= Open Letter on Freedom and Internet Voting to Estonia's National
Electoral Committee =
[Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/2013/news-20130730-01.en.html ]
FSFE has sent an open letter[1] to Estonia's National Electoral
Committee (NEC) regarding the country's Internet voting system. We ask
the NEC to release the software used in the election process as Free
Software[2].
"Our aim is to safeguard the freedom and privacy of Estonia's
citizens, and to improve the security of the election process," says
Karsten Gerloff, FSFE's President.
Estonia has used Internet voting for general elections since 2005.
Unfortunately, the system's technology remains proprietary. Local
activists have recently managed to convince the NEC to release source
code for some of the software under a non-free licence, but this licence
does not permit distribution of derivative works or commercial use.
These arbitrary restrictions on software developed with public funds
hinder security research.
"Important system components remain completely unknown to the general
public. One of those components is the client side voting application
that must be loaded and executed on the voter's computer," says Heiki
Ojasild, Fellowship representative in FSFE's General Assembly. "There
is no guarantee that this widely distributed[3] black box functions
according to voters' expectations, or that it will respect their
privacy or will."
Due to the unavailability of the source code and the fact that the
client side voting application is not built on Open Standards[4], the
voter is also forced to use one of the operating systems supported by
the National Electoral Committee.
FSFE has drawn the NEC's attention to these remaining problems and
possible solutions. FSFE has offered the NEC its assistance and is
looking forward to helping them ensure that freedom, privacy, and
credibility of the elections are not forsaken in the pursuit of
technological progress.
1. http://fsfe.org/ee/i-voting/2013-07-26_Open_Letter_to_NEC.en.html
2. http://fsfe.org/about/basics/freesoftware.en.html
3. http://vvk.ee/voting-methods-in-estonia/engindex/statistics/
4. https://fsfe.org/activities/os/def.html
== About the Free Software Foundation Europe ==
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit
non-governmental organisation active in many European countries and
involved in many global activities. Access to software determines
participation in a digital society. To secure equal participation in
the information age, as well as freedom of competition, the Free
Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) pursues and is dedicated to the
furthering of Free Software, defined by the freedoms to use, study,
modify and copy. Founded in 2001, creating awareness for these issues,
securing Free Software politically and legally, and giving people
Freedom by supporting development of Free Software are central issues
of the FSFE.
http://fsfe.org/
= FSFE objects to claims of 'predatory pricing' in Free Software =
[Read online: http://fsfe.org/news/2013/news-20130729-01.en.html ]
In a recent antitrust submission to the European Commission, a
Microsoft-led coalition falsely claimed that the distribution of Free
Software free of charge hurts competition. FSFE has written[1] a letter
to the European Commission's competition authorities to refute this
claim, and make it clear that Free Software is critical for an open,
competitive IT market.
In its letter, FSFE urges the Commission to consider the facts properly
before accepting these allegations at face value. "Free Software is a
boon for humankind. The only thing that it is dangerous to is
Microsoft's hopelessly outdated, restrictive business model," says
Karsten Gerloff, FSFE's president.
The so-called "FairSearch" coalition is essentially asking the European
Commission to favour a restrictive business model over a liberal one.
This is exactly the opposite of what competition regulators should do in
order to achieve a fair and open market.
"Free Software is not about price, it's about liberty, a guarantee of
competition and vendor independence. Asking to cripple Free Software in
order to allow proprietary vendors to sell their locked-down systems is
just abusurd" says Carlo Piana, FSFE's General Counsel. "The most
substantial threat to competition in the mobile space today are software
patents, and we have repeatedly urged antitrust authorities to address
this problem," he adds.
FSFE asks the European Commission to dismiss the "FairSearch"
coalition's unfounded claims regarding predatory pricing, and not make
them part of whatever steps it decides to take in response to the
group's filing.
1. http://fsfe.org/activities/policy/eu/20130729.EC.Fairsearch.letter.en.html
== About the Free Software Foundation Europe ==
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit
non-governmental organisation active in many European countries and
involved in many global activities. Access to software determines
participation in a digital society. To secure equal participation in
the information age, as well as freedom of competition, the Free
Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) pursues and is dedicated to the
furthering of Free Software, defined by the freedoms to use, study,
modify and copy. Founded in 2001, creating awareness for these issues,
securing Free Software politically and legally, and giving people
Freedom by supporting development of Free Software are central issues
of the FSFE.
http://fsfe.org/
= Open Letter on transparency to President of the European Parliament =
[Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/2013/news-20130716-01.en.html ]
Free Software Foundation Europe and Open Rights Group[1] have sent an
open letter[2] [pdf][3] to the President of the European Parliament,
Martin Schulz. Mr Schulz has recently been asked[4] [pdf] to produce a
study on transparency within the Parliament.
