Michel Bauwens: Recommended Reading – Cypherpunks on Freedom and the Future of the Internet

Hardware, P2P / Panarchy, Software
Michel Bauwens
Michel Bauwens

Book of the Day: Cypherpunks on Freedom and the Future of the Internet

Excerpted from a review by Cryptome:

“This is a highly informative book, perhaps the best published on the substance of WikiLeaks, its technology, philosophy, origin and purpose, rooted in the Cypherpunks resistance to authority through encryption and anonymizing technology. The trenchant and salient, wide-ranging discussion among Assange, Appelbaum, Müller-Maguhn and Zimmermann, is derived from a four-part RT series with additional editorial material and a summarizing prologue by Assange, “A Call to Cryptographic Arms.”

Amazon Page
Amazon Page

It is an excellent introduction to the struggle for control of digital communications, economics and governance. A prime candidate for inclusion of reading lists of the enemies of authoritarian institutions, corporations and governments heavily invested in the Internet and aiming to control it by secret collusion for their purposes — at the global public’s expense, loss of privacy and reduced democracy. It claims to be a “watchman’s warning” against the threat posed by the Internet and cellphone technology.

The panel asserts [11 points in all]:

1. The internet is a threat to human civilization because of its panoptic surveillance and profiling of users.

2. “Strategic surveillance” gathers all online and cellphone data as distinguished from tactical surveillance with is specifically targeted.

Continue reading “Michel Bauwens: Recommended Reading – Cypherpunks on Freedom and the Future of the Internet”

Owl: Autonomous Internet with Pirate Box

Autonomous Internet, Civil Society, Software
Who?  Who?
Who? Who?

Set Up Your Own Mini-Internet for Free with Pirate Box

The PirateBox is software that can be used to turn your WiFi enabled computer into a local router. It can also be used to make actual “PirateBoxes,” which are stand-alone devices that likewise create a local network. The advantage of a local network, not connected to the Internet, is that you can file share and communicate your way around the draconian restrictions and regulations being increasingly put into place on the Internet.

Tutorial:  The PirateBox and Internet Freedom

Other projects similar to PirateBox: Aram Bartholl’s fantastic Dead Drops. Also visit Jason Griffey’s PirateBox fork LibraryBox.

Pirate Box software download via torrent

Richard Stallman: Free Software Foundation Issue 57 Dec 2012

IO Newsletter Free Software, Software
Richard Stallman
Richard Stallman

Help us make 2013 a great year for free software!

We hope you enjoy this special New Year's issue of the Supporter, complete with an impressive piece of holiday ASCII art by FSF member Chris Webber. As you can hopefully tell, that's a gnu toasting the new year with Gavroche, the adorable goblin mascot of the GNU MediaGoblin project that so many of you generously supported this year.

All of you care about free software, and our job at the FSF is to make your voices heard. In 2013, our goal is to turn up the volume and reach more people than ever before with the message that all software can and should be free. To make this possible, we want to raise $350,000 by January 31st. If you've been following the progress bar on our homepage, you know we're about halfway there. Can you help us reach our goal?

Click here to donate to the FSF or become a member now.

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/ /    /_ _o\  \ \            (           )
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             HAPPY GNU YEAR 2013!

 

View this issue online

 

Bojan Radej: Open Source Software Hub

Software
Bojan Radej
Bojan Radej

Dreams of ‘Open’ Everything

Quentin Hardy

New York Times, 28 November 2012

Software is not merely about automating every aspect of our lives anymore. Some of its makers want to change the way we all interact, spreading their supposed egalitarian excellence.

Whether this is liberation into a new and better mode of being (and yes, the people thinking about this take it to that scale) or the folly of an industry in love with its success is one of the more intriguing questions of a world rushing to live online.

GitHub is a San Francisco company that started in 2008 as a way for open-source software writers in disparate locations to rapidly create new and better versions of their work. Work is stored, shared and discussed, based on the idea of a “pull request,” which is a suggestion to the group for some accretive element, like several lines of code, to be “pulled,” or added, to a project.

“The concept is based around change: what is the right thing to do, what is the wrong thing?” said Tom Preston-Werner, GitHub’s co-founder and chief executive. “The efficiency of large groups working together is very low in large enterprises. We want to change that.”

Read full article.

 

Berto Jongman: Building Trust in Cyberspace + Robert Garigue RECAP

Advanced Cyber/IO, Security, Software, Spectrum
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

Building Trust in Cyberspace

The EastWest Institute released Building Trust in Cyberspace, a report featuring highlights of its 3rd Worldwide Cybersecurity Summit held in New Delhi on October 30-31, 2012. More than 300 participants from 22 countries heard from cyber experts from across the globe representing both the private and public sectors.

