On receiving an honorary doctorate in computer science from the Open University

Last Friday, June 8, I was immensely, fantastically thrilled to receive an honorary doctorate in computer science from the Open University, an institution I have long held in high esteem and where it has been my privilege to serve as a visiting senior lecturer. The degree was conferred in a fabulous ceremony at the Milton Keynes Theatre, just one of the OU's many graduation ceremonies for the year (the OU specialises in adult and continuing education and is a tremendously democratising force in UK education, and so awards huge numbers of non-honorary degrees every year). As I sat at the front of the stage with my OU colleagues, I had a great seat from which to observe the year's grads, and to marvel at their diversity in age and background, and to delight in the cheers from the guests they'd brought with them to the event.

My own parents came from Toronto for the occasion, and I was also joined by my wife and daughter. Later in the day, we threw a party with many friends from around the world at Bletchley Park, a nearby historic site famous for being one of the birthplaces of modern computers and cryptography (Bletchley turns out to be a brilliant place to throw a party -- take note if you're thinking of having an event somewhere in the region).

I just wanted to put up a short post here to publicly thank the OU, especially my computer science colleagues Marian Petre, Blaine Price, Ray Corrigan, and Mike Richards, for this honour; and to thank again all the friends, colleagues, and family who made the day so special.

Ray Corrigan has posted Prof Marian Petre's introduction from the day, which sets out the case the degree. I was given a few moments to speak about what I think my work means; I've pasted that in below the jump.

I am honoured beyond mere words to receive this doctorate from the Open University, an institution whose profoundly humane mission is the extension of personalised, universal education that treats learning as a lifelong mission, rather than a discrete activity undertaken in your adolescence and then put away with other childish things at adulthood.

I come from a family of teachers. My parents, Doctor and Doctor Doctorow, are here today, having flown from Canada for the occasion, which was awfully nice of them. But they've always been supportive and infinitely patient with my educational choices -- including spending seven years in my four-year secondary school and dropping out of four undergraduate programmes afterwards. A life among teachers had has many lessons, but the most important one is that learning isn't something that happens to you, it is something you do. More importantly, it is something you do all the time, if you are prepared to.

I've been given a few moments to explain my work to you. I wear several hats: entrepreneur, activist, science fiction writer, and campaigning journalist. Like education, vocation isn't a discrete silo, but rather a spectrum of activities in service of a larger cause and vision. The cause and vision that I've made my own is to fight for a free, open infrastructure for the information society.

"Information Society" is a term that gets tossed around a lot as though everyone agrees on what it means, and that's a sure sign that *no one* agrees on what it means. I'll tell what I think it means. It means a society where everything we own is made out of networked computers. Not just in the trivial sense that all the devices we own are just PCs in funny boxes -- your TV, phone, cable box, games console, camera, CCTV and alarm clock are made out of PC parts, running PC operating systems, using Internet protocols to talk with one another. But increasingly, cars and houses are networked PCs we put our bodies into. Prostheses, from hearing aids to cochlear implants, pacemakers to robotic limbs -- they're PCs we insert into our bodies, sometimes so permanently that they can't be removed without general anaesthesia.

Networks -- by which I mean the Internet, which is like some ancient god with a thousand faces and guises, but which is actually a single, sprawling network that appears to different people and societies in different garb -- are the most significant means of changing our social circumstances. The UK Champion for Digital Inclusion, Martha Lane Fox, commissioned a PriceWaterhouseCooper study on the impact of Internet access on the poorest and most vulnerable families in the UK. The study concluded that families with network access have better outcomes on every social axis, from nutrition to employment, from education and social mobility to civil engagement and political awareness. Simply put, the Internet is a single wire that delivers freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, and access to nutrition, education, employment, politics, and community.

As governments and regulators consider the policy of the Internet and the PC, they operate like the blind men and the elephant: "I'm not regulating the Internet, I'm fighting piracy!" or "I'm not regulating the Internet, I'm hunting paedophiles" or "I'm not regulating the PC, I'm protecting the BBC's ability to get American TV networks to license sit-coms to them" or "I'm not regulating the PC, I'm trying to help companies like Apple protect their App store."

Some of these causes are just, and some are not. But there is no way to render a PC safe for American sit-coms in Britain without affecting the designs of PCs overall. There is no way to surveil the Internet for terrorism and obscenity without surveilling everything on the Internet. Upon discovering that the PC or the Internet has a feature that causes some problem, regulators reflexively reach for a simple answer: "Very well -- remove that feature from the network, then. Remove that feature from the PC."

