Podcast appearances and mentions of finn brunton

The vast majority of all email sent every day is spam, a variety of idiosyncratically spelled requests to provide account information, invitations to spend money on dubious products, and pleas to send cash overseas. Most of it is caught by filters before ever reaching an in-box. Where does it come from? As Finn Brunton explains in Spam, it is produced and shaped by many different populations around the world: programmers, con artists, bots and their botmasters, pharmaceutical merchants, marketers, identity thieves, crooked bankers and their victims, cops, lawyers, network security professionals, vigilantes, and hackers. Every time we go online, we participate in the system of spam, with choices, refusals, and purchases the consequences of which we may not understand. This is a book about what spam is, how it works, and what it means. Brunton provides a cultural history that stretches from pranks on early computer networks to the construction of a global criminal infrastructure. The history of spam, Brunton shows us, is a shadow history of the Internet itself, with spam emerging as the mirror image of the online communities it targets. Brunton traces spam through three epochs: the 1970s to 1995, and the early, noncommercial computer networks that became the Internet; 1995 to 2003, with the dot-com boom, the rise of spam's entrepreneurs, and the first efforts at regulating spam; and 2003 to the present, with the war of algorithms—spam versus anti-spam. Spam shows us how technologies, from email to search engines, are transformed by unintended consequences and adaptations, and how online communities develop and invent governance for themselves. Finn Brunton is Assistant Professor of Information in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/technology

If you start to dig into the origin story of cryptocurrency, don't be surprised if you find the ideas and values of the American Libertarian movement all over it. Finn Brunton teaches science and technology studies at UC Davis and is fascinated by the historical narratives and subcultures behind modern technology. His books include Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency and Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet (Infrastructures). Finn and Greg discuss how spammers and scammers were actually some of the earliest adopters of cryptocurrency, the American Libertarian roots in the movement, and the dark future cryptocurrency pioneers worried about.  *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:Cryptographic algorithms as a weapons of war39:50: Cryptographic algorithms were classified as munitions, as weapons of war. Like you needed a foreign export license for them in the same way you would if you were selling tanks or something. So, as people were figuring out these sort of cryptographic primitives and fundamental algorithms and things like that, they started doing stuff like getting them printed on t-shirts because then you could be like, if I wear this t-shirt on an overseas flight, I am doing the equivalent of selling crates of AK-47s. And most famously, people got this extremely laconic version of this algorithm in a programming language called “perl” tattooed on themselves. And then you could say, my body is classified as a deadly weapon. You know, it's like this military device. So that tension, I think, is a really good tension for us to bear in mind as we look at how cryptocurrencies developed because part of their heritage was this awareness that strong civilian cryptography was seen as posing a genuine threat to the safety and security of the state.American libertarianism as an ideological strain of the history of cryptocurrency09:08: All of these different agendas for what technology should do represent different threads in libertarian, ideological ideas about what money should be and how society should operate. So that's part of what makes it so fascinating—that it's this new technology.What crypto as a whole shows10:01: To get certain kinds of technologies off the ground ,you can't just build the tech. You have to tell people about the future in which the tech is going to do something of value for them. And that kind of storytelling that media work is for me, where the rubber meets the road of these new technological ideas. And I saw both of them in crypto.On the value of science and technology studies01:01:05: What STS (Science and Technology Studies) provided was a space where all of these different areas, which are all adjacent, could have like a common center in the Venn diagram to meet up and hang out there, and part of what I love is that it gives you a passport to go and meet and learn from really interesting people in all kinds of different zones.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Gadsden FlagBitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System by Satoshi NakamotoThe Handmaid's Tale by Margaret AtwoodThis Machine Kills Secrets: How WikiLeakers, Cypherpunks, and Hacktivists Aim to Free the World's Information by Andy GreenbergEnigma MachineExtropianismGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at UC DavisHis Work:Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet (Infrastructures)Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency is supposedly the basis of trustless economy, but in the past few years there were a lot of everyday people who entrusted it with everything. How did this happen? In this episode of our miniseries on trust, we talk to Finn Brunton about the deep history of crypto and Molly White about how the… Continue reading 72 Why Would People Trust Crypto? with Finn Brunton and Molly White (Trust episode 2)

