You can be completely correct and still be a crackpot.
What we need is strict limitations on what can and should be collected, and how it's used, plus better methods of securing what's being exchanged. For example, sending email as plain-text, leaving it on the server as plain-text, maybe that's a bad idea.
The NSA isn't necessarily the only reason you'd do this. Foreign governments are going to take an interest in this, too, and it's only a matter of time before someone gets access the data the NSA is hoarding. No program of this scale is ever 100% secure.
His observations are correct, but his conclusions are incorrect, just as people like Glenn Beck start out with facts and end up with paranoid delusions and fantasies.
I think Stallman's observations are valid, but his method of dealing with the implications of those observations are impractical, if not completely wrong.
He's not opposed to smartphones, he's opposed to cellular phones as these can serve as a tracking beacon, following your movements.
Given that the cellular providers are capturing and archiving location data, this is fact, his conclusion is we should avoid using these sorts of phones completely. Why? The reasoning here is a awfully thin, but has something to do with "being tracked = bad" and then goes into crazy territory from there. It's the same thing with credit and debit cards. They can be tracked, therefore bad, therefore nobody should use them.
If he's concerned about remaining invisible, then this must be applied rigorously across all aspects of his life. Does he wear dazzle face-paint or glasses with bright IR LEDs on them so that CCTV cameras can't pick him up? Does he only use methods of travel that require no identification? If the FBI wanted to retrace Stallman's activity on any given day, it'd take hours at most to piece it together.
The sign that someone's a crackpot is in how inconsistent they are in applying what they've concluded. It means they're missing something important.
For example, there are people that have a genuine need for absolute secrecy, that need to remain invisible, yet they still use cellular phones, email, and social networks. They're aware of the same risks as Stallman, but they take precautions instead of avoiding them completely.
It's notable that Osama Bin Ladin was taken down because he'd gone to such great lengths to avoid being tracked that he stood out as an anomaly, an approach that proved to be self-defeating. He had this large house, but a paranoia about electronic snooping so severe that he had no internet connection, and that alone made that house highly suspicious. If you're that affluent, you have an internet connection, even if you barely use it.
Everything Stallman advocates to avoid detection just makes him an even bigger target.
> If he's concerned about remaining invisible, then this must be applied rigorously across all aspects of his life
No, it mustn't. Every bit helps.
> Does he wear dazzle face-paint or glasses with bright IR LEDs on them so that CCTV cameras can't pick him up?
Perhaps he does not yet live in an area with seamless CCTV tracking.
> The sign that someone's a crackpot is in how inconsistent they are in applying what they've concluded. It means they're missing something important.
You must be a crackpot then because you're clearly missing that Stallman has probably managed to avoid having his daily movements tracked by some carrier.
> Everything Stallman advocates to avoid detection just makes him an even bigger target.
To whom, with what (crackpot-like) line of thought? Stallman is very open about his principles, his reasons and his actions. It would be extremely dumb for anyone to derive from this information that he is dangerous or a worthwhile target.
Tracking can be bad for some people, it can ruin their careers, destroy their marriage, completely upend their life if that sort of information got out. However, for most of us, it's not especially valuable information and any one day will look like any other.
When I engage with social networks, use a cellular phone, I'm aware of the liability. I'm making a conscious trade-off. I really would like it to be less of a big deal, that the privacy implications were minimal, but this is the world we live in. I support political parties and representatives that would restrict how this sort of information can be used, making it less likely to be collected in the first place.
> No, it mustn't. Every bit helps.
Either you're trying to avoid being detected, or you're not. There's no half measures here.
> it can ruin their careers, destroy their marriage, completely upend their life if that sort of information got out.
> I'm making a conscious trade-off.
No, you're not. If you and the people who have had what you wrote happen to them (they obviously would have been more careful than you) were making conscious trade-offs, nothing bad would have happened to anyone as a result. In fact, you do not even know what information you are disclosing to FB (it's more than you are writing) and other, unknown to you, parties, so a conscious trade-off is impossible. You are just patting yourself on the back for being satisified with your ignorance.
> Either you're trying to avoid being detected, or you're not. There's no half measures here.
From what I understand, he is refusing to provide personal information to a carrier and possibly other unknown parties, because that is potentially harmful and not beneficial in any way to him. Why are you insinuating that he is trying to avoid detection, as if he were some criminal? And by the way, even criminals aren't stupid enough to do everything wrong because they cannot do everything right.
I don't use Facebook specifically because of their habit of leaking information to anyone and everyone. I do use other "social networks" where I'm not obligated to provide a dossier on my life.
I've even got Facebook's site and associated flam blocked on my computer so I'm not bombarded with their inane commenting system, "Like" buttons, tracking features, or other garbage I want nothing to do with.
