iSchool

Yesterday I attended the keynote speech at the Boundaries, Frontiers & Gatekeepers third annual University of Toronto iSchool student conference. The keynote speaker at the conference was best selling author, activist and blogger Cory Doctorow, whose presentation was titled A Little Bit Pregnant: Why it’s a Bad Idea to Regulate Computers the Way We Regulate Radios, Guns, Uranium and Other Special-Purpose Tools. In his keynote speech Cory addresses the issue of computer regulation in general and, more specifically, asks: What happens when we take the failed regulatory model from the copy-right realm and try to import it into other realms too? What are the consequences? Here are some key points from Doctorow’s speech: “Designing general purpose computers that sneak around their owners’ backs is a terrible idea. We’ve already seen what happens when you add just a little bit of [...]