taler-merchant-demos

keep-control-of-your-computing.html (8690B)

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 <title>Keep Control of Your Computing, So It Doesn't Control You!
 - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
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 <h2>Keep Control of Your Computing, So It Doesn't Control You!</h2>
 
 <address class="byline">by Richard Stallman</address>
 
 <div class="introduction">
 <p><em>The World Wide Web, developed by Tim Berners-Lee in 1990 as a system
 for publishing and viewing information, is slowly being transformed
 into a system of remote computing. It will store your data, and data
 about you, often limiting your access to it but allowing FBI access at
 any time. It will do your computing for you, but you cannot control
 what it does. It provides various tempting attractions, but you must
 resist them.</em></p>
 </div>
 
 <p>In the 1980s, most people did not use computers; those who did, mostly
 used personal computers or timesharing services. Both allowed you to
 install software of your choice. Both allowed you full control over
 your data, though it is not clear what access the timesharing services
 gave to the FBI. In any case, the timesharing services mostly
 faded away by the 90s.</p>
 
 <p>This does not mean that these users had control of their computing.
 With software, either the users control the program (free software) or
 the program controls the users (proprietary or nonfree software).
 Those users were running proprietary software because that's all there
 was at the time. The users could not change it, or even tell what it
 really did.</p>
 
 <p>The abusiveness of proprietary software has intensified since then;
 nowadays, it is likely to spy on you, intentionally restrict you,
 and/or have back doors. (Windows is known to do all three; likewise
 the iPhone and the Kindle.) But even absent such abuse, it wasn't
 right for users to be controlled by their software.</p>
 
 <p>That's why I launched the free software movement in 1983. We decided
 to develop an operating system and applications that would be entirely
 free (libre, freie), so that the users would have control over them.
 I gave this system the name GNU. (You have probably heard people call
 it &ldquo;Linux,&rdquo; but that's an error.) People who switch to this system,
 and insist on using only free software, are in a position to control
 their computing. We have liberated only a small part of cyberspace,
 as yet, but that is a foothold for freedom.</p>
 
 <p>Developments in the Web threaten to negate this achievement. The
 first problem was the use of invisible references to sites whose
 mission was surveillance (perhaps for advertising). Users who visited
 sites A, B, X and Z did not realize that those pages contained
 invisible references to iamwatchingyou.com, so each visit informed
 that site too, and it recorded permanently that this user had visited
 certain pages.</p>
 
 <p>JavaScript created a further problem. Initially used for harmless
 things such as unusual-looking menus, its capabilities have been
 extended to the point where it can do nontrivial computing. Services
 such as Google Docs install large JavaScript programs into the user's
 browser. Even though they run in your computer, you have no control
 over what they do there.</p>
 
 <p>Then there is the issue of storing your data in companies' servers.
 The largest such companies have little respect for users' privacy.
 For instance, if you hand your data to Facebook, companies pay
 Facebook (not you) for the use of it. They pay Facebook (not you) to
 run ads using your face.</p>
 
 <p>The timesharing companies of the 1980s had usually treated their
 users' data with respect, even though they could occasionally abuse
 them, because their users were paying clients and could go elsewhere.
 Facebook's users do not pay, so they are not its clients. They are
 its merchandise, to be sold to other businesses. If the company is in
 the US, or is a subsidiary of a US company, the FBI can collect this
 data at whim without even a court order under an un-American US law,
 named in purest blackwhiting the &ldquo;Patriot Act.&rdquo;</p>
 
 <p>Services also offer to operate on the users data. In effect, this
 means that users do their computing on the servers, and the servers
 take complete control of that computing.</p>
 
 <p>There is a systematic marketing campaign to drive users to entrusting
 their computing and their data to companies they have absolutely no
 reason to trust. Its buzzword is &ldquo;cloud computing,&rdquo; a term used for
 so many different computing structures that its only real meaning is,
 &ldquo;Do it without thinking about what you're doing.&rdquo;</p>
 
 <p>There is even a product, Google ChromeOS, designed so that it can only
 store data remotely, and the user must do her computing remotely.
 Ironically, it is free software, a version of GNU/Linux. Users will
 have access to the source code, and could change it so as to support
 local computing and local data storage&mdash;if the machine has enough
 memory to store it, and if it permits users to install their own
 versions of the software. If Android phones are any guide, most
 ChromeOS devices will be designed to prevent users from doing that.</p>
 
 <p>This does not mean Internet users can't have privacy. This does not
 mean that Internet users can't have control of their computing. It
 does mean that you'll have to swim against the current to have them.</p>
 
 <div class="infobox extra" role="complementary">
 <hr />
 <p>First published in <cite>Der Spiegel Online</cite>.</p>
 </div>
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 <p>Copyright &copy; 2011, 2021 Richard Stallman</p>
 
 <p>This page is licensed under a <a rel="license"
 href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">Creative
 Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.</p>
 
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 <p class="unprintable">Updated:
 <!-- timestamp start -->
 $Date: 2021/10/01 10:55:56 $
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 </p>
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