I'm taking a risk by using a cellular phone, I understand thins, however I believe the down-side of using one is better than the down-side of not using one. That I'm not a politician or celebrity factors in to this decision.
I'm not even sure what Stallman's full reasoning is behind cellular phones as it's always glossed over with some kind of hand-waving about tracking.
"Tracking can be bad for some people, it can ruin their careers, destroy their marriage, completely upend their life if that sort of information got out. However, for most of us, it's not especially valuable information and any one day will look like any other."
> I think the thing to realize here is life can change very quickly. What if, for one reason or another, you become a celebrity all of a sudden - Or happen to acquire particularly well-connected enemies. When this kind of powerful info is used against you things look quite different.
Stallman's stance is against all cell phones, not just smartphones. And I'd argue that in 2013, to the point where we're issuing basic phones to welfare recipients for the purpose of job searching, that this is an invalid conclusion.
As is only using the FSF's definition of free software (where it matters less that the software itself is free, but that the software doesn't point out to you any nonfree addons. Fedora Linux is free software, as is Firefox but since they allow nonfree firmware blobs, and addons respectively, they don't count).
Or free hardware, Good Luck With That, unless you like a single netbook made by a single company in China.
>As is only using the FSF's definition of free software (where it matters less that the software itself is free, but that the software doesn't point out to you any nonfree addons.
You're conflating the FSF's definition of free software, and the FSF's criteria for recommending software to users.
The FSF sees Firefox as free software (now that the proprietary error-reporting system they used is removed); they won't recommend Firefox, because it recommends non-free software. Fedora is a distribution, not a specific program, and they won't recommend it because it recommends non-free software.
By the FSF definition, a license is free if it protects the Four Freedoms; but software licensed under that could be something the FSF doesn't wish to endorse.
I fail to see how not owning a cellphone, only using free software and suitable hardware puts me at a greater inconvenience than, say, having all my life (movements, communication, interests) digitally recorded and made available for later arbitrary use (by any type of government we might have ...). I honestly wish I had the willpower and independence to pull it off.
On the other hand, I totally understand the people who firmly believe that neither governments nor rogue personnel will ever abuse this information to their disadvantage. After all, billions of people firmly believe in some arbitrary deity and we haven't managed to prove them wrong.
There's been many missed opportunities to get truly open hardware, an to this day we're still missing out on them. There are initiatives to remedy this, but they're still far from complete and need more motivated drivers to carry them forward.
Using a crappy computer from some no-name company in China is a protest vote and is not pushing things forward.
On the other hand, getting hardware hackers together to create a 100% free hardware platform would. The Raspberry Pi is close, all that's really needed is for some more aggressive lobbying to get the PowerVR driver component open-sourced.
Or consider, given how people are taping out custom Bitcoin ASICs, why is it inconceivable that someone could tape out an open-source CPU?
It's not feasible for the average person to restrict their lives to the point that RMS does and advocates for.
* Reading the web via email only
* Using completely free software and hardware (which as far as I can tell, limits you to a very small subset of Linux on a single Chinese-made netbook)
* Not carrying a cellphone
* Not using any social networks.
Stallman's principled stand is admirable, but untenable for most. I need to violate every single one of these tenets in an average day at work.
And that's before we even enter the realm of entertainment, which is even worse as far as the FSF's definition of freedom goes.
Principled != crackpot. Crackpot is an insult intended for the feeble minded and is used to reduce any opinions a person might hold on a subject as reject-able out of hand.
Over unity energy generation from the vacuum is rightly labeled as 'crackpot' imo, Stallman's position, while extreme should (again, imo) not be labeled as such.
Calling proprietary software evil is an opinion, and there are plenty of examples of evidence that proprietary software was created in ways that one could label as evil. Give it a while and there might be some revelation which will cause lots of people to go 'oh, that Stallman was such a visionary, calling proprietary software evil'.
Now on this particular aspect of Stallman's reasoning I find him hard to follow because that would mean a whole class of something is bad whereas I believe it should only apply to instances on a case-by-case basis. But I'm going to hedge my bets here and sit it out for the next decade or two (assuming I have that much time remaining) to see if he might not be on to something again that is still hard to see from where we are standing right now.
One way in which this could play out is that in order to avoid certain societal fates is to have nothing but open source for certain classes of application (for instance, voting computers, software in use by the government in general or software that is used to power network infrastructure).
Don't be too quick to judge, Stallman has been right more often than I'm comfortable with on some of his most 'extreme' views.
I've never heard Stallman be right about anything that wasn't blindingly obvious to anyone who was an open-minded observer of the same things at the same time.
