just as challenging: For those of y’all who get confused between SpaceX and Amazon’s Kuiper service, this blog post is here to help. It provides a breakdown of four low-Earth orbit satellite networks in the works. Such networks have grown in number as advances in building satellites (they are so small and modular now!) have made them cheaper to build and launch. And by launching thousands of them, these small satellites can provide global coverage for home broadband, IoT, and more. (Frank Rayal)

Companies can now build products with Z-Wave’s long-range radio spec: Fighting for relevance, the Z-Wave Alliance has invested in a long-range version of low-power mesh networking technology. The group announced the effort in September and now is ready to support companies that want to build Z-Wave Long Range (LR) devices. A demonstration by Silicon Labs, which makes Z-Wave chips, has shown transmission over a mile on a coin cell battery that is expected to last for 10 years. The Alliance also maintains that a network could support up to 4,000 nodes. This could be useful for industrial tracking, and even for smart home use cases such as mailbox sensors or driveway monitors. We certainly get plenty of questions about long-range, low-power sensors. So if you want to build with Z-Wave LR, Silicon Labs now has a module, and a certification program will launch in March 2021. (Z-Wave Alliance)

Another edge computing chip startup gets funding: This time it’s a Dutch company called Innatera that has raised €5 million ($6.1 million) in seed funding from Munich-based MIG Verwaltungs AG and the Industrial Technologies Fund of btov. The interesting bit about this particular startup is that it is basing its design on the way the human brain works. Plenty of companies, such as Intel and IBM, have been investing in so-call neuromorphic computing for decades because our brains are able to process so much information on relatively low power. Many of these efforts are still in the lab. However, Innatera claims it has been able to use a brain-inspired design to build small neural networks, and then run inference using those neutral networks at 10,000 times the performance per watt. That’s an insane claim and I need to know more. (Innatera)

Amazon’s modeling for more secure firmware updates for RTOSes: This paper gets into the weeds, but because there are billions of devices running RTOSes and a subset of those are essential, it’s an important topic. The paper describes how FreeRTOS tries to figure out problems with its over-the-air update system using modeling. Over-the-air updates for RTOSes help keep them secure, may offer new features, and are scary as anything because the devices running these RTOSes often can’t break without causing expensive or even catastrophic failures. The equipment monitoring nuclear power plants? It depends on embedded computers running RTOSes. Because devices running RTOSes operate in a distributed system without any communication among them, figuring out how an over-the-air update will deploy can be a challenge. So these engineers have figured out a way to model for potential problems during an update, discovering three in their particular efforts with Amazon’s FreeRTOS. (FreeRTOS)

Funding for another synthetic data startup: Tonic has raised $8 million for its platform to help companies turn real data into de-identified synthetic data to train their neural networks or build products. Synthetic data has become a hot topic in the machine learning world because it offers a less expensive way to get data to train algorithms. Tonic notes that it can also help with privacy. Instead of using actual user data, completely de-identifying user data, and then preventing it from being combined with new data to de-anonymize users, Tonic says it can protect individuals’ privacy while still enabling the development of AI services. (Tonic)

Home Assistant in a box and version 5: Home Assistant, an open-source home automation platform, held a user conference last weekend where the organization launched a physical device that runs Home Assistant (before this you had to download the software and put it on your own computer) and version 5 of the software. Kevin shares his thoughts on the move from super DIY to getting smart home automation platforms in a more consumer-friendly format. (StaceyonIoT)

My thoughts on the Amazon Halo: My Halo broke the evening I published this review, but it appears to be a fluke. So if you’re interested in Amazon’s tone-detecting wearable, check out my thoughts. I also am using the Halo review as a way to shift the way I approach writing product reviews. Since many of our smart devices represent an ongoing data-sharing relationship with a particular company, I’m trying to frame my thinking about them based on whether or not I like the terms of the relationship at the time of the review, and plan to revisit them as that relationship changes. We’ll see how that works out. (StaceyonIoT)

