FSFE Newsletter – June 2014

[press at fsfeurope.org]

 = FSFE Newsletter – June 2014 =

[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201406.ru.html ]

 == Security is interdependent: We are all Gmail users now ==

You care about privacy and you are either paying an e-mail provider, or
even run your own mail server to keep autonomy, control, and privacy
over your email. You do this because you want to make sure that no big
company has copies of all of your personal email. Still, this does not
prevent other companies from getting their hands on your data. It is not
enough to merely take care of your own security, if you seek to increase
your security. You have to convince your peers to increase their
security, too: like Jacob Appelbaum says, security is interdependent[1].

FSF board member Benjamin Mako Hill wondered how much of his email has
ended up in the hands of companies such as Google. So he wrote a small
program to go through all his email since April 2004 (when Gmail was
introduced) and analyse it. Read what Benjamin found out[2], what
results FSFE's Karsten Gerloff[3] and Hugo Roy[4] got when they
reproduced it, and why not try those scripts out for yourself?

 == Is it a torch light or a spy in your pocket? ==

A lot of programs that people install on their Android devices violate
their security. It is common that those programs ask users to accept
non-readable terms and conditions, once installed they might reveal
where the device (and therefore the user) currently is, and access
personal data like user's address books or text messages. A seemingly
innocent app such as a torch light can thus violate the user's privacy.

For owners of mobile devices it is important to have an app store that
exclusively provides Free Software. Since this means that the source
code can be checked by external parties other than the vendor, they can
check what an app really does, and highlight or directly remove anti-
features. The result is a repository providing software with licenses
that respect the user's rights instead of violating them.

In the last months we experienced that more and more people care about
the software on their mobile devices. Your editor summarised what is
currently happening with Free Your Android[5], including promotion in
Greece, updating and translation status of our F-Droid leaflets, an
interview with the F-Droid developer, and your editor participating in
an event about consumer protection in the mobile phone sphere in the
German Parliament.

 == Another security nightmare: DRM ==

After a possible setback for DRM in Europe[6] it is important to raise
more awareness about this issue. We cannot stay quiet while some
companies use Digital Restriction Management to write their own
copyright laws, restrict us, and decrease our IT security. Many
organisations including EFF[7], April, and us participated in the Day
Against DRM[8], organised by FSF to highlight the dangers of DRM. The
FSFE used the occasion to contact the European Commission with an Open
Letter about DRM in HTML5[9]. We explained that DRM is directly contrary
to the interests of the vast majority of Internet users everywhere.

Just a few days later the Free Software community received the bad news
from Mozilla: DRM will be implemented in Firefox (the part is called
EME). The reactions ranged from the FSF condemning the partnership
between Mozilla and Adobe[10], Mozilla justifying its decision[11],
others supporting it[12], and Glyn Moody criticising them by comparing
Mozilla's mission with its current action[13]. As always we are
interested in your opinion. What do you think about Mozilla's decision
and its reasoning? What can the Free Software community do to
counterbalance this move? Let us know on our public discussion list[14].

 == Something completely different ==

- FSFE's country team Netherlands wrote a short text "The Importance of
  Free Software"[15] (also available in Dutch[16] ) about the relevance
  of Free Software and its conclusions for policy makers. The text
  highlights the crucial question for our society about "who controls
  the software?". "Because if we don't control the software we use, it
  controls us. And whoever controls the software therefore controls us."
  The text then was used to convince candidates to sign the Free
  Software Pact[17] - a project run by April[18] and supported by many
  organisations, including the FSFE.

- Fellowship Groups: After two years as a Fellowship representative in
  FSFE's GA, Nikos Roussos now started local FSFE meetings in
  Athens[19]. Furthermore we had a first Fellowship meeting in
  Wiesbaden[20]. In addition, new groups are establishing regular
  meetings since a while now in Zurich and Cologne.

- Our sister organisation, the FSF, awarded the Respects Your Freedom
  (RYF) certification to the Tehnoetic TET-N150 wireless USB
  adapter[21]. The RYF certification mark is awarded to products that
  meet the FSF's standards in regard to users' freedom, control over the
  product, and privacy. Visitors of FSFE's booth at FOSDEM might already
  know those adapters, as Tiberiu C. Turbureanu sold them at our booth.