Spam Spam Spam, glorious Spam! Who invented Spam Emails? Just how much Spam activity is there online? And how will we survive once Spam AI gets going?Spam has been the nemesis of the internet since its earliest days. And soon AI-powered spambots will force us to radically change our online behaviour if we don't want to be perpetually duped.Taking us on a tour of the murky world of spammers is Finn Brunton, Professor at UC Davis in Science and Technology Studies and author of the book Spam: a Shadow History of the Internet.For more History Hit content, subscribe to our newsletters here. Produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you feel confused and left behind by cryptocurrency then this is for you. We're taking you on a journey through the strange history of cryptocurrency. Why and how does it exist?It turns out this history isn't so much about clever codes as good old-fashioned politics.Our guide is Finn Brunton, author of Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency.Get ready for a rip-roaring tale of Bletchley Park codebreakers, the wild west early days of the internet, dystopian visions of the future, and a man with a fortune buried somewhere in a rubbish dump in Wales.The episode was produced by Freddy Chick.The editor was Thomas Ntinas.The senior producer is Charlotte LongFor more History Hit content, subscribe to our newsletters here.If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts, and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today!You've been listening to a History Hit podcast. Please take a couple of minutes to fill out this survey with your feedback, we'd really appreciate it. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency by Finn Brunton Finnb.net The post Chris Voss Podcast – Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency by Finn Brunton appeared first on Chris Voss Official Website.

Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency by Finn Brunton Finnb.net

Aaron van Wirdum is the technical editor at Bitcoin Magazine. Finn Brunton is the author of “Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency.” In this episode, they tackle the history of digital currency. Topics include: the motivations behind the earliest attempts to create digital currencies, and who was behind those attempts the Extropian philosophy and how digital currency was born out of it how the cypherpunks came together and eventually began implementing tools that would lead to the creation of digital currencies the problems faced during the development of digital money, from double-spending to privacy, centralization, and spam the development of a public key protocol and why it was so significant the characteristics of earlier forms of digital currency like e-cash, hashcash, b-money, and bit gold, as well as their differences the original purpose of proof-of-work and how it was developed Hal Finney's essential contributions to the creation of earlier digital currencies, and later, Bitcoin previous implementations of blockchain and how Bitcoin came to reinvent and utilize it which previous digital currencies come closest to Bitcoin and who they think Satoshi Nakamoto is …    Thank you to our sponsors!  Crypto.com: https://crypto.com   Episode links:  Aaron Van Wirdum: https://twitter.com/AaronvanW Finn Brunton: http://finnb.net   Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691179490/digital-cash   Aaron's Bitcoin magazine series on the early days of digital currency: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-how-david-chaums-ecash-spawned-cypherpunk-dream https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-hashcash-or-how-adam-back-designed-bitcoins-motor-block https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-if-bitcoin-had-first-draft-wei-dais-b-money-was-it https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-bit-gold-szabo-was-inches-away-inventing-bitcoin   Aaron on What Bitcoin Did discussing the stories: https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/the-beginners-guide-to-bitcoin-part-3-bitcoins-pre-history-and-the-cypherpunks-with-aaron-van-wirdum  Breaker Mag Interview with Finn Brunton about his book: https://breakermag.com/new-book-reveals-cryptos-radical-origins/

Aaron van Wirdum is the technical editor at Bitcoin Magazine. Finn Brunton is the author of “Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency.” In this episode, they tackle the history of digital currency. Topics include: the motivations behind the earliest attempts to create digital currencies, and who was behind those attempts the Extropian philosophy and how digital currency was born out of it how the cypherpunks came together and eventually began implementing tools that would lead to the creation of digital currencies the problems faced during the development of digital money, from double-spending to privacy, centralization, and spam the development of a public key protocol and why it was so significant the characteristics of earlier forms of digital currency like e-cash, hashcash, b-money, and bit gold, as well as their differences the original purpose of proof-of-work and how it was developed Hal Finney’s essential contributions to the creation of earlier digital currencies, and later, Bitcoin previous implementations of blockchain and how Bitcoin came to reinvent and utilize it which previous digital currencies come closest to Bitcoin and who they think Satoshi Nakamoto is …    Thank you to our sponsors!  Crypto.com: https://crypto.com   Episode links:  Aaron Van Wirdum: https://twitter.com/AaronvanW Finn Brunton: http://finnb.net   Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691179490/digital-cash   Aaron's Bitcoin magazine series on the early days of digital currency: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-how-david-chaums-ecash-spawned-cypherpunk-dream https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-hashcash-or-how-adam-back-designed-bitcoins-motor-block https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-if-bitcoin-had-first-draft-wei-dais-b-money-was-it https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-bit-gold-szabo-was-inches-away-inventing-bitcoin   Aaron on What Bitcoin Did discussing the stories: https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/the-beginners-guide-to-bitcoin-part-3-bitcoins-pre-history-and-the-cypherpunks-with-aaron-van-wirdum  Breaker Mag Interview with Finn Brunton about his book: https://breakermag.com/new-book-reveals-cryptos-radical-origins/

I can't really remember the last time I withdrew money from an ATM. Can you? This episode, we're talking banks. What are banks? What is money? And is cryptocurrency about to disrupt the whole institution? We're joined by Charles Wheelan, author of Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science and Finn Brunton, author of Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency. 