Body bots, bossy bots, and baddie bots are the alliterative future of tech: Ericsson’s annual consumer trends report is out, and it’s a contradiction in terms. The report tracks 10 technological developments that forward-thinking consumers anticipate we’ll have by 2030. This year’s 10 technological futures are variations of some guardian technical angel that ensures we stay healthy, helps us get our work done, and finds the best wireless signal for our current tasks — all while respecting our privacy and protecting our data. Those same consumers apparently also see a future in which malicious bots can mimic our behavior and infiltrate our networks to perform crimes or hide from the consequences of crime. If you’re looking to pen a sci-fi novel maybe check this report out for some ideas. (Ericsson)

The post IoT news of the week for Dec. 18, 2020 appeared first on Stacey on IoT | Internet of Things news and analysis.

Today's links

• Big Car wants to pump the brakes on Right to Repair: Automotive makers v 76% of Massachusetts.
• How to Fix the Internet: EFF has a podcast!
• This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
• Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

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Big Car wants to pump the brakes on Right to Repair (permalink)

Obviously, there was a lot of stuff on the ballot on Nov 3.

In Massachusetts, there was a chance to vote on Right to Repair.

Again.

Back in 2012, 75% of Bay Staters backed a ballot initiative to force auto manufacturers to allow independent mechanics to access diagnostic data carried on cars' wired networks (but not their wireless nets).

Naturally, car makers moved all the useful data to wireless.

8 years later, the state's voters got another ballot initiative, Question 1, closing the wireless loophole. Big Car threw everything at scaring people out of voting for it, including telling them that enabling independent repair would MURDER THEM.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rolling-surveillance-platforms

But despite all this, they got fucking creamed at the ballot box. Seventy six percent of bay staters voted in favor of right to repair.

I mean, of course they did. "I wish it was illegal for me to choose my mechanic," said no one, ever.

But the fuckery's only just begun. In Massachusetts political circles, there are persistent, credible rumors that the car manufacturers are going to ask the state legislature to delay the new law's start date…

By years.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/asleep-wheel-why-didnt-carmakers-prepare-massachusetts-right-repair-law

They say that implementing the new data-formats is will take years to get right, and they're just not ready.

The technical term for this is: bullshit.

First, we're talking about an ISO-standard data format with extensive libraries and documentation.

The car makers are already shipping wireless updates to their cars. Tesla is sending over-the-air suspension firmware. Ford has an app that lets you change your engine performance from any IP address. Of course they can do this.

But let's say they're right and this will require heroic effort – so what? This was a completely foreseeable outcome. They subverted a law that was passed by plebescite by 75% of the voters. They knew this was coming.

If they're not prepared it's because they decided not to prepare themselves. They didn't just fall asleep at the wheel – they took a sleeping pill. If they need to pay a shit-ton of overtime to get this done, then good. The last thing we should do is reward fuckery with forbearance.

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How to Fix the Internet (permalink)

At long last, EFF has a podcast! "How to Fix the Internet" has been in the works for a long time, and now it's finally a reality, with two spectacular episodes dropping more-or-less simultaneously this week.

https://www.eff.org/how-to-fix-the-internet-podcast

The format's simple: EFF executive director Cindy Cohn and EFF director of strategy Danny O'Brien sit down each week for an in-depth interview with an expert on a subject of great importance to technology users (e.g. everyone).

They dive SUPER deep into the nerdy minutiae, but hold your hand while they do so that you can appreciate the nuance and technicalities.

The experts they bring on are literally my top choices for who I'd go to for explanations of these issues – and they're often the people I learned about the issues from myself.

But there are lots of explainer shows, and this goes beyond explanations.

EFF is an activist org, after all. They're not just about naming our problems – they're about solving them.

So each of these episodes isn't just about an issue – it's about a framework for resolving it.

Concrete, actionable things that legislatures, regulators, businesses (and you!) can do to make the internet safe for human thriving. It's a refreshing tonic – the opposite of a counsel of despair.

