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0	7820	Our last talk for today will be You Are Not a Digital Native and That's Okay by Cory Doctorow.
10690	15290	Thank you very much. Hi, I'm Cory Doctorow. I write science fiction novels for young people
15290	20250	and I work for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It's a pleasure to be back here at DEF CON Kids
20250	25730	at Roots. And the talk today is called You Are Not a Digital Native. So you may have heard people
25730	30010	come up to you and say like, hey, you're young, that makes you a digital native. Something about
30010	36190	being born after the millennium or born after 1995 or whatever, that makes you sort of mystically
36190	41630	tuned in to what the internet is for. And anything that you do on the internet must be what the
41630	46770	internet is actually for. And I'm here to tell you that you're not a digital native, that you're just
46770	52110	someone who uses computers and you're no better and no worse than the rest of us at using computers.
52110	56230	You make some good decisions and you make some bad decisions. But there's one respect in which
56230	61110	your use of computers is different from everyone else's. And it's that you are going to have to
61110	65210	put up with the consequences of those use of computers for a lot longer than the rest of us
65210	71310	because we'll all be dead. So there's an amazing researcher named Dana Boyd. She studies how young
71310	76190	people use the internet and computer networks. She's been doing it for about 20 years. She was
76190	81650	the first anthropologist to work with a big tech company. She worked at Intel, at Google,
81650	86810	at a company called Friendster that's no longer extant. She worked at Facebook. She worked at
86810	91990	Twitter. And one of the things that she sees over and over again is that young people care a whole
91990	97210	lot about their privacy. They just don't know who they should be private from. They spend a lot of
97210	102570	time worried about being private from other kids they go to school with, from their teachers,
102570	106610	from their principals. But they don't spend a lot of time wondering about how private they need to
106610	111330	be from the government in 20 years looking backwards to figure out who their friends are
111330	114510	and what they were doing when they were in school and whether or not they're the wrong kind of
114510	118430	person. They don't spend a lot of time worrying about what a future employer might find out about
118430	121950	them. But they spend a lot of time worrying about what other people might find out about them. And
121950	127210	they go to enormous lengths to protect their privacy. So Dana, she documents kids who are
127210	132210	hardcore Facebook users. And what they do is every time they get up from Facebook, every time they
132210	137970	leave their computer, they resign from Facebook. And Facebook lets you resign and then keeps your
137970	143310	account open in the background for up to six weeks in case you change your mind. And if you come back
143310	147130	and you reactivate your account, you get all your friends back, you get all your posts back,
147130	151070	and everyone can see you again. But while you're resigned, no one can see you on Facebook,
151070	154930	no one can comment on you, and no one can read your stuff. So this is a way of them
155370	159630	controlling their data. And that's what privacy is. Privacy isn't about no one ever knowing your
159630	164950	business. Privacy is about you deciding who gets to know your business. And so young people really
164950	171730	do care about their privacy, but sometimes they make bad choices. Now that matters because privacy
171730	177130	is a really big part of how we progress as a society. You know, there are people alive today
177130	182430	who can remember when things that today are considered very good and important were at one
182430	186430	point considered illegal and even something you could go to jail for, right? So one of the great
186430	190930	heroes of computer science, a guy named Alan Turing, the guy who invented modern cryptography
190930	197050	and helped invent the modern computer, he went to jail and then was given a kind of bioweapon,
197050	201410	hormone injections, until he killed himself because he was gay, right? So that was in
201410	205390	living memory. There are people alive today who remember when that happened to Alan Turing.
205490	209250	Today, if you're gay, you can be in the armed forces, you can get married, you can run for
209250	214310	office, you can serve all over the world. The way that we got from it was illegal to be gay,
214310	218070	and even if you were a war hero, they would hound you to death if you were gay,
218070	223630	it's totally cool to be gay and you can marry the people you love, is by people having privacy.
223850	228190	And that privacy allowed them to choose the time and manner in which they talked to the people
228190	233130	around them about being gay. They could say, you know, I think that you and I are ready to
233130	237570	have this conversation. And when they had that conversation, they could enlist people to their
237570	243250	side. And one conversation at a time, they made this progress that allowed our society to come
243250	249330	forward. So unless you think that like now in 2017, we've solved all of our social problems,
249330	255090	and we're not going to have to make any changes after this, then you have to think that like,
255090	261010	at some point in your life, people that you love are going to come forward and say to you,
261010	264730	there's a secret that I've kept from you, something really important to me.