Finn Brunton is an assistant professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. He is the author of “Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet”, coauthor (with Helen Nissenbaum) of "Obfuscation: A User’s Guide for Privacy and Protest, and his most recent book Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Technologists, and Utopians Who Created Cryptocurrency . It was awesome to sit down with him and chat about future technologies and its potential implications on our lives. He's also one of the best educators I have ever had. Hope you guys/gals/thals :) enjoy it

JFK talks with Finn Brunton Associate Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University on his latest book Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Technologists, and Utopians Who Created Cryptocurrency (Princeton, 2019) Finn Brunton is also the author of Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet (MIT Press, 2013), Obfuscation: A User’s Guide for Privacy and Protest with Helen Nissenbaum (MIT Press, 2015), Communication with Mercedes Bunz and Paula Bialski (University of Minnesota Press/Meson, 2019), and Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Technologists, and Utopians Who Created Cryptocurrency (Princeton University Press, 2019) along with numerous articles and papers.

This is part one of a two-part interview with Finn Brunton (https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/people/finn-brunton) , author of 'Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency' (https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Cash-Anarchists-Technologists-Cryptocurrency-ebook/dp/B07MDHTPB9) . In this part we dig into the secret pre-history of Bitcoin, including the World War 2 origins of public/private key cryptography, how Proof Of Work was initially proposed as a means to fight spam,  and how the 'Extropian' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extropianism) movement - which, Finn explains, stood for 'more life, more energy, more time, more space, more money... more everything! - collected an uncanny number of the early engineers contributing to what would eventually become Bitcoin. If there's one key takeaway from this episode, it's that there's no one Satoshi Nakamoto (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto) -- Bitcoin's a bricolage of math, technology and ingenuity stretching back at least seventy years. Do any of the Extropians who had themselves cryogenically preserved, we wonder, have bitcoin wallets still till accruing value -- and will they still be able to recall their word seeds when they're brought back to life in a hundred years' time?

Kathy Bostjancic, chief US financial economist, for Oxford Economics USA, said 'It's an unusual and tenuous time for all central banks,' as they look to cut interest rates at a time when there is not much room for cutting and there is still economic growth. Bostjancic expects the Federal Reserve to cut rates three times by January, and still sees plenty of strength in the economy, which she believes is likely to overcome current challenges to stay strong. Also on the show, Tom Lydon of ETFTrends.com talks about a new, specialized real estate ETF in the 'ETF of the Week,' William Delwiche -- investment strategist at Baird -- talks technical analysis, and author Finn Brunton discusses the 'unknown history' of the last century that has led to the evolution in cryptocurrencies. Don't miss his explanation of how some of the most powerful figures in the crypto revolution now leave cryptocurrencies with links to frozen heads!

Bitcoin has been around for roughly a decade now, but people have been working on the dream of an anonymous, digital currency for a lot longer than that. On this week's Odd Lots, we speak with NYU professor Finn Brunton, who is the author of the new book "Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency." Brunton talked to us Bitcoin's pre-history, and about how and why there was a major crossover between digital currency believers and people who want to freeze their bodies in order to live forever.

If you’ve ever wondered just what Bitcoin is and why you should care about it then Finn Brunton’s new book, Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, And Technologists Who Built Cryptocurrency, is essential reading for the modern citizen. Gregory Dobbs talks to Finn about the genius and the madness behind the development of cryptocurrency.

If you've ever wondered just what Bitcoin is and why you should care about it then Finn Brunton's new book, Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, And Technologists Who Built Cryptocurrency, is essential reading for the modern citizen. Gregory Dobbs talks to Finn about the genius and the madness behind the development of cryptocurrency.

Hi again! On this episode, Cathi Bond talks about Satori, a new bit of malware that, like Mirai before it, can take control of internet- connected household devices and routers and harness them for botnets (via Technology Review). Nora Young mentions this Spark interview with Finn Brunton on the black market for botnets. Meanwhile, Nora talks about this report on how fashion is starting to use the data analytics power of AI in design. The idea is that designers can query things like, for example, "what's emerging as the hot new colour palette?"

