lix blog

This is becoming a hassle again. The way the Apple operation system OS X evolves is not convenient to my personal needs and the way I want to use my computer. Apple managed to incorporate impure and illicit functionalities into their operation system, that locks the user into a product range, which they control. The users freedom of choice and control fades away, thus OS X Lion is based on BSD UNIX. The command line is the only application that is turning out to allow full straightforward and controlled accessibility to the system and information. After intensively having tested and deployed OS X Lion, I decided that my next computer has to be a complete GNU/Linux machine again. Steve is dead now anyways, so things won’t improve.

Looking around in the local stores, no vendor seems to offer a up-to-date notebook computer, which respects the users choice for freedom. Either I am offered a 1 years old computer, for which I would have to wait for 3 weeks, or I’d have to “bite into the sour apple” and buy a computer, which, – illicitly, – comes together with an operation system, for which I’d have to pay for, thus I’d never use it.

In my e-mail to Lenovo I get the answer:

“Dear Alex,
Thank you for contacting Lenovo.
We apologize. We do not support any other Operating System apart from Windows.
Sincerely,
Deboshree Mukherjee”

… whereas my answer follows like

“Dear Deboshree

That is very sad to read. Sounds like your company is bound to unfair
competition* and does not allow users freedom either.

Do I at least have the possibility to acquire a computer, without
having to pay the license of an operation system, such as M$ Wind00ze,
which I wouldn’t use?

Sorry to say that I won’t acquire a computer that forces me to use an
operating system that is unresistant to viruses and locks me into the
choice of the manufacturers formats and applications.
How comes that M$ is legally capable to establish such a contract with
your company that your products are bound to an operation system that
violates human rights?
Thus technology still evolves thanks to innovators, that are freely
sharing their ideas and creativity, based on the principles that
know-how and knowledge want to be free (as in freedom).

Let me kindly remind you, that your company, that was former IBM, has
historically evolved based on this principles!

As I am working in the field in technology research, I strongly have
to make sure, that I have complete control over my devices and
instruments. – This is only possible with software that is
non-proprietary, such as GNU/Linux & UNIX.

Wishing you all the best & remaining with kindest regards, Alex

*(which in my country is a crime.)”

I need a hardware manufacturer and vendor who grants me my human rights and freedom, without violating international competition laws and rights.

[Update 4th of October 2011]
Lenovo, – surprisingly, – writes back.

“Dear Alex,

Thank you for your feed back and for your time and patience! We will surely forward this e-mail to the appropriate department to review for the betterment of the company. Thank you once again.

Sincerely,
Deboshree Mukherjee”

“Dear Deboshree

Thank you for your e-mail.
Would be great, if you could forward our correspondence to the respective department. I appreciate and, – honestly, – did not expect and answer.

I am sure you understand my concern and hope that we can establish a fair business relationship. It would be disappointing to see that your great computer products couldn’t be used together with an operation systems that guarantees freedom.

Have a good weekend and looking forward to read you soon again, Alex”

This evening Richard Stallman was giving a talk at the ETHZ. It was nice to see how the lecture hall was filled with young ICT students and hackers. Richard started his talk by saying that if anybody wants to record the talk or take pictures should publish it only by using free formats, such as ogg. – Well he’s substantially right by saying this. I was just wondering why it has to be said, as I think it’s self-evident.

It appears that even one of the most respected education institutes, such as the ETHZ, does not take Freedom for granted. And there lies the socio-political deception: Governments and regulation authorities have pushed surveillance and media control as far as we’re accepting debates about freedom to be discussed in mediocre circles. People using GNU/Linux are seen as outcast, rebels and extremists. – Though freedom ought to be one of the most basic principles of humankind!

There’s a massive lack of intellectuals and authors, interfering into the public political and cultural debates, as it has become difficult to avoid the mass media and, – therefore, – disinformation. The economical thirst for growth managed to incorporate writers and readers to subordinate their belief for the sake of media-control. Academics and brains subordinated with self-absorbed researches, funded by lobbyists and obscure organisations, to abandon their principles of liberty and freedom.

At the shift from information society to knowledge society, it’s not enough to just present the four freedoms of Free Software to the tomorrows system administrators and technoly adepts. Richard might be substantially right in his exposure of the principles of free software, while “Big Brother“, – as he calls it, – has ever since found new means of control. (Which are implemented into the todays information technology structures, without letting users know. Whereafter a large part of society argues “I’ve nothing to hide”!)
Richard seems to have become “commensurable” to a large audience, without being contradicted, without disruptive moments and “Etat de Siege“, which are needed to shake the public. – Literally!

Humankind has to understand that the dialectic rapidly has to change and that we’re not willing to be instrumentalised by capitalism. Culture is defined by self-determination, innovation, transparency, freedom and human rights. Richard, the whole free software and civil liberty society have to take the step to the next level and start to take back, 0wn and rule this planet!

