Notices by Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com), page 2
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Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Friday, 15-Feb-2019 05:59:35 UTC 
Mike Gerwitz
I will be speaking this year at #LibrePlanet2019:
https://mikegerwitz.com/2019/02/i-will-be-speaking-at-lp2019
More details to follow in coming weeks. -
Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Sunday, 10-Feb-2019 05:13:34 UTC
Mike Gerwitz
"[Illinois] Ruling Is a Warning to Companies Collecting Biometric Scans Without Permission"
https://social.mikegerwitz.com/url/71660
I'm encouraged by this. Let's see more of this nationwide.
> Lawmakers nationwide would be wise to follow Illinois’ lead and ensure that people throughout the country have a way to defend against surreptitious or misleading uses of their biometrics and other private and sensitive data. -
Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Saturday, 09-Feb-2019 15:09:38 UTC
Mike Gerwitz
To subscribe to a Google Groups mailing list without having to run non-free JS or have a Google account, send an email to:
<group-name>+subscribe@googlegroups.com
That seems to have worked, but we'll see if I actually start getting messages.
After @cwebber's talk about Guile and Racket in which he mentioned a mailing list, I figured I'll start lurking on racket-{users,dev}. I was disappointed to learn both of them use Google Groups. I still don't know how to browse group archives without JS; if anyone knows, lmk. Otherwise I won't ever be able to send anyone links to such conversations (I can send message-id, but users would need to have copies in their own mailbox to avoid having to run non-free JS). -
Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Thursday, 17-Jan-2019 03:25:27 UTC
Mike Gerwitz
EFF: "Device ‘Ownership’ Is a Civil Liberties Issue"
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/01/device-ownership-civil-liberties-issue
> The technology you rely on to interact with the world and express yourself should ultimately obey you, not the company that made it.
I agree with the article, but even if the DMCA didn't exist, you _still_ wouldn't have ownership over almost all mobile devices on the market. If your device were running free/libre software, then you would. And if a manufacturer created a libre device, then surely they wouldn't exercise the DMCA, as that would effectively make it non-free (and may even violate certain licenses, like the Tivoization clause of the GPLv3).
I don't mean to downplay the importance of the emphasis on the DMCA, but the article makes a number of points that are central to the issue of software freedom without making so much as a mention of it. -
Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Sunday, 13-Jan-2019 03:15:09 UTC
Mike Gerwitz
CNBC: "California bill would curb use of paper receipts to reduce waste, push digital alternative"
https://social.mikegerwitz.com/url/70688
This is interesting to me because it supports a cause I'm in favor of (environmental) yet is at odds with another (privacy).
With that said, I think this is workable. Already, many point-of-sale (POS) systems give the option to print, email, or (more importantly) decline a receipt. Further, perhaps POS systems could take advantage of NFC so that a mobile device could receive the receipt anonymously.
But what is dangerous about a bill like this is that it provides a compelling legal argument for maliciously gathering consumer data, and many users may not think twice about it.
This may also be difficult for smaller shops to implement without turning to large services that implement this for them, which is also a privacy nightmare, since those services can easily aggregate mass amounts of consumer data. I think small companies should be exempt from a bill like this (if they aren't already; I didn't read it).
I'm sure other good solutions exist; I just haven't given this more than a few moments of thought. -
Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Sunday, 13-Jan-2019 02:59:25 UTC
Mike Gerwitz
Reuters: "Move aside, backseat driver! New tech at CES monitors you inside car"
https://social.mikegerwitz.com/url/70686
(Internet Archive link because the article now 404's.)
This type of tracking of a driver and car occupants can indeed provide useful features---both safety and convenience. But I would only be in favor of this sort of thing if it were free software and the car were under complete control of the user, and the system could be wholly disabled with clearly visible and unambiguous hardware switch, which is also visible to passengers.
But proprietary systems doing this will be incentivized to sell data to third parties. The article gives some examples of some terrible uses of this type of tracking.
As we move further and further into the future where these types of things are going to become more commonplace, the goal IMO shouldn't be to resist technological progress---it should be to ensure that it _empowers_ users, rather than making them servants or products.
#privacy #surveillance #ethics -
Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Friday, 11-Jan-2019 04:27:25 UTC
Mike Gerwitz
The Intercept reports that Amazon Ring gave employees and its Ukrainian-based R&D team access to private cameras:
https://theintercept.com/2019/01/10/amazon-ring-security-camera/
This practice is wrong, but any system that makes this type of thing possible is broken by design.
You can imagine that I love the fact that one of my neighbors down the street at my child's bus stop has one of these devices.
#privacy #surveillance -
Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Friday, 11-Jan-2019 03:39:05 UTC
Mike Gerwitz
@shamar @adfeno Ironically, the ezine link you posted greets me with:
"It appears that you are using Tor anonymizing software
No Problem! We just need you to enter a Captcha so we can confirm that you are a person and not a bot."
Which is non-functional for me, presumably because I'm not running JS. I just loaded via the Internet Archive.
Some sites use CAPTCHAs even for read-only pages, presumably to try to thwart scraping, DOS attacks, and the like. (I fundamentally disagree with this practice.)