264730	269470	And I want you to help me make that not a secret anymore. I want you to help me change the world
269470	275130	so that I can be my true self. And without a private realm in which that conversation can
275130	281790	take place, those people will never be able to see the progress that they need. And that means
281790	285830	that people that you love, people that are important to you, those people will go to their
285830	290470	graves with a secret in their heart that caused them great sorrow because they could never talk
290470	296490	to you about it. So we talk about whether or not kids are capable of making good decisions
296490	301910	or bad decisions, whether effectively kids are dumb or smart. And I think the right way to think
301910	307030	about this is not whether kids are dumb or smart, but what kids know and what they don't know.
307030	312510	Because kids can be super duper smart. Kids can be amazing reasoners, but kids don't have a lot
312510	317350	of context. They haven't been around long enough to learn a bunch of the stuff that goes on in the
317350	322850	world and use that as fuel for their reasoning. That's why you hear about children who are
322850	327950	amazing chess players or physicists or mathematicians, because the rules that you
327950	332710	need to know to be an amazing chess player, you can absorb in an hour. And then if you have a
332710	337810	first-rate intellect, you can take those rules and turn them into amazing accomplishments.
337810	344110	But you've never heard of a kid who is a prodigy at history or law, because it just takes years
344110	350090	and years to read the books you need to know to become that kind of amazing historian or legal
350090	356210	scholar. And so when kids make choices about privacy, it's not that they don't value their
356210	361930	privacy. It's that they lack the context to make the right choices about privacy sometime.
361950	367130	And over time, they get that context and they apply their reasoning, and then they become better
367130	372590	and better at privacy. But there's something that works against that privacy, against our ability
372590	378970	to learn the context of privacy. The first is that our private decisions are separated by a lot of
378970	384830	time and space from their consequences. So imagine trying to get better at kicking a football or
384830	390070	hitting a baseball, and every time someone throws the ball, you swing the bat. But before you see
390070	394770	where the ball goes, you close your eyes and you go home. And a year later, someone tells you whether
394770	399530	or not the ball connected with the bat and where it went. You would never become a better batter,
399530	405410	because the feedback loop is broken. Well, when you make a privacy disclosure, it might be months
405410	411130	or years or decades before that privacy disclosure comes back to bite you in the butt.
411130	416110	And by that time, it's too late to learn lessons from it. And if that wasn't bad enough, there are
416190	420710	a whole lot of people who wish that you wouldn't have privacy intuition, who hope that you won't
420710	425570	be good at making good privacy choices. And those people often are the ones who are talking about
425570	430690	digital natives, who want you to believe that whatever dumb privacy choice you made last week,
430690	434350	you made because you have the mystical knowledge of how the internet should be used,
434350	439490	and not because you made a dumb mistake. And those people, they tend to say things like,
439490	444110	privacy is not a norm in the 21st century. If you look around, you'll see that young people
444110	449030	don't really care about their privacy. What they actually mean is, I would be a lot richer
449030	454270	if you didn't care about your privacy. My surveillance platform would be a lot more
454270	460930	effective if you didn't take any countermeasures to protect your data. So it's really hard to get
460930	466190	good at privacy, partly because it's intrinsically hard, and partly because we have a lot of people
466190	472990	who use self-serving BS to try and confuse you about whether or not privacy is good or bad.
473250	479890	Ultimately, privacy is a team sport. Even if you take on board lots of good privacy choices,
479890	486390	even if you use private messengers, even if you use private email tools like GPG and PGP,
486390	490650	even if you use full-disk encryption, the people that you communicate with,
490650	496530	unless they're also using good privacy tools, all of the data that you share with them,
496530	500090	it's just hanging around out there with no encryption and no protection.
500210	504290	And so you have to bring those people on board. And that's where the fact that young people do
504290	508710	care about privacy, even if they don't know exactly who they need to be private from,
508710	515730	that's where this comes in. Because young people's natural desire to have a space in which they can
515730	520750	conduct their round without their parents, without their teachers, without fellow kids
520750	526030	looking in on them, that's an opportunity for you to enlist them into being more private,
526030	530290	into having better control over who can see their data. So I'm going to leave you with
530430	535290	a recommendation for where to look for those tools. Electronic Frontier Foundation, for whom
535290	543130	I work, we have a thing called the Surveillance Self-Defense Kit, ssd.eff.org. And it's broken up
543130	548330	into playlists, depending on what you're worried about. Say you're a journalist in a war zone,
548330	553210	or maybe you're a kid in a high school, we've got different versions of the Self-Defense Kit for you.
553210	557270	It's in 11 languages, so you can get your friends. If you come from another country,
557270	560810	you can get friends in other countries to come along with you. And that way,
560810	567830	you can all play the privacy team sport, and you can use your youthful curiosity to become
567830	572390	better consumers of privacy and better practitioners of privacy. And then the
572390	576690	internet that you inherit, that will be long dead and you'll still be living with,
576690	580810	that internet will be a better internet for you. Thank you very much.
