Re: [liberationtech] Vote results on "Reply to" Question

2013-03-30 Thread Eugen Leitl
On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 09:46:00PM -0500, Andrés Leopoldo Pacheco Sanfuentes 
wrote:
> "spam"? how about your message? isn't it "meta-spam"? :D xd

I can tell you that I'm not filling your inbox with repetitive
one-liners, which should have gone a single person taking the
tally.
 
> Responsible and thoughtful citizens think before acting, including sending

Somebody fetch me a responsible and thoughtful citizen, then. 
These seem to be in terribly scarce supply.

> messages intended to be private to public forums.

You watch this space for a couple years, you'll see plenty of
such. It's all fun and games until people get hurt.
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Re: [liberationtech] skype

2013-03-30 Thread Rich Kulawiec
On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 02:36:53PM -0700, Yosem Companys wrote:
> Rich, that's because you're not thinking like the average non-technical
> user, who usually does the following:

[snip thorough and IMHO, on-point analysis]

You make an excellent (series of) points.  And I have to concede that
you're right.

So let me refocus my comments on the efforts made (here and elsewhere)
to get Microsoft to cough up answers: can't everyone see that these
responses have been carefully wordsmithed within an inch of their lives
in what is an obvious and deliberate attempt to say as little as possible
and omit as much as possible?

Microsoft, like many corporations, employs professional spokesliars who
are very, very good at crafting wording that can be defended (should it
come to that) but which doesn't present the truth in a straightforward
fashion.  That's their JOB.  After all: anyone there could tell the truth
-- it's not hard.  But it takes a trained and practiced professional to
evade it, obscure it, conceal it, dance around it in convincing fashion --
and even use it in limited ways when it serves the purpose.

"A man who tells lies, like me, merely hides the truth.  But a
man who tells half-lies has forgotten where he put it."
--- Mr. Dryden, "Lawrence of Arabia"

Microsoft is never, ever, ever going to provide full, honest, truthful
answers to these questions.  Why should they?  What's in it for them?
How would those answers make money for Microsoft?  (And if you think
for a moment that Microsoft has ANY corporate value other than "making
money", then you live in a different universe than I do.)

So what *is* the truth?  I dunno.

I think (and I emphasize "think", because I do not know) that Skype is
probably spyware.  I think it's got backdoors that have been designed
into it.  I think Microsoft has, is, and will hand over information on
Skype users, usage, and content to governments, including the United
States, but possibly including other ones.  I think that Skype has
probably also been cracked by other governments.  I think that it also
has security issues, some of which are known/partially-known, some
of which might be intentional.  I think that nobody should be using it
for any purpose ever.

That said, though, even if I'm right on all those points, that's not
going to stop people from using it.  And that's where *you're* right:
I wish you weren't, but you are, and I don't know how to fix that situation.

---rsk
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[liberationtech] Review: 5 recent works on the digital divide and telecentres/CTCs

2013-03-30 Thread peter miller
Folks, as part of an upcoming conference presentation proposal, I've posted on 
the Social Science Research Network a review of five recent works "From the 
Digital Divide to Digital Inclusion and Beyond: Update on Telecentres and 
Community Technology Centers (CTCs)."  

Based on a critical inclusion perspective suggested in a paper by David Nemer, 
the review illustrates the transformative, liberating, radical democratic, 
community-building dimensions and character of both the institutions and the 
authors' research and covers:
* Ricardo Gomez, ed., "Telecentres, Cybercafes and Public Access to ICT: 
International Comparisons" (2012) 
* Panayiota Tsatsou's "Digital Divides in Europe — Culture, Politics and the 
Western-Southern Divide" (2011)
* Christian Sandvig's "Connection at Ewiiaapaayp Mountain: Indigenous Internet 
Infrastructure" (2012)
* Virginia Eubanks' "Digital Dead End: Fighting for Social Justice in the 
Information Age" (2011)
* Melissa Gilbert and Michele Masucci's "ICT Geographies: Strategies for 
Bridging the Digital Divide" (2011)

A fuller abstract and this "Beyond Inclusion" essay can be found at 
http://ssrn.com/abstract=2241167 -- feedback welcome.

thanks, peter miller
pet...@igc.org
peterbmiller.wordpress.com

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Re: [liberationtech] Review: 5 recent works on the digital divide and telecentres/CTCs

2013-03-30 Thread Warigia Bowman
Nice, thanks!


