Posts Tagged ‘privacy and licensing’

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Google Superbowl Ad Explains The Need for Search Privacy

Google’s ad during yesterday’s Superbowl explained in less than a minute how the story of someone’s life can be pieced together from their search queries. Using only the search terms and user’s clicks of the search results, Google told the story of a user who seeks love while studying abroad in Paris, finds it, moves [...]

Published by on February 8, 2010 7:56 pm
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How to enhance the physical security posture of your Linux/BSD-powered PC

Securing a computer goes beyond more than just using strong passwords. You should consider what happens if an unauthorized person gains physical access to your computer. If the only security feature protecting your data from an unauthorized person is a user account password, then you have not taken enough steps to protect your computer and [...]

Published by on February 4, 2010 12:30 am
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Anonymity and the Internet

Universal identification is portrayed by some as the holy grail of Internet security. Anonymity is bad, the argument goes; and if we abolish it, we can ensure only the proper people have access to their own information. We’ll know who is sending us spam and who is trying to hack into corporate networks. And when [...]

Published by on February 3, 2010 9:33 pm
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Internet Explorer’s dominant market share eroding

Remember when Internet Explorer ruled the Web, to the tune of about 98% of the browser market share? Those were happy days for Internet Explorer. Until Firefox rose from the ashes of Netscape. Internet Explorer’s market share has been sliding ever since, and I think it got worse when Safari and then Google’s Chrome joined [...]

Published by on February 2, 2010 1:54 pm
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Windows 7 Sins now in 9 languages!

Our campaign for computer user freedom, Windows 7 Sins, now has 6 language translations available with several more on the way. The translation effort, coordinated by FSF campaigns staff working with volunteer translators, has been gathering pace over the last few months. All the work has been done using free software tools with our collaboration [...]

Published by on February 2, 2010 10:20 am
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FTC’s exploring privacy roundtable webcast

“The Federal Trade Commission will host a series of day-long public roundtable discussions to explore the privacy challenges posed by the vast array of 21st century technology and business practices that collect and use consumer data. Such practices include social networking, cloud computing, online behavioral advertising, mobile marketing, and the collection and use of information [...]

Published by on January 28, 2010 5:48 pm
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The Evil That Apple Does

Apple’s new iPad is going to be a laptop supplement for some early-adopters, a laptop replacement for others, and a laptop instead-of for still other users, including some surprising late-adopters. In other words, it’s going to be the computer of choice for a number of us, perhaps millions of us, perhaps, if the iPhone is [...]

Published by on January 28, 2010 5:27 pm
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The Role of Privacy by Design in Protecting Consumer Privacy

1) What is Privacy by Design? CDT has submitted comments to the Federal Trade Commission for the second in a series of public roundtable discussions the agency is sponsoring exploring the privacy challenges posed by 21st-century technology and business practices that involve the collection and use of consumer data. CDT views these roundtable sessions as [...]

Published by on January 28, 2010 1:52 pm
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Celebrating Data Privacy Day

I’m assuming most people already know this, but if you did not, today is Data Privacy Day. Given that those in control of the wheels of the digital market square we call the Internet do not value our privacy, we have to take this day, every day, to remind us – and them – that [...]

Published by on January 28, 2010 1:13 pm
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Help EFF Research Web Browser Tracking

What fingerprints does your browser leave behind as you surf the web? Traditionally, people assume they can prevent a website from identifying them by disabling cookies on their web browser. Unfortunately, this is not the whole story. When you visit a website, you are allowing that site to access a lot of information about your [...]

Published by on January 27, 2010 11:56 pm
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Browser Versions Carry 10.5 Bits of Identifying Information on Average

This is part 3 of a series of posts on user tracking on the modern web. You can also read part 1 and part 2. Whenever you visit a web page, your browser sends a “User Agent” header to the website saying precisely which operating system and web browser you are using. This information could [...]

Published by on January 27, 2010 11:48 pm
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A Primer on Information Theory and Privacy

If we ask whether a fact about a person identifies that person, it turns out that the answer isn’t simply yes or no. If all I know about a person is their ZIP code, I don’t know who they are. If all I know is their date of birth, I don’t know who they are. [...]

Published by on January 27, 2010 9:45 pm
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Sign the petition: iPad DRM is iBad for our freedoms

Today, Apple launched a computer that will never belong to its owner. Apple will use Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) to gain total veto power over the applications you use and the media you can view. We’ve launched a petition calling out Apple’s new product for what it is: a frightening step backward for computing and [...]

Published by on January 27, 2010 8:54 pm
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REAL Net Neutrality

Last fall, the Federal Communications Commission proposed rules for “Net Neutrality” — a set of regulations intended to help innovation and free speech continue to thrive on the Internet. But is the FCC’s version of Net Neutrality the real deal? Or is it a fake? Buried in the FCC’s rules is a deeply problematic loophole. [...]

Published by on January 25, 2010 8:22 pm
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The Public Domain Manifesto

The public domain, as we understand it, is the wealth of information that is free from the barriers to access or reuse usually associated with copyright protection, either because it is free from any copyright protection or because the right holders have decided to remove these barriers. It is the raw material from which new [...]