592260	597560	Oh hey, so I just found out we've got free t-shirts from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
597560	601860	They're these awesome designs, they have all the best things from the internet. There's a cat,
601860	607660	there's books, and there's CCTV cameras, which are all the things the internet has. If anyone
607660	612760	has a question, the thing I will redeem the question for in addition to an answer is a t-shirt.
612780	619260	So anyone got a question? Yes, go. Oh, they're smalls, but you may have a friend who could
619260	635660	wear it. Or you could wear it as a hat. Go. Oh, how legal is it to decrypt Bluetooth packets?
635720	640280	Well, you know, Roots has this amazing code of ethics that you can see over here that's about
640280	645280	what you should and shouldn't do. And one of those things is you should be messing with your own data,
645280	650740	but not other people's data. If you're messing with your own data, if you're looking at a tool
650740	655280	that you own, like a Bluetooth card that you own and analyzing it, then in general, it's pretty
655280	659560	legal. But let me tell you, there are a couple of ways in which this can get you into trouble.
659700	663660	And the reason I'm mentioning is not to scare you, but to let you know that EFF has your back.
663660	670840	So there's a law called the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the CFAA of 1986. And under CFAA,
671360	675000	let me tell you the story of how CFAA came to exist. Do you ever see a movie called War
675000	679400	Games with Matthew Broderick? So after War Games came out, people went like,
679400	684040	my God, teenagers are going to start World War III. Congress has to do something. So Congress
684040	688560	passed this unbelievably stupid law called the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in 1986.
688660	693580	And what they said is, if you use a computer in a way that you don't have authorization for,
693580	699000	it's a felony and we can put you in jail. And so that has now been interpreted to say,
699000	705680	if you violate terms of service, which is the authorization you have to use some website,
705680	710120	you are exceeding your authorization. Well, like every one of us violates terms
710120	713740	of service all day long. If you've ever read terms of service, what they say is,
713740	719020	by being dumb enough to be my customer, you agree that I'm allowed to come over to your house and
719020	722420	punch your grandmother, wear your underwear, make long distance calls and eat all the food
722420	729060	in your fridge. And every one of us violates those rules all day long. And when prosecutors
729060	734280	decide they don't like you, they can invoke the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Now we have defended
734280	738640	many clients who've been prosecuted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and we will continue
738640	744360	to do so. We're agitating for a law called Aaron's Law. It's named after a kid named Aaron Swartz,
744360	750640	who was a good friend of ours. He was one of the founders of Reddit. He's an amazing kid.
750840	758040	Helped invent RSS when he was 12 years old. And in 2013, after being charged with 13 felonies
758040	763000	and facing a 35-year prison sentence for violating the terms of service on MIT's network
763000	768480	and downloading academic articles, he killed himself. And so we've been fighting in his name
768480	773520	to try and reform this law ever since. We're also involved in fighting to reform a law called the
773520	779980	Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA. And the DMCA has this section called Section 1201,
779980	785200	and it says that if there's a system that protects a copyrighted work, that tampering with that
785200	791100	system is also a felony that can put you in jail for five years and see you with a $500,000 fine
791100	796260	for first offense. And one year and two weeks ago, we filed a lawsuit against the US government
796260	801480	to get rid of that law too, because it's being used to stop people from repairing their own cars,
801480	806160	figuring out how their computers work, jailbreaking their phones, doing all kinds of normal things
806160	811200	that you would expect to be able to do with your property. Now, in general, what you do with your
811200	815540	Bluetooth device, that's your own business. But laws like the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and
815540	819400	the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, they get in the way of that. And that's one of the reasons
819400	825220	EFF is so involved in trying to kill them. Thanks for your question. Here, take some textiles.
825720	828900	Yeah, go ahead. And here, I'm going to come down so I can hear you.
836500	843740	So the question was, what's my favorite science fiction question to write about? And so I'm one
843740	848240	of a small but growing number of science fiction writers who write what I call techno-realism.
848240	853700	So usually in science fiction for like 50 years, maybe even longer, whenever a science fiction
853700	857920	writer wanted to do something in the plot, they'd just stick a computer in and say,
857920	862300	oh, computers are able to do this thing or computers aren't able to do this thing to
862300	866760	make the plot go forward without any actual reference to what computers could do.
867120	871460	And, you know, I think that like 60 years ago when computers were the size of buildings
871460	879300	and like 11 people in the world had ever used one, that was like an easier kind of magic trick
879300	884140	to play without anyone figuring out where you hid the card. But today, I think a lot of people
884140	890440	know how computers work. And so I like to write stories in which the actual capabilities and
890440	896320	constraints of computers are the things that the computers turn on. And so, you know, we've got,
896320	901920	like, I've got books like Little Brother that are 10 years old that people still read as
901920	907800	contemporary futuristic science fiction, even though I wrote it 12 years ago, right? And that's
907800	913200	because the things that computers can and can't do, theoretically, those aren't going to change.
