Fsf-friends October 2002

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Can you trust your computer?
by Frederick Noronha 23 Oct '02

23 Oct '02

Can you trust your computer? (Xposted) By Richard Stallman - Who should your computer take its orders from? Most people think their computers should obey them, not obey someone else. With a plan they call "trusted computing," large media corporations (including the movie companies and record companies), together with computer companies such as Microsoft and Intel, are planning to make your computer obey them instead of you. Proprietary programs have included malicious features before, but this plan would make it universal. Proprietary software means, fundamentally, that you don't control what it does; you can't study the source code, or change it. It's not surprising that clever businessmen find ways to use their control to put you at a disadvantage. Microsoft has done this several times: one version of Windows was designed to report to Microsoft all the software on your hard disk; a recent "security" upgrade in Windows Media Player required users to agree to new restrictions. But Microsoft is not alone: the KaZaa music-sharing software is designed so that KaZaa's business partner can rent out the use of your computer to their clients. These malicious features are often secret, but even once you know about them it is hard to remove them, since you don't have the source code. In the past, these were isolated incidents. "Trusted computing" would make it pervasive. "Treacherous computing" is a more appropriate name, because the plan is designed to make sure your computer will systematically disobey you. In fact, it is designed to stop your computer from functioning as a general-purpose computer. Every operation may require explicit permission. The technical idea underlying treacherous computing is that the computer includes a digital encryption and signature device, and the keys are kept secret from you. (Microsoft's version of this is called "palladium.") Proprietary programs will use this device to control which other programs you can run, which documents or data you can access, and what programs you can pass them to. These programs will continually download new authorization rules through the Internet, and impose those rules automatically on your work. If you don't allow your computer to obtain the new rules periodically from the Internet, some capabilities will automatically cease to function. Of course, Hollywood and the record companies plan to use treacherous computing for "DRM" (Digital Restrictions Management), so that downloaded videos and music can be played only on one specified computer. Sharing will be entirely impossible, at least using the authorized files that you would get from those companies. You, the public, ought to have both the freedom and the ability to share these things. (I expect that someone will find a way to produce unencrypted versions, and to upload and share them, so DRM will not entirely succeed, but that is no excuse for the system.) Making sharing impossible is bad enough, but it gets worse. There are plans to use the same facility for email and documents -- resulting in email that disappears in two weeks, or documents that can only be read on the computers in one company. Imagine if you get an email from your boss telling you to do something that you think is risky; a month later, when it backfires, you can't use the email to show that the decision was not yours. "Getting it in writing" doesn't protect you when the order is written in disappearing ink. Imagine if you get an email from your boss stating a policy that is illegal or morally outrageous, such as to shred your company's audit documents, or to allow a dangerous threat to your country to move forward unchecked. Today you can send this to a reporter and expose the activity. With treacherous computing, the reporter won't be able to read the document; her computer will refuse to obey her. Treacherous computing becomes a paradise for corruption. Word processors such as Microsoft Word could use treacherous computing when they save your documents, to make sure no competing word processors can read them. Today we must figure out the secrets of Word format by laborious experiments in order to make free word processors read Word documents. If Word encrypts documents using treacherous computing when saving them, the free software community won't have a chance of developing software to read them -- and if we could, such programs might even be forbidden by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Programs that use treacherous computing will continually download new authorization rules through the Internet, and impose those rules automatically on your work. If Microsoft, or the U.S. government, does not like what you said in a document you wrote, they could post new instructions telling all computers to refuse to let anyone read that document. Each computer would obey when it downloads the new instructions. Your writing would be subject to 1984-style retroactive erasure. You might be unable to read it yourself. You might think you can find out what nasty things a treacherous computing application does, study how painful they are, and decide whether to accept them. It would be short-sighted and foolish to accept, but the point is that the deal you think you are making won't stand still. Once you come depend on using the program, you are hooked and they know it; then they can change the deal. Some applications will automatically download upgrades that will do something different -- and they won't give you a choice about whether to upgrade. Today you can avoid being restricted by proprietary software by not using it. If you run GNU/Linux or another free operating system, and if you avoid installing proprietary applications on it, then you are in charge of what your computer does. If a free program has a malicious feature, other developers in the community will take it out, and you can use the corrected version. You can also run free application programs and tools on non-free operating systems; this falls short of fully giving you freedom, but many users do it. Treacherous computing puts the existence of free operating systems and free applications at risk, because you may not be able to run them at all. Some versions of treacherous computing would require the operating system to be specifically authorized by a particular company. Free operating systems could not be installed. Some versions of treacherous computing would require every program to be specifically authorized by the operating system developer. You could not run free applications on such a system. If you did figure out how, and told someone, that could be a crime. There are proposals already for U.S. laws that would require all computers to support treacherous computing, and to prohibit connecting old computers to the Internet. The CBDTPA (we call it the Consume But Don't Try Programming Act) is one of them. But even if they don't legally force you to switch to treacherous computing, the pressure to accept it may be enormous. Today people often use Word format for communication, although this causes several sorts of problems (see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html). If only a treacherous computing machine can read the latest Word documents, many people will switch to it, if they view the situation only in terms of individual action (take it or leave it). To oppose treacherous computing, we must join together and confront the situation as a collective choice. For further information about treacherous computing, see http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rja14/tcpa-faq.html. To block treacherous computing will require large numbers of citizens to organize. We need your help! The Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org) and Public Knowledge (www.publicknowledge.org) are campaigning against treacherous computing, and so is the FSF-sponsored Digital Speech Project (www.digitalspeech.org). Please visit these Web sites so you can sign up to support their work. You can also help by writing to the public affairs offices of Intel, IBM, HP/Compaq, or anyone you have bought a computer from, explaining that you don't want to be pressured to buy "trusted" computing systems so you don't want them to produce any. This can bring consumer power to bear. If you do this on your own, please send copies of your letters to the organizations above. Postscripts: 1. The GNU Project distributes the GNU Privacy Guard, a program that implements public-key encryption and digital signatures, which you can use to send secure and private email. It is useful to explore how GPG differs from treacherous computing, and see what makes one helpful and the other so dangerous. When someone uses GPG to send you an encrypted document, and you use GPG to decode it, the result is an unencrypted document that you can read, forward, copy, and even re-encrypt to send it securely to someone else. A treacherous computing application would let you read the words on the screen, but would not let you produce an unencrypted document that you could use in other ways. GPG, a free software package, makes security features available to the users; they use it. Treacherous computing is designed to impose restrictions on the users; it uses them. 2. Microsoft presents Palladium as a security measure, and claims that it will protect against viruses, but this claim is evidently false. A presentation by Microsoft Research in October 2002 stated that one of the specifications of Palladium is that existing operating systems and applications will continue to run; therefore, viruses will continue to be able to do all the things that they can do today. When Microsoft speaks of "security" in connection with Palladium, they do not mean what we normally mean by that word: protecting your machine from things you do not want. They mean protecting your copies of data on your machine from access by you in ways others do not want. A slide in the presentation listed several types of secrets Palladium could be used to keep, including "third party secrets" and "user secrets" -- but it put "user secrets" in quotation marks, recognizing that this is not what Palladium is really designed for. The presentation made frequent use of other terms that we frequently associate with the context of security, such as "attack," "malicious code," "spoofing," as well as "trusted." None of them means what it normally means. "Attack" doesn't mean someone trying to hurt you, it means you trying to copy music. "Malicious code" means code installed by you to do what someone else doesn't want your machine to do. "Spoofing" doesn't mean someone fooling you, it means you fooling Palladium. And so on. 3. A previous statement by the Palladium developers stated the basic premise that whoever developed or collected information should have total control of how you use it. This would represent a revolutionary overturn of past ideas of ethics and of the legal system, and create an unprecedented system of control. The specific problems of these systems are no accident; they result from the basic goal. It is the goal we must reject. Copyright 2002 Richard Stallman Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted without royalty in any medium provided this notice is preserved.

