pages tagged freedomonlyjobhttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/tags/freedom/onlyjobikiwiki2019-07-15T11:12:10Zprivacytools.io - information, tools and services to protect your privacyhttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/link_2019-07-12/2019-07-15T11:12:10Z2019-07-11T14:00:00Z
<p><a href="https://www.privacytools.io/">privacytools.io</a> - your online catalogue
of free/ethical software and services.</p>
Internet Filtering happened?http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/internet_filtering_happened/2018-11-11T06:49:03Z2018-07-10T14:00:00Z
<p><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/tags/freedom/posts/internet_filtering">Back in 2010</a> we were campaigning against Conroy's internet filreting.<br />
Shortly after everybody felt victorious when initiative to filter Australian
internet <a href="https://thenextweb.com/au/2012/11/09/finally-australias-controversial-mandatory-isp-filtering-is-off-the-table/">did not fly</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/internet_filtering_happened/IMGP1166.JPG"><img class="img" height="553" src="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/internet_filtering_happened/IMGP1166.JPG" title="T-shirt" width="415" /></a></p>
<p>Yet somehow since 2016 we have some form of censorship not much different
from what has been proposed earlier:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.smh.com.au/technology/australian-senate-passes-controversial-antipiracy-websiteblocking-laws-20150622-ghuorh.html">https://www.smh.com.au/technology/australian-senate-passes-controversial-antipiracy-websiteblocking-laws-20150622-ghuorh.html</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-19/small-australian-isp-refuses-to-bow-to-legal-threats-to-block-w/6955432">https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-19/small-australian-isp-refuses-to-bow-to-legal-threats-to-block-w/6955432</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2016/12/australian-isps-will-be-forced-to-block-the-pirate-bay-and-other-torrent-sites/">https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2016/12/australian-isps-will-be-forced-to-block-the-pirate-bay-and-other-torrent-sites/</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.comcourts.gov.au/file/Federal/P/NSD498/2018/3818119/event/29434149/document/1194559">https://www.comcourts.gov.au/file/Federal/P/NSD498/2018/3818119/event/29434149/document/1194559</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Ultimately this means that Australian ISPs are not to be trusted to provide
reliable/trustworthy DNS servers and that struggle for free Internet should
continue perpetually...</p>
<hr />
<p>Here are some historical links to web sites opposing internet filtering:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://australiauncensored.blogspot.com/">AUSTRALIA UNCENSORED</a></li>
<li><a href="http://openinternet.com.au/">Open Internet</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.somebodythinkofthechildren.com/">discussing censorship and moral panic in Australia</a></li>
<li><a href="http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/?tag=cleanfeed">Whirlpool about cleanfeed</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.netalarmed.com/">Netalarmed - parody</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Archived Links:</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20101109145510/http://www.banthisurl.com/">ban.this.url (Mark Newton's letters)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20110202102811/http://chairmankrudd.com/">14 reasons why the filter is a bad idea</a></li>
<li><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20120422134640/http://nocleanfeed.com:80/">No Clean Feed - Stop Internet Censorship in Australia</a></li>
<li><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20130703175849/http://libertus.net/">about censorship and free speech</a></li>
<li><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20140125015800/http://www.keepyourfilteroffourinternet.com/">An Australian Web Industry Association campaign: Saying No to Political Censorship in Australia (Keep Your Filter Off Our Internet)</a></li>
</ul>
Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) Storyhttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/Non_Disclosure_Agreement___40__NDA__41___story/2012-03-21T16:57:04Z2011-10-18T04:36:00Z
<p>Once in July 2011 in order to send me for training I've been given a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) to sign.<br />
Among other things it had the following paragraph:</p>
<blockquote><p> <a class="toggle" href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/tags/freedom/#posts-Non-Disclosure-Agreement---40--NDA--41---story.NDApar">Inventions as Sole Property of [company-which-should-be-ashamed]</a></p></blockquote>
<div class="toggleable" id="posts-Non-Disclosure-Agreement---40--NDA--41---story.NDApar"></div>
<blockquote><p> Any inventions, discoveries, concepts or ideas, or expressions thereof, whether or not subject to patents, copyrights, trademarks or
service mark protection, and whether or not reduced to practice, conceived or developed by you in the course of your Placement or
within one (1) year following the end of such Placement which relate to or result from the actual or anticipated business, work, research
or investigation of [company-which-should-be-ashamed] or which are suggested by or result from any task assigned to or performed by you for
[company-which-should-be-ashamed] shall be the sole and exclusive property of [company-which-should-be-ashamed]. You hereby
assign to [company-which-should-be-ashamed] the entire right, title and interest to any such inventions, discoveries, concepts, ideas
or expressions thereof and you agree to perform, during or after your Placement, all acts deemed necessary or desirable by
[company-which-should-be-ashamed] to permit and assist it, at [company-which-should-be-ashamed]'s expense, in obtaining,
maintaining, defending and enforcing inventions, discoveries, concepts, ideas, or expressions thereof in any and all countries.
Such acts may include, but are not limited to execution of documents and assistance or cooperation in legal proceedings.
You hereby irrevocably designate and appoint [company-which-should-be-ashamed] and its duty authorised officers and agents, as your
agents and attorneys-in-fact to act for and on your behalf and instead of you, to execute any file and to do all other lawfully permitted acts
to further the above purposes with the same legal force and effect as if executed by yourself.</p></blockquote>
<div class="toggleableend"></div>
<p>So I refused to sign it. <br />
The following day my manager spoke to me and sad:</p>
<blockquote><p> <em>"Why do you make it so complicated? It's a normal practice and we routinely sign agreements like this. Please consider signing it and let me know tomorrow."</em></p></blockquote>
<p>I refused again and asked our company's lawyer for advice. <br />
To my surprise he disagreed with my manager and commented that it's not a good thing to sign such agreement and that it's not in company's interests.
