Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Meshnet Activists Rebuilding the Internet From Scratch

New Scientist (08/08/13) Hal Hodson

Activists across the United States are constructing meshnets--decentralized, user-owned wireless networks that enable secure communication without surveillance--partly in response to the Internet's lack of privacy and neutrality.  The Seattle Meshnet project, for example, is comprised of nodes, with each node made up of a radio transceiver and a computer to transmit messages from other parts of the network.  In the event data cannot be channeled through one route, the meshnet finds another.  U.S. meshnet projects are underpinned by Hyperboria, a virtual, peer-to-peer meshnet that runs through the existing Internet.  Once physical meshnet nodes are established, existing Hyperboria links can be routed through them.  Hyperboria's peer-to-peer connections facilitate full encryption of every link in the chain of communication.  The Seattle Meshnet recently completed a crowdfunding effort for meshbox routers that come preloaded with the cjdns software that is required to join the Hyperboria meshnet, and which keeps all communications encrypted.  Meanwhile, a much larger meshnet in Catalonia, Spain, consists of more than 21,000 wireless nodes, enabling user communications as well as support of Web servers, videoconferencing, and online radio broadcasts that would remain operational if the rest of the country's Internet was blacked out.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21929294.500-meshnet-activists-rebuilding-the-internet-from-scratch.html#.Ugjb7G1peZQ
Publié par Pascal Fares | link to this message :-> 11:47 PM 1 commentaires
Libellés :

Thursday, August 8, 2013

First batch of videos from LibrePlanet 2013 published!

Dear Pascal,
The first round of videos from LibrePlanet 2013 is now available for streaming and downloading. LibrePlanet is an annual conference sponsored and organized by the Free Software Foundation, with LibrePlanet 2013 being the best one yet. All current associate members of the FSF enjoy the perk of being able to attend LibrePlanet without paying an entry fee. This year we set out to make sure LibrePlanet featured fully functioning live video streaming using only free software, and it was a great success. The videos are now available for viewing in VP8/Vorbis, both free media formats, and are hosted on an instance of GNU MediaGoblin, the social media sharing platform which many of you helped support.
If you missed LibrePlanet this year or didn't have time to attend all the talks, there are lots of great sessions worth watching. In total, seven talks are included in this batch of videos. They include:
These videos are just from the first set of talks. In the coming weeks, we will be posting more of the dozens of hours of footage from talks, panels, and workshops at media.libreplanet.org. Continuing in our theme of freedom and community production, these videos are all freely licensed for easy sharing and remixing. Check back soon for more.
We have already started planning LibrePlanet 2014. To make sure you hear the details as soon as they are available, subscribe to the mailing list.
Sincerely,
William Theaker
You can view this post online at https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/first-batch-of-videos-from-libreplanet-2013-published.

Publié par Pascal Fares | link to this message :-> 5:05 AM 0 commentaires

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Free Software Supporter, Issue 64, July 2013

Free Software Supporter

Issue 64, July 2013
Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software Foundation's monthly news digest and action update -- being read by you and 68,680 other activists.
View this issue online here: https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2013/free-software-supporter-issue-64-july-2013
Encourage your friends to subscribe and help us build an audience by adding our subscriber widget to your web site.
Miss an issue? You can catch up on back issues at https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter.

#

El Free Software Supporter está disponible en español. Para ver la versión en español haz click aqui: https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2013/
Para cambiar las preferencias de usuario y recibir los próximos números del Supporter en castellano, haz click aquí: http://crm.fsf.org/civicrm/profile/create?gid=34&reset=1

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  • FSF, other groups join EFF to sue NSA over unconstitutional surveillance
  • Donate to Replicant and support free software on mobile devices
  • New Internationalist adopts DRM-free label and over 50 others added to the DRM-free Guide
  • Windows 8: PRISM Edition
  • Introducing the Licensing team summer intern: Vinay Kumar Singh
  • Introducing Sankha, summer campaigns intern
  • Will Ubuntu Edge commit to using only free software?
  • Cancel Netflix if you value freedom
  • Customers streaming away from Netflix
  • A distress call from a company threatened by a patent troll
  • Interview with Shiv Shankar Dayal of Kunjika
  • RMS in San Miguel, El Salvador - "Gone Fishin"
  • May 2013 - Ciudad Madero, Mexico - RMS at the ITCM
  • Richard Stallman becomes a Hall-of-Famer
  • New Snowden leak: Storing your data at Microsoft is negligent
  • German Parliament elections: The parties' positions on free software
  • For the first time in France, the Parliament passes legislation that gives priority to free software
  • MediaGoblin 0.4.1 (bugfix release)
  • Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory
  • LibrePlanet featured resource: Defective By Design's DRM FAQ
  • GNU Spotlight with Karl Berry: 32 new GNU releases!
  • GNU Toolchain Update
  • Richard Stallman's speaking schedule and other FSF events
  • Thank GNUs!
  • Take action with the FSF!