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FSF-Edu mailing list
by Nagarjuna G. 23 Oct '02

23 Oct '02

Due to some problems with the fsf-edu mailing list, the list has been recreated with the same members. Some of you who have configured the list may have lost the configurations in this process, such as if you have set the mailing list in the digest mode. If you find any problems in accessing please inform me. Sorry for the inconvenience! Nagarjuna

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Police put GNU/Linux on trial
by Baiju M 21 Oct '02

21 Oct '02

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2123999,00.html

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Re: [Bytesforall_Readers] More on Windows versus Free Software
by CK Raju 19 Oct '02

19 Oct '02

Hindu archives it the next day. Here's the new link http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2002/10/15/stories/2002101404040400.htm CK Raju On Saturday 19 October 2002 00:01, you wrote: > Yes, I too had a problem in accessing it. Maybe we could source the journo > who wrote it, Roy Mathews. Raju could you help? Tks, FN > > On Fri, 18 Oct 2002, James Howison wrote:

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Trip is on again!
by Arun M 18 Oct '02

18 Oct '02

RMS is coming to India <snip> The trip is on again. I should arrive in Bangalore in the morning on Oct 31. My plan is to go to Goa on Nov 6 and to Delhi on Nov 8. I will leave Delhi on Nov 11 in the evening. </snip>

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FLOSS... e-government... and India
by Frederick Noronha 15 Oct '02

