Richard Stallman: Cell Phones Are 'Stalin's Dream'

jbrodkin writes "Cell phones are 'Stalin's dream,' says free software pioneer Richard Stallman, who refuses to own one. 'Cell phones are tools of Big Brother. I'm not going to carry a tracking device that records where I go all the time, and I'm not going to carry a surveillance device that can be turned on to eavesdrop.' Even the open source Android is dangerous because devices ship with proprietary executables, Stallman says in a wide-ranging interview on the state of the free software movement. Despite some progress, Stallman is still dismayed by 'The existence and use of non-free software [which] is a social problem. It's an evil. And our aim is a world without that problem.'"

Comments

Re:This time of year already eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now substract everything you know only because he himself chose to publish it on twitter, facebook and his blog, and all you're left with is the surprising revelation that he's in his office a lot.

Re:Have to agree..Facebook too!

[Bloopie]

he made anyone that came there take the batteries *out* of their cell phones, because they can record and transmit conversations even when you think they are off.

Wait a second. You mention this, and yet you're posting on Slashdot with a registered account???

Don't you know that right now Hussein Obama is personally readin' through yer post, cross-referencin' it with yer restaurant, and will soon pull you in for some gummint re-eddecashun??????

What's that, Mabel? No, I didn't take my Risperdal this morning. That's all part of a gummint plot too!!!1!

Another Stallman bid for immortality

[zmollusc]

When we are in the work camps and the non-geeks ask us why we didn't warn them, we will respond "Erm, there was this one guy called Stallman who kept trying to warn us, but we wouldn't listen". Stallman will become a legend, maybe even Skylab's Terminators will talk about him once they have destroyed Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia.

Re:Open source vs proprietary

[Ultra64]

I wish that you could see the intensity with which I just rolled my eyes while reading your comment.

Teeth are the instrument of the devil

[Ergodicity]

I heard they can be used for tracking devices and radios that will transmit instructions to your brain. Has Mr Stallman removed these malicious bones from his mouth?

Re:Open source vs proprietary

[TheGratefulNet]

we welcome our sequential-serial-number bearing fake-grass-roots posters.

we really do.

Re:Open source vs proprietary

[Blakey Rat]

If only quality were the determining factor. It's not and rarely ever is.

Maybe not, but it would be nice if the open source community actually produced better software anyway.