FSF, other groups join EFF to sue NSA over unconstitutional surveillance

From July 16th
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has joined eighteen other activist and advocacy organizations in challenging the National Security Agency's (NSA) mass surveillance of telecommunications in the United States with a lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

Donate to Replicant and support free software on mobile devices

From July 26th
The FSF launched a fundraising initiative for Replicant, a fully free Android distribution and the first mobile operating system (OS) to run without relying on proprietary system code.
Press release:

New Internationalist adopts DRM-free label and over 50 others added to the DRM-free Guide

From July 26th
The Guide to DRM-free Living is consistently one of the most comprehensive and sought out resources of the Defective by Design campaign. Since the last major overhaul of the Guide, readers like you have helped us add over fifty new listings and we've even added new subsections.

Windows 8: PRISM Edition

From July 25th
Microsoft is intercepting your stuff and sending it to the NSA (and the CIA and the FBI). This post offers suggestions on how to avoid surveillance, such as encrypting email, switching to GNU/Linux, and a full congressional investigation.

Introducing the Licensing team summer intern: Vinay Kumar Singh

From July 25th
Vinay Kumar Singh recently started working at the FSF as this summer's licensing intern. In this post, he writes about what brought him to free software, and the goals for his internship.

Introducing Sankha, summer campaigns intern

From June 28th
Sankha Narayan Guria recently started as this summer's campaigns team intern. In this post, he writes about his experiences in free software activism and development.

Will Ubuntu Edge commit to using only free software?

From July 25th
With $32 million to spend, will Canonical and Ubuntu commit to software freedom as the foundational design principle?

Cancel Netflix if you value freedom

From July 12th
What does Netflix's proposal to squeeze support for Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) into the HTML standard mean for you as a free software user?

Customers streaming away from Netflix

From July 3rd
Remember Turn off the TV Week? This summer, we have an even better reason to spend less time in front of a screen: Netflix is collaborating with the World Wide Web Consortium to destroy Web freedom.

A distress call from a company threatened by a patent troll

From July 11th
The FSF recently received a message from a software company in the legislative sights of the notorious patent troll NeoMedia Technologies. The company's lawyer, Charles Kramer, asked us to share a message with our supporters.

Interview with Shiv Shankar Dayal of Kunjika

From July 19th
This is the latest installment of our Licensing and Compliance Lab's series on free software developers who choose GNU licenses for their works. In this edition, we interviewed Shiv Shankar Dayal, the developer of Kunjika, an extensible web-based Q&A system.

RMS in San Miguel, El Salvador - "Gone Fishin"

From July 19
RMS was at the hotel Tropico Inn, in San Miguel, El Salvador, on June 5th, 2013, to deliver his speech "Copyright vs. Community," at the first Congreso Latinoamericano de Informática y Comunicaciones.

May 2013 - Ciudad Madero, Mexico - RMS at the ITCM

From July 18th
RMS was in the Gran Salón of the Instituto Tecnológico de Ciudad Madero, in Ciudad Madero, Mexico, on May 29th, 2013, to deliver his speech "El movimiento del software libre," to an audience of more than 850 people.

Richard Stallman becomes a Hall-of-Famer

From June 26th
Free Software Foundation founder and president Richard Stallman was inducted into the 2013 Internet Hall of Fame, joining the ranks of other visionaries like Aaron Swartz, Jimmy Wales, and John Perry Barlow, who have all made significant contributions to the advancement of the global Internet.
Press release:

New Snowden leak: Storing your data at Microsoft is negligent

By FSF Europe, from July 12th
In light of the recent revelations regarding Microsoft and the NSA's Prism program, how can free software activists promote online privacy?

German Parliament elections: The parties' positions on free software

By FSF Europe, from July 3rd
The Free Software Foundation Europe published its free software related election questions for this fall's elections to the German parliament, which will take place on September 22.

For the first time in France, the Parliament passes legislation that gives priority to free software

By April, from July 9th
The French Parliament wrote into law the first instance of free software priority in a public service, by adopting the Bill on Higher Education and Research.

