Hi,
maybe some FSFE fellows are also interested.
Cheers,
Nik
----- Forwarded message from Dominik George <dominik.george(a)teckids.org> -----
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2017 16:38:59 +0100
From: Dominik George <dominik.george(a)teckids.org>
To: debian-edu(a)lists.debian.org
Subject: New Year's Meeting 2018 in Germany
User-Agent: Mutt/1.9.2 (2017-12-15)
Dear Skolelinux and Debian Edu community,
for thos of you who are interested in international events and/or are
from Germany, but are not following the -german list (probably because
you lost interest in the past):
Teckids e.V. would like to invite you to the New Year's Meeting in
Gütersloh, Germany from 19th to 21st January.
As you may have heard, Teckids e.V. is now the organisation representing
the Skolelinux project in Germany, coordinating the community together
with Kurt Gramlich. We are a youth organsiation around free software and
also supporting educational institutions with free software.
The New Years's Meeting is especially important because we will be
discussing quite a few fundamental aspects of the project, centered
around, but not limited to Germany.
What is the project's goal in the educational world?
How do we want to achieve it?
How can we bring the community in Germany back together,
and collaborate more with developers and communities abroad?
Thus, the whole Saturday is dedicated to Skolelinux and Debian Edu
development this time.
We would be very happy to see some old and new faces. If you can, please
enter your name on the wiki page:
https://wiki.skolelinux.de/WikiKalender/2018-01-19
If you can't, due to language or other issues, you can also send an
e-mail to the mailing list, to me or to verein(a)teckids.org.
With our best wishes for the season,
Nik
--
Dominik George (1. Vorstandsvorsitzender, pädagogischer Leiter)
Teckids e.V. - Erkunden, Entdecken, Erfinden.
https://www.teckids.org/
----- End forwarded message -----
--
Dominik George (1. Vorstandsvorsitzender, pädagogischer Leiter)
Teckids e.V. - Erkunden, Entdecken, Erfinden.
https://www.teckids.org/
You might be interested in Max Mehl's update about "Radio Lockdown:
Current Status of Your Device Freedom":
https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20171212-01.html
Unfortunately this topic is still mainly discussed in small circles. Can
you help us to spread the information with your friends and colleges as
well as Free Software related groups you are active in?
Best Regards,
Matthias
--
Matthias Kirschner - President - Free Software Foundation Europe
Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119 Berlin, Germany | t +49-30-27595290
Registered at Amtsgericht Hamburg, VR 17030 | (fsfe.org/join)
Contact (fsfe.org/about/kirschner) - Weblog (k7r.eu/blog.html)
Hi!
I worriedly watch the slowing down of the accumulation of the signatures of the Public Money Public Code open letter. I think this is a great campaign that should reach as much people as possible and the slowing down bellow 15k signatures sort of suggest that its spreading started fading way too soon.
Maybe we (FSFE volunteers, supporters, and members) should give the campaign an extra push. I'm pretty certain that the vast majority of people haven't even heard about the campaign yet.
Some ideas:
- Can't we know and get some celebrities of relatively famous guys sympathizing with Free Software who may openly support the camping and attract others to join as supporters? I don't know Stephen Fry is very famous and I have seen him advertising Trisquel GNU/Linux-libre on youtube, Bryan Lunduke also have some fame and a regular youtube program on Free Software related stuff, and probably there are plenty of people who may worth a shot to ask...
- I also think it would be worth bringing the campaign to the streets. A couple of volunteers could bring campaign stickers or flyers (https://git.fsfe.org/gergely/PMPC_QR-code_flyers) and distribute them to the passers-by. (If you are [or know] someone in Budapest who would happily join me doing that please contact me. Unfortunately, I would feel embarrassed to do this alone... :-/)
- I think putting posters to bulletin boards in universities would also be great. Lack of official posters link https://git.fsfe.org/gergely/PMPC_QR-code_flyers here too. I totally plan to do this with the linked QR-code flyers even alone but if you are in Budapest and happy to join please contact me as this is also more fun to do in pairs or in groups.