He's not the only one that's been crowing about electronic surveillance. Ever since things like Carnivore (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_(software)) were uncovered in the 1990s, it's been obvious that there's a lot going on we will never be fully informed about, that the internet is no longer a safe playground devoid of malevolent actors. Mailing lists and USENET groups at the same period of time were constantly aflame with these sorts of issues.
If you can cite an occasion where Stallman has had a unique insight into the situation, I'd be surprised.
Stallman, for all his posturing and relentless drum beating, which is at least admirable from the point of dedication, is still no Alan Kay, Marvin Minsky, Marshall McLuhan or Raymond Kurzweil.
Moral judgements are subjective opinion by nature, fair enough, but I bring the crackpot label in for exactly what you say, thinking in absolutes, in black and white, instead of nuance.
In the real world, that shows a distressing lack of critical thinking and a further distressing abundance of dogmatism.
"Proprietary software is bad" -- Subjective value judgement.
"Properitary software is evil" -- Subjective value judgement that shows a lack of thought.
"You should always use free software wherever possible." -- Subjective value judgement.
"You should use absolutely nothing but free software ever" -- Subjective value judgement that shows a lack of thought.
I mean, the FSF "disapproves" of software that is completely free on its own (Fedora, Firefox), merely because they point out nonfree things you can use. (Fedora's firmware bundles and some repos, and Firefox's addons site).
That's completely idiotic. Apparently the FSF's "freedoms" do not include the freedom to run whatever software you choose if it's "unfree".
The proprietary software as evil thing comes as a morality judgment, that the potential evils from such software/licensing far outway whatever positive nuance it could bring to the table. A nuanced reading of the past 75 years of copyright/patent law and judgments can come to the conclusion that such an ecosystem is detrimental to the rights and ability of end-users and developers.
Guess what the solution to the proprietary software problem is? Not using or promoting proprietary software or platforms that enable it.
You are getting upset that the Free Software Foundation has standards to be met to consider software as "free". To dismiss their agenda as existing in 'crackpot' territory is invalidating a legitimate argument to support your shaky conclusion.
* RMS reads the web via email because he's traveling virtually all the time and rarely has Internet access. A batch-based system makes more sense for him. This isn't an ethical stance, and the fact you include it hits your credibility severely.
* The FSF uses computers other than Yeeloongs. The FSF also doesn't really care about free hardware. The Yeeloong has chips with non-free firmware burnt in, and the FSF doesn't care because that isn't software. It's the Free SOFTWARE Foundation, after all.
* Stallman is on a few social networks, notably identica @rms@identi.ca (possibly now defunct). He probably has a GNU Social endpoint.
I think you're conflating Stallman's willingness to be uncompromising in his own lifestyle with his calls for reform. Stallman is fairly intelligent and understands that not everyone can live like he does, but I suppose he feels the need to answer the question of "what should you do in the present beyond push for reform."
I also don't know what "entertainment" you're talking about. The FSF is against proprietary video game engines, but their mission pertains to software, not music/movies/etc.. They campaign against DRM because DRM requires non-free software to enforce.
RMS emails in restaurants, cars, trains, etc., in Europe and the United States but also frequently in SE Asia and South America. There are pictures of him responding to email in the mountains in Nepal.
It's easy to get Internet access on the go in most of the places I've been to, but I've been to a tiny fraction of the places RMS has been to.
> Over unity energy generation from the vacuum is rightly labeled as 'crackpot' imo
Then it seems that crackpottery is a term that may be removed in retrospect. I'm sure at some point in the future someone will crack the energy from the vacuum riddle, who knows.
An example of a crackpot is Glenn Beck, that is, someone who is drawing incorrect, incoherent conclusions from the facts they observe.
Suggesting that people abandon social networks, never own cellular phones, avoid using the web almost entirely, these are extreme positions. What makes them crazy is when he's an advocate that everyone should follow these edicts.
Surely it's some kind of "geek social fallacy" that's being applied here. Stallman has come up with what he perceives as the optimal strategy and anyone who diverges from this is doing it incorrectly, just as how free, open-source software is the only kind of software that's acceptable, and everything else is "evil".
I think the free access to the data once it's mined is worse than the collection. Such access should require a warrant, if not a wiretap order, not a justification one-liner.
What we need is strict limitations on what can and should be collected, and how it's used, plus better methods of securing what's being exchanged. For example, sending email as plain-text, leaving it on the server as plain-text, maybe that's a bad idea.
The NSA isn't necessarily the only reason you'd do this. Foreign governments are going to take an interest in this, too, and it's only a matter of time before someone gets access the data the NSA is hoarding. No program of this scale is ever 100% secure.