    - From the planet aggregation[22]:  Carsten Agger explains what the
      result of the Danish referendum on the European patent court and
      the unitary patent means for software patents[23].

    - Leena Simon published an essay about the importance of
      attributions and the flow of information named "Standing on the
      Shoulders of Free Culture"[24].

    - Your editor wrote about the Novena hardware computing platform for
      hackers and Free Software drivers[25] and documented how to
      generate a new wifi password the mobile friendly way[26].

    - Henri Bergius spent three days at the GNOME Developer Experience
      hackfest working on the NoFlo runtime for GNOME[27].

    - Mario Fux wrote that Debian's KDE community needs help[28].

    - Our new intern Bela Seeger[29] as well as long term Fellow Paul
      Adams[30] report from Linuxtag in Berlin.

    - While Konstantinos Boukouvalas wrote about LPI affiliates,
      openLabs and OSCAL, as well as the Albanian Free Software
      Community[31].

-

 == Get active: Your experiences with programming resources for children ==

Beside publishing the monthly Free Software in education news[32] our
education team answers a lot of question by people who want to use more
Free Software in education.

As the edu-team was asked for good resources to teach kids to program,
Guido Arnold thought the answer (or more a summary of the answers) might
be interesting to others as well. So he published the summary[33]. To
improve our education website we ask you to give us feedback on those
resources. How do you like them, did you already have experience with
some of them, what was good, where did you have problems, and which
resources did we miss?

Thanks to all the volunteers[34], Fellows[35] and corporate donors[36]
who enable our work,
Matthias Kirschner - FSFE

-- 
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  1. http://www.roussos.cc/2014/05/14/our-privacy-is-interdependent/
  2. http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-because-it-has-all-of-yours
  3. https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2014/05/27/were-all-gmail-users-now-pt-2
  4. http://hroy.eu/posts/gmail-most-email/
  5. https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/consumer-protection-for-mobiles-is-it-a-torch-light-or-a-spy-in-your-pocket/
  6. http://lwn.net/Articles/584167/
  7. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/05/how-drm-harms-our-computer-security
  8. http://www.defectivebydesign.org/thanks-for-a-great-international-day-against-drm
  9. https://fsfe.org/news/2014/news-20140506-01.ru.html
 10. https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-condemns-partnership-between-mozilla-and-adobe-to-support-digital-restrictions-management
 11. https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/05/reconciling-mozillas-mission-and-w3c-eme/
 12. https://leomca.github.io/2014/05/15/Mozilla-and-DRM.html
 13. http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2014/05/whither-mozilla/index.htm
 14. https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
 15. https://blogs.fsfe.org/flx/2014/05/07/the-importance-of-free-software/
 16. https://blogs.fsfe.org/flx/2014/05/07/het-belang-van-vrije-software/
 17. http://freesoftwarepact.eu
 18. http://www.april.org/
 19. http://www.roussos.cc/2014/04/30/athens-free-software-monthly-meetups/
 20. https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2014/05/report-from-the-first-fellowship-meeting-in-wiesbaden/
 21. https://www.fsf.org/news/tehnoetic-wireless-usb-adapter-now-fsf-certified-to-respect-your-freedom
 22. http://planet.fsfe.org
 23. https://blogs.fsfe.org/agger/2014/05/26/elections-14-not-much-to-celebrate/
 24. http://leena.de/standing-on-the-shoulders-of-free-culture/
 25. https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/support-hardware-computing-platform-for-hackers-and-free-software-drivers-now/
 26. https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/how-to-generate-a-new-wifi-password-the-mobile-friendly-way/
 27. http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/flowhub-gnome-dx/
 28. https://blogs.fsfe.org/mario/?p=231
 29. https://blogs.fsfe.org/seeger/2014/05/23/linuxtag-2014/
 30. https://blogs.fsfe.org/padams/?p=303
 31. http://blogs.fsfe.org/boukouvalas/?p=556
 32. https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2014/05/free-software-in-education-news-april/
 33. https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2014/05/teach-programming-with-free-software/
 34. https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.ru.html
 35. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
 36. https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.ru.html