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Social Networking (most of the time people refer to facebook and
twitter) has become an important medium for people to organize and
protest. But it is foolish to trust a few companies like facebook,
twitter and google to protect the medium. We have to build something
that does not depend on a few companies and which gives users the
power over their data.
Eben explains how powerful this medium has become.
Quoting from Eben's excellent speech "Why Political Liberty Depends on
Software Freedom More Than Ever"
Software is what the 21st century is made of. What steel was to the
economy of the 20th century, what steel was to the power of the 20th
century, what steel was to the politics of the 20th century, software
is now. It is the crucial building block, the component out of which
everything else is made, and, when I speak of everything else, I mean
of course freedom, as well as tyranny, as well as business as usual,
as well as spying on everybody for free all the time.
In other words, the very composition of social life, the way it works
or doesn’t work for us, the way it works or doesn’t work for those who
own, the way it works or doesn’t work for those who oppress, all now
depends on software.
At the other end of this hastening process, when we started our little
conspiracy, you and me and everyone else, you remember how it worked,
right? I mean, it was a simple idea. Make freedom, put freedom in
everything, turn freedom on. Right? That was how the conspiracy was
designed, that’s how the thing is supposed to work. We did pretty well
with it and about half-way through stage one, my dear friend Larry
Lessig figured out what was going on for us and he wrote his first,
quite astonishing, book “Code”, in which he said that code was going
to do the work of law in the 21st century. That was a crucial idea out
of which much else got born, including Creative Commons and a bunch of
other useful things. The really important point now is that code does
the work of law and the work of the state. And code does the work of
revolution against the state. And code does all the work that the
state does trying to retain its power in revolutionary situations.
But code also organizes the people in the street. We’re having
enormous demonstration around the world right now of the power of
code, in both directions."
For the full speech see
Transcript http://www.softwarefreedom.org/events/2011/fosdem/moglen-fosdem-keynote.html
Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BSLBvwyUEs
You might have seen Vignesh's mail from about the protest against
Internet censorship. That is the short term goal, fight the imminent
danger to our freedoms. While diaspora, friendica and libertree are
efforts in the long term how we want to preserve our freedoms. See
https://joindiaspora.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/images/scaled_full_5aff7affa9…
(I saw it in my diaspora stream).
So Social Web (Web, because it is a network of federated networks)
efforts like diaspora
and Freedom Box are the long term efforts in this fight for freedom in
the internet. We need to do both. Protest will get us people's
attention and we may be able to stop some bad things, but at the end
we should not lose sight of where our real goals are, when we will be
deciding the agenda. When the government cannot ban a social network
by banning one website. Since disapora is the internet itself they
will have to shut down the whole internet. That is what we are
building with The Social Web.
For those who are new to the social web idea, it is democratisation of
the social networks, decentralisation of power to control the social
network from facebooks to twitters to you and me. What
diaspora/friendica/libertree provides is a way for us to install our
own social networks. Think of it like wordpress software and
blogger.com or livejournal.com
Its Free Software community's answer to facbooks, twitters and google pluses.
Read their wikipedia entries to learn more
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendicahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_%28software%29http://libertreeproject.org/
Meeting is suggested at 6 pm Wednesday (Since I'm in Bangalore on
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I thought of calling for a meeting on
Wednesday. Those who are in Bangalore please organize more meet ups in
different places in convenient times).
Tell us if you are coming by visiting this link
http://www.meetup.com/Diaspora/Bangalore-IN/372282/ Please also
suggest some central place for this meet up.
--
പ്രവീണ് അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്
You have to keep reminding your government that you don't get your
rights from them; you give them permission to rule, only so long as
they follow the rules: laws and constitution.
Hi,
There is an attack on Internet Freedom from many quarters – the Ministry of
IT, various state governments and the police and now certain major Internet
Service Providers (ISP's) such as Reliance Communications, Airtel and MTNL.
Major sites such as Vimeo, pastebin and various Torrent sites commonly used
for exchange of large files are being blocked by these ISP's, even though
no instructions have been issued by the Government.
We have already seen the effect of the IT Rules in which a huge number of
requests are now being directed to intermediaries such as Google, Facebook,
etc for taking down statements critical of the Government and political
figures. Cases are being instituted by the Police under the IT Act against
circulating of cartoons, calling it a cyber crime. All this shows that our
democratic freedoms guaranteed under the constitution are currently under
attack.