- I think the campaign should also be boosted on online platforms (forums, blogs, social media, etc). I'm only on diaspora* there I think I did my part (maybe on diaspora* most of the active users are already reached)...
- I don't know if opening and keeping alive threads about the campaign on 4chan /g/ is a good idea or not? but I can help in that... Also if you can recommend online platforms where I can help engaging in discussion about the campaign I'm happy to do so.
All in all: Keep spreading the message are way too many people to be reached!!!
What do you think?
Best,
Gergely
Dear list,
some news portals already picked it up and every FSFE supporter received a
message about it in his inbox: today in the morning we launched a new campaign
"Public Money Public Code".
For the campaign we published an open letter [1] together with 31
organisations in which we call for lawmakers to make it mandatory to publish
all publicly financed software under a Free Software licence. Among the
initial signatories are CCC, EDRi, KDE, Open Knowledge Foundation Germany,
openSUSE, Open Source Business Alliance, Open Source Initiative, The Document
Foundation, Wikimedia Deutschland, as well as several others.
Prominent support we also got from Edward Snowden, who says: "Right now, the
blueprints for much of our most critical public infrastructure are simply
unavailable to the public. By aligning public funding with a Free Software
requirement -- "Free" referring to public code availability, not cost -- we
can find and fix flaws before they are used to turn the lights out in the next
hospital."
You find the whole press-release here:
https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170913-01.en.html
Now it is up to you! Please help and join us by signing this letter and ask
your friends and colleagues to do likewise:
https://publiccode.eu/#action
Why is this important? Public institutions spend millions of euros every year
for the development of new software for them. But the public sector's
procurement choices play a significant role in determining which companies are
allowed to compete and what software is supported with taxpayers' money. This
means, that changing policies in public procurement will have a huge positive
impact on the Free Software community.
The open letter will be sent to candidates for the current German Parliament
election and, during the coming months, until the 2019 EU parliament
elections, to other representatives of the EU and EU member states.
Since it is our public money, it should be our public code as well!
This mail can and shall be copied and forwarded.
Best regards,
Erik
[1] https://publiccode.eu/openletter/
--
No one shall ever be forced to use non-free software
Erik Albers | Communication & Community Coordinator | FSFE
OpenPGP Key-ID: 0x8639DC81 on keys.gnupg.net
Hi all,
«Without that evidentiary basis, there's no way to know you need self-help
measures, nor is there any way to convince regulators to take action,»
Cory Doctorow nice article (as usual)
https://boingboing.net/2017/11/25/la-la-la-cant-hear-you.html
explains us why Yale Privacy Lab [1] and Exodus Privacy [2] **cannot** give
the world scietific evidences that similar spyware is **likely** (there are
rumors) also distributed in similar iOS apps
«iOS is DRM-locked and it's a felony -- punishable by a 5-year prison
sentence and a $500,000 fine for a first offense in the USA under DMCA 1201,
and similar provisions of Article 6 of the EUCD in France where Exodus is
located -- to distribute tools that bypass this DRM, even for the essential
work of discovering whether billions of people are at risk due to covert
spying from the platform.»
I believe this is another strong evidence to offer to the EU Council and
Parliament to review EUCD and never again permit _code_ like DRM to **become
the judge** of what can and cannot be done with digital works
could be this one oincluded in a _curated_ section of "evidences" in
http://drm.info ?
ciao
Giovanni
[1] https://privacylab.yale.edu/
[2] https://exodus-privacy.eu.org/
reports for many apps: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/
--
Giovanni Biscuolo
Xelera - IT infrastructures
http://xelera.eu/contact-us/
**per favore** Quota Bene: http://wiki.news.nic.it/QuotarBene
**please** use Inline Reply: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
Hi!
I think it was not a good idea at all to change the "Join the ..." to "Become a supporter".
My point is that "being a member" of something (even if just an associate one) suggests a much stronger bound than being just a "supporter". So I think using phrases as "Join the FSFE", "become a(n associate) member" etc is way more compelling for most of the people.
In my view "supporter" is someone outside of the circle while "any-kind-of member" is someone who is inside of the circle. So I do believe demoting "fellowship members" to mere "supporters" made this status too cold and less compelling.
