Slashdot Mirror
Why Free Software Evangelist Richard Stallman is Haunted by Stalin's Dream (factordaily.com)
Richard Stallman recently visited Mandya, a small town about 60 miles from Bengaluru, India, to give a talk. On the sidelines, Indian news outlet FactorDaily caught up with Stallman for an interview. In the wide-ranging interview, Stallman talked about companies that spy on users, popular Android apps, media streaming and transportation apps, smart devices, DRM, software backdoors, subscription software, and Apple and censorship. An excerpt from the interview: If you are carrying a mobile phone, it is always tracking your movements and it could have been modified to listen to the conversations around you. I call this product Stalin's dream. What would Stalin have wanted to hand out to every inhabitant of the former Soviet Union? Something to track that person's movements and listen to the person's conservations. Fortunately, Stalin could not do it because the technology didn't exist. Unfortunately for us, now it does exist and most people have been pressured or lured into carrying around such a Stalin's dream device, but not me.
I am suspicious of new digital technology. I expect it to have new malicious functionalities. It has happened so many times that I have learned to expect this, so I have always checked before I start using some new digital technology. I asked to find out what is nasty about it and I found out these two things. It was something like 20 years ago, and I decided it was my duty as a citizen to refuse, regardless of whatever convenience it might offer me. To surrender my freedom in this way was failing to defend a free society. This is why I do not have a portable phone. I refuse to carry a portable phone. I never have one and unless things change, I never will. I do use portable phones, lots of different ones. If I needed to call someone right now, I would ask one of you, "Could you please make a call for me?" If I am on a bus and it is late and I need to tell somebody that I am going to arrive late, there is always some other passenger in the bus who will make a call for me or send a text for me. Practically speaking, it is not that hard.
I am suspicious of new digital technology. I expect it to have new malicious functionalities. It has happened so many times that I have learned to expect this, so I have always checked before I start using some new digital technology. I asked to find out what is nasty about it and I found out these two things. It was something like 20 years ago, and I decided it was my duty as a citizen to refuse, regardless of whatever convenience it might offer me. To surrender my freedom in this way was failing to defend a free society. This is why I do not have a portable phone. I refuse to carry a portable phone. I never have one and unless things change, I never will. I do use portable phones, lots of different ones. If I needed to call someone right now, I would ask one of you, "Could you please make a call for me?" If I am on a bus and it is late and I need to tell somebody that I am going to arrive late, there is always some other passenger in the bus who will make a call for me or send a text for me. Practically speaking, it is not that hard.
That works because everyone else is carrying Stalin's dream.
If nobody did, it'd be like the times before everyone had a cell phone. Life was quite tolerable then too.
Why doesn't he just use a phone case that is a faraday cage with sound proofing and only take it out when he needed it?
Surely someone invented small faraday cage phone cases by now. Or else just use a ton of aluminum foil and test call it.
Leftist is a term used by people who have run out of arguments. And probably thoughts.
There are no leftists in America that want Stalin's Dream. The people running tech companies are hard core Libertarians who would run over their own dogs if that dog was getting in between them and their stock options.
That's Capitalism, sport, nothing leftist about it. Tech wants to spy on you and sell your information. There is nothing liberal about that.
Find a new word, "leftist" fails as an insult because it is meaningless to everyone outside of the Glenn Beck/Alex Jones/Q-Anon crowd.
Like most leftists, he's fine with using Stalin's Dream as long as it's invading your life and not his
Bullshit.
He's saying quite clearly no one who cares about their freedom and/or privacy should carry around one of these devices. He's right.
He's also (indirectly implying or saying) that most people choose convenience over freedom. He's right about that too.
Finally, he's making the point to those who might care _almost_ as much about their freedom as convenience that, as long as there are so many people willing to trade their freedom for convenience, those who care about such things can piggy-back off of them to get almost the same level of convenience without compromising their location 24/7/365.25. He's right about that as well.
He is not saying "Freedom for me, not for you" he's merely mentioning a useful workaround that he probably himself hopes will become untenable someday (because everyone "sees the light" and stops carrying surveillance devices around). He's also implicitly acknowledging that that is most likely a pipe-dream, and he's right about that most of all.
But nice try on the right-wing anti-leftist spin against a guy who had the audacity to share his source code with the world, and write a license to help others do the same. I'm sure Putin likes you very much.
It's interesting -- I remember the first time I read Utopia (probably in high school?), my objection was that Moore's premise of living a perfect life in a perfect society relied on letting somebody else fight all the wars.
I respect Stallman and I'm glad he's out there, but I smell a whiff of that here: it's "not that hard" for him to live without the convenience of a cell phone because he's able to assume someone else will be.
