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Call for papers: Internet Histories special issue “Interrogating Trust & Safety”
by Asger Harlung 15 Oct '25

15 Oct '25

To Whom it may concern, Call for papers: Internet Histories Special Issue: Interrogating Trust & Safety Deadline for abstracts 1 May 2026 All submitted and accepted articles will be considered for inclusion in a special issue “Interrogating Trust & Safety” Special issue guest editors Amanda Menking and Toby Shulruff encourage authors to interrogate trust and safety from a range of perspectives, prioritizing academic rigor and historical dimensions. Please see the full call for papers here: https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/interrogating-trust-safet… Kind regards of behalf of The editors of Internet Histories and the guest editors Asger Harlung, Editorial Assistant, Internet Histories

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Annals 47(3) now available
by Troy Astarte 15 Oct '25

15 Oct '25

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Faculty opening at SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Humanities and Technology Studies
by Andrew Russell 14 Oct '25

14 Oct '25

Hello SIGCIS! I’m writing to share a job opening here at SUNY Poly in Utica, New York, in the broad area of Humanities and Technology Studies. Brief description: The Department of Communication and Humanities at SUNY Polytechnic Institute seeks to hire a tenure-track faculty member (rank open) with research and teaching interests in the intersections of technology, society, and culture. We are seeking a colleague who can bring strong humanistic perspectives and interdisciplinary approaches to the scholarly exploration of technology, and whose scholarly practice engages active-learning pedagogies. The successful candidate will have a record of teaching and scholarly engagement with technology from social, historical, political, aesthetic, or other disciplinary perspectives. Historians or scholars who integrate historical methods and critical approaches in their work are encouraged to apply, as are applicants with interests related to the study and use of artificial intelligence in society and culture. We are eager to hear from candidates with a commitment to advancing SUNY Poly's strategic plan and our mission, vision, and values. In all disciplines, we are seeking faculty to participate actively in interdisciplinary partnerships to advance the four thematic areas described in SUNY Poly's 2024 Strategic Plan: https://sunypoly.edu/strategicplan. Full details available from https://sunypoly.interviewexchange.com/jobofferdetails.jsp?JOBID=193583. I’d be very happy to answer questions, etc. Please share widely, and note the willingness to hire at assistant, associate, or full professor rank. All the best, Andy — — — — — — — — — — — Andrew L. Russell, Ph.D. Provost & Vice President for Academic Affairs SUNY Polytechnic Institute 100 Seymour Road Utica, NY 13502 www.sunypoly.edu

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13/10/2025 15h-17h « From Walls to Codes: Digital Borders and the Birth of Computerised Migration Systems »
by TOURNIER Adrien 10 Oct '25

10 Oct '25

Dear all, This message is to announce the second session of our seminar on the socio-history of computing for this year 2025-2026, which will take place online and at the Cnam in Paris on Monday 13 october 2025 from 3pm to 5pm (CET) with Lennart Vincent Schmidt<https://zzf-potsdam.de/institut/personen/mitarbeiter_innen/lennart-v-schmidt> <https://zzf-potsdam.de/institut/personen/mitarbeiter_innen/lennart-v-schmidt> et Michael Homberg<https://zzf-potsdam.de/en/institution/people/staff/michael-homberg>. Please register here to receive the online link: https://framaforms.org/inscription-seminaire-de-socio-histoire-de-linformat…. Summary: This lecture examines how digitalization, often portrayed as a narrative of modernization and emancipation, has also generated new forms of social stratification. From the 1970s onwards, computer technologies reshaped work, education, governance, and migration regimes in ways that reinforced divides, hierarchies, and boundaries within society. Building on the broader research agenda of Digital Inequalities, the talk highlights the ambivalences of the “digital society” by tracing both the promises of inclusion and the mechanisms of exclusion. In this context, insights from my research on Digital Borders illustrate how the computerization of migration control transformed mobility into data and contributed to the reproduction of inequalities in Germany and Europe. • Lennart Vincent Schmidt<https://zzf-potsdam.de/institut/personen/mitarbeiter_innen/lennart-v-schmidt> - Potsdam PhD Student, Leibniz Center for Contemporary History, Research Project: Digital Borders • Michael Homberg<https://zzf-potsdam.de/en/institution/people/staff/michael-homberg> <https://zzf-potsdam.de/en/institution/people/staff/michael-homberg> - Assistant Professor, Leibniz Center for Contemporary History, Potsdam Best regards, Mathilde Fichen (phd student, HT2S), Adrien Tournier (phd student, HT2S), and Camille Paloque-Bergès (researcher, HT2S) ---- The Socio-History of Informatics Seminar is a research seminar organized by the HT2S research center<https://technique-societe.cnam.fr/histoire-des-technosciences-en-societe-ht…> of the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts<https://www.cnam.fr/portail/conservatoire-national-des-arts-et-metiers-accu…> (CNAM) in Paris. Every two months, we invite a researcher in the history and/or anthropology and sociology (with a historical or diachronic approach) of computing and informatics to present their work. The seminar aims to explore new narratives in the history of computing and informatics over time, with an emphasis on they intertwine with social, economic, political and cultural issues.