Equally worrying is the tendency of courts to issue blanket orders* --
called John Doe orders -*- to protect the Intellectual Property of certain
media companies. Reliance Communications, an ISP is acting in the interest
of Reliance as a Media company to block a large number of Torrent sites.
FSMK(http://www.fsmk.org) is protesting for the internet freedom especially
to add more emphasis against the John Doe orders, to bring attention to the
Chennai court ruling in case of the petition by Copyright Labs and
arbitrary block by Reliance and other ISPs.
So please join us in protesting against the various attacks on the freedom
of internet.
*Date & Venue*:
5:00 pm, June 9th, Saturday at Mysore Bank Circle, Bangalore
*More info*:
>>To understand more about "John Doe" orders, please go through the
following link,
http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/nation/a-ludicrous-ban
>>You can find the details to the previous protest by FSMK against internet
censorship here,
http://www.fsmk.org/node/100
>>Protest at other cities associated with FSMK,
(1)* *In *Hyderabad, Swecha* will organize at* PEOPLES PLAZA, NACKLES
ROAD<http://maps.google.com/maps?q=People%27s+Plaza,+Necklace+Road,+Hyderabad,+A…>
* from 4-00p.m to 8-00p.m
(2) In *Chennai, FSFTN* will organize at *BESANT NAGAR BEACH,
CHENNAI*<http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Besant+Nagar+Beach,+in+chennai&hl=en&ll=13.00…>from
4-00pm to 6-00 pm.
>>About other protesting groups
June 9th a call has been given by various other groups as well. Many of
them are asking are we supporting them?
We are supporting the issues related to internet freedom. We are not
currently organizing a joint protest with any other group. We have been
working on this issue in the past and were one of the organizations to
ensure a debate in Parliament on this issue. Lot of young people are being
drawn to these issues as they are valid. FSMK would also like to underline
the validity of these issues.
--
Regards,
Jayakumar
9620464215
Secretary, FSMK
http://www.fsmk.org
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PROUD TO BE A NEW HORIZONITE AND GNU-LINUX USER
--
Regards,
Vignesh
Software Engineer
http://2paisasbyviggy.wordpress.com/http://fsmk.org
Hi friends,
FSMK invites you to join us on watching Transit of Venus on June 6th from
6:30 am to 10:00 am at Lalbagh Hilltop. This is a public event and everyone
is welcome to join us and enjoy this life time opportunity. The next
transit of venus will happen only after 105 years.
As a run-up event, FSMK is also conducting the screening of the
documentary, Transit of Venus and Day sky watching, on Sunday 3:00 pm on
June 3rd. This will be followed by a discussion on various experiments that
can be conducted during the transit and Dr. Sanjeev, ISRO scientist will
guide us through the experiments.
Please do join us with your friends and family and enjoy this beautiful
event of our solar system.
FSMK is conducting the event with the motto "Learn Astronomy, Say no to
Astrology."
You can find the pamphlet for the program here,
http://www.fsmk.org/sites/default/files/venus-transit-pamphlet.png
Also please note that watching the sun directly with naked eye is harmful
for your eyes. We have obtained goggles using which you can safely watch
the transit. If you are not able to join us on 6th, you can come to FSMK
office on 3rd June at 3:00 pm during the documentary screening and buy the
goggles. Goggles cost Rs. 10 only and they have been prepared by Navnirmiti
and certified for safely viewing the sun.
Please do visit, http://www.fsmk.org/node/102 for getting more info related
to the event.
More info about Transit of Venus:
What is the Transit of Venus(ToV):
On the 6th June 2012, the planet venus will pass across the face of the Sun
and this is called a Venus Transit. It is among that rarest of planetary
alignments and only 7 of them have happened since the invention of the
telescope. They happen after more than a century in a pair with 8 years in
between them. The years of previous ones have been 1631 and 1639, then 1761
and 1769, followed by 1874 and 1882 and then finally 2004 which was the
opener to a pair which will see the second event in 2012.
Why ToV is an important event?
The ToV is important because at the time of the ToV any school child can
measure how far is the sun. Many great astronomers and scientists,
including Isaac Newton, longed to see this event in their life time but
could not. We are fortunate to have this event occurring in our life time.
Its the last chance to see a rare astronomical event of this kind in this
century. The next transit will happen and can be seen only after 105 years.
Can we see the ToV?
Yes, anyone and everyone can see it easily with a little preparation! You
view it and encourage others to see it too! You can even to important
experiments which are the first steps do knowing how big is the universe.
--
Regards,
Vignesh
Software Engineer
http://2paisasbyviggy.wordpress.com/http://fsmk.org