It's strange that he doesn't just carry a pre-paid phone with the battery taken out. I don't carry a cell phone either but, I keep a pre-paid one in my car (or sometimes laptop bag if I'm traveling) with the battery taken out. No tracking, no listening and I basically get a portable pay phone that doesn't need quarters to operate.
Is there an app that can screw with the data?
eg. Make your location jump around randomly all over the world when you're not actually using mapping to get directions.
Encrypted communications can be made very convenient using this tech, he should be for that.
The answer isn't to not own a phone, it's to use the phone against the data spies. Use it to take back your freedom.
No sig today...
Like most conservatives, you'd rather government not get in the way of private enterprise's ability to spy on American citizens and sell it for a profit. After all, Profit > People for Republicans.
"hard core Libertarians"??? Seriously?
Have you followed the policies of most of the people? They are anything but libertarian! They are statists through and through and advocate control of everyone else (except themselves and their friends). They are advocating policies of "you work, I eat" - the same ones that the Democrat slave owners of the old south advocated - but they are using flowery language like "Democrat socialism" to attempt to hide it from people who are not paying attention. Socialism is an evil and immoral philosophy that advocates treating human beings as chattel, just as Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Hitler etc all did. Authoritarianism at root.
I met Stallman in grad school in the late 1980s and I do admire his coding and his beliefs regarding free software, but he doesn't have the sense of irony that he is castigating Stalinist policies while embracing a large portion of them.
I'd consider it worse if he were militant about his ideology and wanted to ban anyone else from freely choosing those decisions for themselves. As long as consumers are properly informed and capable of providing consent, I don't believe that it's any of my business to interfere with their choices.
I consider smoking tobacco to be stupid for a variety of reasons and do not and will not do it myself, but I'm not going to prohibit anyone else from making up their own mind. Can it be said that I can get the benefits of having other people smoke (someone having a lighter handy I suppose) without the drawbacks?
Correct, he could, at any time, just choose to set up his own national high bandwidth high security reliable wireless network, and create a hundred a million user friendly wireless devices that allows users to make and receive calls and exchange other data via this network without letting the operator know where they are, but nooooooooooooooooooooooooo, he'd rather just complain about it.
Or not. As the case may be.
I've never come across a person who makes Slashdotters lose their collective marbles as much as Stallman. He's to Slashdot like AOC is to conservatives, the media, and the establishment.
I kinda like him.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Liberal means 'pro liberty', more or less, the opposite of (leftist/marxist/socialist/progressive/American 'liberal').
Liberal means holding a broad worldview and being open to new ideas. It's not about liberty, per se. And that means having your eyes wide open and caring about the freedoms and rights of people other than yourself and not just your own interests.
Why do you want to write something like this? It's like proudly having a text saying "I'm ignorant" on ones forehead.
Nope. If you want to be able to receive phone calls, then the phone network has to know approximately where you are at all times. GPS tracking is a secondary, independent feature. Even if you could make an app that would spoof your GPS location in such a way that even the (presumed compromised) operating system was fooled (good luck with that...), all it takes is a trivial cross-check with network data to realize that fact and fall back to the "accurate to within a few dozen/hundred meters" network tracking.
And of course it does nothing whatsoever to prevent the use of the microphone as a remote listening device.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Socialism is an evil and immoral philosophy that advocates treating human beings as chattel
No, it is not. Look up the definition: "a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.". Just like any political ideology it only becomes immoral if it is taken to extremes but that is just as true of capitalism as well.
Like most things in life generally what works best is a balance. The community needs to provide some regulation on production, distribution and exchange to provide protection for its weakest members but, at the same time, not too much regulation otherwise it stifles and prevents the innovation and entrepreneurship that we all rely on to make our lives better. I'm not a fan of socialism because its proponents tend to take it, in my opinion, far too far towards the regulation/control side of things. However, it is by no means an "evil and immoral philosophy" nor does it advocate "treating human beings as chattel". You are thinking about communism which is not at all the same thing.
Absolutely - just like forcing people to give up their money for free in exchange for food is totally Stalinist.
If you don't like the price I charge for my code (GPL compliance) then don't use it, or try to convince me to sell it to you under other terms. It's as simple as that. Or do you think you are entitled to steal my code and give me nothing in return?
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
This. These people aren't spying because of their party. They are spying because it pays them billions to.
...unless we're in China.
This is not an argument for either "side" per se, but rather a note of comparison:
In generally free societies, you get spied on for profit (if they can), and little-to-nothing more. The worst they do with your data to is sell what they learn about you to advertisers, who them toss up ads that hopefully get past ad-blockers and try to entice you out of some of your money.
Now let's contrast that with a totalitarian-oriented society, where that data, coupled with omnipresent external cameras, facial recognition, a bit of AI to back it up, and a government-owned/run social credit rating that can either make your life easier (if you're a 'model citizen'), or infinitely harder (if you don't sufficiently conform)?