On Sat, Mar 30, 2013 at 10:56 AM, peter miller  wrote:

> Folks, as part of an upcoming conference presentation proposal, I've
> posted on the Social Science Research Network a review of five recent works
> "From the Digital Divide to Digital Inclusion and Beyond: Update on
> Telecentres and Community Technology Centers (CTCs)."
>
> Based on a critical inclusion perspective suggested in a paper by David
> Nemer, the review illustrates the transformative, liberating, radical
> democratic, community-building dimensions and character of both the
> institutions and the authors' research and covers:
> * Ricardo Gomez, ed., "Telecentres, Cybercafes and Public Access to ICT:
> International Comparisons" (2012)
> * Panayiota Tsatsou's "Digital Divides in Europe — Culture, Politics and
> the Western-Southern Divide" (2011)
> * Christian Sandvig's "Connection at Ewiiaapaayp Mountain: Indigenous
> Internet Infrastructure" (2012)
> * Virginia Eubanks' "Digital Dead End: Fighting for Social Justice in the
> Information Age" (2011)
> * Melissa Gilbert and Michele Masucci's "ICT Geographies: Strategies for
> Bridging the Digital Divide" (2011)
>
> A fuller abstract and this "Beyond Inclusion" essay can be found at
> http://ssrn.com/abstract=2241167 -- feedback welcome.
>
> thanks, peter miller
> pet...@igc.org
> peterbmiller.wordpress.com
>
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-- 
Dr. Warigia Bowman
Assistant Professor
Clinton School of Public Service
University of Arkansas
wbow...@clintonschool.uasys.edu
-
View my research on my SSRN Author page:
http://ssrn.com/author=1479660
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[liberationtech] Mobile Martus and (sort of) Not Recruiting

2013-03-30 Thread Jim Fruchterman
We'll be shortly going into beta test with our Mobile Martus Android app, 
allowing Martus users to do secure data collection on Android handsets and sync 
that data with their Martus accounts in the cloud. This is not full-on Martus 
on a phone, rather a minimalist interface to send text, photos, audio 
recordings and videos to an existing Martus server account for later use.

I especially want to want to acknowledge the Tor and Guardian teams for their 
help and code, which made this development much easier and better.  Plus the 
human rights donors that support open source software for the movement, 
especially the MacArthur Foundation and the Open Technology Fund.

On a related matter:  with the spin-off of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group 
last month (and Patrick Ball's renewed focus on being the world's leading human 
rights data scientist), Benetech is looking for a new leader for our human 
rights program.  I covered the reasons why someone wouldn't want the role in 
this blog post: 
http://benetech.blogspot.com/2013/03/why-you-dont-want-this-job.html  If you 
know someone who would be perfect, but probably wouldn't want this job, please 
let them know about it, and I'll try to talk them into it anyway.

Your help is appreciated: there are new opportunities to do much more with a 
new generation of Martus and especially better integrate our technical and 
extensive field work with the work of other developers (such as those on this 
list) who share our commitment to help the movement be safer and more effective 
in advocating for greater respect for human rights.

Jim
Benetech

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Re: [liberationtech] skype

2013-03-30 Thread hellekin
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Hash: SHA512

On 03/30/2013 11:04 AM, Rich Kulawiec wrote:
> 
> Microsoft, like many corporations, employs professional spokesliars
> who are very, very good at crafting wording that can be defended
> (should it come to that) but which doesn't present the truth in a
> straightforward fashion.  That's their JOB.  After all: anyone
> there could tell the truth -- it's not hard.  But it takes a
> trained and practiced professional to evade it, obscure it, conceal
> it, dance around it in convincing fashion -- and even use it in
> limited ways when it serves the purpose.
> 
*** Too long for a tweet; awesome prose!

> 
> That said, though, even if I'm right on all those points, that's
> not going to stop people from using it.  And that's where *you're*
> right: I wish you weren't, but you are, and I don't know how to fix
> that situation.
> 
*** I don't know either, but Jitsi provides such a good alternative to
Skype that the only blocking "feature" is the social network: when
people using skype intensively decide to switch to Jitsi (or other
SIP-compatible clients), it's done. Is it merely a matter of marketing
and network effect? Is it a matter of promoting SIP services at ISP
level? How to beat the inertia of a bad habit?

