family privacy Again
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Please excuse my english grammar, I am not an english native speaker.
y entire family use facebook (it is all my fault for creating accounts for them years ago), now they use Instagram and twitter, but my mother is very addicted to FB--or just all of them. Now when they do pictures they just upload and upload it to those privacy violating services, I many times do not want to be in those pictures and I avoid it as much as possible however my mother is too too angry that there are some repercussions to me for not participating in those activities(pictures, selfies etc, it is like they are the new teenagers than I), it appears that I am now the black sheep of the family. Is there any way for me to convince them that using and uploading pictures to those services and internet are bad? I always say to them about the global surveillance disclosures but they seem to ignore and defeat me with the statement, "They have nothing to hide so they do not care, or that I am just a small fish to catch, or worse I am just being paranoid." Anyway I showed them the picture of zuckerberg with the Instagram 500M likes, in the background his macbook webcam is covered with tape(it does not have any effect to them) it was posted in the other topic "Mission impossible: family privacy" but it that topic but my situation is quite the opposite.
Facebook is designed to addict its "users" with what its former vice-president describes as "dopemine-driven feedback loops."
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/dec/11/facebook-former-executive-ripping-society-apart
Your family's rationalizations for subjecting themselves to Facebook's abuse are typical of any kind of addict. It is important to understand how difficult it is for an addict to acknowledge that they are no longer in control of their own lives.
It sounds like you have tried to reason with them and it has not worked. This is unsuprising but you should not give up. While you cannot control the way they think, you can provide context that may help them eventually reach the same conclusion independently.
It will also help to identify the need that Facebook fulfills for them and suggest healthier alternatives. A friend recently told me that he began transitioning to vegetarianism not by removing meat from his diet, but by introducing tofu into his diet. It is easier to eliminate something from your life when you have the security of a familiar replacement. Depending on your family's situation, there are several replacements you may try to introduce them to before you attempt to convince them to abandon Facebook completely.
(1) Offline interaction. If you live near your family, you may propose spending more time with them in person. You do not have to present this as a replacement for Facebook, because it is worthwhile in itself. If you do not live near your family, frequent phone calls may be enough. You say that your mother is angry at you for avoiding Facebook. Perhaps this is because Facebook has convinced her that it is her only way to have a relationship with you. If so, it is understandable that you avoiding Facebook would scare her. If you can show her that Facebook is unecessary to maintain relationships she might feel less dependent on it.
(2) Online alternatives to dedicated "social media." Email and XMPP can serve many of the same functions as Facebook with less risk of those needs being associated with a proprietary interface. Email photos to your family. Encourage them to chat with you via XMPP. Maybe act a little annoyed at *them* if they refuse to connect with you this way. Facebook did not invent chatting, blogging, or sharing photographs. Their innovation was aggregating these technologies into an addictive interface. You can show your family that they do not need rely on Facebook for these features.
(3) A libre, decentralized replacement for Facebook. I am aware of three: Diaspora, Friendica, and GNU Social. Of these, Diaspora will probably be the most appealing to your family. Many Diaspora pods support cross-posting to Facebook or Twitter, meaning that your family may post photos to Diaspora for you to see that are also posted to Facebook for their other friends to see. Ideally they would not provide any information to Facebook, but this will at least allow them to do so without engaging with Facebook's addictive interface and introduce them to a more freedom-respecting replacement. I have some concerns about Diaspora. Although it is free software and I suspect no malice from the developers, I worry that it unintentionally inherits some addictive antifeatures from Facebook in an attempt to replace it. That said, it is far better than Facebook, as any accidental antifeatures may be removed by exercising freedoms 1 and 3, while Facebook will continue to refine its intentional antifeatures and will not allow you the freedom to remove them.
Let me know if I can clarify anything I've written. It is difficult to have a discussion like this in a language that is not your native one. It is admirable that you are participating in a forum that is not in your native language in order to help your family.
1)I am living near them so there are offline interactions.
2) Alternatives I am currently trying to make them use alternatives such as Linphone, Seafile and Mumble. But I doubt that they will like it since facebo*k has all of these features in one-click.
3)I currently run a gnu social server but the interface is not facebo*k like so I think I may try to create a disapora pod.
Thank You your advice
I am a member!
On Sat, 2018-01-13 at 22:55 -0800, name at domain wrote:
> Facebook is designed to addict its "users" with what its former vice-president describes as "dopemine-driven feedback loops."
>
> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/dec/11/facebook-former-executive-ripping-society-apart
>
> Your family's rationalizations for subjecting themselves to Facebook's abuse are typical of any kind of addict. It is important to understand how difficult it is for an addict to acknowledge that they are no longer in control of their own lives.
>
> It sounds like you have tried to reason with them and it has not worked. This is unsuprising but you should not give up. While you cannot control the way they think, you can provide context that may help them eventually reach the same conclusion independently.
>
> It will also help to identify the need that Facebook fulfills for them and suggest healthier alternatives. A friend recently told me that he began transitioning to vegetarianism not by removing meat from his diet, but by introducing tofu into his diet. It is easier to eliminate something from your life when you have the security of a familiar replacement. Depending on your family's situation, there are several replacements you may try to introduce them to before you attempt to convince them to abandon Facebook completely.