MediaGoblin 0.4.1 (bugfix release)

By Chris Webber of MediaGoblin, from July 10th
The MediaGoblin project has pushed out a bugfix release closely following 0.4.0: Hall of the Archivist. Users running 0.4.0 are encouraged to switch over to take advantage of several fixes.

Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory

From July 31th
Tens of thousands of people visit directory.fsf.org each month to discover free software. Each entry in the Directory contains a wealth of useful information, from basic category and descriptions to version control, IRC channels, documentation, and licensing. The Free Software Directory has been a great resource to software users over the past decade, but it needs your help staying up-to-date with new and exciting free software projects.
To help, join our weekly IRC meetings on Fridays. Meetings take place in the #fsf channel on irc.gnu.org, and usually include a handful of regulars as well as newcomers. Everyone's welcome.
The next meeting is Friday, August 2nd from 2pm to 5pm EDT (18:00 to 21:00 UTC). Details here:
After this meeting, you can check https://www.fsf.org/events to see the rest of August's weekly meetings as they are scheduled.

LibrePlanet featured resource: Defective By Design's DRM FAQ

Every month on LibrePlanet, we highlight one resource that is interesting and useful -- often one that could use your help.
For this month, we are highlighting the Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) Frequently Asked Questions list put together by the Defective by Design campaign and is a collaboration among anti-DRM activists to develop introductory materials on why DRM is a threat to computing freedom. You are invited to adopt, spread and improve this important resource.
Do you have a suggestion for next month's featured resource? Let us know at campaigns@fsf.org.

GNU Spotlight with Karl Berry: 32 new GNU releases!

32 new GNU releases this month (as of July 28, 2013):
  • autogen-5.18
  • bison-3.0
  • ddrescue-1.17
  • denemo-1.0.4
  • freeipmi-1.2.9
  • gettext-0.18.3
  • glpk-4.52
  • gnuhealth-2.0.0
  • gnupg-1.4.14
  • gsl-1.16
  • gsrc-2013.07.06
  • guile-sdl-0.5.0
  • gvpe-2.25
  • help2man-1.43.3
  • jacal-1c3
  • libextractor-1.1
  • libgcrypt-1.5.3
  • libidn-1.28
  • libmicrohttpd-0.9.28
  • libobjc2-1.7
  • libzrtpcpp-2.3.4
  • linux-libre-3.10-gnu
  • lsh-2.1
  • ocrad-0.22
  • parallel-20130722
  • pspp-0.8.0a
  • scm-5f1
  • slib-3b4
  • ucommon-6.0.6
  • units-2.02
  • unrtf-0.21.5
  • wb-2b2
To get announcements of most new GNU releases, subscribe to the info-gnu mailing list: https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnu. Nearly all GNU software is available from http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/, or preferably one of its mirrors (https://www.gnu.org/prep/ftp.html). You can use the url http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/ to be automatically redirected to a (hopefully) nearby and up-to-date mirror.
I'd like to welcome Gaganjyot as the new maintainer of Dr. Geo, Avneet Kaur as the new maintainer of GNU libffcall, and Thad Meyer as the new maintainer of GNU rottlog, as well as Pratik Bhoir as a new-comaintainer for GNU gnats. Thanks everyone.
The GNU Hackers Meeting for 2013 is scheduled to take place from August 22 to August 25 in Paris, France. More information at https://www.gnu.org/ghm/2013/paris/.
A number of GNU packages, as well as the GNU operating system as a whole, are looking for maintainers and other assistance. Please see https://www.gnu.org/server/takeaction.html#unmaint if you'd like to help. The general page on how to help GNU is at https://www.gnu.org/help/help.html. To submit new packages to the GNU operating system, see https://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation.html.
As always, please feel free to write to me, karl@gnu.org, with any GNUish questions or suggestions for future installments.

GNU Toolchain update

By Nick Clifton, from July 29th
The GNU toolchain refers to the part of the GNU system which is used for building programs. These components of GNU are together often on other systems and for compiling programs for other platforms.
Read about updates to NEWLIB, GCC, and more.

Richard Stallman's speaking schedule

For event details, as well as to sign-up to be notified for future events in your area, please visit https://www.fsf.org/events.
So far, Richard Stallman has the following events in August:

Other FSF and free software events

Thank GNUs!

