Hi there, > The right net brings freedom and the wrong net brings tyranny because > it all depends on how the code works.
Just now, I finished watching an outstanding talk Eben Moglen gave at FOSDEM 2011. But instead of elaborating more on it, here are two more quotes from the speech: > What has happened in Iran, in Egypt, in Tunisia—and what will happen > in other societies over the next few years—demonstrates the enormous > political and social importance of social networking. But everything > we know about technology tells us that the current forms of social > network communication, despite their enormous current value for > politics, are also intensely dangerous to use. > > They are too centralized, they are too vulnerable to state > retaliation and control. The design of their technology, like the > design of almost all unfree software technology, is motivated more > by business interests seeking profit than by technological interests > seeking freedom. > > As a result of which, we are watching political movements of enormous > value, capable of transforming the lives of hundreds of millions of > people, resting on a fragile basis, like, for example, the courage > of Mr. Zuckerberg, or the willingness of Google to resist the state, > where the state is a powerful business partner and a party Google > cannot afford frequently to insult. > Software is what the 21st century is made of. What steel was to the > economy of the 20th century, what steel was to the power of the 20th > century, what steel was to the politics of the 20th century, > software is now. It is the crucial building block, the component out > of which everything else is made, and, when I speak of everything > else, I mean of course freedom, as well as tyranny, as well as > business as usual, as well as spying on everybody for free all the > time. Here is the talk: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BSLBvwyUEs> You can get an OGG Theora version of the video here: <http://videobin.org/v/3/3zo.ogg> A transcript of the talk can be found here <http://www.softwarefreedom.org/events/2011/fosdem/moglen-fosdem-keynote.html> This whole post on my blog: <http://www.micuintus.de/2011/03/08/why-political-liberty-depends-on-software-freedom-more-than-ever/> Kind regards, micu -- GnuPG: https://www1.inf.tu-dresden.de/~s3418892/micuintus.asc Fingerprint: 1A15 A480 1F8B 07F6 9D12 3426 CEFE 7455 E4CB 4E80 <<</>> http://www.micuintus.de _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list [email protected] https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