Yes. As a vegan, I can also attest to this. It's easier to stop eating
a food when it's crowded out, rather than taken out. When there are so
many different types of new beans, grains and milks to try, it's easy to
just "accidentally forget" to consume the old stuff.
> (1) Offline interaction. If you live near your family, you may propose spending more time with them in person. You do not have to present this as a replacement for Facebook, because it is worthwhile in itself. If you do not live near your family, frequent phone calls may be enough. You say that your mother is angry at you for avoiding Facebook. Perhaps this is because Facebook has convinced her that it is her only way to have a relationship with you. If so, it is understandable that you avoiding Facebook would scare her. If you can show her that Facebook is unecessary to maintain relationships she might feel less dependent on it.
Facebook employs the same techniques to stay in people's life. When I
quit, it sent me email saying "Your friends miss you."
> (2) Online alternatives to dedicated "social media." Email and XMPP can serve many of the same functions as Facebook with less risk of those needs being associated with a proprietary interface. Email photos to your family. Encourage them to chat with you via XMPP. Maybe act a little annoyed at *them* if they refuse to connect with you this way. Facebook did not invent chatting, blogging, or sharing photographs. Their innovation was aggregating these technologies into an addictive interface. You can show your family that they do not need rely on Facebook for these features.
These won't work as a replacement. During the course of in-person
interaction, the need for them will naturally grow, and only then should
you introduce them. "Well, if you really NEED to do this online instead
of in person, I GUESS we can use Syncplay and VLC."
--
Caleb Herbert
OpenPGP public key: http://bluehome.net/csh/pubkey
> I have very little to add except for a caution: if you are a
> minor and maybe even if you aren't, please do not email pictures
> of yourself to Facebook addicts.
You are right of course. Sadly, this did not even occur to me, because for myself and for everyone I know it is far too late to prevent Facebook from collecting our complete facial biometrics. Even if I had not been peer-pressured into joining Facebook as a teenager and spent several years addicted, many photos of me have been uploaded to Facebook without my consent and remain there even now that I have deleted my account. Even the people I know who have never used Facebook have had many photos of themselves uploaded with their names attached. They and I can try to avoid situations in which Facebook's facial recognition software can be used against us, but there is nothing we can do at this point to erase their profiles of us.
I don't know if it is even possible now to protect a child from being profiled by Facebook until they are old enough to protect themselves, but if you do you will have given your child a choice, which is a great gift and something I never felt that I had.
I am a member!
> I don't know if it is even possible now to protect a child from being profiled by Facebook until they are old enough to protect themselves, but if you do you will have given your child a choice, which is a great gift and something I never felt that I had.
Friends, esp. girls, will take photos of each other once they get mobile
devices. This will involve lots of peer pressure. Even if the kid
doesn't have FB, their friend will, and that friend will pressure them
into letting them post it on their Facebook feed.
--
Caleb Herbert
OpenPGP public key: http://bluehome.net/csh/pubkey
I can say that I am a teenager. I do not post photos to FB but my parents did (it was long time ago, but I manually deleted them)
They now post photos of our other child family members and even has a facebook for them, they cheated the birthday so they created the facebook even though I am against it.
I am a member!
On Sun, 2018-01-14 at 10:48 +0100, name at domain wrote:
> I have very little to add except for a caution: if you are a minor and maybe
> even if you aren't, please do not email pictures of yourself to Facebook
> addicts.
Thank you for mentioning this. I never thought about simply not
distributing photos to Facebook users. This is a sane policy. I like
it.
It may also carry he incidental benefit of pressuring them to leave
Facebook: "I won't give you photos as long as you are being used by
Facebook."
--
Caleb Herbert
OpenPGP public key: http://bluehome.net/csh/pubkey
I am a translator!
>forced by family to do something that totally goes against ones ethics and integrity
I am sorry for you m8. Get a job maybe and your place so you can distribute fuckoffs in complete tranquility
> Is there any way for me to convince them that using and uploading pictures to those services and internet are bad?
Well, you can try.. You can also try climbing the Everest. Few succeed.
>I always say to them about the global surveillance disclosures but they seem to ignore and defeat me with the statement, "They have nothing to hide so they do not care, or that I am just a small fish to catch, or worse I am just being paranoid."
See the first two answers I gave.
cheers
I currently cannot get a job since I am still studying.
I am a member!
> I am sorry for you m8. Get a job maybe and your place so you can distribute
> fuckoffs in complete tranquility
I'm not the OP, but I am in the same boat. I have a job, but it doesn't
pay enough for me to support myself fully. Transportation is especially
expensive! (More than $210 US each month.)
--
Caleb Herbert
OpenPGP public key: http://bluehome.net/csh/pubkey
I read the other thread and if not because of that thread I may have given up long time ago, so thank you for inspiring me to not give up.
How does one go about responding to comments such as:
"I have learned about so many things and met all new kinds of people on Facebook."
"Through Facebook, I am able to share works that I have created quickly and to many people."
"Most of the Web, including Facebook, exists because it is funded by advertising. In order to keep it going, it might be necessary to allow data to be collected."
"Personalisation is useful; it provides me with tailored content that appeals to me. Anyway what's the harm? Don't we pick and choose what we want to see in real life?"
I often respond to these comments by saying that the "price" one pays by using Facebook or similar services is their own personal information, which is being disseminated to who knows where, and that the "benefits" of Facebook are never enough to outweigh the abuse that it inflicts on its users. Yet, I feel that these kind of responses don't have much effect.
