-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 08/07/11 14:13, Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote: > On 07/08/2011 12:20 PM, nathan nolast wrote: >> now, i know that the freedombox is going to be used by average individuals >> that are not interested in remaining anonymous for what ever reason. But >> lets not kid ourself, social networking is social networking... we can >> increase the privacy, make strong privacy relation policys, but posting your >> pictures and life story on a service is not in any way shape or form ... >> logical. > > Wanting to form a meaningful and potentially lasting relationship with > other humans may not be "logical", but i consider it very valuable. > > If we build a network that is completely opaque, such that no one can > form any lasting relationship across it, we might as well not bother. > > Even the whistleblower who herself wants to remain anonymous needs be > able to reliably identify a trustworthy recipient for her information. > She won't be able to do that on a fully-anonymous network. > > We should not be segregating our work into systems for "normal people" > and "dissidents". To make that segregation implies two things: > > 0) surveillance and corporate- or government-controlled communications > for "normal people" is acceptable, and > > 1) that these categories are fixed, mutually-exclusive, and static -- > an individual cannot be both at once, or change from one to the other, > either voluntarily or involuntarily. > > We should support people making connections with other people, creating > social bonds and sharing values. We should discourage or prohibit third > parties from commoditizing or surveilling these relationships. We > should enable people to take a stand publicly for what matters to them. > And we should enable people to publish material anonymously, to ensure > that even people with significant vulnerabilities have a way to get > their important information out to the world. > > We cannot presume to say that sharing personal stories, opinions, > images, movies, jokes, etc. is somehow irrelevant to the creation of a > more just society. And we can't afford to ignore the appeal of sharing > in making this network something people actively want to participate in, > and enjoy using. > > Networks grow in value the more users they have (by the square of the > number of users, if you believe Metcalfe). If we build a darknet that > is useful only to handful of international men-of-mystery, it will be a > very poor network indeed. > > --dkg >
- ----------------- Some sort of disclaimer: what I write below is based on reading the FreedomBox list for many months, as well as the TAC list. I do not know what the TAC members are doing, especially behind the scenes (work at the Foundation, etc.) This email is a bit long, and I have no short version or summary of it. It is long because I explain what I see as a coherent way to make progress, considering the challenges we want to take on. Please excuse the length of the post, and any offense or blunder I may make due to ignorance or overlooking of a previous discussion. - ----------------- It seems to me FreedomBox has evolved into an opportunity for many people to fix most of the problems they identify with today's Internet, but where we haven't yet acquired the means of successfully doing so, or, which is more of a concern to me, where we haven't yet realized the size and the complexity of what we want to tackle (or at least I don't see us acting upon it). I'm answering in the "privacy" thread because I see it as a strong example of what's happening to the project: Yesterday I was watching the Federated Social Web 2011 Summit videos[0] (they are well worth the time watching), which led me to Seda Gürses, a "Social Networks, Privacy and Surveillance, and Requirements Engineering" researcher (from her home page[1]), of which I have no idea if she is well known on this list. Seda gave a fantastic talk a while ago (available on youtube[2]) that makes clear that the word "privacy" is not yet well defined and gives a critical view of what anonymizers achieve, and I urge anybody interested in privacy to take an hour to watch her talk. It really is enlightening. (Judging by the number of views on Youtube, the video is not widespread.) Privacy has to do with surveillance, control, identities, hiding of information, anonymity, audience and context (and more), and all those concepts are difficult to define in a clear and operational manner. In the cases where they have been defined, many interesting results have been proven (for example, Seda talks about a mathematical proof showing that anonymizing a database is impossible in practice: the data in the database can be cross-linked with other databases, eventually leading to identify 80% or 90% of the people in the initial database). This is quite similar to what Sam Hartmann explains in his post on the TAC list, about anonymity on Internet[3] (that, too, is enlightening). A lot of research is going on about this, and a lot of money is being put into it especially by the European Union (and according to Seda, part or most of those initiatives are not going the right way). I believe the Tor wiki is another great source of information and framing of the subject. What I am trying to say is that "privacy" is a *hard* and *complicated* problem, and we cannot aim to implement it correctly without better resources, means, or organization. I think we need to 1) get all competent parties on board, and 2) organize ourselves accordingly, if we want to achieve something useful. Privacy is not the only *hard* problem we are tackling. I would say there are four main areas the project aims for at large (all of them interlinked of course): 1. Privacy (see above) 2. The Federated Social Web. I understand the Fbx will be social deep in its heart, and may (or should) have that layer separated from application layer. I imagine most people on this list already know what follows, but it came even clearer to me when watching the FSW 2011 Summit videos[0]: there are many projects in the FSW area, with different solutions to many of the usual problems (federation, identity, etc., though no federated solution to people search, I understand), and the main problem now is agreeing on the best standards (as we have seen in discussions on this list about discovering/connecting/authenticating people). 