Published by on January 25, 2010 4:59 pm
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Video, Freedom And Mozilla

My LCA talk on Friday was about why open video is critically important to free software, and what Mozilla is doing about (plus a discussion of the relationship between Web standards and free software in general). Little did I know that Youtube and Vimeo would pick the day before my talk to cast a glaring [...]

Published by on January 25, 2010 4:45 pm
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Why Microsoft Suddenly Wanted to Be More Interoperable

Guess why Microsoft suddenly decided it wanted to be more interoperable? It’s so it can get customers to quit using Linux and switch to Windows & .NET. Exhibit 7068 [PDF] in the Comes v. Microsoft antitrust litigation exhibits list tells us what happened with Intel. It is a 4-page email thread with Bill Gates and [...]

Published by on January 24, 2010 9:08 pm
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KDE Gears Up to a Free Cloud

Day 2 of Camp KDE kicked off with a bang when Frank Karlitschek announced the start of a significant new KDE project. The ownCloud initiative will complement the Social Desktop and Get Hot New Stuff efforts which are already dealing with social and collaborative data. Like those, the ownCloud initiative strives to combine the rich [...]

Published by on January 24, 2010 8:57 pm
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How the Swedish Pirate Party Platform Backfires on Free Software

By Richard Stallman: The bullying of the copyright industry in Sweden inspired the launch of the first political party whose platform is to reduce copyright restrictions: the Pirate Party. Its platform includes the prohibition of Digital Restrictions Management, legalization of noncommercial sharing of published works, and shortening of copyright for commercial use to a five-year [...]

Published by on January 18, 2010 4:49 pm
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Data Privacy Day is January 28, 2010!

Around the globe, people use powerful technologies and devices every day to improve their lives. Businesses develop software, build hardware and provide services designed to enhance individual productivity, communications and safety. We have come to depend on mobile communications, instant access to information, and intelligent services. We are empowered by these technologies in ways that [...]

Published by on January 15, 2010 12:35 pm
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On Selling Exceptions to the GNU GPL

When I co-signed the letter objecting to Oracle’s planned purchase of MySQL 1 (along with the rest of Sun), some free software supporters were surprised that I approved of the practice of selling license exceptions which the MySQL developers have used. They expected me to condemn the practice outright. This article explains what I think [...]

Published by on January 8, 2010 10:23 am
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Privacy by Design: The 7 Foundational Principles

Privacy by Design is a concept I developed back in the 90’s, to address the ever-growing and systemic effects of Information and Communication Technologies, and of large-scale networked data systems. Privacy by Design advances the view that the future of privacy cannot be assured solely by compliance with regulatory frameworks; rather, privacy assurance must ideally [...]

Published by on January 4, 2010 3:36 am
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The Anatomy of a Modern GPL Violation

I’ve been thinking the last few weeks about the evolution of the GPL violation. After ten years of being involved with GPL enforcement, it seems like a good time to think about how things have changed. Roughly, the typical GPL violation tracks almost directly the adoption and spread of Free Software. When I started finding [...]

Published by on December 16, 2009 12:33 am
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Breaking the dependency on proprietary software: A call to nonprofits to refuse Microsoft Windows 7

“sinking money and time into proprietary software is inconsistent with the core values of freedom and progress.” The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has launched the next stage of its “Windows 7 Sins” campaign at http://windows7sins.org, making the case against Microsoft and proprietary software by writing to 500 leaders of the most influential nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) [...]

Published by on October 11, 2009 10:42 pm
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Why Public Education Must Use Public Software

This is an essay that attempts to argue in favor of promoting and using free software for public education in the United States. With some modification it should be usable worldwide. Edit it mercilessly as you would any other FDL-licensed text. Originally written on February 7-9, 2009 by Dara Adib. Public education ideally provides a [...]

Published by on October 11, 2009 10:32 pm
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Why “Open Source” misses the point of Free Software

By Richard Stallman: When we call software “free,” we mean that it respects the users’ essential freedoms: the freedom to run it, to study and change it, and to redistribute copies with or without changes. This is a matter of freedom, not price, so think of “free speech,” not “free beer.” These freedoms are vitally [...]

Published by on September 5, 2009 9:10 am
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Why free software shouldn’t depend on Mono or C#

by Richard M. Stallman Debian’s decision to include Mono in its principal way of installing GNOME, for the sake of Tomboy which is an application written in C#, leads the community in a risky direction. It is dangerous to depend on C#, so we need to discourage its use. The problem is not unique to [...]

Published by on July 13, 2009 1:34 pm
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Bilski Ruling and Software Patents

As opinions form about the extent to which the Court ruling impacts the patenting of software, one thing is clear. The State Street ruling that in 1998 opened the flood gates to the patenting of business methods and software has been gutted, if not technically overturned.

Published by on November 10, 2008 12:45 pm
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A Privacy Agenda for the New Administration

This is the first post in a three part series directed at restoring some of the civil liberties we’ve lost over the past eight years. Today’s post is about our privacy rights. We’ll follow this up early next week with our thoughts on intellectual property rights and government transparency.

Published by on November 8, 2008 2:20 am
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