Are there any better arguments one can use in response to the above comments?
> "I have learned about so many things and met all new kinds of
> people on Facebook."
Facebook uses its psychological profile of you to determine what information to display at what time in order to addict you. As a side effect, you may find much of the information interesting. However, relying on this side effect as a source of information is quite dangerous, as you make yourself vulnerable to manipulation.
For instance, Facebook suggests new articles based on which ones you have clicked on in the past. (Note that even if a news article is posted by a friend, you should consider it a suggestion from Facebook, as it was Facebook's decision to select that post of your friends to show you at that moment.) The more you participate in this feedback loop, the more similar these articles will be to each other. You may miss important information that Facebook does not show you because it does not think that seeing it wil make you more addicted to Facebook.
As a result, it is easy to become trapped in a "bubble of ignorance" whereby all of the information you see conforms to one veiwpoint and you are not exposed to other perspectives. When appplied selectively, this technique is a form of mind control that may be sold not only to advertisers but also political campaigns or governments in order to radicalize users who hold certain veiwpoints. Facebook has also found that by displaying a message to a set of people, they can great increase that set's voter turnout. This gives them the power to swing elections.
> "Through Facebook, I am able to share works that I have created
> quickly and to many people."
You should be very careful when posting your work to Facebook, as you may be giving Fecbook certain legal rights to your work. http://www.nyccounsel.com/business-blogs-websites/who-owns-photos-and-videos-posted-on-facebook-or-twitter/
If you feel certain that you require Facebook to promote your work or share some other information publically, consider this compromise suggested by RMS to do so in a way that protects your personal information and does not empower Facebook via the Network Effect. https://stallman.org/facebook-presence.html
> "Most of the Web, including Facebook, exists because it is funded
> by advertising. In order to keep it going, it might be necessary
> to allow data to be collected."
This is just arguing with reality. Plenty of websites exist that do not collect your personal data. It is possible to provide relevant ads without tracking or data collection. The Trisquel website has a ThinkPenguin ad that is sure to be relevant to many visitors because Trisquel and ThinkPenguin have similar audiences. It is also possibe to have a website that contains no ads. For example, the Diaspora pod that I use has no ads. I suspect that this is true for most Diaspora pods.
> "Personalisation is useful; it provides me with tailored content
> that appeals to me. Anyway what's the harm? Don't we pick and
> choose what we want to see in real life?"
The difference is that with Facebook you are not the one who picks and chooses. You have influence, but ultimately Facebook decides. Any benefits of Facebook's "personalization" are a side-effect. The only reason it shows you anything you want to see is to tempt you into giving it control, at which point it can expose you to what it wants you to see.
> I often respond to these comments by saying that the "price" one
> pays by using Facebook is their own personal information, which is
> being disseminated to who knows where, and that the "benefits" of
> Facebook are never enough to outweigh the abuse that it inflicts
> on its users. Yet, I feel that these kind of responses don't have
> much effect.
You are absolutely right. People should value their privacy regardless of the practical consequences of losing it. However, providing specific examples of ways in which Facebook can harm people may help the issue seem more "real" to them.
One thing that I find hilarious: Facebook may take and reuse all your
multimedia that you publish there, but Facebook's terms of service says
that you are only allowed to publish things that have you as the only
author. Effectively, one cannot legally share in Facebook works under
CC-any-variant, GPL-and-family, and other licenses.
2018-01-17T16:24:38-0800 name at domain wrote:
> Facebook uses its psychological profile of you to determine what
> information to display at what time in order to addict you. As a side
> effect, you may find much of the information interesting. However,
> relying on this side effect as a source of information is quite
> dangerous, as you make yourself vulnerable to manipulation.
>
> For instance, Facebook suggests new articles based on which ones you
> have clicked on in the past. (Note that even if a news article is
> posted by a friend, you should consider it a suggestion from Facebook,
> as it was Facebook's decision to select that post of your friends to
> show you at that moment.) The more you participate in this feedback
> loop, the more similar these articles will be to each other. You may
> miss important information that Facebook does not show you because it
> does not think that seeing it wil make you more addicted to Facebook.
>
> As a result, it is easy to become trapped in a "bubble of ignorance"
> whereby all of the information you see conforms to one veiwpoint and
> you are not exposed to other perspectives. When appplied selectively,
> this technique is a form of mind control that may be sold not only to
> advertisers but also political campaigns or governments in order to
> radicalize users who hold certain veiwpoints. Facebook has also found
> that by displaying a message to a set of people, they can great
> increase that set's voter turnout. This gives them the power to swing
> elections.
>
>
> You should be very careful when posting your work to Facebook, as you
> may be giving Fecbook certain legal rights to your
> work. http://www.nyccounsel.com/business-blogs-websites/who-owns-photos-and-videos-posted-on-facebook-or-twitter/
>
> If you feel certain that you require Facebook to promote your work or
> share some other information publically, consider this compromise
> suggested by RMS to do so in a way that protects your personal
> information and does not empower Facebook via the Network
> Effect. https://stallman.org/facebook-presence.html
>
>
> This is just arguing with reality. Plenty of websites exist that do
> not collect your personal data. It is possible to provide relevant ads
> without tracking or data collection. The Trisquel website has a
> ThinkPenguin ad that is sure to be relevant to many visitors because
> Trisquel and ThinkPenguin have similar audiences. It is also possibe
> to have a website that contains no ads. For example, the Diaspora pod
> that I use has no ads. I suspect that this is true for most Diaspora
> pods.
