Stallman: Facebook is Mass Surveillance

I find it somewhat ironic that people like Stallman have battled for years to get so much FOSS out there.<p>What did we do with all this free software? Used it to build things like facebook, google and various SaaS sites that not only tie our data into proprietary clouds but due to the nature of the GPL etc don't really have to share their code anyway.<p>What they have really achieved is to turn everything they touch into a commodity and moved the "value" of software elsewhere.<p>We seem to be moving to a world where most of our devices and the servers powering our apps will be running some form of Linux or BSD under the hood but we are actually more restricted than ever.

I just don't see what the big deal is...<p>The set of information people publish on their own about themselves (like blogs) is almost exactly the same as the set of information they disclose via Facebook.<p>Anyone can datamine people's blogs for similar surveilance.<p>.<p>From Stallman's blog &#38; email history on newsgroups I could work out:<p><pre><code> who he knows what projects he participates in his age infer his sexual preference infer his religion (may even be explicit there) where he lives where he was on any day (conference speaker history) </code></pre> People shout and scream about themselves as often and loudly as they can. Facebook is just the medium du jour.<p>Those concerned with privacy have oodles of crypto-tools to do so with.<p>It's just people can't be bothered. That's the root problem.

There are people who are uncomfortable about the intrusions of various websites, but who use those websites anyway. These people "just" need a better alternative to switch.<p>But I have no idea what to do about the people who just don't care.<p>For example, OKC recommended a person to me recently.<p>EDIT: Redacted a bit more.<p>She lists her blackberry pin; her facebook account; an email address; her cell / mobile phone number; and her twitter account.<p>That's enough information to find her profiles on a wide range of websites.

Is it true that sites with a facebook like button send the IP address of hits back to facebook?

RMS: "Free software literally gives you freedom in the area of computing. It means that you can control your computing. It means that the users individually and collectively have control over their computing. And in particular it means they can protect themselves from the malicious features that are likely to be in proprietary software,"<p><i>Open-source</i>, proprietary or not, gives you control over your computer compared to closed-source software. It's not free software versus proprietary software.<p>Free software goes beyond open-source, and besides safety gives you freedom.

“The Anonymous protests for the most part work by having a lot of people send a lot of commands to a website, that it can’t handle so many requests. This is equivalent of a crowd of people going to the door of a building and having a protest on the street. It’s basically legitimate."<p>No it's not. This is just a few persons coming in buses and stopping the entry. If you want to equal it to protest then all the requests have to come from real people, not some bots.<p>I'm also not agreeing with this: "I won’t use the non-free software at all! I dedicate my effort to getting away from it! So if they stop making it – that would be great!"<p>This is ridiculous. I understand that the current IP legislation is a load of crap but trying to get ALL software to be free is absurd. How are developers going to live? How about groceries? Can I pay for that? Or that should be free as well?

Except that it is completely voluntary.

What has to be noted here is that this is published on Russia Today. From my understanding of it, it tries to offset the US crazies like Fox and its ilk...

There are a lot of people here who don't seem to understand you can earn money and a good living with 'free' software.<p>The term 'free' is very misunderstood in this context. Its free as in freedom/free speech, not (necessarily) free as in beer.<p>Although sometimes (most times) its both. This doesn't stop you using it to earn a living. It allows you to freely use and modify it to your own purposes. Contrast that with non-free (i.e. locked, obfuscated and proprietary).<p>I've written freely available stuff that people have (never the less <i>and willingly</i>) paid me rather handsomely for the privilege of using or modding to their own needs. They didn't <i>have</i> to, but people can be inherently decent that way.<p>I could have made it entirely closed and I think I'd have made less out of it if I had. I would have had to market it for a start -- and that's a fucking headache. I'm not a salesman and don't want to be.<p>Anyhow, Stallman is 100% right. Everything he's been warning us about for years is already upon us. With <i>much</i> worse to come.

Stallmans reminds me of Ted Kaczynski unabomber. (no offence) similair world view, he doesn't care of inovation because probably thinks that it leads to more controlled society. both are Neo-Luddites. only Kaczynski was more radical in his actions. If you want more of the same I suggest you read unabomber manifesto <a href="http://editions-hache.com/essais/pdf/kaczynski2.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://editions-hache.com/essais/pdf/kaczynski2.pdf</a>