Cory Doctorow
craphound.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2007
Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author and digital rights activist whose site hosts his stories, novels and essays.
What HN saysCommenters recommend his short stories like Printcrime, Epoch and Scroogled, and note that many of his books are free under Creative Commons licenses.
303HN people shared it
267linked it in comments
48stories submitted
967story points
3 months agolast shared
2007people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Spam Solutions87 people · 4 points · first shared 2008 · discussion on HN
- 2Little Brother20 people · 86 points · first shared 2010 · 26 comments on HN
- 3When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth (2007)19 people · 116 points · first shared 2009 · 18 comments on HN
- 4Scroogled12 people · 3 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 5Cory Doctorow: Microsoft Research DRM talk (2004)11 people · 2 points · first shared 2008 · discussion on HN
- 6“Printcrime” by Cory Doctorow8 people · 136 points · first shared 2009 · 77 comments on HN
- 7Download7 people · first shared 2016
- 8Homepage6 people · first shared 2011
- 9All Complex Ecosystems Have Parasites (2005)5 people · 49 points · first shared 2009 · 6 comments on HN
- 10Cory Doctorow - Printcrime5 people · 2 points · first shared 2010 · discussion on HN
- 11Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom5 people · 1 points · first shared 2009 · discussion on HN
- 12Recap of Life Hacks (2004)5 people · 1 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 13Download “Rapture of the Nerds” (2012)5 people · 1 points · first shared 2012 · discussion on HN
- 14Download5 people · first shared 2009
- 15Download5 people · first shared 2012
What HN people wrote when they linked it
arethuza · 2011-08-21
The story "Epoch" by Cory Doctorow was commissioned by Mark Shuttleworth (the Ubuntu chap) and really is rather good - it is the story of the first "real" AI and the system administrator who gets the job of turning it off:
http://craphound.com/?p=2337
As with all of Cory's work - strongly recommended!
daeken · 2010-11-23
I think that the thing that bothers me most about this story is how plausible it all is. That said, it's one of my favorites of his (although none of the rest come close to Printcrime: http://craphound.com/?p=573 ).
dredmorbius · 2026-06-29
Many of his books are Creative Commons licenced, at least in digital form. E.g., Little Brother:
<https://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/>
You can see his other titles on Craphound: <https://craphound.com/>.
kragen · 2025-12-13
Probably worth reading Doctorow's "Scroogled": https://craphound.com/scroogled.html
Centralization of power in unaccountable organizations has always been a recipe for disaster.
I could suggest some slogans:
"Apple. Not even once."
"Friends don't let friends use Apple."
But I think this is a problem that merits more than slogans.
b1n · 2025-01-29
Cory Doctrow goes into the reasons behind the rise of playlists and the control it gives the platform over their users/artists. Worth a read.
https://craphound.com/category/internetcon/
hyperdimension · 2024-05-07
Not OP, but I believe it was Little Brother by Cory Doctorow: If I recall correctly, they used nodded Xboxes.
https://craphound.com/littlebrother/Cory_Doctorow_-_Little_Brother.htm
I read it a while ago, so I might be wrong, but it was a good read at any rate.
freedomben · 2024-03-13
If you haven't read it, I highly recommend Cory Doctorow's book "The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation." I originally had low expectations that anybody would have a reasonable answer, and mainly purchased it to support the author making it available DRM free, but have been very impressed with the analysis.
Relevant to this issue, Cory discusses how this (ab)use of copyright is what enables gigantic tech companies and walled gardens, because competing with them is not a technical problem, but rather a legal problem. He's right! (At least for now until the wet dreams of the DRM people are realized and there's hardware DRM baked into everything). If people could without fear of lawyers build stuff, big tech would have to compete on merits and user experience rather than wielding armies of IP lawyers and legal threats.
[1]: https://craphound.com/internetcon/
mark_l_watson · 2023-09-14
I love the idea of Tails. It is unfortunate that it only runs on Intel macOS.
I consider my personal setup to be pretty good, but not Tails grade privacy: 1. Avoid installing apps, use Safari with all possible privacy settings. 2. Run Lockdown mode iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. 3. Use duck duck go and ProtonMail. 4. Prefer to run in Safari private browsing tabs. 5. Become non-private when logging into Amazon to make a purchase, etc.
I would love it if people more knowledgeable than I could critique my setup, make suggestions. Thanks in advance.
I would like to mention Cory Doctorow’s excellent new book The Internet Con [1]. It carries on in the fine tradition of the books Surveillance Capitalism and Privacy is Power for the narrative that regular law abiding people also benefit from doubling down on privacy.
[1] https://craphound.com/internetcon/
Animats · 2023-07-30
> sibyl attacks?
This is exactly the same problem as spam detection - nobody has found a good way to prevent people from generating large numbers of fake identities, short of government identity registration. The classic "Why your solution to spam won't work"[1] checklist applies.
[1] https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt
lproven · 2023-03-04
> Plenty of abandoned taverns in inhabited cities in the modern world.
This is a key plot point of the excellent novel Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow. Highly recommended.
