CITP Blog is hosted by Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy, a research center that studies digital technologies in public life. Here you’ll find comment and analysis from the digital frontier, written by the Center’s faculty, students, and friends.
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Today’s Boston Globe reports, in an article by Hiawatha Bray, on comments made at a “town meeting” yesterday by Richard Clarke, the head of the White House’s Office of Cybersecurity:…
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Fritz's Hit List #19
Today on Fritz’s Hit List: audio greeting cards. Greeting cards of this type either play a prerecorded audio track, or record an audio track for later playback. Because the recorded…
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Seth Schoen Makes a Doubleplusgood Point
Following up on Arnold Kling’s observation about non-general-purpose languages, Seth Schoen reminds us that Orwell’s 1984 featured a language called “Newspeak,” in which it was supposedly impossible to express subversive…
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Kling: The Fallacy of the Almost-General-Purpose Language
In a previous posting, “The Fallacy of the Almost-General-Purpose Computer,” I asked readers for help in finding a way to explain to non-techies why non-general-purpose computers are so vastly inferior…
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Fritz's Hit List #18
Today on Fritz’s Hit List: the Kung Fu Fighting Hamster. This six-inch hamster doll dances, swings a tiny nunchuck, and sings “Kung Fu Fighting” in an annoying voice. Because it…
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Report from Agenda 2003
Dan Gillmor notes my posting on almost-general-purpose computers, and says Felten would have been rolling his eyes yesterday at the Agenda 2003 conference, where three members of the Hollywood establishment…
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Washington Post on Tech Regulation
Today’s Washington Post quotes Fred von Lohmann of the EFF as saying that putting Hollywood in charge of technological progress would be like “putting the dinosaurs in charge of evolution.”…
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Don't Blame "The Government"
Some people have interpreted my previous posting, “The Fallacy of the Almost-General-Purpose Computer” as saying that the U.S. government views general-purpose computers as a threat. That’s not quite what I…
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Fritz's Hit List #17
Today on Fritz’s Hit List: digital aircraft intercoms. These devices, which let the pilot or co-pilot of an aircraft speak to passengers, qualify for regulation as “digital media devices” under…
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The Fallacy of the Almost-General-Purpose Computer
I was at a conference in Washington, DC on Friday and Saturday. Participants included some people who are reasonably plugged in to the Washington political process. I was stunned to…