The debut is "The Secret Court Approving Secret Surveillance," an interview with Julian Sanchez about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a star chamber where judges secretly issue far-ranging wiretap orders that affect all US communications.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/secret-court-approving-secret-surveillance

Ep 2 is "Why Does My Internet Suck?" with Gigi Sohn. It lays out the clusterfuck of state laws, regulatory malfeasance and Congressional inaction that made America a broadband also-ran, where access is expensive and slow, and half country's offline.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/podcast-episode-why-does-my-internet-suck

For years, I've been getting pretty deep into the weeds on these subjects, but neither are my speciality; listening to Gigi and Julian explain them was revelatory, and significantly improved my understanding of them.

EFF's gone all-out with these podcasts. Each episode page has a full transcript, extensive notes, and links for deeper dives into each facet of their issues. It's a serialized masterclass in the most important and worst understood technical issues in the world.

Here's the RSS feed for the podcast:

https://efforg.libsyn.com/rss

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This day in history (permalink)

#15yrsago Sony’s rootkit infringes on software copyrights https://web.archive.org/web/20061108150242/https://dewinter.com/modules.php?name=News&file;=article&sid;=215

#15yrsago Sony’s malware uninstaller leaves your computer vulnerable https://www.hack.fi/~muzzy/sony-drm/

#10yrsago Tim Wu on the new monopolists: a “last chapter” for The Master Switch https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704635704575604993311538482

#5yrsago Facebook won’t remove photo of children tricked into posing for neo-fascist group https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-34797757

#5yrsago Fordite: a rare mineral only found in old Detroit auto-painting facilities https://miningeology.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-most-amazing-rocks.html

#5yrsago Hey, kids, let’s play Corporate Monopoly! https://web.archive.org/web/20151116144002/https://www.globaljustice.org.uk/infographics/corporatemonopoly/

#5yrsago Hospitals are patient zero for the Internet of Things infosec epidemic https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-hospital-hack/

#5yrsago Cop who unplugged his cam before killing a 19-year-old girl is rehired https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/11/cop-fired-for-having-lapel-cam-turned-off-a-lot-reinstated-to-force/

#5yrsago Startup uses ultrasound chirps to covertly link and track all your devices https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/11/beware-of-ads-that-use-inaudible-sound-to-link-your-phone-tv-tablet-and-pc/

#1yrago EFF and ACLU triumph as federal judge rules that warrantless, suspicionless device searches at the border are illegal https://www.eff.org/press/releases/federal-court-rules-suspicionless-searches-travelers-phones-and-laptops

#1yrago Before you ask your Chinese factory for a discount, make sure you won’t be kidnapped and/or have your product cloned https://www.chinalawblog.com/2019/11/the-right-way-to-reduce-your-china-product-costs.html

#1yrago Transcription service rev.com cuts “professional transcriptionists'” effective hourly wage from $6.35 to $4.50 https://gizmodo.com/transcription-platform-rev-slashes-minimum-pay-for-work-1839784941

#1yrago A woman’s stalker compromised her car’s app, giving him the ability to track and immobilize it https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/11/06/womans-stalker-used-an-app-that-allowed-him-stop-start-track-her-car/

#1yrago alt.interoperability.adversarial https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/11/altinteroperabilityadversarial

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Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing: My next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and reconciliation. Yesterday's progress: 574 words (83702 total).

Currently reading: The Ministry for the Future, Kim Stanley Robinson

Latest podcast: Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (part 22) https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/11/08/someone-comes-to-town-someone-leaves-town-part-22/

Upcoming appearances:

• Early Stage Oppenheimers, Aaron Swartz Day, Nov 14, https://www.eventbrite.com/e/aaron-swartz-day-and-international-hackathon-2020-tickets-128384147441

• Shaping the Digital Future Summit/Kaspersky, Nov 17, https://transparency.kaspersky.com/home

• Misinformation and Disinformation in Science Fiction and Fantasy/LITA, Nov 17, details TBD

• Keynote, Data Natives, Nov 18, https://datanatives.io/tickets/

• Keynote, Cologne Futures, Nov 20, details TBD

• Keynote, Cybersummit 2020, Nov 26 https://www.cybera.ca/cyber-summit-2020/

• Beaverbrook Lecture: How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism, Nov 30, https://www.mcgill.ca/maxbellschool/channels/event/2020-beaverbrook-annual-lecture-part-ii-cory-doctorow-325538