We appreciate everyone who donates to the Free Software Foundation, but we'd like to give special recognition to the folks who have donated $500 or more in the last month.
This month, a big Thank GNU to:
  • Roland H. Pesch
  • Jason Francis
  • Antonio Carzaniga
  • Mridul Muralidharan
  • Sebastian Spaeth
  • David Johnson
  • Andrew Reid
You can add your name to this list by donating at https://donate.fsf.org.

Take action with the FSF

Contributions from thousands of individual members enable the FSF's work. You can contribute by joining at https://www.fsf.org/join. If you're already a member, you can help refer new members (and earn some rewards) by adding a line with your member number to your email signature like:
I'm an FSF member -- Help us support software freedom! https://www.fsf.org/jf?referrer=2442
The FSF is also always looking for volunteers (https://www.fsf.org/volunteer). From rabble-rousing to hacking, from issue coordination to envelope stuffing -- there's something here for everybody to do. Also, head over to our campaign section (https://www.fsf.org/campaigns) and take action on software patents, DRM, free software adoption, OpenDocument, RIAA and more.

#

Copyright © 2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.

Publié par Pascal Fares | link to this message :-> 6:07 AM 0 commentaires

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Trisquel 6.0 image for the USB member cards now available!

Dear Pascal,
Trisquel 6.0 LTS "Toutatis," which uses GNOME 3 as the default desktop environment, was released earlier this year, boasting a host of improvements, including enhanced browser capabilities, accessibility by default for disabled users, and Long Term Support.
The Trisquel 6.0 image for the USB member cards is now available! You can download it or get its source code, and we have posted instructions for reflashing the existing 4 GB member card and preserving some of the data on your card. Unfortunately, the image will not fit on the older 2 GB cards, but it can be installed on any USB stick with at least 3.8GB of available space.
If you are not yet a member, do consider joining today! In addition to having the satisfaction of knowing your donation will be funding the FSF's campaigns for computer-user freedom, you will be able to enjoy a number of benefits, including the aforementioned member card, your own associate-member button, e-mail forwarding, free admission to LibrePlanet (the FSF-sponsored and organized conference), a 20% discount on FSF merchandise, the FSF's biannual bulletin, an IRC Freenode cloak, use of our XMPP server, Digital Credit Union eligibility, public acknowledgement for referrals, and tax deduction in the USA.
Member support makes up the backbone of the FSF's funding, and your membership would go to ensure the foundation's continued effectiveness.
Thank you for supporting free software.
Sincerely,
Jeanne Rasata
Assistant to the President
This post can be viewed online at https://www.fsf.org/blogs/membership/trisquel-6-0-image-for-the-usb-member-cards-now-available

Publié par Pascal Fares | link to this message :-> 3:51 AM 0 commentaires

Friday, July 26, 2013

Will Ubuntu Edge commit to using only free software?

Dear Pascal,

Ubuntu is aiming to raise $32 million in crowdfunding to fund Ubuntu Edge, a mobile computer that can dual-boot between Android and Ubuntu GNU/Linux.

Will Ubuntu Edge commit to using only free software? If the project succeeds and has $32 million available to spend, this is surely possible, but there is no indication in any of the promotional materials that this is part of the plan.

Isn't Android already free software? In theory, yes, but in practice, no. To work on actual hardware, Android ends up relying on device drivers that are either outright proprietary or use proprietary firmware blobs. All commonly available Android devices also come with proprietary software applications installed.

This is why today we announced a fundraising partnership with the Replicant project, which produces a version of Android that runs on existing devices without proprietary system software.

Isn't Ubuntu already always committed to free software? No. Ubuntu's default GNU/Linux distribution includes nonfree drivers, and its software marketplace promotes proprietary programs.

But, we don't want to make assumptions about what Ubuntu Edge will or won't be. We and many other free software supporters excited about the possibility of a GNU/Linux mobile device would like to hear official confirmation:

  1. Will the Ubuntu Edge versions of both Android and Ubuntu contain or rely on any proprietary software or proprietary firmware?

  2. Will the Ubuntu Edge include any Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) software?

  3. Will the device's bootloader be free software?

  4. Will the device have Restricted Boot, or will users be able to replace the operating system with a free one of their choice?

  5. Will Ubuntu Edge include F-Droid, the free software Android application repository, as part of a commitment to promote and recommend only free software?

Ubuntu in the past has said they are forced to make temporary compromises in software freedom in order to have their operating system work on the computers people own and speed adoption of free software. But in this case, Ubuntu would have the chance to dictate the design of the hardware themselves. Software freedom should be the foundation of that design. There is no reason for compromise.