This episode is a little different than other episodes. As many of you know, Flash Forward is my second job. My first job is at ESPN, where I recently helped launch an audio documentary series called 30 for 30 Podcasts. Please go check that out, even if you don’t like sports I promise there’s something for you. My episodes are numbers three and four in the series, and they’re both out, and if you like the weird stuff I do on this show I think you’ll probably enjoy them.    Trying to make two highly produced shows at once is hard though! So for my mental health, this month’s Flash Forward is a bit of a remix. The top of the show is new, it’s an interview with Kit Walsh, who is a staff attorney at Electronic Frontier Foundation where she works on free speech, net neutrality, copyright, coders' rights, and other issues that relate to freedom of expression and access to knowledge. Then, you’ll hear a remixed version of an old episode about the future of the internet, and what it would take for us to abandon the world wide web.    More information about net neutrality:    Net neutrality explained: "Imagine internet is pizza ..."  Throttling on Mobile Networks Is a Sign of Things to Come, Unless We Save Net Neutrality Now  Dear FCC  Ajit Pai’s anti-net neutrality plan gets the facts and law wrong, lawmakers say  Am I The Only Techie Against Net Neutrality?    The remixed episode after my interview with Kit is all about what it would take to lose the internet. And to figure that out I talked to two historians of digital culture at NYU. Laine Nooney studies the history of computers and video games. Finn Brunton studies how and why different technologies get adopted (or don’t).    Flash Forward is produced by me, Rose Eveleth. The intro music is by Asura and the outtro music is by Hussalonia. The episode art is by Matt Lubchansky. Special thanks this episode to Lena Groeger, Sisi Wei, Colin Schultz, and my mom. Yes, that was my actual mom.     If you want to suggest a future we should take on, send us a note on Twitter, Facebook or by email at info@flashforwardpod.com. I love hearing your ideas! And if you think you’ve spotted one of the little references I’ve hidden in the episode, email us there too. If you’re right, I’ll send you something cool.     And if you want to support the show, there are a few ways you can do that too! We have a Patreon page, where you can donate to the show. But if that’s not in the cards for you, you can head to iTunes and leave us a nice review or just tell your friends about us. Those things really do help.     That’s all for this future, come back next month and we’ll travel to a new one. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Finn Brunton is Assistant Professor of Information in the School of Information at the University of Michigan.