Free ebook download from the author's site, here:
https://craphound.com/pc/download/
egypturnash · 2022-11-17
Ticketmaster's a very vertical monopoly, if you go with anyone else then a ton of venues simply will not work with you. If you open a venue that works with anyone besides Ticketmaster then you won't be able to book any acts that do work with TM, which is "pretty much fucking everyone". There's a lot more to this, Doctorow and Giblin's recent book "Chokepoint Capitalism" has a couple of chapters that examine this whole setup in great detail.
https://craphound.com/chokepoint/2022/09/27/twitch-does-a-chokepoint-c…
Gordonjcp · 2022-10-31
You're wrong. Swap "spam" for "DDoS" in the following.
https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt
dTal · 2022-04-28
Ah yes, time to break out this old classic: https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Sending email should be free
throwaway81523 · 2022-04-03
The slashdot classic: https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt
tendencydriven · 2021-09-10
Reminds me a lot of "Unauthorized Bread"[0] by Cory Doctorow, worth a read (or listen).
[0] https://craphound.com/category/unauthorizedbread/
mollems · 2021-04-11
The bit about monetizing one’s influence / social “capital” reminds me of Cory Doctorow’s novel _Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom_ (which is a great read regardless).
https://craphound.com/down/Cory_Doctorow_-_Down_and_Out_in_the_Magic_K…
kazinator · 2021-03-05
Is that hosted somewhere, or did you make it up just for this comment?
It seems inspired by this classic:
https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt
NKosmatos · 2020-11-13
Well said, we’ve come to the point where if you want the latest silicon, a very good build quality and the most hyped technology, you’ll have to give away some of your privacy.
Extra points for mentioning Cory Doctorow, who is providing most of his (prophetic I dare say) books for free over at https://craphound.com (you can also buy them and support him ;-) )
donohoe · 2020-10-10
In reading this I'm reminded of the ad-hoc networks mentioned in one of Cory Doctorow's stories "Eastern Standard Tribe"; cars driving in proximity each other sharing music and allow neighboring cars to stream/copy.
I'd love more community based networks like this but I worry about the maliciousness factor.
Link to (free) book on author site: https://craphound.com/category/est/
smoyer · 2020-09-01
Reading this reminds me of a great Cory Doctorow / Charlie Stross book - "The Rapture of the Nerds" (https://craphound.com/category/rotn/)
lozenge · 2020-04-28
In this classic style? https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt
throw0101a · 2020-04-26
> wouldn't have reached anywhere near the level of fame (and thus sales)
Cory Doctorow in 2008:
> For me — for pretty much every writer — the big problem isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity (thanks to Tim O’Reilly for this great aphorism). Of all the people who failed to buy this book today, the majority did so because they never heard of it, not because someone gave them a free copy.
* https://craphound.com/littlebrother/about/
Now that he's more established and has a fan base it may be less applicable (just like Stephen King may not want to give away his stuff), but if anyone is starting out, getting readers is a challenge in the first place.
gdwatson · 2020-01-03
I’ve loved this list for a long time. It’s a play on the old spam solution checklist: https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt .
bch · 2019-06-27
> There are a lot of people who walk kind of like you. What's more, it's easy not to walk kind of like you -- just take one shoe off. Of course, you'll always walk like you-with-one-shoe-off in that case, so the cameras will eventually figure out that it's still you. Which is why I prefer to inject a little randomness into my attacks on gait-recognition: I put a handful of gravel into each shoe. Cheap and effective, and no two steps are the same. Plus you get a great reflexology foot massage in the process (I kid. Reflexology is about as scientifically useful as gait-recognition).
-Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow [0][1][2]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Brother_(Doctorow_novel)
[1] https://craphound.com/category/littlebrother/
[2] https://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/
sireat · 2019-04-03
That seems uncharacteristic of Doctorow.
He used(still does?) publish his books free of DRM and free to download under CC license.
https://craphound.com/overclocked/download/
It would be strange for an author of Printcrime (fantastic short read from 20 years ago) to support DRM.
cesarb · 2018-12-27
It's a classic template: https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt
The Last-Modified header says it's from early 2004.
sohkamyung · 2018-01-02
Not for stories on copyright. Spider Robinson's story is the only one that has stayed fresh in my mind.
If you are interested in general stuff on copyright, you might want to try Cory Doctorow's books [1] which talk about information and copyright or the articles he published on it at Boing Boing [2]
[1] http://craphound.com/
[2] https://boingboing.net/tag/copyright
lmkg · 2017-04-11
Made me think of the following Doctorow quote:
There are no airplanes, only computers that fly. There
are no cars, only computers we sit in. There are no
hearing aids, only computers we put in our ears. There
are no 3D printers, only computers that drive
peripherals. There are no radios, only computers with
fast ADCs and DACs and phased-array antennas.
http://craphound.com/news/2011/12/27/the-coming-war-on-general-purpose…
It's perhaps natural this extends from the computers to the companies that make them: There are no banks, only financial IT companies. There are no TV broadcasters, only media IT companies. Et cetera.
totalperspectiv · 2016-12-23
So it begins:
http://craphound.com/scroogled.html
This is an incredibly worth while read by Cory Doctrow that has only gotten more pertinent.
TeMPOraL · 2016-01-01
Have you read other articles by him, or seen his talk? Like this one I personally consider very insightful and important: http://boingboing.net/2012/08/23/civilwar.html.
But since you insist - he has a honorary doctorate in computer science from one of the top UK universities[0]. He also co-founded a software company[1]. I think it's enough credentials to give him right to be a tech advocate, with the fact that he's also a journalist backing up the "advocate" part.
[0] - http://craphound.com/bio/
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opencola_%28company%29