• Teach-In Against Surveillance, Dec 1, https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/teach-in-against-surveillance-tickets-128926228821

• Keynote, NISO Plus, Feb 22-25, https://niso.plus/cory-doctorow-to-keynote-at-niso-plus-2021/

Recent appearances:

• Allen School Distinguished Lecture "Early Onset Oppenheimers"
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep78A-jtcrE

• Author Stories Podcast
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxSPZn8EGTE

• The Gould Standard:
  https://www.glenngould.ca/thegouldstandard/#cory-doctorow

Latest book:

• "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies

• "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59

• "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

• "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1562/_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer.html.

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This work licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

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How to get Pluralistic:

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https://pluralistic.net/plura-list

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When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

Today's links

• Break 'Em Up: Zephyr Teachout's trustbusting program for the 21st century.
• Unauthorized Meat: Mellow Sous Vide journeys to the Internet of Shit.
• Let's force Big Tech to interoperate: Here's why…and how.
• No consequences for police violence at BLM actions: Propublica followed up on viral videos showing gross misconduct and found…crickets.
• The Internet Archive defends online libraries: First filings from the Hachette lawsuit.
• Bitcoin is not a socialist's ally: Yanis Varoufakis responds to Ben Arc.
• Where "software" comes from: "In October, 1953, I coined the word 'software.'"
• This day in history: 2005, 2015, 2019
• Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

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Break 'Em Up (permalink)

"Break 'Em Up" is Zephyr Teachout's outstanding book on competition, corruption, monopolies and the revival of America's glorious tradition of trustbusting. It just came out. It's GREAT.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250200891

Sector by sector, industry by industry, Teachout shows how monopolists do their work. Her writing starts with the first-person, wrenching tales of workers, small businesspeople, and bystanders in monopoly's blast zone.

These are a jumping-off point for engaging, fascinating histories of how industries from taxis to chicken-rearing, tech to finance, have become more and more concentrated, and how these monopolies connect to the real personal harms she's shown us so vividly.

Monopolistic institutions are the most banal of evils, obscured by deceptive economic jargon and legal rubbish. Teachout has a gift for slicing through the bafflegab and revealing that the grifter's patter disguises nothing more than unimaginative, sociopathic scams.

For example, Teachout's chapter on "binding arbitration" swiftly and assuredly flenses away the legalistic BS and reveals this for the con it is: a system where companies replace courtrooms and judges with private law.

When one of these companies defrauds you or maims you or kills a loved one, you don't go before a judge – you go before an "arbitrator" (who works for the company that wronged you) and seek "justice." Put in those terms, it's blindingly obvious that this is an outrage.

Teachout also strips bare the "industry associations" that seem to have dozens or hundreds of members, but, in reality, work for one or two dominant companies, who pay their bills and send them to Washington to win special favors that strengthen their positions.

Best of all is the last third of the book, in which Teachout sets out a program for reversing the flood of corporate power and dethroning oligarchy. She dispatches the notion of "personal responsibility" and "consumer power" as a means of ridding ourselves of monopoly.

She correctly identifies this as a scheme to make us feel helpless and compromised: if you can't fight Amazon while shopping at Amazon, then you probably can't fight Amazon at all. Fuck that. The problem with monopolism isn't where we shop – it's how we regulate.

And for all that this is a popular, accessible book, it delves into some really deep and nuanced territory: in the next-to-last chapter, Teachout digs into the "regulate or nationalize" debate.

This invites the reader to take a thoughtful, rigorous approach to which parts of monopolistic industries are actually better off when concentrated – like fiber optic lines, say.

And to consider hybrid models where these concentrated elements are under democratic, public control – while firms use that neutral, public infrastructure to compete with one another.

Teachout connects this antimonopolistic, infrastructural approach to our most pressing existential problem: the climate emergency. She shows how any #GreenNewDeal will require muscular trustbusting and mass-scale infrastructure.

As you read these words, Congress is holding its most significant anti-monopoly hearings in a generation. The world is moving on and "Break 'Em Up" is a map guiding us to a better place.