>
>
> The difference is that with Facebook you are not the one who picks and
> chooses. You have influence, but ultimately Facebook decides. Any
> benefits of Facebook's "personalization" are a side-effect. The only
> reason it shows you anything you want to see is to tempt you into
> giving it control, at which point it can expose you to what it wants
> you to see.
>
>
> You are absolutely right. People should value their privacy regardless
> of the practical consequences of losing it. However, providing
> specific examples of ways in which Facebook can harm people may help
> the issue seem more "real" to them.
>
--
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I am a translator!
>Facebook uses its psychological profile of you to determine what information to display at what time in order to addict you.
Yes. And it should be very scary for everyone with two brain cells. Unfortunately the average facebook user has only one.
They are profiling you so accurately your mother would be surprised. They know more about you than you know about yourself. This information not only contains your weak spots, it's also there to stay, forever. At each point some degenerate power (all powers tend to be) to be can use it against you. We know for a fact that laws change in time. We know for a fact that what is considered normal today might be considered suspicious tomorrow. What was illegal yesterday might be legal today and might again be illegal tomorrow. Being openly gay on Facebook? You might find yourself in big trouble some day. Just a random example..
Does this activate one of your cells? Mine are having a party while I write this.
Being able to predict future actions is being able to chill history into what I call 'the eternal present'. No change will ever come, no revolution, if the current state keeps on. If you can survey everyone all the time you can spot the whistleblowers and the activists in a jiffy and with no effort whatsoever. This is effectively the death of the mere idea of democracy, let alone its actual establishment.
But what I find to be the most dystopian and bad thing is... you are also (generic facebook you) getting addicted to constant feedback of artificial emotional satisfaction. this is indeed the real hard drug of any social network if and when misused. I know this for a fact. I am ashamed to admit this but when I first joined diaspora I was in a quite difficult period of my life, I found beautiful 'people' there (read ideally constructed images of what I deem a decent human being' or 'a pleasant and funny human being' is) and was very well welcomed when I joined. I am very ashamed but I will admit it: many of the first posts I posted there were motivated by this feedback. I liked being liked. Everybody does. We all want to be loved. And when we find no love or not enough love in our 'real life' we tend to use surrogates. It's human nature. It's the main reason of **every** drug addiction case.
Fortunately I stopped doing that, I soon realized what I was doing. I hated my self for that.
This feedback of likes and hearts and sweet words is a big fat lie, it does not exist. It's a heavy drug, and you need more, always more. Being a bitch is very wrong. Being a slave is even worse. I find the average facecuck user a combination of the two. Don't sell yourself, don't let the others define your value or likeability. Be asocial. If you can't be asocial (I can't) then be honest to yourself.
>For instance, Facebook suggests new articles based on which ones you have clicked on in the past.
It's called bubbling. It's a huge problem indeed. Above I mentioned the 'impossibility of change'. This is just another one, but a more subtle one. If you (generic facecuck you) always only read what you want to read and hear what you want to hear, how in the world can you change your mind, how in the world are you going to learn new things or correct your little wrong ideas and opinions? If your values and ideas are never faced you are much less than you could be. In other words facebook makes sure you stay ignorant and 'monolithic'. You'll never grow up, you'll never develop a critical though.
>manipulation
>trapped in a "bubble of ignorance"
>this technique is a form of mind control
Exactly, excellent mate!
But you are making me verbose and I don't like verbose, goddamit :/
I don't mind verbose.
$ supertramp -v
> 'the eternal present'
Word. This is my greatest fear, that the tyranny of mass surveillance and proprietary software will reach a level of efficiency such that it will be impossible to revive freedom or democracy or human dignity. In my mind this is a fate bad as extinction. The free software movement has achieved a great deal and continues to make progress, but its success is far from inevitable. We must win before we reach the point of no return. I don't know when that point will be, but I think about it in years not decades.
Your experience with Diaspora confirms another fear of mine, which is that although Diaspora is free software and its developers are probably well-intentioned, in attempting to replace Facebook they have unintentionally copied many of its malicious features. It is certainly not as bad as Facebook, and its decentralization prevents any addiction to it from being exploited by any one power, but it could still be psychologically harmful.
I am a translator!
>It is certainly not as bad as Facebook, and its decentralization prevents any addiction to it from being exploited by any one power, but it could still be psychologically harmful.
Yes. I shall point out that I wasn't experienced at the time and was not prepared to the powerful influence a social network can exercise over one's psyche, especially in a weak moment. In fact, Diaspora was the first (and only one so far if we exclude gnusocial which I logged into like 5 times..) social network I used. It's a decent place but it certainly can be misused and it can indeed be psychologically harmful as you point out.
Also, as you highlighted previously, being able to manipulate, control and direct large swarms of people by a single malicious central power is as bad as it can get.
Have you read this old article about facemoot?