Now - which of the two do you figure to be the most dangerous to individual life and liberty?
To be honest, I don't much mind carrying a smartphone in the US (half the time I'm out of any cell range anyway, given my rural locale). By contrast, I'd be scared shitless to carry one around if I were a citizen and resident of, say, Shanghai.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
No. It means individual freedom, but for everyone rather than the elite.
Yes he does. Because if no one carried them, there wouldn't be the expectation that you were reachable 24/7. Just like the days before cell phones when people would be out of contact almost entirely during travel. Wouldn't be fun to go back to that now, but that would be his dream.
and Stallman's pretty obsessed with not being tracked. I don't think he likes others being tracked either, but given that cell phones have killed payphones (I even stopped seeing them in the really poor neighborhoods where I work) there are just times when you can't get away from it.
Me? I don't care so much for tracking. I'm more worried about economic attacks on me and mine, e.g. things like cutting my access to medical care, education, my wages, etc. Take care of those things and the tracking problems solve themselves.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
It's amazing that people still think guys like Hitler and Stalin were socialists.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Our loss of privacy was handed away gleefully, as if we were kids given candy.
Since early on, I advocated that whatever the level of transparency, it should be mutual. If government can read my conversations then I should be able to read theirs, as it pertains to mine. The same for commercial organizations. Of course, some level should be set. I mean regardless, I don't want them watching me poop. But then again, if it's my doctor and I can see that my doctor is doing this to monitor my health then I could be leanient even on that. So it's not a trade between privacy and security -- it's a balance of mutual privacy that we need.
On the other hand, I think the issues of fake information, information overload, and relationship destroying social media comments are all bigger issues.
Why wouldn't it be OK to use someone else's?
He's not saying mobile phones are *inherently* bad. He's saying that the kind of phones sold by carriers today track your movements and possibly eavesdrop on you in other ways. Lending your inherently compromised device to someone else doesn't change that one way or the other.
Sure, if everybody gave up smartphones to protect their privacy, he couldn't do this. But if everyone did that, carriers would offer more secure phones instead.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
It's not a problem to NOT borrow use of somebody's phone. Some of us are old enough to have lived during a time when everybody didn't have a phone or internet.
The world functioned so well it was able to invent all the stuff you use today so you can "innovate" your silly stuff on top of that along with the help from us old timers.
He loses none of his rights if he uses your cell because you already gave up your rights. There is no hypocrisy here. He can do just fine without it and he can deal unlike everybody else.
This guy is more consistent than MOST people which is what gets him labeled as extreme all the time. We get people attacking him for being extremely consistent and idealistic beyond what they consider reasonable-- labeling him unreasonable-- and also attacking him for not being so extreme he can't even borrow use of a phone on rare occasion.... keep in mind that a PUBLIC SHARED PHONE is dead because of everybody else... the more you share your phone the less revealing it is about you, like a public phone was.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
I don't want some fat weirdo using my phone, I would tell him to get his own phone.
Luckily America would never have things like no-fly lists, border searches all over the country, millions of people imprisoned or political crimes such as possessing a prohibited plant.
It would also never have internal intelligence agencies or police forces that are very military in nature and tools.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
They both pushed right wing societal values such as attacking and even killing homosexuals, certain races and such, as well as governance by those with merit . At that when Stalin took charge, a lot of what is usually considered leftist in America was prosecuted. He even believed in capitalism, as long as the government was the capitalist running industry. Like most successful capitalists, he did hate the free market, as that means competition.
Neither one believed in the people and especially having the regular people involved in governance through democracy and neither made any moves in the direction of communism, which has as one of its basic tenants to not have government.
People are complex and can not be simply divided up into the right wing and left wing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Do you think that advertisers are the only ones who want your data and are willing to pay for it? I can imagine far worse than that.
Actually yes, I do think that only advertisers want my personal data. Your speech must be so much more important than mine. I genuflect in your august presence.
So when you see a medication that says to apply liberally, you do it for freedom? No, liberal means broad and wide-ranging. As in, not narrow(-minded). Good for you that you found it shares a Latin root, but they are still separate words with separate meanings.
Libertarian was originally a socialist construct. Look up socialist libertarian or libertarian socialist.
Here, https://duckduckgo.com/?q=soci... or https://duckduckgo.com/?q=libe....
Now it is just as impractical as any political philosophy that ignores the authoritarians, but still to claim that libertarian-ism is a right wing thing is weird as the right means by definition supporting the aristocracy, or today, the rich
From wiki,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
How so? How do open borders = death to the working class? Our most productive time in American history saw a large amount of immigration. The minimum wage ensures legal citizens are paid at least at the same starting point. Oh, you must mean those illegals, right? Hmm...and I wonder how they're getting jobs that place them below the federally mandated minimum wage? Oh, that's right, corporations. See an illegal in America doesn't work a job unless a company hires him to begin with. So the real death of the working class isn't Jose from Mexico, it's Bob the CEO from Fuck You, USA who is saying "I'm going to break the law and hire this person and pay them under the table at a severely reduced wage, because fuck America." Perhaps instead of a wall, we need mandatory background checks and employer new-hire reporting and auditing.
