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diff --git a/src/frontend_blog/articles/scrap1_40.html b/src/frontend_blog/articles/scrap1_40.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..beeae1b9 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/frontend_blog/articles/scrap1_40.html @@ -0,0 +1,229 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/loose.dtd"> +<html> +<!-- This is the second edition of Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman. + +Free Software Foundation + +51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor + +Boston, MA 02110-1335 +Copyright C 2002, 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc. +Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire book are permitted +worldwide, without royalty, in any medium, provided this notice is +preserved. Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations +of this book from the original English into another language provided +the translation has been approved by the Free Software Foundation and +the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all +copies. + +ISBN 978-0-9831592-0-9 +Cover design by Rob Myers. + +Cover photograph by Peter Hinely. + --> +<!-- Created on February 18, 2016 by texi2html 1.82 +texi2html was written by: + Lionel Cons <Lionel.Cons@cern.ch> (original author) + Karl Berry <karl@freefriends.org> + Olaf Bachmann <obachman@mathematik.uni-kl.de> + and many others. +Maintained by: Many creative people. +Send bugs and suggestions to <texi2html-bug@nongnu.org> +--> +<head> +<title>Free Software, Free Society, 2nd ed.: 40. Computing “Progress”: Good and Bad</title> + +<meta name="description" content="This is the second edition of Richard Stallman's collection of essays."> +<meta name="keywords" content="Free Software, Free Society, 2nd ed.: 40. Computing “Progress”: Good and Bad"> +<meta name="resource-type" content="document"> +<meta name="distribution" content="global"> +<meta name="Generator" content="texi2html 1.82"> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> +<style type="text/css"> +<!-- +a.summary-letter {text-decoration: none} +blockquote.smallquotation {font-size: smaller} +pre.display {font-family: serif} +pre.format {font-family: serif} +pre.menu-comment {font-family: serif} +pre.menu-preformatted {font-family: serif} +pre.smalldisplay {font-family: serif; font-size: smaller} +pre.smallexample {font-size: smaller} +pre.smallformat {font-family: serif; font-size: smaller} +pre.smalllisp {font-size: smaller} +span.roman {font-family:serif; font-weight:normal;} +span.sansserif {font-family:sans-serif; font-weight:normal;} +ul.toc {list-style: none} +--> +</style> +<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../style.css"> + + +</head> + +<body lang="en" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" vlink="#800080" alink="#FF0000"> + +<a name="Computing-Progress"></a> +<header><div id="logo"><img src="../gnu.svg" height="100" width="100"></div><h1>Free Software, Free Society, 2nd ed.</h1></header><section id="main"><a name="Computing-_0060_0060Progress_0027_0027_003a-Good-and-Bad"></a> +<h1 class="chapter"> 40. Computing “Progress”: Good and Bad </h1> + +<a name="index-Horowitz_002c-Bradley"></a> +<a name="index-UK"></a> +<a name="index-Big-Brother"></a> +<a name="index-New-Labour"></a> +<a name="index-China"></a> +<a name="index-Yahoo"></a> +<a name="index-proprietary-software_002c-spying-on-users-2"></a> +<p>Bradley Horowitz of +Yahoo proposed here<a name="DOCF50" href="#FOOT50">(50)</a> that every object in +our world have a unique number so that your cell phone could record +everything you do—even which cans you picked up while in the +supermarket. +</p> +<p>If the phone is like today’s phones, it will use proprietary software: +software controlled by the companies that developed it, not by its +users. Those companies will ensure that your phone makes the +information it collects about you available to the phone company’s +database (let’s call it Big Brother) and probably to other +companies. +</p> +<p>In the UK of the future, as New Labour would have it, those companies +will surely turn this information over to the police. If your phone +reports you bought a wooden stick and a piece of poster board, the +phone company’s system will deduce that you may be planning a protest, +and report you automatically to the police so they can accuse you of +“terrorism.” +</p> +<p>In the UK, it is literally an offense to be suspect—more precisely, +to possess any object in circumstances that create a “reasonable +suspicion” that you might use it in certain criminal ways. Your +phone will give the police plenty of opportunities to suspect you so +they can charge you with having been suspected by them. Similar +things will happen in China, where Yahoo has already given the +government all the information it needed to imprison a dissident; it +subsequently asked for our understanding on the excuse that it was +“just following orders.” +</p> +<a name="index-cell-phones-_0028see-also-both-OpenMoko-and-Apple_0029-1"></a> +<p>Horowitz would like cell phones to tag information automatically, +based on knowing when you participate in an event or meeting. That +means the phone company will also know precisely whom you meet. That +information will also be interesting to governments, such as those of +the UK and China, that cut corners on human rights. +</p> +<p>I do not much like Horowitz’s vision of total surveillance. Rather, I +envision a world in which our computers never collect, or release, any +information about us except when we want them to. +</p> +<a name="index-DRM_002c-call-it-_0060_0060Digital-Restrictions-Management_0027_0027-6"></a> +<p>Nonfree software does other nasty things besides spying; it often +implements digital handcuffs—features designed to restrict the users +(also called