Open publication | Download (mobile viewing)

Testimonial

I went to a conference that made me rethink everything that I have ever written, said and advocated about the Internet. I had a visceral, emotional reaction to the information presented at the International Youth and Technology Forum on Digital Citizenship,  April Rudin – CEO The Rudin Group, The Huffington Post, April 21 2011

Robert Garigue
Robert Garigue

IN MEMORY OF ROBERT GARIGUE

He was the first to understand that security is about distributed trust, not centralized control.

See Also:

21st Century Intelligence Core References 2.2

Advanced Cyber/IO: Knowledge Integration

GARIGUE Tagged at Phi Beta Iota

John Robb: Four Sources of Trust, Crypto Not Scaling….

Review: World 3.0 – Global Prosperity and How to Achieve It

Click on Image to Enlarge
Click on Image to Enlarge

Robert Garigue: Feedback for Dynamic System Change

Robert Garigue: Role of the Chief Information Security Officer

Robert Garigue: Security as the Guarantor of Values Executed by Systems–Security as Truth & Trust

Robert Garigue: Standards Toward Interoperability

Robert Garigue: The New Information Security Agenda–Managing the Emerging Semantic Risks

Robert Garigue: The Next Long Wave of Innovation

Robert Garigue: Truth & Trust as Security Requirements

Who’s Who in Cyber-Intelligence: Robert Garigue

Worth a Look: Liars and Outliers – Enabling the Trust that Society Needs to Thrive (Bruce Schneier)

Rickard Falkvinge: Four More Reasons Open File Sharing is a Virtual Public Library

Access, Culture, Innovation, Knowledge, P2P / Panarchy, Software
Rickard Falkvinge
Rickard Falkvinge

Four More Reasons The Pirate Bay Is Effectively A Public Library – And A Great One

Posted: 13 Dec 2012 06:57 AM PST

Infopolicy:  File sharing fulfills the exact same need and purpose as public libraries did when they first appeared, and is met with the exact same resistance – even in the same words. This article follows the previous observation that The Pirate Bay is the world’s most efficient public library.

Zacqary Adam Green’s piece comparing The Pirate Bay to the New York Public Library the other day was spot on, and we’ve seen it travel a lot around the world – in excess of 3,000 shares and counting. File sharing (and The Pirate Bay) is the most efficient public library ever invented, and its invention is a quantum leap for civilization as such. Imagine every human being having 24/7 access to humanity’s collective knowledge and culture!

Moreover, it’s not even a pipe dream that needs to be funded with forty gazillion eurodollars. All the technology has already been developed, all the infrastructure has already been rolled out, and the tools already distributed. All we have to do to realize this is, frankly, to remove the ban on using it.

In the book The case for copyright reform (download here), we can read the following:

Continue reading “Rickard Falkvinge: Four More Reasons Open File Sharing is a Virtual Public Library”

Richard Stahlman: Free Software Supporter Issue 56

IO Newsletter Free Software, Software
Richard Stallman

Free Software Supporter

Issue 56, November 2012

Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software Foundation's monthly news digest and action update — being read by you and 64,307 other activists. That's 1,124 more than last month!

View this issue online here: http://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2012/free-software-supporter-issue-56-november-2012

Encourage your friends to subscribe and help us build an audience by adding our subscriber widget to your web site.

Miss an issue? You can catch up on back issues at http://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter.

#

El Free Software Supporter está disponible en castellano. Para ver la versión en castellano haz click aqui: http://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2012/free-software-supporter-numero-56-noviembre-2012

Para cambiar las preferencias de usuario y recibir los próximos números del Supporter en castellano, haz click aquí: https://crm.fsf.org/civicrm/profile/create?gid=34&reset=1

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  • Give freely this Cyber Monday: Introducing the 2012 Giving Guide
  • Tell Amazon: Books and libraries shouldn't have a kill switch
  • MediaGoblin crowdfunding campaign: huge success!
  • Let’s limit the effect of software patents, since we can’t eliminate them
  • Left wondering why VLC relicensed to LGPL
  • Good “End Software Patents” video – not by us
  • Finnish activist, Danish hacker share Nordic Free Software Award 2012
  • LibreWRT: What we use for wifi at the FSF
  • FSFE meeting the FSF crew in Boston
  • Fall 2012: Photos from ICT Goes International, in Helsinki
  • FSF to begin accepting scanned assignments from Germany
  • Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory
  • LibrePlanet featured resource: 2013 LibrePlanet conference
  • GNU Spotlight with Karl Berry: 22 new GNU releases!
  • GNU Toolchain update
  • Richard Stallman's speaking schedule
  • Thank GNUs!
  • Take action with the FSF

Continue reading “Richard Stahlman: Free Software Supporter Issue 56”