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-users-emotions-news-feeds
> Mason, some humans are more vulnerable to these malicious features
My fear is that, even if there currently still exist people who are not susceptible to Facebook's manipulation, one day soon Facebook will acheive such efficiency that this is no lnger the case. Facebook isn't a naturally occuring substance like alcohol that happens to have some addictive properties that affect some humans. It is specifically designed to exploit vulnerabilies in the human brain. Its manipulations are like those of a cult or the abuser in an unhealthy relationship, but with more potential. Cults are only able to mentally a significant number of people by limiting themselves to those with severe and obvious vulnerabilities. Emotional abusers are able to acheive control over otherwise healthy people, but they rely on intimate knowledge of their victim to do so, limiting the number of people they can exploit. Mind control has always existed, just not efficiently enough to instantly work on an arbitrary individual. No longer. Only two things are required to have a mechanism for perfect mind control: (1) automatic detection of an individual's vulnerabilities and (2) automated exploitation of these vulnerabilities. Facebook has almost perfected (1). While (2) is sure to advance much further, it has already come far enough to be very dangerous. I can't stress enough that Facebook already has the power to decide the outcome of a close election: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/10/can-voting-facebook-button-improve-voter-turnout/
Eben Moglen believes that 2022 is a good estimation of the maximum length of Facebook's lasting, and he seems to have a deep knowledge of the issues in hand (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJCczbSF-B8). What is your opinion, given the threats/dangers you mention?
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Too many talkers, too few of them touch the actual essence of the problem.
* Eben Moglen has spent his professional life struggling for privacy and free software. Since you seem to dismiss free software at ever turn, you may be interested to know that among many many other things, he was Phil Zimmermann's defense lawyer.
* Freedombox, the "plug server" you make reference to, is a real project, it works and is being developed.
* Firefox is free software. If it had not been for Firefox we would probably all be using Microsoft's browser by now. Firefox is far from perfect, but you seem to have a dogmatic and visceral hate for it.
* Moglen started his life as a computer programming language designer. He is a technically competent person.
* You spend your time here talking other people down.
* You speak of Eben Moglen as if he were some sort of snake oil peddler.
* The only thing that came out from that web browser forum was you disparaging Magic Banana after he created two scripts to start your supposed project.
* What have you done to place you on this pedestal where you look down on everyone else, including those who have dedicated their lives to ensuring we have choices in how we do our computing?
* You need to come off your high horse.
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* Opera is not free software.
* Firefox is not perfect. You seem to live in a completely binary world. What satisfies your standards? If nothing, what are you creating that satisfies your standards.
* I can see you don't care who Moglen is. I do and I have a problem with you calling him a "talker" when he has done much for free software and privacy.
Look who's talking.
* I have spent weeks reading your posts, disparaging people I hold in high regard and who have always been helpful with me and others in this forum (such as Magic Banana), putting down projects I care about such as free software, etc. Against my better judgement, I have lost my patience and have been baited by your continued needling.
* I am not belittling what was shared, and quite a few people, Mason and Magic Banana among them, were very supportive of your efforts. You had no kindness for them either.
* How was I disrespectful to you?
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You conflate free software, privacy and security. You also do not (or refuse to) understand that one program can be free even if others are not and we can still speak about the software freedom of that program.
I do not need to look at any other context to say that a program is free software, and I have yet to come across a case where I have a choice between a free and proprietary program and I did not choose the free one. It is exactly the same case with firmware: whenever I can use free firmware, I do.
If you look at browser market shares, back when IE had >75% of the market, Opera had something like 0.1%. That's what I meant by we would probably all be using Microsoft's browser. In any case, I am very thankful that Firefox and its derivatives exist.
Not sure what you mean by "ring 3." First time I hear that term. If you mean "freedom 3," I don't understand what "when the system is compromised at [freedom] 3 is nonsense" means. Without freedom 3, you cannot improve the program and share your improvements.
What authority do I pat in the back?
I don't have the time for silly arguments.
A large number of your posts over the past weeks seem to contradict that statement.
Edit: Fixed grammar.
> Not sure what you mean by ring 3. First time I hear that term. If you
He refers to the issue of MINIX's existance in ring -3 sector of all
computers with Intel Management Engine ([1]).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINIX#MINIX_3 . See the last paragraph
of that section and the references it points to.
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Thanks Adfeno.
Then I would suggest to Joe to use a librebooted computer. I am sure then he will find some other reason why free software is irrelevant as it seems his strategy is to argue by demanding impossible perfection.
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You prove my point. You keep moving the goal post and demand impossible perfection.
You make it seem that using free software is useless and quaint, which it is not, and that achieveing some amount of privacy or security is useless because other aspects of computing are flawed. I find these false dichotomies counter-productive and wasteful.
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I will try to explain again and give you the benefit of the doubt once, although I suspect it may just extend this conversation into the indefinite future.
What do you mean by ensuring security? Who is your oponent? What is the threat? What are you trying to achieve?
I will divide this into two separate sections:
[1] *Regular Joe*
If I stop running Windows, format my harddrive, install Trisquel, and start using Trisquel, can I not reasonably assume that Microsfot is now unable to perform whatever abuses they used to be able to perform through their proprietary operating system? Does that not apply to every other program?
Free software allows you to do your computing in freedom, by ensuring you have four basic freedoms. These freedoms allow you to run the program as you wish, to share it, to study how it works and change it, to share your changes so others can benefit from them. These freedoms DO NOT guarantee that a program will not be abusive or violate your privacy, etc., but it gives you and others the possibility to detect it and to defend yourselves against this. You, and all other users, can have control of the program.
