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(Cory Doctorow) Thank you very much

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So I'd like to start with something of a[br]benediction or permission.

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I am one of nature's fast talkers

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and many of you are not [br]native English speakers, or

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maybe not accustomed [br]to my harsh Canadian accent

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in addition I've just come in [br]from Australia

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and so like many of you I am horribly[br]jetlagged and have drunkenough coffee

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this morning to kill a rhino.

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When I used to be at the United Nations

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I was known as the scourge of the[br]simultaneous translation core

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I would stand up and speak [br]as slowly as I could

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and turn around, and there they[br]would be in their boots doing this

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(laughter)[br]When I start to speak too fast,

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this is the universal symbol --[br]my wife invented it --

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for "Cory, you are talking too fast".[br]Please, don't be shy.

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So, I'm a parent , like many of you [br]and I'm like I'm sure all of you

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who are parents, parenting takes my ass [br]all the time.

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And there are many regrets I have[br]about the mere seven and half years

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that I've been a parent [br]but none ares so keenly felt

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as my regrets over what's happened [br]when I've been wandering

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around the house and seen my[br]daughter working on something

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that was beyond her abilities, that was [br]right at the edge of what she could do

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and where she was doing something [br]that she didn't have competence in yet

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and you know it's that amazing thing [br]to see that frowning concentration,

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tongue stuck out: as a parent, your[br]heart swells with pride

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and you can't help but go over

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and sort of peer over their shoulder[br]what they are doing

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and those of you who are parents know [br]what happens when you look too closely

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at someone who is working [br]beyond the age of their competence.

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They go back to doing something[br]they're already good at.

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You interrupt a moment [br]of genuine learning

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and you replace it with [br]a kind of embarrassment

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about what you're good at [br]and what you're not.

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So, it matters a lot that our schools are[br]increasingly surveilled environments,

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environments in which everything that [br]our kids do is watched and recorded.

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Because when you do that, you interfere[br]with those moments of real learning.

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Our ability to do things that we are not [br]good at yet, that we are not proud of yet,

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is negatively impacted [br]by that kind of scrutiny.

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And that scrutiny comes [br]from a strange place.

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We have decided that there are [br]some programmatic means

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by which we can find all the web page[br]children shouldn't look at

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and we will filter our networks[br]to be sure that they don't see them.

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Anyone who has ever paid attention[br]knows that this doesn't work.

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There are more web pages [br]that kids shouldn't look at

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than can ever be cataloged, [br]and any attempt to catalog them

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will always catch pages that kids[br]must be looking at.

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Any of you who have ever taught [br]a unit on reproductive health

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know the frustration of trying [br]to get round a school network.

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Now, this is done in the name of[br]digital protection

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but it flies in the face of digital[br]literacy and of real learning.

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Because the only way to stop kids [br]from looking at web pages

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they shouldn't be looking at

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is to take all of the clicks that they [br]make, all of the messages that they send,

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all of their online activity [br]and offshore it to a firm

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that has some nonsensically arrived at[br]list of the bad pages.

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And so, what we are doing is that we're [br]exfiltrating all of our students' data

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to unknown third parties.

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Now, most of these firms, [br]their primary business is

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in serving the education sector.

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Most of them service [br]the government sector.

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The primarily service governments in[br]repressive autocratic regimes.

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They help them make sure that [br]their citizens aren't looking at

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Amnesty International web pages.

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They repackage those tools [br]and sell them to our educators.

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So we are offshoring our children's clicks[br]to war criminals.

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And what our kids do, we know,[br]is they just get around it,

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because it's not hard to get around it.

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You know, never underestimate the power[br]of a kid who is time-rich and cash-poor

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to get around our [br]technological blockades.

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But when they do this, they don't acquire[br]the kind of digital literacy

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that we want them to do, they don't [br]acquire real digital agency

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and moreover, they risk exclusion [br]and in extreme cases,

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they risk criminal prosecution.

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So what if instead, those of us who are[br]trapped in this system of teaching kids

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where we're required to subject them[br]to this kind of surveillance

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that flies in the face [br]of their real learning,

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what if instead, we invented [br]curricular units

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that made them real first class[br]digital citizens,

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in charge of trying to influence[br]real digital problems?

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Like what if we said to them: [br]"We want you to catalog the web pages

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that this vendor lets through [br]that you shouldn't be seeing.

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We want you to catalog those pages that [br]you should be seeing, that are blocked.