- In their letter, the civil society groups are offering Mr Schulz their
help in this effort. They are also suggesting a number of questions
that should be considered in the report on transparency, such as As
the Parliament is held to a standard of "utmost transparency", would
it be obliged to make public the source code of the software it uses?
- How can the Parliament use Free Software and Open Standards to make
sure that citizens have full and unfettered access to all documents
produced by the Parliament?
- What can the Parliament do to make videos of its proceedings available
to citizens without requiring them to install non-free software?
- Does the requirement for "utmost transparency" also cover the
Parliament's procurement of software?
"We appreciate the Parliament's commitment to transparency," says
Karsten Gerloff, FSFE's President. "It is essential for democracy in
Europe that citizens have the fullest possible access to parliamentary
proceedings, and to the tools which the Parliament uses to make the
laws that govern us all."
Open Rights Group and FSFE look forward to assisting the European
Parliament in the preparation of the transparency study.
1. http://www.openrightsgroup.org/
2. http://fsfe.org/activities/os/transparency-letter
3. http://download.fsfe.org/letters/20130716.Letter.Schulz.pdf
4. http://epfsug.eu/wws/arc/epfsug/2013-07/msg00041/Letter_President_Schulz_Fr…
== About the Free Software Foundation Europe ==
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit
non-governmental organisation active in many European countries and
involved in many global activities. Access to software determines
participation in a digital society. To secure equal participation in
the information age, as well as freedom of competition, the Free
Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) pursues and is dedicated to the
furthering of Free Software, defined by the freedoms to use, study,
modify and copy. Founded in 2001, creating awareness for these issues,
securing Free Software politically and legally, and giving people
Freedom by supporting development of Free Software are central issues
of the FSFE.
http://fsfe.org/
= New Snowden leak: Storing your data at Microsoft is negligent =
[Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/2013/news-20130712-01.en.html ]
In an article published today, The Guardian[1] describes how Microsoft
is actively cooperating with the NSA. According to the article,
Microsoft is providing the NSA with broad access to the communications
of anyone using the company's services:
- Microsoft gives the NSA access to encrypted mails on Hotmail, Live.com
and Outlook.com, as well as web chat messages.
- Microsoft provides the NSA with easy access to its SkyDrive storage
service, which currently has 250 million users worldwide.
- Microsoft makes it possible for the NSA to monitor audio and video
calls on the Skype service which it acquired in 2011.
"This makes it clear that trusting Microsoft with your critical
company data is downright negligent," says Karsten Gerloff, President
of the Free Software Foundation Europe. "In both the public and the
private sector, those responsible for security and data protection
urgently need to take action to protect their organisations, customers
and clients."
While it is difficult or impossible to entirely escape surveillance,
there are ways to minimise the risk that sensitive data, such as
confidential product data or patient records, is intercepted by a third
party. Free Software solutions for groupware, office products and
operating systems are fully auditable, and often data security a
priority. End-to-end encryption with Free Software products such as
GnuPG[2] and off-the-record messaging (OTR)[3] protects data in transit.
Products providing secure audio, video and chat communications, such as
Jitsi[4], go a long way towards replacing Skype.
"We advise companies and all other organisations that wish to protect
their data to use Free Software solutions, to store data in-house
wherever possible, and to cooperate only with providers whom they
trust to protect their customers' data," says Gerloff. "Such providers
will often use strong encryption, and minimise the amount of data they
store. Using smaller providers instead of global IT companies makes it
somewhat less likely that customers' data will be caught in the NSA's
dragnet."
Users should actively take control of their data and communications. One
way to do so is to support the developers of Free Software encryption
technologies, so they can continue to provide these important products.
"Now is a good time to donate to the Free Software PGP implementation
GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG)[5]!", says Matthias Kirschner, FSFE's Head of
Public Awareness.
1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-use…
2. http://gnupg.org/
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-the-Record_Messaging
4. https://jitsi.org/
5. http://g10code.com/gnupg-donation.html
== Press Contact ==
Karsten Gerloff, Free Software Foundation Europe President
<gerloff at fsfeurope.org> m +49 176 9690 4298
Linienstraße 141, 10115 Berlin, Germany
== About the Free Software Foundation Europe ==
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit
non-governmental organisation active in many European countries and
involved in many global activities. Access to software determines
participation in a digital society. To secure equal participation in
the information age, as well as freedom of competition, the Free
Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) pursues and is dedicated to the
furthering of Free Software, defined by the freedoms to use, study,
modify and copy. Founded in 2001, creating awareness for these issues,
securing Free Software politically and legally, and giving people
Freedom by supporting development of Free Software are central issues
of the FSFE.
http://fsfe.org/
= German Parliament elections: The parties' positions on Free Software =
[Read online: http://fsfe.org/news/2013/news-20130703-01.en.html ]
Today, the Free Software Foundation Europe publishes its Free Software
related election questions for this fall's elections to the German
parliament, which will take place on September 22. All political parties
have responded to the questions, which cover issues like users' control
over their electronic devices, the release of publicly funded computer
programs as Free Software, and software patents.