I hope so far I have been clear. It is not an all or nothing deal. Assuming that your system is potentially unsafe against an unknown adversary through specter or meltdown or whatever else, is unrelated to whether you have an abusive relationship with Microsoft through the Windows OS (in my example). Likewise, I can easily stop most other owners of proprietary programs from abusing me.
[2] *International Man of Mystery Joe*
By the sounds of it, you are trying to protect yourself against some sort of powerful state actor. Further, you seem to believe this powerful oponent is out to get YOU, targeting you specifically. Either this or you assume somehow that this powerful oponent is somehow simultaneously exploiting all computer users through spectre or meltdown or ME, or everything at once (??).
If your worry is that you are being targetted by your local intelligence agency or the NSA or something like that, really, my advise is to minimize your use of computers for whatever it is that you want to keep private. Further, I would speculate that operational security is much more important than whether you've run ME cleaner on your computer (though I suppose it wouldn't hurt either).
My guess is the Trisquel forum is not the ideal place to find a thorough knowledge to evade such an adversary.
--------------------
*Conclusion*
While I'll give you the benefit of the doubt as stated in point #2 (What do I know, maybe you're Edward Snowden, though I hope not), for any other security concern, you should really develop a threat model and mitigate against that.
There is no perfect security.
There is no total privacy.
There is no way to simultaneously defend yourself against all possible threats all of the time and lead a functional life.
Edit: Typo.
> Then I would suggest to Joe to use a librebooted computer. I am sure
> then he will find some other reason why free software is irrelevant as
> it seems his strategy is to argue by demanding impossible perfection.
I don't want to sound harsh to any of you, but all I can say is this:
without certain amount of risk, we might not be able to go
anywhere. There is no perfect solution, there is only the ones which are
known to be the most free/libre software (in case of software),
free/libre distros (in case of distros) or free/libre software friendly
(which is the case for the RYFed products, not the rest which is
h-node). I'm not demanding that everyone here must immediately seek
those, I cannot do such affirmation, because each person reading this
knows their finantial limitations, all I ask is for people to check
these carefully crafted list of stuff before racing to the next
electronics store, and keep a pessimist view of current world's devices.
I once had a related discussion in the "android" mailing list of FSFE. I
told that people should recommend Replicant to *the general public*
([1][2][3]), but people replid telling me otherwise because "its status
is not good", "it's not usable by non-developers", among other
excuses. In the end, even a FSF (no "E") staff member had to get there
([4]) noting that Replicant already has non-developers using it, that it
must be a joint effort between free/libre software activists and
society's adoption of Replicant, and also left the subscribers with a
question similar to this: Considering that some free/libre software
developers like to work on projects which are used by most people, how
would Replicant become more "usable" if not by fostering its usage in
the general public?
[1]
https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/private/android/2017-December/001052.html
.
[2]
https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/private/android/2017-December/001057.html
.
[3]
https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/private/android/2017-December/001058.html
.
[4]
https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/private/android/2017-December/001082.html
.
My question, which was directed to mason (but, of course, I encourage anyone to respond to it), seems to have been ignored. Eben Moglen, a prominent figure of the free software movement, believes that by 2022 Facebook will have reached its peak and would henceforth start to decline. Given the very significant dangers and issues raised by mason and others about Facebook's capabilities, do you think that EB's statement is plausible?
> * Freedombox, the "plug server" you make reference to, is a real
> project, it works and is being developed.
Yes, Freedombox really exists and has releases, however I must note that
it's not a free/libre system distribution, so we mustn't recommend it
here, and so far I have received no indication of this status changing
([1]).
> * Firefox is free software. If it had not been for Firefox we would
It unfortunately isn't free/libre, due to what is exposed in
([2][3]). And before someone else does: please don't provide
over-simplified description of the work free/libre forks do related to
their non-(free/libre) originals.
[1] .
[2] .
[3] .
--
- https://libreplanet.org/wiki/User:Adfeno
- Palestrante e consultor sobre /software/ livre (não confundir com
gratis).
- "WhatsApp"? Ele não é livre. Por favor, veja formas de se comunicar
instantaneamente comigo no endereço abaixo.
- Contato: https://libreplanet.org/wiki/User:Adfeno#vCard
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- Arquivos comuns aceitos e enviados: CSV, GNU Dia, GNU Emacs Org, GNU
GIMP, Inkscape SVG, JPG, LibreOffice (padrão ODF), OGG, OPUS, PDF
(apenas sem DRM), PNG, TXT, WEBM.
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> however I must note thatit's not a free/libre system distribution,
Wow, I didn't know that. It's a project started and led by Moglen AFAIK. I am surprised it is not free software. Your footnotes are missing, do you have a link to this information?
> It unfortunately isn't free/libre, due to what is exposed in ([2][3]).
[2] and [3] are unavailable. AFAIK, Firefox source code is free software. You are right, the trademark and recommendation of non-free addons make it inconvenient to excercise freedom 3, which is why forks exist. In any case, my point to Joe was that it is a valuable project, faults nonwithstanding. Thanks for the clarification though.
For those which reported missing references for the message I'm replying
to (my own one), here is the references. Now they should appear normally
for those reading using the forums.
[1]
http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2017-April/007982.html
.
[2] https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/ .
[3] https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/IceCat .