3. User Experience. Not much to say here. Ideally, I envision a usability level like Apple or Google do it. 4. Data ownership: acquiring the legal rights given by hosting one's data at home or at a friends' home (namely, higher legal requirements for authorities to search that data, though this varies between countries). I think this aspect is the only one which is "deliverable" right now, i.e. which we are able to provide properly at the moment (and many tech-savvy people already benefit from it by using their own home server -including me-). IMO, points 1), 2), and 3) need thorough work/development and maybe research, and are not only about bundling existing stuff together. Each one is virtually a sub-project of its own (or has the ambition of one, at least). Those areas are already explored by many other entities working sometimes individually or not so individually (software projects, standards organizations, researchers, etc.). I think we need to reach out to as many of them as possible, and explicitly start working with them. I don't know if those categories are shared at all among members on this list. Another way of categorizing could be with the different layers of the FreedomBox: data layer, identity management layer, authentication layer, social and people-discovery layer, UI layer, etc. But I think it is not yet clear how "privacy" interacts with each of those layers. I suggest we form dedicated (and publicized) working groups for areas 1), 2), and 3). Those groups could reach out to other competent entities and work with them (other projects, standards organizations, researchers, etc.), at the same time updating each other on the progress that is made, so as to make sure all parts work together (because those areas are interlinked and can't be separated so easily) and don't diverge. This would make sure we don't reinvent the wheel or overlook existing knowledge and expertise on a subject, as well as providing specific spaces for discussion about those areas (that way not flooding a common list with a maze of diverse subjects). In this sense, I see FreedomBox as some sort of meta-project. Those groups need only exist on sub-mailing-lists, reporting progress to the main list (or the TAC list). To me, the first challenges to those groups *could* be: For 1), defining "privacy", reaching out to Seda to see what paradigm or model we can use, and what requirements we should set (maybe she's on this list in fact, or somehow already involved? I did not see her in the recipients list) For 2), reaching out to the various projects and standards organizations to see what kind of unified identity management can be made, work on standardizing federated social protocols, see what is implemented for people-discovery methods, and tackle authentication. For example, I would love to know if it is (or will be) possible to separate Diaspora's (or any other federated social network's) social features as a different layer, and have other apps run on and use that layer. Or see how an identity management layer (or a groups/circles layer) could work with "apsects" in diaspora, etc.. For 3), building UX scenarios (I think the question about where the box sits in a home network --behind a NAT, or as main router-- has not been decided), reaching out to UX designers (who?), sketching UI parts. Please note that these are only hypothetical examples to give a better idea of what kind of tasks I see for each of these working groups. Concerning what help I can bring, I am currently studying sociology and cognitive science in a masters program after having studied quite a lot of maths, and am therefore relatively close to the academic world of privacy and social network research. I would be happy to be part of a "privacy" working group if this view is shared. If people agree with this, please drop me an email (and we could start). Again, sorry for this long post and for any offense I might have made due to ignorance, my goal is to have this project succeed in the best of ways! Regards, - -- Sébastien Lerique [email protected] | @wehlutyk on twitter/identi.ca [0] http://d-cent.org/fsw2011/videos/ [1] http://homes.esat.kuleuven.be/~sguerses/ [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOhbCEX1doc [3] His post is on 28 April, in the "Anonymous communication" thread on the TAC list. Link: http://lists.freedomboxfoundation.org/s/arc/tac/2011-04/msg00006.html (you need to bypass the "I'm not a spammer" barrier, which means the direct link will not work). -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAk4bfVIACgkQgkn/UaLvmGe51ACePjT/RHy0j/TaltvqVBaFJ3Tr MkYAoIMAea0pXwOa61Iwd3yXWOWZbzyq =RzZO -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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