Helen Nissenbaum (@HNissenbaum) is on the faculty if Cornell Tech, on leave from NYU where she Professor of Media, Culture and Communication and Director of the Information Law Institute. Her eight books include Obfuscation: A User's Guide for Privacy and Protest, with Finn Brunton (MIT Press, 2015), Values at Play in Digital Games, with Mary Flanagan (MIT Press, 2014), and Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life (Stanford, 2010). Her research has been published in journals of philosophy, politics, law, media studies, information studies, and computer science. Grants from the National Science Foundation, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the National Coordinator have supported her work on privacy, trust online, and security, as well as studies of values embodied in design, search engines, digital games, facial recognition technology, and health information systems. Recipient of the 2014 Barwise Prize of the American Philosophical Association, Prof. Nissenbaum has contributed to privacy-enhancing software, including TrackMeNot (for protecting against profiling based on Web search) and AdNauseam (protecting against profiling based on ad clicks). Both are free and freely available. Nissenbaum holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Stanford University and a B.A. (Hons) from the University of the Witwatersrand. Before joining the faculty at NYU, she served as Associate Director of the Center for Human Values at Princeton University. In this episode, we discussed: the commercial and political contexts that animate policy discussion around privacy. the means by which citizens may use technology to obfuscate their lawful online activity and activism. points of alignment between consumer privacy advocates and the tech sector. policy recommendations. Resources: Cornell Tech NYU Steinhardt Department of Media, Culture and Communication Obfuscation: A User's Guide for Privacy and Protest by Finn Brunton and Helen Nissenbaum (MIT, 2016) The Crooked Timber of Humanity by Isaiah Berlin (Princeton, 2013) Ad Nauseum TrackMeNot   NEWS ROUNDUP Republican California Representative David Nunes, who is Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, which has been investigating Russia's role in the 2016 election, has said he'd like to know why the FBI recorded former national security advisor Michael Flynn's conversations with the Russian ambassador in the first place. He said it was an invasion of Flynn's privacy. Trump forced Flynn to resign two weeks ago, after it was revealed that Flynn misled Vice President Mike Pence about Flynn's contacts with Russian officials days before the election. Trump himself did not inform Pence about Flynn's conversations until at least 2 weeks after Trump knew about them, according to the Washington Post. House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chafetz also said his committee had no plans to conduct a further investigation. Mike Debonis has the story in the Washington Post.  Politico reports that conservatives worried about leaks from federal employees have asked federal agencies to look into employees' use of the encrypted data app Signal. -- Amidst intense competition from T-Mobile and Sprint which have long offered unlimited data plans, Verizon will now itself offer unlimited data once again. Verizon had stopped offering unlimited data in 2011. -- The Chief of Samsung Group was arrested last week in South Korea. Forty-eight year old Jay Y. Lee, a member of South Korea's richest family,  is accused bribing individuals connected with South Korean President Park Geun Hye, who was impeached in December on corruption charges. Hyunjoo Jin and Joyce Lee cover this in Reuters. -- Amid increased cyber warfare, Microsoft President Brad Smith is calling for a "digital Geneva Convention". At the RSA security conference last week, Smith noted “Let's face it, cyberspace is the new battlefield." Smith said the convention should define rules of engagement, such as rules under which nation's would pledge not to disrupt civilian infrastructure. Elizabeth Weise covers this in USA Today. -- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg published a 5,800 word missive last week in which he took a stand in support of globalization and Facebook's role in it. The wave of nationalism that has swept the Western world has prompted a debate about the merits of globalization. Mike Isaac has the story in The New York Times. -- Snapchat set its valuation between $19.5 and $22 billion ahead of its long-anticipated IPO. In that range, it would be the largest IPO since Alibaba's in 2014. -- At the RSA conference last week, Assistant FBI Director Scott Smith said the federal law enforcement agency will be ramping up its use of predictive policing technology. Smith said, "It's where we are moving, and hope to go when you talk about predicting as opposed to proactive and reactive. Reactive is consistently where we have been, proactive means we're really trying to get ahead of it. But predictive is where we want to be. And that's where I know FBI Cyber Division is strongly moving towards as we speak ..." Catch Chris Bing's full story is in FedScoop. -- Finally, Senator Orrin Hatch--Utah Republican and head of the Republican High Tech Task Force--offered up his tech agenda last week. The agenda targets H1B visa reform and improving cross-border digital trade. Hatch also supports the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which passed the House earlier this month, which would require law enforcement officials to obtain search warrants for emails. Hatch's plan was praised by tech sector leaders, including Consumer Technology Association president Gary Shapiro. Alexis Kramer has more at Bloomberg BNA.

This week we talk about how Spam is the run-off of mental attention and how privacy will allow us to move from multi-tasking to multi-personalities.

This week we talk about how Spam is the run-off of mental attention and how privacy will allow us to move from multi-tasking to multi-personalities.