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Unauthorized Meat (permalink)

I cannot stress this enough: my short story Unauthorized Bread – in which smart appliances are a slippery slope to full oligarchic dystopia – is not intended as a fucking suggestion.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

I mean, fuck you, "Mellow Sous Vide" (if that is your real name) and your decision to brick your meat-bathing gadget for customers who decline to pay the annual $48 "subscription fee" that you just unilaterally added to devices you'd already sold:

https://gizmodo.com/a-sick-sous-vide-has-been-bricked-by-mandatory-subscrip-1844533593

I mean, this is the hackiest dystopian writing I've read in years, and believe me, I consume a lot of hacky dystopian writing:

"The Premium Subscription will also allow you to create your own sous-vide recipes for all your favorite ingredients, and you can even schedule them for whatever time you want just as easy as when you are cooking a Mellow Recipe."

Who the fuck do you think you are, BMW?

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/02/big-river/#beemers

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Let's force Big Tech to interoperate (permalink)

Congress hauling the CEOs of four giant Big Tech companies to testify before them this week feels like the start of something new and maybe even something wonderful.

Now we just need to make sure they don't fuck it up.

One thing we don't want is for Big Tech to cement its dominance by being "punished" with the responsibility to police users in ways that mean that the companies get to lock out all competitors from interoperating with them.

Having your monopoly deputized as a de facto arm of the state can be a drag, sure, but the upside is that once you're part of that apparatus, you can wave your "public duty" around every time you're threatened with breakup or face a competitor.

Don't get me wrong. Let's fine 'em. Let's make rules for 'em. Let's make 'em pay their taxes.

But while we're at it, let's force them to interoperate – to let co-ops, tinkerers, and commercial competitors plug into their platforms and give us real choice in how they work.

Writing for EFF's Deeplinks blog, my colleague Bennett Cyphers (with some contributions from me) has published a fantastic breakdown of what interoperability could do, and how it could work:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/07/legislative-path-interoperable-internet

"If Facebook and Twitter allowed anyone to fully and meaningfully interoperate with them, their size would not protect them from competition nearly as much as it does. But platforms have shown that they won’t choose to do so on their own."

We need to set a floor under interoperability: mandates to offer interoperable interfaces to competitors. And we need to set a ceiling: competitive compatibility (ComCom), allowing competitors to expand these without permission from platforms.

There's already proposed legislation to do some of this, Mark Warner's ACCESS Act, which proposes three kinds of mandates: Data Portability, Delegatability, and Back End Interoperability.

https://www.warner.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2019/10/senators-introduce-bipartisan-bill-to-encourage-competition-in-social-media

Data Portability ("users can take their data from one service and do what they want with it elsewhere") is the low-hanging fruit. It's already in laws like the #GDPR. It's your data, you should be able to get your hands on it.

Back-end Interoperability ("enabling users to interact with one another across the boundaries of large platforms"): forcing Facebook to let Diaspora plug in (ditto Twitter-Mastodon). Companies expose the same APIs to competitors that they use between their own services.

Delegability ("users delegate third-parties to interact with a platform on their behalf"): Alternative UIs that block dark patterns, sort by chrono, etc. These parties would be regulated and have legal duties to their users, and couldn't monetize user data.

All of this needs to be done carefully because it could turn into a security and privacy nightmare. Users should have control over their data, and "no data should flow across company boundaries until users give explicit, informed consent" (which can be withdrawn).

Sometimes, dominant actors might shut down an API to fix a security bug: these downtimes have to be regulated to, to last only as is technically necessary, lest they become a pretense to block competition.

These mandates are the floor on interop, things dominant companies MUST do. Competitive Compatibility is the other half of the equation: stripping companies of the legal right to punish competitors for figuring out other ways to interoperate.