But there is no theoretical model for building a general-purpose computer that can run all the programmes we can conceive of, save for the one that is giving a regulator fits. The closest approximation we have is a computer with spyware on it out of the box, a computer that runs some secretive programme whose job is to watch all the things its owner does, and periodically intercede to say, "I can't let you do that, Dave." For this programme to work, it has to operate in such a way that the computer's owner can't find it and delete it. It has to operate such that the owner can't switch it off.

And there is no theoretical model for building a general-purpose network that can let anyone talk to anyone else using any protocol to convey any message, save for the message that frightens a politician or alarms a voter. The closest approximation is a network with in-built surveillance and censorship, where unaccountable and secretive processes are used to watch every bit that flows from here to there, so that the terrorist bits and the piracy bits can be interdicted, or at least logged.

In the information society, where we put networked computers in our bodies and put our bodies into networked computers, we need to ensure that the design brief for these devices is to respect their owners, to serve their owners. We must attend to how our IT regulations will fail, and not merely how they will work. The way we respond to the problems created by computers and networks will prefigure and constrain the answers to every other problem of the information society. These are the wheels and levers of the modern age, and I have found in the OU a faculty that is alive to that truth, animated by it, and active in it. I am proud beyond measure to join their number.

Thank you.

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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http://boingboing.net/ Rob Beschizza

Congratulations, Cory!

The classic “Open University” TV ident theme in full, as few have heard it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh_BkqIj1tg

And the ident itself:
Peta Banks

Congratulations – and a well deserved honour!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Scott-Contreras-Koterbay/100000181841911 Scott Contreras-Koterbay

Congratulations!

And, I might add, cool regalia!
- That_Anonymous_Coward
  
  No goggles, no cape, no rope ladder to the balloon…
  *sigh*
  - http://theladyfingers.blogspot.com/ Ladyfingers
    
    No goggles?
    - That_Anonymous_Coward
      
      Obligatory…
      https://xkcd.com/239/
      
      and there is more…
      and we know he owns them, they were presented to him and we have pictures!
      
      And video… almost forgot the video….
      http://youtu.be/KQAk_T9SBbw
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    He might at least have held the robes out as if he were about to take off.
  - Freddie Freelance
    
    This omission proves these pictures are obviously poorly shopped fakes.
- bumblebeeeeeee
  
  sandals on feet??
  - KimJong_un
    
    Where else to put them?
    - bumblebeeeeeee
      
      wrong place wrong time. [apologies Cory, very nice shoes.]
      - Cory Doctorow
        
        They’re not sandals, they’re leather shoes. See full-size image here:
        
        https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7228/7175761031_d4780f583a_o.jpg
      - bumblebeeeeeee
        
        apologies Cory, very nice shoes.
Michael Clerx

Congratulations!
Denis Hennessy

1. Congrats! 2. Missed opportunity to wear a red cape!
Neill “Dire” Mitchell

Many gratz! Though I fear the wonderful OU will not around to bestow this type of honour for very much longer, not many of the OU’s traditional student base are going to be able to afford a five-fold increase in tuition fees. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/aug/08/open-university-fees-rise
Jeff Haynes

Congrad-u-lations! (it is” honorary” by the way…)
- Charlie B
  
  Many English-speaking people prefer to use the original British spelling of the word, rather than the Americanized version – I’ve heard it said that one should endeavour to keep the “U” in honour, since so few people do so these days.
  - Ponce_de_Leon
    
    If you’re going to be pedantic, please be correct. In British English honorary is always spelt without the u, as is humorous, despite honour and humour both being spelt with the u.
    
    For example, the Open University grants honorary degrees: http://www8.open.ac.uk/students/ceremonies/honorary-degrees
    - Charlie B
      
      You’ve spelt humorous with two Us, there, Poncey.
      
      I personally always get spelt confused with quinoa, anyway.
http://germanwotd.com Amelia_G

Awww! The Open University is something I envy access to, and I think its ripple waves are important. Thank you, OU et cie., for sharing information with all the people who are smarter than I am.
Ian Macdougall

Congratulations again, it was nice to meet you.
http://twitter.com/dodgrile dod grile

I’m off to an exam as part of Computer Science degree for Open University in abooouuut.. 25 minutes. Which probably means I need to get off the internet.
Scurra

And another congrats. Especially getting it from the OU which is one of the most significant and underrated contributors to modern British society (along with Bletchley Park, although in a different way.)
David Pescovitz

Congrats, Cory!
dr

In all my years as a professor, I’ve only received royalties on one piece of academic writing: a cheque from the OU for reprinting one of my articles in a text for a philosophy course. Ever since I’ve had very warm feelings for the institution.
http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

Doctor Doctorow? That’s either awesome or unfortunate, either way I like it.