I think FSF is doing this much better. If you visit fsf.org this time of the year you immediately run into a very encouraging and inviting banner about joining them.
I really miss this inviting spirit from fsfe.org.
(Also, why is no similar banner on fsfe.org in the last two months of every year?)
I think recruiting members and encouraging people to donate is important.
So it worth making extra efforts to doing it right.
What do you think?
Best,
Gergely
Hi all,
glad my glamorous title obtained your attention :-D
I'm joking about Black Friday, I'm _not_ joking about "CPU as a service"
since the issue I recently labeled in this ML as the "MINIX on ring -3
discovery" is not clear to at least one of my FSFE-pen-friends, I have be
more specific
also, please I would like to know if and eventually how FSFE will address
this kind of issues when talking with EU or local representatives about the
"Consumer rights and device sovereignty" policy goal for 2019
https://fsfe.org/activities/policy/eu/policy-goals/consumer-rights.en.html
considering what I'm going to show here, we should definitely extend the
device sovereignty to **all users**: public and private companies,
governments and all other institutions too, not only consumers (ouch!) :-O
...so please also remind EU and local representative that **(part of) their
(sorry: our) IT systems are also affected** by this serious issue
Executive summary
------------------
«One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them»
on all Intel processors sold after 2008 there's a running *proprietary*
variation of the not copyleft free software MINIX 3 (unknown version), MINIX
is running in "ring -3" [1]
now we have the proofs that:
1. **no** "user facing OS" operating system have final control of the x86
platform
2. between the "user facing OS" and the hardware there are at least 2 ½ OS
kernels (MINIX and UEFI)
3. these are proprietary and very likely exploit-friendly
4. the exploits can persist, i.e. be written to FLASH, and you can't fix that
5. the user have _no access_ to the MINIX running in ring -3
MINIX is running on three separate x86 cores on modern chips, on that OS are
running:
1. TCP/IP networking stacks (4 and 6)
2. File systems
3. Drivers (disk, net, USB, mouse)
4. Web servers
please **do not** consider this kind of issues specific to a single brand of
CPUs, since we still do not have proofs but the development path is the very
same
*** Are you scared yet? If you're not scared yet, maybe I didn't explain it
very well, because I sure am scared. *** (Ronald Minnich)
The not so short story
-----------------------
the fact: on Wednesday, October 25 2017 Ronald Minnich from Google told the
world about this:
«With the WikiLeaks release of the vault7 material, the security of the UEFI
(Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) firmware used in most PCs and
laptops is once again a concern. UEFI is a proprietary and closed-source
operating system, with a codebase almost as large as the Linux kernel, that
runs when the system is powered on and continues to run after it boots the
OS (hence its designation as a “Ring -2 hypervisor"). It is a great place to
hide exploits since it never stops running, and these exploits are
undetectable by kernels and programs.»
this article presents a short version of the story:
http://www.zdnet.com/article/minix-intels-hidden-in-chip-operating-system/
I used this for my executive summary ;-)
the issue is **not** new (known since 2016, at least) and presented many
times also in FSF/FSFE "circles", eg. here
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/intel-me-and-why-we-should-get-rid-of-me
and here https://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/discussion/2016-April/010912.html
EFF and Matthew Garrett where more specific about the nature of the issue on
May 8 2017 here
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/05/intels-management-engine-security-haz…
and here
https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/48429.html
so: what's new now?!?
since October 25 (save the date!) what **is** new is that we have a
scientific proof of the real nature of this _mess_
...and we know that Google *is* _desperately_ trying to get rid of this
issue from their systems *but* they are failing to fully do this
please enjoy the full Garrett's talk in this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iffTJ1vPCSo
he said: "always use coreboot if you can, but if you are stuck with a situation..."
(29:21 of the video) ... libreboot is maybe better, IMHO
so, ladies and gentlemen I'll introduce you "CPU as a service"
do we have to accept an EULA?!?
ciao
Giovanni
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_ring
what the hell is ring -3 ?!?! who "invented" it?
where is it documented?
should we expect to see "ring -9" in the future?
how we could even allow anyone in the world to implement such a
perverted environment?