That is, we fix copyright, patent, anti-circumvention, cybersecurity and other laws so that they can't be used to block interoperators. Every dominant platform today relied on ComCom to attain dominance, and then they kicked the ladder away:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

"Comprehensively addressing threats to competitive compatibility will be a long and arduous process, but the issue is urgent. It’s time we got started. "

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No consequences for police violence at BLM actions (permalink)

The Black Lives Matter uprising has been attended by hundreds of viral videos of ghastly, reckless, potentially lethal police violence. This Greg Doucette thread gathers hundreds of them.

https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1266751520055459847

These videos are incontrovertible evidence of misconduct that should result – at the very least – in disciplinary proceedings, and in many cases should lead to termination and criminal charges, along with lengthy custodial sentences for the (ex-)cops pictured.

What happened to those cops? Uh, nothing.

Propublica investigated a representative sample of the officers pictured, contacted their departments, and asked what – if anything – had been done.

https://www.propublica.org/article/what-has-happened-to-police-filmed-hurting-protesters-so-far-very-little

The departments stonewalled: it's "under investigation." Or, "charges against the brutalized were dismissed so it's 'as if it never happened.'" "Police union rules mean we can't discuss this with you."

"The department declined to comment further and said it is 'bound by contractual language that prevents us from disclosing the contents of any personnel matter.'"

Meanwhile, many of these crimes have farcically short statutes of limitations, thanks to police union lobbying, and the clock is already running out.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/28/afterland/#selective-solidarity

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The Internet Archive defends online libraries (permalink)

The Internet Archive is a library, and, like any library, it is allowed to scan the books in its collection and circulate them to its patrons (under precedent set in the Hathi Trust case).

It does so using Controlled Digital Lending – AKA DRM – the same tool that publishers insist that other libraries use.

The Archive also works with many academic and municipal libraries across the country to help them digitize and circulate their collections.

These ebooks – most of which have no official electronic edition – are widely used by print-impaired patrons, including visually impaired people, people with dyslexia, and people with physical disabilities who struggle to handle books.

The Archive's library is especially urgent in this moment, when libraries across the country are shut and most of the books they have purchased are not available to the people whose taxes or fees paid for them.

Particularly keen is the need of returning students, who will have neither the benefit of their public libraries nor their school libraries as they struggle not to fall behind in their education.

Despite all this, a coalition of major publishers – Hachette, Harpercollins, Wiley and Penguin/Random House – have sued the Internet Archive, seeking to prohibit Controlled Digital Lending and to destroy 1.5m ebooks.

https://blog.archive.org/2020/07/29/internet-archive-responds-to-publishers-lawsuit/

I daresay that the vast majority of these publishers' authors rely on the Internet Archive's various holdings and collections (I know I certainly do).

Moreover, these are not fragile, frail institutions. Harpercollins is owned by Rupert Murdoch and routinely pays millions for mediocre, poor-selling books by far-right figures as a way of legally transfering money to those Murdoch seeks favor with.

Wiley is an ed-tech monopolist whose textbook prices have spiraled out of control over the past decade, gouging students and bribing profs to require new "editions" with trivial updates, while destroying the used textbook market.

Penguin/Random House is a division of Bertelsmann, the largest publisher in the world, grown larger through the monopolist's tried-and-true tactic of mergers between major competitors, a sin they compounded by passing on the chance to rename the company "Random Penguin."

Hachette pioneered the tactic of forcing writers to give up their worldwide English rights as a condition of selling to them, depriving authors of the chance to get paid separately for their rights in multiple territories.

The Internet Archive, by contrast, is a donor-supported nonprofit devoted to preserving all human knowledge and promoting access around the world.

I know whose side I'm on.

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Bitcoin is not a socialist's ally (permalink)

In an infinite universe, even very improbable things may be found somewhere.

Also, someone wrote an article explaining why Bitcoin is an ally to the socialist project.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/an-open-letter-to-yanis-varoufakis-about-bitcoin

The article was an open letter from Ben Arc, addressed to Yanis Varoufakis. Varoufakis responded with a devastating critique.

https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2020/07/27/why-bitcoin-is-the-not-socialists-ally-reply-to-ben-arc/

tldr: You say that Bitcoin will "break the cronyist chain linking central banks and private bankers. However, it does not undermine the cronyism of the network of bosses, politicians and private bankers."

First: Bitcoin "lacks the shock absorbers necessary to prevent capitalist crises from doing untold damage to the working class."