Congratulations and im glad you had fun in my home town!
- bumblebeeeeeee
  
  it’s honorary, so the title doesn’t apply.
  - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
    
    Oh, that’s a shame.
    
    I’m gonna stick with it anyway, ‘Doctor Doctorow’ has too much of a ring to it to not be used; official or not.
    - That_Anonymous_Coward
      
      Is it just me or is anyone else curious how this will show up in xkcd?
- Cory Doctorow
  
  My parents are already Doctor and Doctor Doctorow, which my dad (a mathematician) pronounces Doctor Squared Oh Squared.
  - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
    
    Haha, that’s great.
    
    It’s Doctor’s all the way down. Docception?
Alf Melin

+1 bonus to mutant happiness? Congratulations! I’ve been studying with the OU since 2008, it’s a great institution.
Sparrow

Congratulations, Doctor Doctrow!
http://iron-curtain.myopenid.com/ Iron Curtain

Are you sure the spelling is “honourary”? I thought the spelling was “honorary”, even in the Queen’s English, because the “-ary” suffix is of latin origin.

See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differences_between_British_and_American_spellings#-our.2C_-or

In derivatives and inflected forms of the -our/or words, British usage depends on the nature of the suffix used. The u is kept before English suffixes that are freely attachable to English words (for example in neighbourhood, humourless and savoury) and suffixes of Greek or Latin origin that have been naturalised (for example in favourite, honourable and behaviourism). However, before Latin suffixes that are not freely attachable to English words, the u:

may be dropped, for example in honorary, honorific, honorist, vigorous, humorous, laborious and invigorate;may be either dropped or kept, for example in colo(u)ration and colo(u)rise); ormay be kept, for example in colourist.[5]

In American usage, derivatives and inflected forms are built by simply adding the suffix in all cases (for example, favorite, savory etc.) since the u is absent to begin with.
- Cory Doctorow
  
  Right you are. I sometimes get tripped up when I code-switch from Canadian to UK to US.
  - Jeff Haynes
    
    Thanks for changing the spelling Doctor D! You and the OU are fine institutions in this fine country. Even if the weather is shyte!
Rhyme79

Excellent congratulations of the utmost kind! Right now I’m supposed to be revising for my healthcare exam at the end of the week, but I’m doing this instead. Procrastination is the devil I tell you!As a current OU student I greatly appreciate the ability to be able to study at home whilst also receiving top notch support from my tutor and learning support staff. The OU provides opportunities for those like myself who are unable to get out and about and to a brick uni. Without this organisation, I would find it very,very difficult to gain a degree level formal qualification.The OU (OPEN University), sadly may not remain quite so open for much longer, especially for new under graduates. Having the opportunity to educate oneself to degree level and beyond of course should not be limited to only those who have greater access to financial resources. Society benefits in many ways from an educated population, so limiting those who have access to it is a shot in the foot.Feel free to sign the petition against the OU cuts at the HMGovernment website … http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/22316 Thanks.
- Cory Doctorow
  
  Thanks for that — just signed the petition.
lysdexia

Did it hurt when they injected the RNA? Are you certified to pilot a ramscoop now?
http://www.aarongilliland.com/ Aaron Gilliland

My God, Hugh Laurie does a pretty good Cory impression in this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2un9rO2ZF4g
Gary61

Congrats to one of my favorite Happy Mutants – I am sure you will bring both Honour and Honor to the University and to yourself.
Bravo!
http://profile.yahoo.com/65KXANPVQHQ5ELO7VVUUU5UGZY Maurice

Is that over by Emperor Norton University?
phead

Just a shame that the OU decided to increase course costs by over 300%, okay still a lot less than traditional uni’s, but I think they are likely to exclude many who were previous attracted to their model.
Pres

Congrats! :-)
http://burntheflag.ca Jardine

4-year secondary school? Wouldn’t it have been 5-year in Ontario at that point?
Tim Pozar

Congratulations! That be a pretty big grin on your face. :-)
AviSolomon

Congrats Dr. Cory!
I have fond Black & White childhood memories of a wonderful Open University TV series on maths and physics that was broadcast in Bombay in the 80s, kind of an early day Khan Academy:)
Mike R

congrats.
yish

Congratulations! Well deserved! So we’re colleagues and I didn’t know? Makes me like my job a little more.. What were you senior lecturing? Are is that in past tense or present?
http://www.facebook.com/people/Joe-Steinbok/654671630 Joe Steinbok

Congratulations Cory, well done.

Joe Steinbok