>From the responses, it's clear that most parties now know more about
Free Software than they did in the past. Below is the translation --
done by FSFE's volunteers[1]-- of FSFE's summary and an evaluation of
the complete answers[2]. In addition, FSFE encourages Free Software
activists to use these questions as an inspiration for their own
questions to candidates on federal and local level.
1. http://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/translators.en.html
2. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/askyourcandidates/201309-germany-bundestagswahl.e…
First, something pleasant: SPD, the Greens, the Pirate party, the Linke
and the Free Voters want software where development was funded by the
public administration to be published under a free licence. The SPD
states that "publicly funded software should be available to the general
public as far as possible". The Greens demand the publication of such
programs as Free Software in their manifesto (see FSFE's overview on the
election and party manifestos in Germany[3] (German)). In their reply,
they justify this demand with benefits such as "bigger and more
sustainable innovation potentials, broadening of competence in handling
software, but also security-related advantages". They continually
criticise the migration away from Free Software in the Foreign Office.
The Pirates and the Left Party both advocate a general publication of
all software and content funded by the state. The FDP does not directly
address the question, but generally claims to "consider both proprietary
and Free software" in public procurement.
3. https://wiki.fsfe.org/WahlUndParteiprogrammeDeutschland
The CDU however points out "budget law restrictions" for the publication
and advancement of Free Software by the public administration. In their
answer, they refer to a paragraph in the Bundeshaushaltsordnung (BHO §
63 para. 2). The federal government however states the following in its
accompanying legal document to the migration guidelines (German)[4]:
This paragraph "does not constitute a limitation for the dissemination
of software" (p. 41) and "in the practically most important case, the
further development of GPL licences software, a public authority can
share its own development portions to private parties without levy of
licence fees" (p. 43). In contrast, these guidelines highlight a problem
in the gratis distribution to private parties for development of new
software or continuing development of non-copyleft software. It is worth
noting that in its past eight years in government, the CDU has not
improved the BHO law if they perceive it to be problematic. Furthermore,
the CDU/CSU state that in every single case, it should be checked "if
obvious modifications of the software would allow it to be used for
illegal purposes" and if this was the case, the software should not be
published.
4. http://www.cio.bund.de/DE/Architekturen-und-Standards/Migrationsleitfaden-u…
The refusal to release a GNU/Linux version of the ElsterFormular tax
software (German)[5] meets with a lack of understanding, regret and
criticism among the parties. The FDP points to the platform independence
of the upcoming version of Elsteronline, which will not need Java to
run. Still, they regret that the Elsterformular is not available in a
platform independent way. The Free Voters perceive the given platform
dependency as incomprehensible in view of system security. The tying to
a single operating system development company is unacceptable for the
SPD and they want to engage to "make according software available for
alternative operating systems as well". The Greens want to advocate the
possibility to use the ElsterFormular for users of Free operating
systems. The Left Party voices its criticsm: "The provision of the
Elster-Formular solely for Microsoft Windows and the refusal to release
the GNU-Linux and Mac OS X versions by the Bayerisches Landesamt für
Steuern (Bavarian tax administration), which is in charge of the
development, is not acceptable." The Pirates demand the publication of
the software – even if it was of bad quality – and its documentation
under a Free licence to allow others to further develop the software.
5. https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=1031
All parties agree that public authorities should demand all rights
(access to the source code, the right for further developments (also by
third parties), the right to distribute the software to others) when
contracting out software development. The FDP states: "This creates
independence from the producer, strategic reliability and freedom of
choice when selecting a service provider." SPD and the Greens mainly
justify their demands from an IT security point of view. According to
the Linke, the state "should ensure that it has discretion over how the
software will be distributed, and use this discretion in the common
interest". The CDU attaches "special importance to [...] the possibility
of further development of the software from the beginning" in the
future. The Pirates and the Greens point to the fact that governmental
usage rights are a necessary condition to publish software of the public
administration under a Free licence as demanded by the parties. The Free
Voters state that they will consider fines for officials and employees
who sign contracts without these usage rights.
Asked about the control over mobile devices, the parties mainly focus on
aspects of data protection. The SPD sees "challenges especially
regarding the right of informational self-determination". The Greens,
Linke, Pirates and SPD demand data protection-friendly technology as a
basic adjustment ("Data protection by technology"), while CDU/CSU, FDP
and the Free voters target a better education of citizens. However, the
parties do not answer the question about the rights the users should
have on the software on these devices – a question that for example is
asked by FSFE's FreeYourAndroid.org campaign[6].
6. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/android/android.en.html
On the subject"Secure Boot"[7] all parties are in agreement: the White
Paper of the federal government[8] contains important demands which they
want to support and implement. "With the implementation of Secure Boot
the owners of IT devices get limited in the possibility to entirely
control contents and applications", writes the Left Party. The FDP wants
to "assure that users can make an informed decision about their
devices", and the CDU wants to pursue this issue on national and
international level. In their detailed answer the Pirates write:
"Systems which prevent the user from installing specific software are
inacceptable on political and economical grounds. This inevitably leads
to promotion of oligopolies or monopolies in the software market. But
more important is the socio-political relevance of control over IT
systems [....]". The Greens doubt how the federal government will
implement the key issue paper "with the extensive ties to Microsoft
services" and SPD demands an "initiative on European level [...] to let
these targets not only be a political declaration of intention, but to
really stick to them."
7. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/generalpurposecomputing/secure-boot-analysis.en.h…
8. http://fsfe.org/news/2012/news-20121120-01.en.html
Except for CDU and Free voters, all parties explicitly support the
royalty-free licensing of standards. The Greens point to their demand in
the Enquete Kommission "Internet und Digitale Gesellschaft" (EIDG,
commission of inquiry in internet and digital society)[9] where they
want to place the public administration under an obligation to bring
forward interoperability and sustainability of their IT systems "to be
independent from interests of individual market participants at the
further development of the systems." Criticism of SAGA, the German
guideline for IT standards in federal government organisations, comes
from the Left Party and Pirates. The Left Party see in the
specifications without restrictions and licence fees no automatism for
increased implementation of Free Software. "On this, active political
will and proactive acting of federal government is required", so the
Linke. The Pirates criticise that ODF in SAGA is only a recommended
format what results to the fact "that non-free software and closed
formats can still be used in administrative practice." For this reason,
they consider SAGA to be merely a "paper tiger".
9. http://www.bundestag.de/internetenquete/
Unfortunately the CDU sees no problem in advertisement on public
administration's websites[10] for non-free software as long as such
adverts serve usability. The other parties reject this kind of
advertisements, and want to prevent them in future. The Greens refer in
their answer to their request "Advertisement for proprietary software on
websites of federal ministries and public administration" (printed
matter 17/8951) in which they picked up on this issue, and to the
following discussion of this subject in the IT planning council. The
Free Voters offered their help for solutions on municipal level.
10. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders/pdfreaders.en.html
FSFE's ongoing work against software patents shows effects: By now all
parties on federal level agree that patenting of software should be
limited effectively. To this they refer to the inter-fractional request
titled "Secure competition and dynamic of innovation in software sector
- limit patenting of computer programs effectively"[11].
11. http://fsfe.org/news/2013/news-20130612-01.en.html
The CDU/CSU is generally in favour of using "Serious Games", i.e.
learning games with the primary goal of imparting knowledge in an
entertaining way, in schools and universities and thinks about releasing
those games under a Free licence. The FDP wants to get more children
into programming and "ensure that newly acquired learning aids can be
used platform independently". The Free Voters want to promote Free
Software in the municipal sector. The Greens especially demand a
consistent procurement practice for software funded by the public
sector, continue to criticise regression like for example in the Foreign
Office[12] and want to serve as a good example by releasing their own
software ("betatext"). The Linke sees Free Software in the context of
common property economics and thinks about ways of funding Free Software
development, e.g. using parts of the broadcasting fees. The SPD wants to
primarily promote Free Software in the administration. In the commission
of enquiry on the internet and the digital society (EIDG) the party had
demanded that the state should "provide subsidies for usability analysis
and the improvement of user friendliness of selected projects".
12. http://fsfe.org/news/2011/news-20110511-01.en.html
- More election interviews done by Free Software Foundation Europe
and publications about the last Bundestag election:
http://fsfe.org/campaigns/askyourcandidates/askyourcandidates.en.htmlhttp://fsfe.org/campaigns/btw09/btw09.en.html
- References to Free Software in election and party manifestos in
Germany (German):
http://wiki.fsfe.org/WahlUndParteiprogrammeDeutschland (German)
== About the Free Software Foundation Europe ==
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit
non-governmental organisation active in many European countries and
involved in many global activities. Access to software determines
participation in a digital society. To secure equal participation in
the information age, as well as freedom of competition, the Free
Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) pursues and is dedicated to the
furthering of Free Software, defined by the freedoms to use, study,
modify and copy. Founded in 2001, creating awareness for these issues,
securing Free Software politically and legally, and giving people
Freedom by supporting development of Free Software are central issues
of the FSFE.
http://fsfe.org/