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We want you to go and interview [br]every teacher in the school

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about all those lesson plans that were[br]carefully laid out before lunch

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with a video and a web page, [br]and over lunch,

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the unaccountable distance center[br]blocked these critical resources

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and left them handing out photographed [br]worksheets in the afternoon

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instead of the unit they prepared.

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We want you to learn how to do the Freedom[br]of Information Act's requests

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and find out what your [br]school authority is spending

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to censor your internet access [br]and surveil your activity.

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We want you to learn to use the internet [br]to research these companies and

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we want you to present this [br]to your parent-teacher association,

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to your school authority,[br]to your local newspaper."

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Because that's the kind [br]of digital literacy

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that makes kids into first-class[br]digital citizens,

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that prepares them for a future [br]in which they can participate fully

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in a world that's changing.

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Kids are the beta-testers [br]of the surveillance state.

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The path of surveillance technology[br]starts with prisoners,

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moves to asylum seekers, [br]people in mental institutions

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and then to its first non-incarcerated [br]population: children

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and then moves to blue-collar workers,[br]government workers

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and white-collar workers.

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And so, what we do to kids today[br]is what we did to prisoners yesterday

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and what we're going to be doing [br]to you tomorrow.

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And so it matters, what we teach our kids.

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If you want to see where this goes, this[br]is a kid named Blake Robbins

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and he attended Lower Merion High School [br]in Lower Merion Pennsylvania

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outside f Philadelphia.

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It's the most affluent school district[br]in America, so affluent

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that all the kids were issued Macbooks[br]at the start of the year

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and they had to do their homework on[br]their Macbooks,

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they had to bring them to school every day[br]and bring them home every night.

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And the Macbooks had been fitted with[br]Laptop Theft Recovery Software,

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which is fancy word for a rootkit, that[br]let the school administration

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scovertly (check) operate the cameras[br]and microphones on these computers

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and harvest files off [br]of their hard drives

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view all their clicks, and so on.

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Now Blake Robbins found out [br]that the software existed

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and how it was being used [br]because he and the head teacher

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had been knocking heads for years, [br]since he first got into the school,

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and one day, the head teacher [br]summoned him to his office

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and said: "Blake, I've got you now."

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and handed him a print-out of Blake[br]in his bedroom the night before,

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taking what looked like a pill, [br]and said: "You're taking drugs."

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And Blake Robbins said: "That's a candy,[br]it's a Mike and Ike candy, I take them --

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I eat them when I'm studying.

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How did you get a picture [br]of me in my bedroom?"

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This head teacher had taken [br]over 6000 photos of Blake Robbins:

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awake and asleep, dressed and undressed,[br]in the presence of his family.

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And in the ensuing lawsuit, the school[br]settled for a large amount of money

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and promised that [br]they wouldn't do it again

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without informing the students [br]that it was going on.

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And increasingly, the practice is now

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that school administrations hand out [br]laptops, because they're getting cheaper,

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with exactly the same kind of software,

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but they let the students know and t[br]hey find that that works even better

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at curbing the students' behavior,

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because the students know that [br]they're always on camera.

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Now, the surveillance state is moving[br]from kids to the rest of the world.

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It's metastasizing.

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Our devices are increasingly designed[br]to treat us as attackers,

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as suspicious parties [br]who can't be trusted

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because our devices' job is to do things[br]that we don't want them to do.

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Now that's not because the vendors [br]who make our technology

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want to spy on us necessarily,

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but they want to take [br]the ink-jet printer business model

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and bring it into every other realm[br]of the world.

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So the ink-jet printer business model[br]is where you sell someone a device

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and then you get a continuing [br]revenue stream from that device

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by making sure that competitors can't make [br]consumables or parts

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or additional features [br]or plugins for that device,

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without paying rent [br]to the original manufacturer.

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And that allows you to maintain [br]monopoly margins on your devices.

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Now, in 1998, the American government [br]passed a law called

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the Digital Millennium Copyright Act,

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in 2001 the European Union [br]introduced its own version,

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the European Union Copyright Directive.

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And these two laws, along with laws[br]all around the world,

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in Australia, Canada and elsewhere.[br]These laws prohibit removing digital laws

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that are used to restrict [br]access to copyrighted works

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and they were original envisioned as a way[br]of making sure that Europeans didn't

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bring cheap DVDs in from America,

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or making sure that Australians didn't [br]mport cheap DVDs from China.

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And so you have a digital work, a DVD,[br]and it has a lock on it and to unlock it,

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you have to buy an authorized player

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and the player checks to make sure [br]you are in region

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and making your own player that doesn't make that check is illegal because you'd have to remove the digital lock 9:13