Bonum Certa Men Certa

Richard Stallman's Talk About New/er Risks to Free Software (Free as in Freedom-Respecting, Libre)

Video download link



Summary: Richard M. Stallman (RMS) gave the above talk not too long before the attacks on him intensified greatly, serving to silence him for nearly 2 years

THE video above relates to something covered here last week. In it, RMS explains the issues associated with personal privacy. He explains why so-called 'phones' (mobile, cell) are problematic.



"Lately, as in the past few years, some people and groups entertained the use of blockchains for such a decentralisation, but it never quite happened or fully materialised at a government level."Schools, according to him, are becoming "monsters for imposing proprietary software" and spying on children. "If a schools tells a company even a student's name, then that school violates this student's privacy," he argues, and "when schools create an E-mail account in some company" they also violate privacy. He mentions Google, Microsoft, and Apple among the culprits and asks people in the audience to tackle this problem. He wants to organise a "campaign about this" (that was months before an angry mob sought to deplatform and oust him).

He mentions the EU or a Schengen Web site that's required for US citizens to visit Europe. He notes the presence of proprietary JavaScript code in the site, which that site requires users to run. Well, Gemini protocol tackles some of these issues, but will Europe adopt Gemini as an alternative/second option? Maybe one day... as Gemini is very popular in Europe.

BodyIf we don't want a total surveillance society, RMS argues, we need to stop them collecting data, but "it's reasonable to check the passports of people who enter your country" though it needs to be "kept in a very decentralised way" as that reduces the risk of a mass surveillance society. He warns that China is the ultimate nightmare when it comes to state surveillance.

Lately, as in the past few years, some people and groups entertained the use of blockchains for such a decentralisation, but it never quite happened or fully materialised at a government level. We're doing our best to enhance decentralisation. Our 'seed' IPFS node at home is doing about 80 GB per month. It's impossible to know how much other people's nodes contribute to traffic.

RMS explains what the "Internet of spies" (IoT) or "Internet of stings" should be seen as; "spying is the horrible thing," he says, as "anything they do they report". He mentions Google's requirement for "personal assistant" stuff to send everything to Google, even when you ask for the light to be turn on and off. "We are seeing a development of a large conspiracy" of large companies looking to spy on people together, he warns. He warns about Google quite a lot, even more than he mentions Microsoft. He complains about the data collection by Google, including JavaScript of Google. He asserts there's a "massive conspiracy to pressure people to be spied on" and "listening devices" (that's what he too calls them) are the "nastiest of all..."

When he speaks of "personal assistants" (the media calls them "smart") he calls them "listening devices" -- something we've done for many years. He says that we need to use peer pressure to undermine those things; he knows someone who has such a device and notes: "I no longer speak when I'm there..."

He asks people to keep objecting to such things, saying "they should not be imposing these things on their friends". "Friends don't let companies spy on their friends," he says. Security guru Bruce Schneier is cited about the issues associated with security and risk from crackers. "Free software helps solve that problem," RMS argues, or at least "gives us a hope of solving that problem," but "we need the strength to resist".

It's a modest video of a talk, about 15 minutes in length, and not too meticulously memorised (he doesn't do that). He then gives an award to a person who would soon attack him, and not for the first time. At one point he notes that he has a turntable.

Curiously enough, the video shows RMS surrounded by some of the same hyenas who would very soon attack him, possibly to unwittingly distract from the real scandals, such as the brewing collapse of the Gates marriage in the wake of revelations from MIT (illuminating the close relationship between Mr. Epstein and Bill Gates). Maybe media manipulation played the most considerable role in inciting associates of his. The short speech about OpenStreetMap is worth noting too; it's all about community and sharing.

"An open letter in support of Richard Matthew Stallman being reinstated by the Free Software Foundation," we might as well note, is currently 14 signatures short of 6,700. Some time this week it'll get there. No activity in the hate letter for 18 days now. The person being sort of cancelled right now (belatedly, 2 years late) is Bill Gates.

Detractors of RMS love to portray him as not keeping up with new threats or blast him for rejecting "progress". But RMS clearly understands what's going on and merely rejecting really bad things (which he foresees as viable threats to human rights) is a strength, not a weakness. Accusing RMS or mocking the FSF for not adopting the latest "shiny things" is just about as dumb as accusing vegans/vegetarians of having no clue what they talk about, for they never bother tasting meat. "They don't know what they're missing out on..."

