Kevin Driscoll

Department of Media Studies, University of Virginia

driscollkevin@gmail.com

Talk about gender in the early issues of Byte

In the mid-1970s, before you could buy a computer at the store and no one yet called them “personal,” tech enthusiasts in the U.S. gathered around newsletters and magazines to imagine a more computerized future. For the past two years, my research assistant Rahul Zalkikar and I have been systematically exploring the first five years […]

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Spam, and the Challenge of Chasing Shadows

This dialogue was inspired by Kevin Driscoll’s insightful book review in the L.A. Review of Books, of Finn Brunton’s superb new book, Spam: The Shadow History of the Internet. I asked Kevin if he would use a bit of his review to begin a dialogue with Finn; the conversation moved quickly to the methodological challenges […]

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Protest code and the anti-SOPA blackout

Software developers have been playing an increasingly crucial, if unseen, role in anti-SOPA/PIPA protest activities. According to data compiled by Fight for the Future, “super easy to use” WordPress plugins like Simple Stop Sopa (written by Brooke Dukes) may have been employed by as many as 40% of the 115,000+ sites participating in Wednesday’s blackout. […]

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