During financial crises (uh, hello), we need massive public spending to replace the mass extinction of private spending.

But the whole point of Bitcoin is that you can't arbitrarily increase the supply when you need more of it. Instead, you'd have to rely on "a spontaneous majority of Bitcoin’s users to agree to a massive increase in the supply of money."

Which won't happen.

Instead, you'll get prolonged, brutal depressions of the sort that give rise to fascist movements. It's hard to maintain massive ASIC mining-pools when civilization is crumbling around you.

Second: "Bitcoin’s dominance will not democratise economic life." Most BTC is owned by rich people. Redenominate the world's assets in BTC instead of dollars and…they'll still be owned by rich people

To top it off, you'll still have inflation, because private banks will "find ways of creating complex derivatives based on Bitcoin – derivatives that will soon (just like Lehman Brothers’ CDOs prior to 2008) function as …private money."

"Massive bubbles denominated in Bitcoin will build up and they will burst just as they did in the 19th century under the Gold Standard. And then?"

For all that he's no fan of Bitcoin, Varoufakis is actually pretty positive about blockchains: "I remain as enthusiastic on blockchain’s capacities and as unimpressed by Bitcoin’s ability to help us either civilise or (as any socialist dreams of) transcend capitalism."

I can see some applications for having unalterable public ledgers – a lot of problems can be solved if you assume a neutral, incorruptible trusted third party – but I'm not sure who would bother computing the blockchain without Bitcoin incentives, so…

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Where "software" comes from (permalink)

In 1953, Paul Niquette coined the term "software."

At the time, computers were colloquially called "giant brains" but they were inert until a program inputted semipermanent routines in the computer's memory.

http://www.niquette.com/books/softword/part0.htm

It wasn't really possible to move a program from one computer to another one.

Niquette's coinage – a play on "hardware" – came to him while he was 19 years old, programming UCLA's SWAC, and it made him chuckle at the time.

He found the word "too informal to write and often embarrassing to say" but slowly started to incorporate it into lectures and interviews. He had a reputation as a practical joker and his colleagues largely laughed it off.

The story of the coinage is in the introduction ("Chapter 0") of Niquette's online memoir, which I just skimmed. It's an engaging and witty history of some of the seminal moments in computing!

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This day in history (permalink)

#15yrsago EFF's trusted computing guru sums up MSFT's lockware strategy https://web.archive.org/web/20050903071904/https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/003807.php

#15yrsago Potemkin East Village coming to Vegas https://web.archive.org/web/20050722012350/https://www.curbed.com/archives/2005/07/20/las_vegas_east_village_they_nailed_it.php

#5yrsago Check whether Hacking Team demoed cyberweapons for your local cops https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2015/jul/23/hacking-team/

#5yrsago Self-aiming sniper rifle can be pwned over the Internet https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-can-disable-sniper-rifleor-change-target/

#5yrsago Phil Gramm: "exploited worker" AT&T; CEO "only" got $75m https://theintercept.com/2015/07/29/former-gop-sen-phil-gramm-outrage-att-ceo-got/

#1yrago Podcast: Adblocking: How About Nah? https://ia801000.us.archive.org/14/items/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_305/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_305_-_Adblocking_How_About_Nah.mp3

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Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources: Naked Capitalism (https://nakedcapitalism.com/), Four Short Links (https://www.oreilly.com/feed/four-short-links).

Currently writing:

• My next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and reconciliation. Yesterday's progress: 516 words (42863 total).

Currently reading: The Deficit Myth, Stephanie Kelton

Latest podcast: Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (part 11) https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/07/27/someone-comes-to-town-someone-leaves-town-part-11/

Upcoming appearances:

• Do Androids Dream of Electric Cars? Public Transit in the Age of Google, Uber, and Elon Musk, Aug 4, https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/public-transit-in-the-age-of-google-uber-and-elon-musk-tickets-114353753154

• Virtual event with Christopher Brown for his novel "Failed State," Aug 12, https://www.bookpeople.com/event/virtual-event-christopher-brown-failed-state

Latest book:

• "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

• "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1562/_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer.html.

Upcoming books:

• "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531

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