15 Oct '02

Open Source... e-government ... and India This is an international conference on Open Source (Free Software/Open Source might have been a better description) in the US. And look at the 'desi' participation: Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (27) ex-Delhi and key author of the FLOSS European study; a special session for India (Ajay Kumar of Kerala, Jivtesh Maini of Punjab, Sunil Abraham of Mahiti-Bangalore... a convert to GNU/Linux and its relevance for NGOs, and Vinay Deshpande of Simputer Trust). There are also other desi-sounding names. Wish more desis could travel the globe at the drop of a hat... there are more points to be made http://www.egovos.org/egovosagenda.htm * * * * * * * * * More such info at http://linuxinindia.pitas.com * * * * * * * * *

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Re:[Flags]
by psk 15 Oct '02

15 Oct '02

Khuzaima A. Lakdawala wrote : >No need to formalize it with "rules" etc. You >will probably get caught up in your own >mini-bureaucracy :) Isn't FSF India enough of a >formal organisation to work under? Why add another >layer of formality with "official rules" etc? The idea is not about adding a new layer of formality. The formalization was just saying about the things for the groups to work in the FsF (Actually both in and out in the Internet). The FORMAL was the only word that can be used at that place. It was about the activities of FsF itself. Just acting and working in local areas which will help the FsF india. (Something similar to FsF and FsF-India. See India is a wide country) >Just do what you want to do in as informal a >manner as possible. When you do need an >"official" banner, the banner of FSF India is >enough. You don't need another one. Flag is not another one but FsF itself (FsF Local Activists Groups). It will/should contain all the ideas of FsF and FsF only. It should not contain anything that hurts freedom. Why can't it be started as a sub group using a sub-domain in the FsF India and talk the Freedom locally? See there are problems of Freedom in each local stations. How will others consider about a talk of the political matter which promotes the propritory stuff. (for eg. In Kerala the IT Kerala mission can use the Freedom stuff to save a lot of money with the government and in Kollam (a local place in Kerala) the mayor can talk with the Flag for using GNU for the local use. Hope s/he can't arrage a meeting with FsF india) When it comes to some matter which includes outside locality too let Flags refer FSF-India. Classification is something like dividing the batch of students in a school into different batches. --HTH --psk __________________________________________________________ Give your Company an email address like ravi @ ravi-exports.com. Sign up for Rediffmail Pro today! Know more. http://www.rediffmailpro.com/signup/

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Re: [Fsf-friends] Flag
by psk 15 Oct '02

15 Oct '02

Vinay Pawar wrote : >I think the idea of free software should sink in >to peoples minds. Rightly said pawar. The idea of Free Software should be in the minds of believers. But as anything else there should be some one to talk about it.Only because there are a few percentage of the total community of Developers know what the stuff FsF* is. The main problem is there is no official topics in the normal cource of study for any computer student or developer to know about FsF. A developer can live his entire life without knowing about FsF and can use FsF products..( Sorry that's the case in India Now) Another problem is a developer or student who wants to know about some GNU stuff have no place to go for information..(bandwidth problem will block him from living in internet) >Forcing it in by a "Activists Group" >wouldn't help, Right.... Never force someone to believe in a philosophy.. But the ideas can be given to the air and let others smell it.. >instead might be counter-productive. >All that needs to be done is that every LUG in the >country should have atleast one FSF representative. It's the way.. The Flags* and the current LUG's are the same except in two things. 1)Flags will be saying the ethics too 2)Flags will contain other GNU lovers also than GNU/Linux.. (other OS's such as GNU/Hurd and similar BSD stuff and etal.) >I might've suggested this before. It works. It has >worked for us at the Pune GNU/Linux Users Group. >Noticed on multiple ocassions as the most active >and coolest User Group in the country. >Almost all of the "flag" activities could/should be >done at existing User Groups. It should be understood >by the LUG's that Linux(yes, i mean the kernel) >wouldn't have gone very far if it wouldn't be under >the GPL. > >Thanks, >Vinay Pawar there should not be any competetion between the existing LUG's and Flags. It'll be better to convert the LUGS in the Flag way. Something like start Flags where there are no LUGS and let the LUGs come in the Flag way (don't bother about the names but the content) -HTH -psk __________________________________________________________ Give your Company an email address like ravi @ ravi-exports.com. Sign up for Rediffmail Pro today! Know more. http://www.rediffmailpro.com/signup/

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IRC Channel.
by Arun M 15 Oct '02

15 Oct '02

Hi friends, A channel is registered in irc.openprojects.net/irc.debian.org. channel name is #fsf-india. See you there. regards Arun.

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The Hindu takes up the thread
by CK Raju 15 Oct '02

15 Oct '02

The Hindu has taken up the thread in case of Pattenchery Grama Panchayat, being forced to opt Windows OS, even after getting a resolution passed to adopt Free software. The link is at http://www.hinduonnet.com/stories/2002101404040400.htm Cheers to Roy Mathew who brought it out. CK Raju

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Fsf-friends October 2002