==
hk
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Re: [liberationtech] skype

2013-03-30 Thread Anthony Papillion
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

On 03/30/2013 07:23 PM, hellekin wrote:
> 
>> That said, though, even if I'm right on all those points, that's 
>> not going to stop people from using it.  And that's where
>> *you're* right: I wish you weren't, but you are, and I don't know
>> how to fix that situation.
> 
> *** I don't know either, but Jitsi provides such a good alternative
> to Skype that the only blocking "feature" is the social network:
> when people using skype intensively decide to switch to Jitsi (or
> other SIP-compatible clients), it's done. Is it merely a matter of
> marketing and network effect? Is it a matter of promoting SIP
> services at ISP level? How to beat the inertia of a bad habit?

Honestly, I don't think it's just a bad habit. It's apathy. Most
people don't really *care* if Microsoft or law enforcement listens in
or intercepts their communications. They've bought into the whole 'If
they're monitoring people, then those people must be doing something
wrong' and 'I have nothing to hide, why would I care?' mindsets.

I think the first step is to educate people as to why they should even
care. The next is to offer them a viable solution like Jitsi.

Anthony


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Re: [liberationtech] Vote results on "Reply to" Question

2013-03-30 Thread Maxim Kammerer
On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 4:41 PM, Eugen Leitl  wrote:
> Failure, actually. It shows that democratic decisions
> tend to produce technically suboptimal results.

The vote in this case shows that majority of subscribers value their
convenience more than cool stories of someone's past stupidity or
settings guidelines from, of all things, GNU software. To most people,
it is pretty clear that convenience * number of users > some contrived
case of someone getting hurt due to not thinking before doing
something — an intuitive economic argument that somehow eludes people
who value SMTP headers over what users actually want.

> That the whole list was spammed with voting traffic
> just adds insult to injury -- Dunning-Kruger in
> action.

It is pretty clear that people wanted their opinion to be known. Just
asking for something (individual replies in case of this vote) doesn't
mean that everyone will comply. Don't assume that you are smarter than
everyone else just because you are better versed in technical aspects
of some issue.

-- 
Maxim Kammerer
Liberté Linux: http://dee.su/liberte
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Re: [liberationtech] Vote results on "Reply to" Question

2013-03-30 Thread Andrés Leopoldo Pacheco Sanfuentes
Amén! I just find it ridiculous to apply red-phone rules to lists that ate
green-phone!
On Mar 30, 2013 10:25 PM, "Maxim Kammerer"  wrote:

> On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 4:41 PM, Eugen Leitl  wrote:
> > Failure, actually. It shows that democratic decisions
> > tend to produce technically suboptimal results.
>
> The vote in this case shows that majority of subscribers value their
> convenience more than cool stories of someone's past stupidity or
> settings guidelines from, of all things, GNU software. To most people,
> it is pretty clear that convenience * number of users > some contrived
> case of someone getting hurt due to not thinking before doing
> something — an intuitive economic argument that somehow eludes people
> who value SMTP headers over what users actually want.
>
> > That the whole list was spammed with voting traffic
> > just adds insult to injury -- Dunning-Kruger in
> > action.
>
> It is pretty clear that people wanted their opinion to be known. Just
> asking for something (individual replies in case of this vote) doesn't
> mean that everyone will comply. Don't assume that you are smarter than
> everyone else just because you are better versed in technical aspects
> of some issue.
>
> --
> Maxim Kammerer
> Liberté Linux: http://dee.su/liberte
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Re: [liberationtech] I-Power : Using Crowd Support, Not Bribes, to Redress Public Grievances

2013-03-30 Thread Maxim Kammerer
On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 11:01 PM, Yosem Companys  wrote:
> From: V Nath 
>
> I am looking for feedback on the "I-Power" platform.
>
> I - Power plans on - Using Crowd Support, Not Bribes, to Redress Public 
> Grievances.
> People feel powerless when Governments fail to act on their grievances. 
> I-Power web + mobile platform will provide people with online legal tools and 
> crowd support to resolve their public grievances quickly. No more bribes!

Hi, this seems similar to the Russian «Демократор» platform:
http://democrator.ru/
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Демократор

I have no experience with it, so can't comment further.

-- 
Maxim Kammerer
Liberté Linux: http://dee.su/liberte
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