913200	918400	Maybe like how we use them will change, but the underlying computer science theory is pretty sound.
918440	927270	And so that's how I like to work in my science fiction. All right, one over here. Yes.
935810	940730	So the question was, how do you know when it's safe to share your information, when it's a good
940730	945910	idea? Well, you know, that's really hard. Like, I make bad decisions about that all the time.
945910	951890	Like, many times I've gone and made a choice to, like, give some data to a website or whatever,
951890	956850	and then I find out that, like, that website, like Yahoo, right? Yahoo was compromised for
956850	963770	five years before they told anyone that they leaked everyone's data, right? And so it's really
963770	971990	hard to know for sure when to do that. I think that, like, some of it is just trying to remember
971990	978130	what you thought might happen when you made a disclosure, and then comparing it to what
978130	985650	happened. And some of it, I think, though, is that we need companies to be more careful with
985650	991010	our data. And one of the ways to do that is to hold them to account when they make bad choices.
991010	998010	So right now, like, a company that breaches all your data, generally they don't owe you any money.
998010	1003390	Home Depot breached 80 million customers' credit card records, and they had to give each of them
1003390	1009170	about 33 cents and a six-month gift certificate for credit monitoring services. So, like,
1009170	1014450	if those companies actually had to pay what it would cost their customers over that breach,
1014450	1018290	then I think those companies would be a lot more careful with their data.
1018290	1022770	So some of it is us getting better at making the choice, but some of it is the companies
1022770	1029550	having to pay the cost for being part of that stupid choice, right? Thank you for your
1029550	1034630	excellent question. All right. We've got two more t-shirts. Yeah.
1046740	1053180	So the question was, how can other people get involved in fighting all these fights? So if
1053180	1059480	you're on a university campus, Electronic Frontier Foundation has this network of campus organizations.
1059480	1064220	If you email info at EFF.org and say that you'd like to get your campus involved,
1064220	1069860	that's a thing you can do. Joining EFF's mailing list is really useful. We will send you
1070540	1075720	targeted notices when, like, your lawmaker needs a phone call from their voters saying,
1075720	1081120	get out there and make a good vote. Obviously, like, you know, writing EFF a check is a nice
1081120	1085080	thing to do. You know, we're a member-supported nonprofit. We get our money mostly from small
1085080	1091220	money donors like you. Making good privacy choices yourself and then helping other people
1091220	1096120	around you make those choices. Having this conversation, you know, like, people say,
1096120	1101120	like, oh, my mom will never figure out how to use this stuff. And, you know, like, first of all,
1101120	1107360	it gives moms a super bad rap because, like, people design technology for the convenience
1107360	1112980	of, like, bosses. Like, if a technology can't be used easily by, like, someone's boss,
1112980	1118080	that person gets in trouble. If a technology can't be used easily by someone's mom, they're like,
1118080	1123680	oh, my mom's dumb, right? And so, like, moms have to work, like, 100 times harder than bosses.
1123840	1129940	And so, they're like ninjas compared to bosses. So, like, bosses suck at using technology,
1129940	1135300	not moms. But there are people in your life, the kind of people who might come to DEF CON,
1135300	1139780	who haven't really thought this stuff through, if you had this conversation with two people
1139780	1145260	in the next month, you would triple the number of people in your circle who care about this stuff.
1145360	1153020	Right? Thank you. Have a t-shirt. All right. Who's got the last question? It has to be really
1153020	1168840	good, but no pressure. Yeah, hang on. So, the question was, he just got here,
1168840	1174440	can I repeat the entire speech all over again? I can, but it's just the hash of the speech.
1174440	1184160	So, it's really short. It's like 0-E-X-1-1-7-9-7-3-7-9-8-7-7-7. So, you can just compare
1184160	1195560	that to the recording, make sure that hasn't been tampered with. All right. So, the question was,
1195560	1199980	are any of my stories going to be made into movies? I've had a ton of stuff optioned. I've
1199980	1204020	got a thing under option at Paramount right now, Little Brother. There's a Bollywood studio that
1204020	1208160	has an option on my book, For the Win. But most stuff that gets optioned doesn't get made. It's
1208160	1213640	that's like a pull process, not a push process. The author doesn't get to show up and say,
1213640	1216700	now you make my movie. It's more like someone comes along and says,
1216700	1219840	maybe we'll make your movie. And you're like, okay, give me some money. And then you wait.
1219960	1226900	So, I'm just waiting. Thank you. All right. Thank you all very much. Have a great Roots.