--
- https://libreplanet.org/wiki/User:Adfeno
- Palestrante e consultor sobre /software/ livre (não confundir com
gratis).
- "WhatsApp"? Ele não é livre. Por favor, veja formas de se comunicar
instantaneamente comigo no endereço abaixo.
- Contato: https://libreplanet.org/wiki/User:Adfeno#vCard
- Arquivos comuns aceitos (apenas sem DRM): Corel Draw, Microsoft
Office, MP3, MP4, WMA, WMV.
- Arquivos comuns aceitos e enviados: CSV, GNU Dia, GNU Emacs Org, GNU
GIMP, Inkscape SVG, JPG, LibreOffice (padrão ODF), OGG, OPUS, PDF
(apenas sem DRM), PNG, TXT, WEBM.
I am a member!
Thanks Adfeno. From reference [1] I conclude the problem is Debian is not on the list of FSF endorsed distributions. Freedombox is composed of free software as far as I can see. Debian without non-free repositories is free software too. Given there is no alternative that is more freedom respecting than Freedombox for a plug server, I do not see how it would be unethical for me to recommend it. I even wonder if it could be setup on Trisquel (not sure if all the dependencies are in the Trisquel repos). The conclusion though is Freedombox can be run without proprietary software. Is this correct?
> repositories is free software too. Given there is no alternative that
> is more freedom respecting than Freedombox for a plug server, I do not
> see how it would be unethical for me to recommend it. I even wonder if
Well for plug-server, you have plenty already, to name a few: Parabola,
Hyperbola (undergoing evaluation, has already asked for inclusion as
free/libre distro), and perhaps (I don't know) GuixSD.
> the Trisquel repos). The conclusion though is Freedombox can be run
> without proprietary software. Is this correct?
I won't risk telling you anything I don't know. Software is complicated
matter, just like all Stallman's talks show us, we must assume the worst
case for a software, not the best.
I am a member!
>I won't risk telling you anything I don't know. Software is >complicated matter, just like all Stallman's talks show us, >we must assume the worst case for a software, not the best.
As stated before, Freedombox can be installed on Debian and Debian is not a FSF endorsed distribution, although it is still comprised exclusively of free software without the non-free repositories enabled. I would argue if you are downloading the image from the freedombox website and follow the installation instructions you would never be faced with the choice of enabling the non-free repos anyway. Even if you were, Freedombox is not Debian, so we should examine whether Freedombox and it's dependencies are free, and all available evidence points to the fact that they are, including the following points below. Eben Moglen has worked with RMS for free software for most of his professional life, why would you distrust a foundation and project that he started that states repeatedly everyone on the site that it is free software? I feel you are taking your skepticism a bit too far. Where do we stop?
1) All releases excxept the one for rpi2 use Debian free: https://freedombox.org/download/stable/
2) From the front page:
"It runs free software"
3) From the FAQ:
"It is a free software stack"
4) From the "About the Foundation" page:
"...a free software system"
"The software is a free and open source system"
"...preloaded with many useful apps and tools designed to protect your freedom, privacy, and user rights"
"The FreedomBox Foundation is led by its President, Eben Moglen (Professor of Law at Columbia Law School and founder of the Software Freedom Law Center), Technical Lead and Member of the Board Bdale Garbee (former Debian Project Leader and President of Software in the Public Interest)"
I am a member!
And of course, most importantly, if you have the time and want to assume the worst case for all software, you can look at the licenses (I assume that's what you mean by worst case, otherwise I suppose you'll have to actually audit every line of the code, which comes back to my questioning the limit of practicability):
https://github.com/freedombox/Plinth
Edit: Typo (yeah, usually!)
I am a translator!
> Firefox is free software. If it had not been for Firefox we would probably all be using Microsoft's browser by now.
I would not. I would probably use some 'degoogled' (if that's even possible) chromium.
>Firefox is far from perfect, but you seem to have a dogmatic and visceral hate for it
Why would you say so? Being suspicious and 'testing the browser' to actually see what it does and what connections does it establish in the background has nothing to do with 'dogma'. Believing blindly FF is good for your privacy is actually what I would define 'dogmatic'
Just saying.. But yeah, Moglen is a king. But then again that does not mean he can not say or write an inaccuracy.
Be good to each other (and send me bitcoins) \o/
I am a member!
> I would not. I would probably use some 'degoogled' (if that's even possible) chromium.
I already explained what I meant by that (https://trisquel.info/en/forum/family-privacy-again#comment-127677). But yes, I wouldn't have expected less from you.
> Why would you say so?
Heyjoe is dogmatic* in his belief that a program cannot be free software and simultaneously disrespect user privacy, as can be read in the very long "Web Browsers" thread. Several people have patiently explained to him why this is not the case. In case you don't have all weekend to read, I will provide you the first shortcut: https://trisquel.info/en/forum/web-browser#comment-126105
Moglen has been wrong about other predictions and is not infallible. Heyjoe is disrespectful of him, as he was of Magic Banana and others (in my opinion of course. You need not agree).
* In the pejorative sense, dogma refers to enforced decisions, such as those of aggressive political interests or authorities.[4][5] More generally it is applied to some strong belief that the ones adhering to it are not willing to rationally discuss.
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogmatic
Edit: Mistakenly wrote "can" instead of "cannot."