--
Giovanni Biscuolo
Xelera - IT infrastructures
http://xelera.eu/contact-us/
**per favore** Quota Bene: http://wiki.news.nic.it/QuotarBene
**please** use Inline Reply: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
Hi Gergely,
# Gergely Székely [2017-11-30 16:26 +0100]:
> I think it was not a good idea at all to change the "Join the ..." to
> "Become a supporter".
>
> My point is that "being a member" of something (even if just an
> associate one) suggests a much stronger bound than being just a
> "supporter". So I think using phrases as "Join the FSFE", "become a(n
> associate) member" etc is way more compelling for most of the people.
I concur with your point that "joining" is a stronger word than
"supporting". However, as our news item already states [1], it is
necessary because it caused a lot of confusion.
"Joining" implies that an individual becomes a member of an
organisation, and in the FSFE's case this also includes the rights
(voting rights) and obligations (time, in some cases money) [2].
However, this is not the case with our supporters programme (formerly
"Fellowship"), and we don't want to misguide interested people just to
get them to sign up.
But! We don't want to lock down the way into the GA, quite the opposite.
At the last GA meeting we decided to draft a possible path and structure
to increase the membership base and the necessary transparency to join
the association. This way we want to invite motivated and active
volunteers to join the decision making processes and shape the
organisation while continuing to offer a more passive way of support
through our supporter programme.
Again, I agree that the recently changed wording is not ideal for
fundraising but transparency is more important to us than the few
financial contributors we might miss to convince by that :)
I hope I was able to clarify things a bit!
Best,
Max
[1] https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20171116-01.html
[2] In our case members are members of the Free Software Foundation
Europe e.V.'s General Assembly: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Teams/GA
--
Max Mehl - Program Manager - Free Software Foundation Europe
Contact and further information: https://fsfe.org/about/mehl
Support advocacy for Free Software: https://fsfe.org/donate
Hi all,
I just discovered this study from "Freedom to tinker" [1] that clearly shows
clinic evidence of psychotic disorders by few web market operators who
pretend to track every single bit of users data with a new "technology"
called "session replay scripts":
«These scripts record your keystrokes, mouse movements, and scrolling
behavior, along with the entire contents of the pages you visit, and send
them to third-party servers. Unlike typical analytics services that provide
aggregate statistics, these scripts are intended for the recording and
playback of individual browsing sessions, as if someone is looking over your
shoulder.»
in some cases passwords are included in session recordings
I'm always astonished by the fantasy _and_ resources some group of people
is willing to invest to try to control users
apart from the clinical evidences, this also clearly shows that GDPR [2] -
that I *really* appreciate - will be as easily circumvented as the European
Union's net-neutrality rules _are_ circumvented [3]; this is why I agree
with #youbroketheinternet [4] folks that _both_ "net neutrality" and "no
massive surveillance market" can be achieved with and _only_ with a GNU
Internet, aka a free Internet *by design* (please do _not_ consider the web
as the whole Internet, as some unfortunately tend to do)
my conviction is stronger after I read of another working paper [5]
co-authored from a Stanford senior fellow that shows that privacy tends to
take a backseat to convenience and can easily get tossed out the window for
a reward as simple as free pizza
please consider that I *suspect* that this state of mind is also valid if
you think about user data "leaked" from our computing devices, not "just"
the web
<joke>
I'm addicted to pizza and **they know* that! so if they promise to give me
a pizza I'll let them track any data they want about me without making any
question... where's my pizza?!? :-D
</joke>
ciao
Giovanni
[1] hosted by Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation
[3] http://www.businessinsider.com/net-neutrality-portugal-how-american-interne…
[4] http://youbroketheinternet.org/
[5] https://news.stanford.edu/2017/08/03/pizza-privacy-stanford-economist-exami…
--
Giovanni Biscuolo
Xelera - IT infrastructures
http://xelera.eu/contact-us/
**per favore** Quota Bene: http://wiki.news.nic.it/QuotarBene
**please** use Inline Reply: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style