Licence of video: CC BY-ND 4.0

Video Switcher

Recent Techrights' Posts

Receiving SLAPPs and Collecting Them Like Trophies (the SLAPPs Always Fail)
People who file lawsuits bring even more attention to themselves (or to embarrassing statements about them)
Year of GNU/Linux on the Laptop?
It's not happening only in Lenovo
What People Must Understand About the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
some facts about the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
More Copyright Lawsuits Against LLM Slop Providers and Suppliers of LLM Slopfarms Would Benefit Society
It's not just bad for the Web and for society; it's also legally dangerous
In defence of JD Vance, death of Pope Francis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Three Years in Prison for Disney Employee’s ‘Menu Hacking’: The Economic Fallout of Digital Menus
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Approaching 10,000 Articles/Pages Since Going Static
Trying to silence or derail the site was always a dumb strategy
 
What's Very Vexing to GAFAM, EPO and Others Is That It's Incredibly Hard to Censor Us (and Nobody Ever Successfully Did That Before)
resist, do not capitulate
Site May be Even Faster Now
It basically takes less than a tenth of a second to serve the page
Many of the Scandals Are Interconnected (Overlapping People and Corporations)
We're only getting started
Links 26/04/2025: General Assassinated in the Town of Balashikha, US Promoting Seafloor Mining
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: Facebook Layoffs Again, Remembering What's Real, and Say No to Mass Surveillance
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: NOAA Budget Cuts and "Dog Days Ahead"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 25, 2025
Links 25/04/2025: Slop Fatigue and Patent Judges Flocking to Fake, Unconstitutional and Illegal Kangaroo Court (UPC, Captured 'Justice')
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Night Manager and Devuan in Hosting
Links for the day
Windows Falls to New Lows in Nicaragua, Now Below a Quarter (It Used to be Almost 100%)
Another all-time low for Windows
Microsoft is Shedding Off Loads of Staff and That Can be Dangerous Too
Working for Microsoft is a choice; nobody forces you to do it
Richard Stallman and the Unix Philosophy
When asked about systemd people must remember that RMS speaks as an active Board member of the FSF and also the founder of the FSF
The Cost (to Linux) of LLM Slop
Slop 'artists' like Fagioli are far from harmless
Links 25/04/2025: Ubisoft Spyware, Hegseth Fails at Tech on Every Level
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Food Forest Update and Facebook Destroying the Net
Links for the day
Get Rid of Back Doors, Don't Obsess Over Bounties and Other Corporate PR Stunts (or Needless Reboot Rituals)
Security as a term has mostly lost its meaning due to repeated misuse for many years
Serial Sloppers Are Killing the Web (They Probably Don't Care, Either)
Slop is a disease on the Web
Streaming Apps Are “Investor Fraud” That Kills the Planet
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Things Get Increasingly Nasty at Microsoft Ahead of the Fake Results and May's Mass Layoffs Wave
They try to get people to 'resign' so that they won't count as layoffs and the company's 'wellbeing' will seem better
IBM's Debt Ballooned by 8.5 Billion Dollars in Just 3 Months!
Hallmark of a company in a state of disarray, trying to spend its way out of trouble
Big Trouble in GNOME
even GNOME people admit the CoC went wrong
Slopping the Trough: Disney Plus Loses Billions and the Decline of Physical Media in America
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 24, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 24, 2025
Links 24/04/2025: GAFAM Problems and No Peace (or Ceasefire) in Sight
Links for the day
Slopfarms on the Web Almost Always Generate Anti-Linux FUD When They Produce "Linux" Output
Welcome to the dying Web
Richard Stallman's Oxford Talk Has Just Ended, Here Are Some Photos
he might hop over to another European country
Gemini Links 24/04/2025: Birthday and Good Work of Academia in Esotericism
Links for the day
Links 24/04/2025: EU fines Apple and Facebook, Another Microsoft GitHub Security Blunder
Links for the day
New Article Explains How the GPL Came About and WordPress Having Copyleft Obligations
Having been involved in the WordPress development community since almost the beginning, I know why it chose the GPL and how it restricts abuse by Automattic
IBM Gained Almost 6 Billion Dollars in "Goodwill" Value in Just 3 Months, According to IBM
Congrats to the management!
In Belarus, Yandex is Now Measured as 50 Times More 'Popular' (by Usage) Than Microsoft
Yandex continues to gain, whereas Bing cannot even register at 1%. Last month it was registered or measured at a measly 0.65%.
IBM Cannot Lie to Shareholders Anymore
"I would not be surprised if we see a layoff every quarter this year."
Dr Richard Stallman (RMS) Gives Talk in Oxford University in 4 Hours
If you live nearby, go there (it's free as in gratis)
Using a Law Firm's Licence to Exercise Politics Through Frivolous SLAPPs and Nastygrams (to Silence People, Remove Pages, Demand Fake or Forced 'Apologies')
Things must be getting really bad when lawyers act for raving antisemites
We're Working to Make Full-Site Search Available
This site has over 1,000 'wiki' pages, many thousands of documents, several thousands of videos, and about 50,000 blog posts or articles. We need to make them easier to find/navigate.
Links 24/04/2025: IBM Loses Many Contracts, Intel to Lay Off Over 20% (Not Counting Those Who Leave 'Voluntarily')
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Can Explain to Oxford Artificial Intelligence Society Why LLM Slop is Not Artificial Intelligence and Why It Hurts Society
another 'crop' of LLM slop that damages GNU/Linux and facts
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 23, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 23, 2025