> "Firefox frees people from a net created by Microsoft"
>
> Yeah, like ****
I do agree with you, although it must be noted that the upload date was
2012-06-01, and unless I'm mistaken (please investigate this or correct
me if I'm wrong), back then we were unaware of the freedom issues of
Firefox.
Besides, we had only Microsoft as the major incumbent, in recent years
it has been proven that Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google are also part
of trash. And just last year we found even more --- hint: not just
Netflix but every techonology or service provider that breaks attempts
of federation or that traps customers with non-(free/libre) software ---
([1]).
> He has obviously not explored into uBO and uMatrix and is stuck with ABP.
> Well... CAs are not necessarily trustful OR independent.
> The land of the free :)
Again the issue of date. The Snowden revelations didn't came to exist
back then.
> and he suggest that the teaching should be about asking "the
> question". But the problem with this is that he also seems to teach
> what the answer is which deprives the questioner of the possibility to
> look freely for oneself and to find a different one. He suggests
> existing formulas like Diaspora etc. There is danger in suggesting
> recipes because people easily stick to them and there is no real
> question. So the question must come without an answer, otherwise it is
> an imposition, not a free observation but a directed one.
I agree that we should not always give the definitive answer to
everyone. I don't know if the reference in [2] is aligned with what you
have just said, but in [2] we can see that this decision as to whether
the current "already-made answer" should be given depends on the age of
the person we're talking to.
[1]
. According to ,
it's under CC BY-SA 3.0 US.
[2]
(under CC BY-SA 4.0).
> I didn't look at YouTube. I downloaded with avideo locally.
> So blame the one who shares dated info and asks for feedback based on
> current issues :)
Don't worry, this happens with everyone. ;)
I didn't have time to test this yet because I rarely use YouTube ---
except for getting stuff out as .webm and seeding it using torrent ---
since I'm trying to push back on the set of incumbents described by
Yochai (the person who gave the SFLC Fall 2017 Conference keynote that I
referenced in another message), but does avideo have `--write-info-json'
option? If "yes" then: you can get the upload date from the .info.json
file.
> saw that the file it downloaded is with date from 2016, so I guess it
> takes care of that.
See the "description" field in the .info.json file, it's the field that
mostly appears in every attempt to download videos using avideo or
youtube-dl. There is a field which also tells the upload date, but it
rarely appears when writing the .info.json file in the first few
tries. From the "description" field one can see that the interview is
from 2012.
For those which reported missing references for the message I'm replying
to (my own one), here is the references. Now they should appear normally
for those reading using the forums.
[1] https://downloads.softwarefreedom.org/2017/conference/0-keynote.webm
. According to https://softwarefreedom.org/events/2017/conference/video/
, it's under CC BY-SA 3.0 US.
[2]
https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/m/the-free-software-movement-in-the-age-of-trump/
(under CC BY-SA 4.0).
There again you come with this "free software can't give you privacy" bs...
yeah you did a tcpdump and found some background chatting, which is not nice, that's true.
Do the following:
1. download the source code of firefox
2. do a sed replace for every unwanted URL firefox is communicating with and substitute it with "localhost"
3. compile firefox
=> you solved the problem for yourself
4. release your changes to the public
=> you solved the problem for everybody else
Free Software DOES give you control, and control enables you to get privacy. Actually you proved it yourself but didn't realize it.
> I have never said that.
You literally wrote:
"He seems to assume that free software gives him privacy which is rather superficial considering the issues mentioned in this thread"
> FWIW I have already looked at that option but it is not that simple (sed replacement).
Why not?
The data is stored in the source code. What should you prevent from simply replacing it?
Try the same thing with proprietary software...
> Don't advise about things which you have not tried.
I did sed replace with a lot of source code a lot of times. There was never any problem whatsoever, and you obviously cannot provide any reason why it should not be feasable.
> 1) Learn practically
One reply earlier you told me not to instruct you and now you're doing it yourself.
Too many people have "nothing to hide". I find it very hard to argue with them.
I am a translator!
Actually they got it wrong. They have **nowhere** to hide, not 'nothing'.
Allow me share some food for your brain
It's not a good feeling when you get up every morning knowing that your own government is tracking you. They told me later 'we knew when you got up, we knew when you left your house, we knew which vehicles you used, where you stopped, where you shopped', for every electronic communication was being monitored, on a 24/7 bases, including my phone.
Where do you go in that regime? Where do you go? Where do you go? Where is a safe place? Where do you go to be yourself?
Thomas Andrews Drake
If you think you are innocent, or that you have nothing to hide, you do not understand what is happening. Justice, like truth, in this system is not relevant. Ask Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange or Edward Snowden, along with whistle-blowers like Thomas Drake, where justice and truth got them.
Chris Hedges
----------------------------------------------------------
Where is a safe place? Where do you go to be yourself?
^ This is the very definition of privacy. It has nothing to do wahtsoever with 'hiding'.
I am a translator!
You touch a very important point indeed, joe. God is indeed almighty for he/she (I prefer 'it) is omnipresent and omniscient.
>The more I look at what is happening, the more I think: the only salvation is some deep genetic mutation which would make human species into something else.
Well, I retired into a cave, I have tons of cans and my laptop, I rarely see the light of the day (only when my Internet connection goes down, doesn't happen very often). The mutation has already started, a third hand is growing (which is quite useful so I can sip on my soda while typing this ^^
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