[Update]

Recordig

… worth reading:

Copy me: Technological change and the consumption of music

CC-by-sa 3.0 2009 by Nick White

For those who worry about the cultural, economic and political power of the global media companies, the dreamed-of revolution is at hand. The industry may right now be making a joyful noise unto the Lord, but it is we, not they, who are about to enter the promised land. (Moglen 2001)

Introduction

Technological changes have political implications. Changing the way we interact with things encourages a reconsideration of the rules and institutions that have governed previous interactions with them.

The current debate about copies of recorded music using the Internet is an excellent example of this, and by examining it one may better understand the relations between people and recorded music, and between listeners and the traditional publishers of music.

While undoubtedly a great deal may be usefully said and examined in other technological changes in music recordings, I will here focus primarily on filesharing, as it is something I have been somewhat involved in myself, and hence I have significantly more knowledge ‘from the inside.’

I will begin by discussing traditional definitions of ‘commodity,’ and then move on to a very brief overview of historical trends in copying and music recording. I will also touch upon the printing press in order to discuss the creation and rationale behind copyright laws, which form a major part the present filesharing debate. I will then go into greater depth into the current practises of people who share music on filesharing networks, and the response by the recording industry, before embarking on an analysis of the meaning and significance of some of these new practises and dialogues.

It should be noted that I’m speaking primarily of England and the United States of America, and the situation will be somewhat different in other parts of the world.

[…]

Download the paper
or visit http://njw.me.uk/pubs/2009-copyme

Today I took a glimpse into the first developer release of Diaspora and installed it on my GNU/Linux Ubuntu testserver. What a nice feeling of having the ability to use the advantage of social network freedom, without having to disclose personal and private data to non-trustful parties such.

Congratulations to Daniel Grippi, Maxwell Salzberg, Raphael Sofaer and Ilya Zhitomirskiy!

Get your own copy through Github.

Over time more and more artists and creative minds understand the injustice and deadly intention of intellectual property rights and its juridical enforcements. It’s the culture creators how should be in power over their creation and not an established law industry and economy which leads to the destruction of culture in the end.

Jean Luc Goddard is one of the creative minds who understood, that there is no such thing as “intellectual property”. He therefore supports a french internet pirate who is accused to have downloaded MP3 on the internet.

Read more about Free Culture in Lawrence Lessig’s Book “Free Culture” and “Free as Freedom” – not as “Free Beer“.

I am very happy and proud, that Georg Greve, the former President of the Free Software Foundation Europe, was awarded with the German “Bundesverdienstkreuz” today.

My felicitation, Georg!

I recently tested some of the new “features” that the lately released “iLife ’09” software of Apple is offering to their users. The new iPhoto ’09 for example offers Geo-tagging of your images, so that one can see when and where photos have been taken. This further leads to the assumption, that some tracker could abuse this data. If it’s Google or any other “big brother” who is watching you, we have to admit, that we’re living in the age of George Orwells “1984”.

Kind of funny was though messing around with the “face recognition” feature. I assorted some of my images in iPhoto and tagged the recognized faces with names, when suddenly iPhoto offered me the following proposal: (see picture).

The picture shows Mark Shuttleworth (Ubuntu) and Georg Greve
(FSF Europe) at the Linux Tag in Wiesbaden 2006. iLife ’09 suggests to tag the detected face of Georg Greve as “Richard Stallman”, which is kind of funny. 😉

I think personally think, that a machine, based on a binary structure, will never achieve the possibility of suggesting truly diversified ambiguities because it only may answer “yes” or “no” such as “1” and “0”. We’ll have to wait for Quantum-electronics that such things may happen…

(read more on “informative binarity and lifeworld-philosophical androgyny“)

[update: there is a youtube clip that shows the iPhoto feature.]

“The Washington Post” and “der Standard” have reported today, that chinese hackers have tried to break into tibetan activist organisations networks and computers to steal encryption keys. Encryption keys are used to sign and encrypt electronic messages like E-Mails. China operates the world’s largest and most restrictive “Firewall” to censor internet communication and obscure information. Further it is known that in China a certain hacker group called “Titan Rain”, that is most probably financed and supported by the chinese government has been attacking the Pentagon and the german “chancelor house. Many tibetan organisations and activists notice a higher amount on suspect trojans and viruses. But thanks to the operation of Free Software such as the GNU/Linux operation system and Free Sowftware applications, such as GnuPG for encryption and the Tor Project for anonymous internet, the damage has been kept low.

I urge tibetan activists, journalists and news reporters to use encryption technology to secure and assure internet communication. To bypass the chinese firewall (e.g. to access the internet from Lhasa) it is most advisable to use Tor or similar anonymiser software. (see my blog post from the 18th of march 2008).