Finn Brunton‘s Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet (MIT Press, 2013) is a cultural history of those communications that seek to capture our attention for the purposes of exploiting it. From pranks on early computer networks in the 1970s to commercial nuisances in the 1990s to the global criminal infrastructure of today driven by botnets and algorithms, spam’s history surfaces and shifts with the Internet itself. Spam is a lively book packed with tales of the people responsible for sharing and stopping spam’s myriad of forms in email, web sites and social networks. This includes everyone from programmers and security professionals, marketers and lawyers, and con artists and thieves to name a few. Each person has personal experiences with spam and opinions about when they’re being spammed, but Brunton, a professor at New York University, reminds us about the critical role that communities, organizations, and governments have played in regulating spam. Ultimately, the governance agreed to by these groups defines spam in the contemporaneous moment, but more importantly, shapes spam’s future forms. As long as open communication platforms exist, so will spam. It is more useful to treat spam as signal about the quality of our digital interactions. The more our attention is captured and exploited the worse our digital communities are functioning. Like the mysterious meat in a can (and with full appreciation for all the spam lovers out there), a digital diet heavy on spam isn’t just unappetizing, it’s unhealthy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Finn Brunton‘s Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet (MIT Press, 2013) is a cultural history of those communications that seek to capture our attention for the purposes of exploiting it. From pranks on early computer networks in the 1970s to commercial nuisances in the 1990s to the global criminal infrastructure of today driven by botnets and algorithms, spam’s history surfaces and shifts with the Internet itself. Spam is a lively book packed with tales of the people responsible for sharing and stopping spam’s myriad of forms in email, web sites and social networks. This includes everyone from programmers and security professionals, marketers and lawyers, and con artists and thieves to name a few. Each person has personal experiences with spam and opinions about when they’re being spammed, but Brunton, a professor at New York University, reminds us about the critical role that communities, organizations, and governments have played in regulating spam. Ultimately, the governance agreed to by these groups defines spam in the contemporaneous moment, but more importantly, shapes spam’s future forms. As long as open communication platforms exist, so will spam. It is more useful to treat spam as signal about the quality of our digital interactions. The more our attention is captured and exploited the worse our digital communities are functioning. Like the mysterious meat in a can (and with full appreciation for all the spam lovers out there), a digital diet heavy on spam isn’t just unappetizing, it’s unhealthy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Finn Brunton‘s Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet (MIT Press, 2013) is a cultural history of those communications that seek to capture our attention for the purposes of exploiting it. From pranks on early computer networks in the 1970s to commercial nuisances in the 1990s to the global criminal infrastructure of today driven by botnets and algorithms, spam’s history surfaces and shifts with the Internet itself. Spam is a lively book packed with tales of the people responsible for sharing and stopping spam’s myriad of forms in email, web sites and social networks. This includes everyone from programmers and security professionals, marketers and lawyers, and con artists and thieves to name a few. Each person has personal experiences with spam and opinions about when they’re being spammed, but Brunton, a professor at New York University, reminds us about the critical role that communities, organizations, and governments have played in regulating spam. Ultimately, the governance agreed to by these groups defines spam in the contemporaneous moment, but more importantly, shapes spam’s future forms. As long as open communication platforms exist, so will spam. It is more useful to treat spam as signal about the quality of our digital interactions. The more our attention is captured and exploited the worse our digital communities are functioning. Like the mysterious meat in a can (and with full appreciation for all the spam lovers out there), a digital diet heavy on spam isn’t just unappetizing, it’s unhealthy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Finn Brunton‘s Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet (MIT Press, 2013) is a cultural history of those communications that seek to capture our attention for the purposes of exploiting it. From pranks on early computer networks in the 1970s to commercial nuisances in the 1990s to the global criminal infrastructure of today driven by botnets and algorithms, spam’s history surfaces and shifts with the Internet itself. Spam is a lively book packed with tales of the people responsible for sharing and stopping spam’s myriad of forms in email, web sites and social networks. This includes everyone from programmers and security professionals, marketers and lawyers, and con artists and thieves to name a few. Each person has personal experiences with spam and opinions about when they’re being spammed, but Brunton, a professor at New York University, reminds us about the critical role that communities, organizations, and governments have played in regulating spam. Ultimately, the governance agreed to by these groups defines spam in the contemporaneous moment, but more importantly, shapes spam’s future forms. As long as open communication platforms exist, so will spam. It is more useful to treat spam as signal about the quality of our digital interactions. The more our attention is captured and exploited the worse our digital communities are functioning. Like the mysterious meat in a can (and with full appreciation for all the spam lovers out there), a digital diet heavy on spam isn’t just unappetizing, it’s unhealthy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Finn Brunton‘s Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet (MIT Press, 2013) is a cultural history of those communications that seek to capture our attention for the purposes of exploiting it. From pranks on early computer networks in the 1970s to commercial nuisances in the 1990s to the global criminal infrastructure of today driven by botnets and algorithms, spam’s history surfaces and shifts with the Internet itself. Spam is a lively book packed with tales of the people responsible for sharing and stopping spam’s myriad of forms in email, web sites and social networks. This includes everyone from programmers and security professionals, marketers and lawyers, and con artists and thieves to name a few. Each person has personal experiences with spam and opinions about when they’re being spammed, but Brunton, a professor at New York University, reminds us about the critical role that communities, organizations, and governments have played in regulating spam. Ultimately, the governance agreed to by these groups defines spam in the contemporaneous moment, but more importantly, shapes spam’s future forms. As long as open communication platforms exist, so will spam. It is more useful to treat spam as signal about the quality of our digital interactions. The more our attention is captured and exploited the worse our digital communities are functioning. Like the mysterious meat in a can (and with full appreciation for all the spam lovers out there), a digital diet heavy on spam isn’t just unappetizing, it’s unhealthy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are so many ways to present the fascinating curatorial work, teaching and original research of Finn Brunton, Assistant Professor of Information at the University of Michigan School of Information, and author of the forthcoming book--Spam: A Flood, A Theory, A History (MIT Press).