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Internet Histories Volume 9, issue 3 is online
by Asger Harlung 06 Oct '25

06 Oct '25

To whom it may concern, The Editorial Staff of Internet Histories is pleased to announce, that Internet Histories Volume 9, issue 3 is now online. Please notice: All research articles in this volume are open access. The full volume may be accessed here: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rint20/9/3 A list of the content is included below. If you have an interesting piece on web or Internet history, please submit @InternetHistor http://www.tandfonline.com/rint20, or email Managing Editor Niels Brügger nb(a)cc.au.dk With kind regards on behalf of the editorial team, Asger Harlung, editorial assistant, Internet Histories - - - - - - - - - - List of articles in Vol. 9(3): Research Articles An early Web history of vaccine skeptical digital rhetorics | Open Access Miles C. Coleman & Will Mari Patterns of piracy: Sci-Hub and Sweden 2011–2018 | Open Access Zakayo Kjellström Brilliant Digital: a 1990s Australian videogames studio that brought Xena, KISS, and Popeye together in the Multipath Movies experimental streaming service | Open Access Helen Stuckey & Stephanie Harkin Powell.pps: close & distant reading of primary sources in web archives | Open Access Trevor Owens, Benjamin Charles Germain Lee & Jonah Estess Book Reviews Averting the Digital Dark Age: How Archivists, Librarians, and Technologists Built the Web a Memory, by Ian Milligan Reviewer: Kieran Hegarty Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy, by Ben Collier Reviewer: Ashley E. Gorham

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Steve Shirley obit
by Jonathan Coopersmith 03 Oct '25

03 Oct '25

another change agent https://www.economist.com/obituary/2025/09/04/steve-shirley-countered-sexis… Stay sane, Jonathan Jonathan Coopersmith Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science Professor Emeritus Department of History Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-4236 979.739.4708 (cell) with Arthur Daemmrich, “The Road Not (Yet) Taken. Historians As Policy Professionals*,” AHA Perspectives* May 2025, 18-20. "'What Were We Thinking?' Space Commercialization, 1960-1990," in Brian C. Odom, ed., *The Rise of the Commercial Space Industry. Early Space Age to Present* (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024).

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SIGCIS lunch at SHOT - Oct 11, 12:55–2:10 PM
by Elizabeth Petrick 01 Oct '25

01 Oct '25

Hello SIGCIS! First off, if you weren't at our virtual conference last weekend, you may not have heard the news that Morgan Ames has joined me as co-chair of SIGCIS! I offer my thanks to Melanie Swalwell for her years of service leading us and welcome Morgan to the helm! We now have information on the SIGCIS lunch at SHOT next week. The biggest thing to note is that the lunch is Saturday (not Friday), October 11. We'll meet from 12:55–2:10 PM. The program posted today says it's in the "Catering Area" so hopefully that makes sense when we get there. Please register for lunch as part of your SHOT registration. I hope to see many of you in Luxembourg! Best, Liz _________________ Elizabeth Petrick Associate Professor Director of Graduate Studies Department of History Rice University

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New Lecture: 2024 CHM Book Prize Winner -- Balkan Cyberia: Cold War Computing. -- with Professor Victor Petrov.
by Dag Spicer 23 Sep '25

