Free Software To Save Us From Social Networks

Glyn Moody writes "Here's a problem for free software: most social networks are built using it, yet through their constant monitoring of users they do little to promote freedom. Eben Moglen, General Counsel of the Free Software Foundation for 13 years, and the legal brains behind several versions of the GNU GPL, thinks that the free software world needs to fix this with a major new hardware+software project. 'The most attractive hardware is the ultra-small, ARM-based, plug it into the wall, wall-wart server. [Such] an object can be sold to people at a very low one-time price, and brought home and plugged into an electrical outlet and plugged into a wall jack for the Ethernet, and you're done. It comes up, it gets configured through your Web browser on whatever machine you want to have in the apartment with it, and it goes and fetches all your social networking data from all the social networking applications, closing all your accounts. It backs itself up in an encrypted way to your friends' plugs, so that everybody is secure in the way that would be best for them, by having their friends holding the secure version of their data.' Could such a plan work, or is it simply too late to get people to give up their Facebook accounts for something that gives them more freedom?"

Comments

I'm going to go out on a limb here....

[Anonymous Coward]

....and suggest that most people don't care.

Re:I'm going to go out on a limb here....

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Not only do most users not care- but the few who do aren't going to want an either-or system that blocks out their friends who are less technically adept.

" and it goes and fetches all your social networking data from all the social networking applications, closing all your accounts."

Is not a reasonable way to go about it.

Replace that line with "and it goes and fetches all your social networking data from all the social networking applications, and syncs it daily, giving you an always-on local server *combining* updates from several social networking sites" and I'd consider paying up to $500 for such a device.

Re:I'm going to go out on a limb here....

[Dishevel]

What people do care about is letting me know they have acquired a purple pony. They care ALOT about that.

"freedom"

[Sub Zero 992]

I am getting pretty tired of other people telling me what freedom should mean to me.

What freedom means to me, what I am frightened of and / or prepared to sacrifice is not a temporally static concept. 10 years ago I wouldn't even publish my mail address online. Now I have my entire cv on xing. These are rational decisions I made according to costs I perceive (correctly or not) with publishing personal information, or not.

Sure, some people make poor choices about publishing personal information (sexting, anyone?). But some times openness is an indicator for a "safe" society.

Just my thoughts.