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-<!-- 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.
- -->
-
-
- <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 href="#FOOT50" name="DOCF50">
- (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 href="#FOOT51" name="DOCF51">
- (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 href="#FOOT52" name="DOCF52">
- (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 href="#DOCF50" name="FOOT50">
- (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 href="#DOCF51" name="FOOT51">
- (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 href="#DOCF52" name="FOOT52">
- (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>
- </hr>
- </div>
- <hr size="2"/>
-