Kinda like he the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of the Congo are both democratic republics, right?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
You health insurers, your employers, and everyone who wants your money, your labor, or your vote, without necessarily having anything else to offer. Basically, everyone. Not everyone can afford it, yet.
Are we at the point where you will get charged an extra 10% because you have shown enthusiasm for a product, or paid a bad price before, or live in a wealthy area?
Are we at the point where your dentist will use your posts to see how much discomfort you are in, so that he can inflate the treatment?
Are you going to get a bad life insurance because you enjoy jetskying?
Are your kids going to have trouble getting into a specific talent school because they got into a fight when they were 10?
Is your coworker going to forward to your boss a statement you made on the clock, or a statement about some quality the boss has, or just something random the boss may dislike?
Is your work/school laptop/phone configured to spy on you on demand, and is the security going to be porous enough to let everyone and his grandmother join in?
Etc, etc, etc.
Most of the above has happened. The rest will, soon enough.
And that's without errors. With errors, your wife name will match that on a known (male!) terrorist, and you will spend three ours in a detention room abroad, or your house will match the location of a stolen item, you will be placed at the scene of a crime in the next state, and what not. Bounty hunters have already broken into the wrong person's house...
All of these can happen without the technology we accept into our houses and pockets. But with the technology, every idiot can get on the game. And with enough monkeys on the branch, any branch will break.
No good deed goes unpunished...
What straw man thing is it that you think a safe space is? I guarantee you're probably wrong.
Safe space: a place or environment in which a person or category of people can feel confident that they will not be exposed to discrimination, criticism, harassment, or any other emotional or physical harm.
Someone who is guaranteed to not be exposed to criticism is not emotionally strong and certainly isn't able to cope with different world views. Thus not a classic liberal.
Also, are you using the word classic as shorthand for ignorant deep-South?
That you use the South as a slur says more about you than Southerners. I suspect that you'd cal me names if I did something similar to your protected class of choice.
Moderate groups are not the answer, because a moderate group will often just be some combination of both, but their views can be so strict that harm can happen as well.
I don't think you understand what it means to be moderate. It doesn't picking picking extreme ideas from one side or the other. It means ideas that are compromises that actually may have a chance of being accepted by both sides. E.g.,
You can be for immigration control, but also for amnesty for current undocumented Americans.
You can be pro-choice, but only for very early terms.
You can be anti-racist, but still acknowledge even a racists group's right to free speech.
This is where almost all Americans live. In the middle.
Of course, this is not what politicians want. They want us all to be fanatics, so we vote with them regardless of their actions.
The wife name matching a terrorist name, and having to spend hours in a detention room in a Canadian airport happened to me. My wife's first name name is Alison, she goes by Allie, and I assume she matched an Ali from a former USSR republic (my last name is Slavic)
She is a redhead, out one year daughter was with us, and we were told the name of the list was male. It still took them hours to clear us.
Of course, you do not have to believe me.
No good deed goes unpunished...
Why, that's preposterous
Indeed and yet people still believe it. Remember that poem about the Nazis about how they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up etc? Do you know how it starts? Here let me find it for you:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out-
Because I was not a socialist.
But apparently in your mind the fact theycalled themselves socialists trumps the fact that thay actually mass murdered socialists.
Do you believe everything people tell you about themselves?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
In generally free societies, you get spied on for profit (if they can), and little-to-nothing more. The worst they do with your data to is sell what they learn about you to advertisers, who them toss up ads that hopefully get past ad-blockers and try to entice you out of some of your money.
How quickly we forget the recent past.. FBI... Hollywood.. FBI files on prominent actresses/actors.. Constant surveilliance to root out the "communist sympathizers". But then again, freedom of association has never been an American thing.. Hell, freedom of religion has never really been an American thing.. Oh sure, you could be a Protestant, but if you were a Catholic you couldn't hope to hold any high federal offices.. "You might bend a knee to the Pope" was the logic behind that, but I digress..
The US, starting mostly during the cold war, has had a long love affair with spying on it's own citizens for purely political reasons.
The point isn't an actual level of public ownership. It's simply getting people used to depending on the state for everything, so they can be controlled-and pushing this narrative through socialist programs. This would probably take the form of fascism more than anything, with the state needing to use these large conglomerates to implement this, and the people being dependent to the point where there is no revolt.
If the state provides all healthcare, food, UBI, etc; you're not going to complain when then trot out something unpopular for fear of starving.