My latest Guardian column, “Beware the spyware model of technology – its flaws are built in,” is a look at some of the coming battles over the general-purpose PC and the general-purpose network, and how the copyright wars have shown us what’s at risk when we do regulation wrong. It’s adapted from my talk at last week’s University of Toronto iSchool conference:

The growing realm of 3D printing will generate all sorts of new problems in search of solutions. From sex toys (banned in some southern US states) to kits to modify semi-automatic guns and render them automatic, new groups of would-be network/device cops will crop up every day. The list of problematic 3D objects is practically endless: anatomically correct Barbie torsos that can fit the standard head and limbs; keys for high-security locks; patented gizmos; even objects held sacred by indigenous people.

Around the corner are the bio-printers that can output organisms, pharmaceutical compounds, and biological material. The potential for these devices is enormous, but so are the problems, from patent infringement to bioweapons (inadvertent and deliberate).

The thing is, we’ll be no more effective at building a bio-printer or a 3D printer or a software radio that can only execute certain programs than we were at building a PC that won’t copy a copyrighted song. The flexibility of the universal computer and the universal network is fundamental and non-negotiable. Building a computer that can run every program is infinitely simpler than building a computer that can run any program except for naughty ones. Building a network that can carry every packet is infinitely simpler than building a network that carries all traffic except for the traffic you wish it wouldn’t carry.

Beware the spyware model of technology – its flaws are built in

Tor.com’s Steven Raets has a great write up on WITH A LITTLE HELP:

As for the stories, I think it’s safe to say that anyone who enjoyed Cory Doctorow’s novels will love them. Like his novels Little Brother, Makers and For the Win, they often start with a recognizable core: a present-day technological or sociological concept that Doctorow then pushes just a bit further than you could imagine, but in a way that’s so realistic and commonsensical that you’ll be considering “when” rather than “if” reality will catch up. Several of the stories play with one of Doctorow’s recurring themes: the relationship between information technology and personal freedom, with a special focus on privacy in the digital age. They range from hilarious (“Constitutional Crisis”) to deeply touching (“Visit the Sins”), and when Doctorow really gets going on how diminished our privacy has become (e.g. in “Scroogled”), they’re purely terrifying.

In this Clarkesworld interview, conducted last year during my tour for For the Win, Jeremy Jones and I talk about the rigors of touring, the politics of labor, and the elusive Drama Hobbit.

Have there been any strange moments?

There’ve been a couple pretty weird ones. I’ve had two funny misunderstandings. A friend of mine was interviewing me for the Guardian over Skype at six in the morning in San Francisco. It was later in the day for her, obviously, and luckily she’s a good friend. I forgot the camera was on and answered the phone naked. I’d been up since five but I hadn’t gotten dressed yet.

The other funny bit was when a guy came to my signing in Austin and I said, “What would you like in your book,” and he said, “Drama Hobbit.” I said, “Drama Hobbit?” And he said, “Yeah,” so I drew him the most dramatic Hobbit I could. I’m not much of a drawer and I said, “There you go!” And he said, “No, no, draw Muhammad.” Well, nobody knows what he looks like…

My novel For the Win is the featured title this month at Readergirlz, a literacy site that does wonderful work. I’ll be answering questions there through the month.

My new Guardian column, “Ebooks: durability is a feature, not a bug,” is about HarperCollins’s decision to limit library checkouts of its ebooks to 26, whereupon the books self-destruct. I argue that it’s wrong to argue about whether print books last for more or less than 26 checkouts — the important thing to recognize is that the perishability of a print book is not a feature that we should seek to replicate in successive media.

Now, in point of fact, many ordinary trade books circulate far more than 26 times before they’re ready for the discard pile. If a group of untrained school kids working as part-time pages can keep a copy of the Toronto Star in readable shape for 30 days’ worth of several-times-per-day usage, then it’s certainly the case that the skilled gluepot ninjas working behind the counter at your local library can easily keep a book patched up and running around the course for a lot more than 26 circuits. Indeed, the HarperCollins editions of my own books are superb and robust examples of the bookbinder’s art (take note!), and judging from the comments of outraged librarians, it’s common for HarperCollins printed volumes to stay in circulation for a very long time indeed.

But this is the wrong thing to argue about. Whether a HarperCollins book has the circulatory vigour to cope with 26 checkouts or 200, it’s bizarre to argue that this finite durability is a feature that we should carefully import into new media. It would be like assuming the contractual obligation to attack the microfilm with nail-scissors every time someone looked up an old article, to simulate the damage that might have been done by our careless patrons to the newsprint that had once borne it.

Ebooks: durability is a feature, not a bug

(Image: Library Microfilm Reader & Printer, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from cushinglibrary’s photostream)