There are many other JS practices that need to change as well, both for security and user freedom. I highlighted what I perceive as many of the major issues a few years ago at LibrePlanet:
https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/collection/restore-online-freedom/
In particular, I'm really hoping that someone will take up the issue of code signing and the ability to replace specific scripts with user-defined scripts (the latter may be best implemented in LibreJs considering the level of granularity it offers in script detection). -
Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Wednesday, 09-Jan-2019 03:59:12 UTC
Mike Gerwitz
An article detailing some of the ways that cell phone location data (cell tower connections) is made available to third parties:
https://social.mikegerwitz.com/url/70592
#privacy #surveillance -
Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Wednesday, 09-Jan-2019 03:49:41 UTC
Mike Gerwitz
A blend of #student #privacy violations with a lack of human decency:
"My Child Has to Show Her Entire School That She’s Failing With a ‘Scarlet Badge’"
https://social.mikegerwitz.com/url/70591 -
Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Friday, 28-Dec-2018 03:42:45 UTC
Mike Gerwitz
"No more paperwork: Estonia edges toward digital government"
https://apnews.com/da5e0dd3bf364bbda436fc16690f842c
Not having researched this in any detail, this makes me rather uncomfortable. Not only are there concerns from a security perspective, but also a software freedom perspective---can all of this be done using only free software? Are users free to implement their own software to interface with these government services? I hope so, otherwise it's not the democratic tool that Estonia believes it to be. The article mentions X-Road, and the Wikipedia article on X-Road states that it releases source code for its software under an MIT Expat license. This would be acceptable it that's the case for all government software mentioned in the linked article.
If anyone else _has_ researched this, I'd be interested to hear thoughts on it. -
Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Friday, 21-Dec-2018 03:09:13 UTC
Mike Gerwitz
There are many problems with #Slack, but here's one example of just how much control users relinquish when they relinquish control of their computing to others:
"Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada"
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18724107 -
Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Friday, 21-Dec-2018 02:59:57 UTC
Mike Gerwitz
If I could offer some advice to people who use #Markdown to write posts:
Many people use Markdown not just because the formatting is convenient to write, but also because it is itself human-readable. Consequently, it's also used as a plain text alternative to e.g. HTML-rendered text. I read a lot of things in plain text, so I see plain Markdown frequently.
One of the worst things you can do for legibility is to place URLs inline---it obscures the text, especially if there's a lot of them. Instead, use a reference (ideally numeric), of the form "[foo][n]".
Then, rather than placing all URLs at the bottom of the document, please them below the paragraph that references them. Not only does this reduce scrolling, but it also allows easily copying/pasting portions of the text while keeping the references intact, which is especially convenient for quoting. -
Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Friday, 21-Dec-2018 02:51:56 UTC
Mike Gerwitz
"Amazon error allowed Alexa user to eavesdrop on another home":
https://social.mikegerwitz.com/url/70156
Posting archive.org link because Reuters appears to have taken the article down. I don't know if that implies that they retracted their story, but the in principle, it's the concept that's important: your #Alexa data lay with #Amazon and they can---either willfully or accidentally---mishandle it. And if the article is to be believed and this sounds like a configuration error, that also implies that employees could just grant themselves access to your data too. -
Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Dec-2018 04:08:49 UTC
Mike Gerwitz
@lxoliva
> I'm very disturbed to see that interaction misleadingly presented as a deviation from the safe space policy
Yes, I agree. But I also think that could be cleared up fairly easily with a proper reply from the FSF.
For the record: I wasn't involved in the letter nor do I know anything about it aside from the link @cwebber posted. So I could be missing some important context. I just made the unfortunate decision of jumping into a heated topic. :) I'd just like to see something as simple as this be resolved without things being left to simmer. Frankly, it's somewhat upsetting that this letter didn't receive an immediate, affirmative reply. We don't need distractions like these when we should be able to focus on what unites us.
I'm sure other things have compounded the frustration as well (e.g. recent discussions within GNU). -
Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Dec-2018 03:46:16 UTC
Mike Gerwitz
@bob, @cwebber: The link references Marianne Corvellec's talk, which I attended. It was an extremely awkward confrontation between rms and the volunteer that was trying to see that the talk adhere to its timebox. This is what prompted the frustrated rms to state that he didn't have to follow the rules---he wanted to continue his conversation.
I don't like when rms asserts himself in that manner---I think it looks bad and I wish that he would instead set an example by adhering to the rules---but I never looked at this and thought that he'd intentionally think to act in bad faith when it comes to something like a safe space policy, even though it is technically correct that he can do whatever he chooses. But there are consequences for that perspective (mainly, pushing people away).
With that said, I do understand the concern (it's easy to feel uncomfortable around rms, after all), and I support getting a response from the FSF. It's important for the community to stay on top of it---the community has power where the FSF may not. -
Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Friday, 14-Dec-2018 02:47:16 UTC
Mike Gerwitz
A chilling perspective on a new Amazon patent application:
https://social.mikegerwitz.com/url/69212 -
Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Tuesday, 04-Dec-2018 03:32:56 UTC
Mike Gerwitz
An enjoyable interview with rms: https://newleftreview.org/II/113/richard-stallman-talking-to-the-mailman -
Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Thursday, 11-Oct-2018 01:57:57 UTC
Mike Gerwitz
A packaging tutorial for #Guix:
https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/blog/2018/a-packaging-tutorial-for-guix/ -
Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Thursday, 04-Oct-2018 00:50:59 UTC
Mike Gerwitz
https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2018/aug/22/commons-clause/
All Bobinas P4G content and data are available under the