23 Sep '25

Hello SIGCIS! I’m delighted to report that last Thursday (the 18th), the Computer History Museum hosted a wonderful lecture by the 2024 CHM Book Prize Winner, Victor Petrov, discussing his latest book, Balkan Cyberia: Cold War Computing, Bulgarian Modernization, and the Information Age behind the Iron Curtain. Sep 22, 2025 [Recorded September 18, 2025] Summary: Behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War lies a high-stakes tale of secret espionage networks, utopian visions of a cybernetic future, and remarkable technocratic reform. Balkan Cyberia, by CHM Book Prize winner Victor Petrov, explores how Soviet-era Bulgaria was a center of innovation in electronics and computing. In an age defined by Silicon Valley and Western narratives of progress, Petrov upends Western assumptions about computing in the Eastern bloc. This presentation by Petrov crafts a narrative of coded ambition, hidden trade tunnels, and a cyber-elite that reshaped Cold War geopolitics. Revelations about how Bulgaria became an electronics powerhouse, capturing a staggering 45% market share of electronics exports within the Eastern Bloc. He also draws contemporary parallels between socialist-era tech diplomacy and today's geopolitical and global supply chain tensions. Victor Petrov is an associate professor of European History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, focusing on the history of the modern Balkans and Europe more broadly. His book Balkan Cyberia: Cold War Computing is the winner of the 2024 Computer History Museum Book Prize as well as the Barbara Jelavich Prize, the Marshal D. Shulman Prize, and the John D. Bell Memorial Book Prize. He received his PhD from Columbia University, and his MA and BA from Oxford University. +++++++ Enjoy: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaAjOloGycY> [maxresdefault.jpg] CHM Live | Cold War Computing: Balkan Cyberia<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaAjOloGycY> youtube.com<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaAjOloGycY> Dag ----- Dag Spicer Senior Curator Computer History Museum Editorial Board, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing ACM History Committee 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View CA 94043 “History is a vast early warning system.” — Norman Cousins, American journalist (1915-1990). Join our Mailing List here: https://info.computerhistory.org/subscribe

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{SoHistInfo} October 10 Kevin Driscoll - "Small AI: Amateur participation in artificial intelligence of the 1980s"
by Camille Paloque-Bergès 23 Sep '25

23 Sep '25

Dear colleagues, This message is to inform you of the resumption of our seminar on the socio-history of computing, organized by the HT2S laboratory at CNAM (Paris), with two inaugural sessions in English. October 8th 2025 15h-17h - Kevin Driscoll, University of Virginia - Small AI: Amateur participation in artificial intelligence of the 1980s October 13th 2025 15h-17h - Lennart Vincent Schmidt et Michael Homberg, Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam - Digital Inequalities. Divides, Hierarchies, and Boundaries in Germany Inscriptions: https://framaforms.org/inscription-seminaire-de-socio-histoire-de-linformat… Informations on our seminar: https://sohistinfo.github.io/ Localisation: 2 rue Conté 75003 Paris et en visio ----- Next session's summary: Small AI: Amateur participation in artificial intelligence of the 1980s Kevin Driscoll is the author of The Modem World (2022), co-author of Minitel: Welcome to the Internet, and head of et Minitel Research Lab, USA with Julien Mailland. He is associate professor in Media studies at the University of Virginia. Today, artificial intelligence systems are portrayed as massive, remote, costly, and obscure. But there is nothing natural or inevitable about these characteristics. This talk will consider how microcomputer enthusiasts made sense of the 1980s artificial intelligence boom (and bust) through an exploration of hobbyist print media of the period. Beginning in the mid-1970s, an international literature of how-to books, magazine articles, and “type-in” programs promised to teach new computer owners the fundamental principles of AI through hands-on engagement with BASIC code. Recovering and re-running these materials with the help of software emulation reveals a different set of beliefs about technology and expertise than those that have come to dominate today’s AI discourse. Glimpses of a “micro” AI invite us to imagine an alternative future in which AI is imminent, affordable, accessible, and comprehensible to expert and non-expert computer users alike. -- Institutional email address : camille.paloque_berges(a)cnam.fr *Laboratory for the History of Techno-Sciences (HT2S), Conservatoire national des arts et métiers, 2 rue Conté, 75003 Paris, France

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McConlogue and Simmons 1965, first NLP machine learning parser?
by Hansen Hsu 11 Sep '25

11 Sep '25

Hi all, A woman in San Francisco recently reached out to CHM asking if a paper her mother, Keren McConlogue, co-published in CACM in 1965 is the first use of machine learning in a natural language parser, and what place it has in the history of machine learning and NLP. Analyzing English Syntax with a Pattern-Learning Parser <https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/365660.365683> Analyzing English syntax with a pattern-learning parser | Communications of the ACM<https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/365660.365683> dl.acm.org<https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/365660.365683> [365660.cover.jpg]<https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/365660.365683> I can’t find anything earlier than this. Has anyone looked into the earliest uses of what would have been called “pattern recognition” in building a parser that could construct a syntactic grammar by learning from example sentences? ......................................................... Hansen Hsu, Ph.D. Curator, Software History Center Computer History Museum he/him 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, CA 94043 (650) 810-1880 direct (650) 810-1010 main (650) 284-6254 mobile (650) 810-1055 fax hhsu(a)computerhistory.org<mailto:hhsu@computerhistory.org> Follow Us: CHM.org<https://computerhistory.org/> I Facebook<http://www.facebook.com/computerhistory> I Twitter<http://www.twitter.com/computerhistory> I YouTube<http://www.youtube.com/computerhistory> I Subscribe to Our Newsletter<https://www.computerhistory.org/subscribe>

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