Conveniently, Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth is doing an AMA on Reddit starting at 12:30 EDT, so maybe we will get some answers.

This post can be viewed online at https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/will-ubuntu-edge-commit-to-using-only-free-software
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Join us as an associate member at http://fsf.org/jf

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Publié par Pascal Fares | link to this message :-> 12:00 AM 0 commentaires

Thursday, July 25, 2013

FSF launches fundraising program for Replicant, the fully free Android-based mobile OS

FSF launches fundraising program for Replicant, the fully free Android-based mobile OS

Cancel Netflix graphic

BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Thursday, July 25, 2013 -- The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today launched a fundraising initiative for Replicant, a fully free Android distribution and the first mobile operating system (OS) to run without relying on proprietary system code. Replicant's small volunteer developer team is focused on improving their OS, while also expanding it to work on more devices. Donations will primarily be used to buy new devices for development and testing -- a critical need -- but will also help fund infrastructure and promotion for the project.

The FSF's previous purchase and donation of a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 allowed the project's developers to support the tablet, but adding support for a new device requires between $400 and $600 in donations for hardware costs alone. Each device that this long-term fundraising program is able to provide is likely to allow thousands of users of that device to run a free mobile OS for the first time.

Supporters are making these contributions at the FSF-hosted page for the campaign.

While most of Android is already free software, device manufacturers distribute the OS with some key nonfree parts. Those parts are in the layer of Android that communicates with the phone or tablet hardware, such as the WiFi and Bluetooth chips. In addition, every commonly available Android device comes pre-loaded with a variety of proprietary applications running on top of the operating system. Replicant seeks to provide all of the same functionality using only free software.

Users of Replicant have a full suite of free software mobile-optimized applications at their fingertips through F-Droid, Replicant's default app repository. F-Droid isn't just for Replicant -- it works on all Android-based systems, and the FSF recommends it as a replacement for Google Play store.

FSF executive director John Sullivan, who has been using Replicant on his primary phone for three years, said, "Mobile operating systems distributed by Apple, Microsoft, and Google all require you to use proprietary software. Even one such program in a phone's application space is enough to threaten our freedom and security -- it only takes one open backdoor to gain access. We are proud to support the Replicant project to help users escape the proprietary restrictions imposed by the current major smartphone vendors. There will still be problems remaining to solve, like the proprietary radio firmware and the common practice of locking down phones, but Replicant is a major part of the solution."

The Replicant project was founded in 2010 by Aaron Williamson, Graziano Sorbaioli, Denis "GNUtoo" Carikli and Bradley M. Kuhn, to unify the efforts of various individuals attempting to produce a fully free Android distribution. Most of the recent development has been done by Carikli and Paul Kocialkowski, both of whom have been instrumental in developing the project's relationship with the FSF.

Kocialkowski said, "For a long time, it wasn't possible to operate a mobile phone using free software, even though that is one of the areas of computing where the most important issues are at stake. Replicant is a free Android derivative, while other Android versions usually require nonfree components to actually run on phones. We expect that having our project supported by the Free Software Foundation's fundraising program will greatly help the project, particularly by enabling us to build support for more phones."

As of its 4.0 0004 release on July 22nd, Replicant works on ten devices, including multiple phones from the Samsung Galaxy S line and tablets from the Samsung Galaxy Tab line, as well as the Google Nexus S.

In addition to funding, the Replicant project needs developers, and is listed on the FSF's High Priority Projects page. Hackers interested in working on Replicant or those with questions about the project should introduce themselves to the IRC channel, #replicant on irc.freenode.org, and the mailing list. Developers interested in porting Replicant to new devices should visit the project's wiki to get started. Supporters can also help by installing Replicant and submitting bug reports to the developers.

The fundraising campaign is part of the FSF's Working Together for Free Software initiative, a broad campaign to connect software freedom advocates with projects that need their help. Other projects that have benefited from this program include the web media-publishing platform GNU MediaGoblin and the GNU Octave mathematics and data manipulation package.

About the Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at https://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.

Media Contacts

Zak Rogoff
Campaigns Manager
Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942 x31
campaigns@fsf.org

#

This post can be viewed online at https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-launches-fundraising-program-for-replicant-the-fully-free-android-based-mobile-os


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Publié par Pascal Fares | link to this message :-> 7:45 PM 1 commentaires
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