DRM, for Digital Restrictions Management). These features +control how you can access, copy, or move the files in your own +computer. +</p> +<p>DRM is a common practice: +<a name="index-DRM_002c-and-Microsoft"></a> +Microsoft does it, +<a name="index-DRM_002c-and-Apple"></a> +Apple does it, +<a name="index-DRM_002c-and-Google"></a> +Google +does it, even the +<a name="index-DRM_002c-and-BBC-iPlayer"></a> +<a name="index-iPlayer_002c-BBC-_0028see-also-DRM_0029"></a> +BBC’s iPlayer does it. Many governments, taking the +side of these companies against the public, have made it illegal to +tell others how to escape from the digital handcuffs. As a result, +competition does nothing to check the practice: no matter how many +proprietary alternatives you might have to choose from, they will all +handcuff you just the same. If the computer knows where you are +located, it can make DRM even worse: there are companies that would +like to restrict what you can access based on your present location. +<a name="index-DRM_002c-call-it-_0060_0060Digital-Restrictions-Management_0027_0027-7"></a> +</p> +<p>My vision of the world is different. I would like to see a world in +which all the software in our computers — in our desktop PCs, our +laptops, our handhelds, our phones — is under our control and +respects our freedom. In other words, a world where all software is +<em>free</em> software. +</p> +<p>Free software, freedom-respecting software, means that every user of +the program is free to get the program’s source code and change the +program to do what she wants, and also free to give away or sell +copies, either exact or modified. This means the users are in +control. With the users in control of the software, nobody has power +to impose nasty features on others. +</p> +<p>Even if you don’t exercise this control yourself, you are part of a +society where others do. If you are not a programmer, other users of +the program are. They will probably find and remove any nasty +features, which might spy on or restrict you, and publish safe +versions. You will have only to elect to use them—and since +all other users will prefer them, that will usually happen with no +effort on your part. +</p> +<a name="index-Stross_002c-Charles"></a> +<p>Charles Stross envisioned computers that permanently record everything +that we see and hear.<a name="DOCF51" href="#FOOT51">(51)</a> Those records could be very useful, as long as +Big Brother doesn’t see and hear all of them. Today’s cell phones are +already capable of listening to their users without informing them, at +the request of the police, the phone company, or anyone that knows the +requisite commands. As long as phones use nonfree software, +controlled by its developers and not by the users, we must expect this +to get worse. Only free software enables computer-using citizens to +resist totalitarian surveillance. +<a name="index-cell-phones-_0028see-also-both-OpenMoko-and-Apple_0029-2"></a> +</p> +<a name="index-Winer_002c-Dave"></a> +<p>Dave Winer’s article<a name="DOCF52" href="#FOOT52">(52)</a> suggested that Mr. +<a name="index-Gates_002c-Bill"></a> +Gates should send a copy of +<a name="index-Windows_002c-Vista-2"></a> +<a name="index-Vista_002c-Windows-_0028see-also-both-Windows-and-DRM_0029-3"></a> +Windows Vista to +<a name="index-Alpha-Centauri"></a> +Alpha Centauri. I understand the feeling, but +sending just one won’t solve our problem here on Earth. Windows is +designed to spy on users and restrict them. We should collect all the +copies of +<a name="index-DRM_002c-and-Windows"></a> +Windows, and of +<a name="index-DRM_002c-and-MacOS"></a> +<a name="index-MacOS-_0028see-also-DRM_0029-1"></a> +MacOS and +<a name="index-DRM_002c-and-BBC-iPlayer-1"></a> +<a name="index-iPlayer_002c-BBC-_0028see-also-DRM_0029-1"></a> +iPlayer for the same reason, and send +them to Alpha Centauri at the slowest possible speed. Or just erase +them. +<a name="index-Big-Brother-1"></a> +<a name="index-proprietary-software_002c-spying-on-users-3"></a> +</p><div class="footnote"> +<hr> +<h3>Footnotes</h3> +<h3><a name="FOOT50" href="#DOCF50">(50)</a></h3> +<p>Bradley Horowitz, “The Tech Lab: Bradley Horowitz,” <cite>BBC News,</cite> 29 June 2007, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6252716.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6252716.stm</a>. +</p><h3><a name="FOOT51" href="#DOCF51">(51)</a></h3> +<p>Charles Stross, “The Tech Lab: Charles Stross,” <cite>BBC News,</cite> 10 July 2007, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6287126.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6287126.stm</a>. +</p><h3><a name="FOOT52" href="#DOCF52">(52)</a></h3> +<p>Dave Winer, “The Tech Lab: Dave Winer,” <cite>BBC News,</cite> 14 June 2007, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6748103.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6748103.stm</a>. +</p></div> +<hr size="2"> +<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0"> +<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="scrap1_39.html#McVoy" title="Previous section in reading order"> < </a>]</td> +<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="scrap1_41.html#Compromise" title="Next section in reading order"> > </a>]</td> +<td valign="middle" align="left"> </td> +<td valign="middle" align="left">[Contents]</td> +<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="scrap1_U.4.html#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td> +<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="scrap1_abt.html#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td> +</tr></table> +<p> + <font size="-1"> + This document was generated by <em>Christian Grothoff</em> on <em>February 18, 2016</em> using <a href="http://www.nongnu.org/texi2html/"><em>texi2html 1.82</em></a>. + </font> + <br> + +</p> +</body> +</html> |