Such agreements are way out of line.</p>
<p>As result the agreement was sent back and no employees were requested to sign it. <br />
It just gone - after I spoke to our lawyer they agreed that no NDA is required.</p>
<p>Generally signing any NDAs would be wrong.
See <a href="http://www.myintervals.com/blog/2009/11/10/project-management-three-reasons-why-not-to-sign-non-disclosure-agreements/">Three reasons why not to sign non disclosure agreements</a></p>
<p>Possible exception may be when NDA is actually to protect people's privacy. <br />
For example if you going to work at hospital's data centre it should be OK to promise (in writing)
that you're not going to disclose any patient's information. <br />
Those who unable to made such promise are better not to access sensitive information.</p>
Only free software workshttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/only_free_software_works/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2011-03-02T23:08:00Z
<p>Everyone who needs web-site management system (sometimes called CMS -
content management system) wants the best product money can buy.
However no proprietary product can provide expected quality.</p>
<p>Some popular open source community developed
<abbr title="Web Content Management System">WCMS</abbr><sup>4</sup>
have dozens (if not hundreds) of active developers - a hard burden for budget
(and this is without marketing expenses).</p>
<p>Indeed if you look at Drupal<sup>1,2</sup>, it has about 6000 developers'
accounts (of course, not all of them are active but at any given moment
at least some of them are working: assuming only 1% of all developers
are active it would be 60 people - something not every company can easily
afford).;</p>
<p><strike>hundreds</strike> Thousands of plugins and themes;</p>
<p>Large community with more than ten thousands web sites, including some
famous/popular web sites.</p>
<p>Outnumbered by developers proprietary product lag behind in anything -
security, stability, functionality, number of extension modules, themes,
number of users etc.</p>
<p>And the gap is only increasing because if you develop proprietary software,
you're alone, you have to do everything on your own.</p>
<p>Meanwhile open source developers enjoy collaboration when they can
occasionally submit a bug report and let someone else to fix it.</p>
<p>Commercial software developers are more concerned about sales and marketing
while open source developers more dedicated to product itself.</p>
<p>Individuals involved in the development of proprietary software are
typically frustrated from understanding that skills they exercise on
daily basis are specific to the only product and the only company -
therefore their professional value decreasing because that kind of
knowledge will be worthless at any position in any other company.</p>
<p>Open development is more effective, trustworthy and ethical than proprietary.
Awareness of public code availability influence towards clean and maintainable
design. Never-to-be-published code is lacking such motivation.</p>
<p>Open source fits consumer's needs better - for example unwanted "features"
artificially restricting functionality are common for proprietary software
but do not exist in open source. No annoying periodic (re)activation,
licenses for number of users/connections etc.</p>
<p>For companies who had a misfortune of buying proprietary software it's a
disaster. Due to its nature, proprietary software comes with long list
or risks bundled:</p>
<ul>
<li>Retire of senior developer(s) may lead to loss of quality and slow down of product development.
This happen naturally over time or accidentally due to many reasons.</li>
<li>Lack of profit may lead to abandoning or selling off the project.</li>
<li>Shift of priorities in developing company - resources spent for a
particular project may be dedicated to something else,
if business expects more profit there.</li>
<li>Change of business plans may lead to changes in product which can make
product not suitable for your needs.</li>
<li>Pricing / support charges may become unaffordable.</li>
</ul>
<p>Not only proprietary development is vulnerable but companies themselves are
subject of serious risks, namely:</p>
<ul>
<li>Bankrupcy.</li>
<li>Acquisition. No company is safe.
Even big companies like Sun Microsystems can be bought.</li>
</ul>
<p>When such things happen product's destiny is uncertain and your investment
likely to be gone. And this is a very real risk - in the past many companies
have gone together with their products and users was abandoned;</p>
<p>Most open source projects if worth living, eventually will be picked up even
if original developer/supporting company is gone. This is rarely (if ever)
happening to proprietary software.</p>
<p>Surviving of open source project doesn't depend that much from what impose a
very real danger to proprietary software.</p>
<p>Have you heard about <i>Planned Obsolescence</i><sup>3</sup>?
Most (if not all) proprietary software designed to become obsolete.
Unless intentionally designed for obsolescence they're doomed to become
obsolete, sooner or later.</p>
<p>Apart from risks there are drawbacks common to proprietary software like:</p>
<ul>
<li>Limited support. Business model of many companies provide product
support only during limited time. It means you will be abandoned
unless you buy updated product again. And it is not so unusual
when pretty much the same product they try to sell again some time later.</li>
<li>Remote (re)activation. Many proprietary products have time bombs rendering
product worthless unless license renewed regularly. In such case client's
business held hostage not just by vendor but also to number of circumstances
like connectivity etc.</li>
<li>Poor quality. When product release influenced by business plan, model
"release now, fix later" became quite common for proprietary software.</li>
</ul>
<p>All of the above badly affect proprietary products.</p>
<p>Can you afford being depended from one and only one vendor?</p>
<p>Basically there are no guarantees that your vendor will be in market somewhat
two years later. Average lifespan of a company is not impressive so perhaps
probability of you vendor's disappearance is higher than you would like.</p>
<p>To the contrast none of described problems affecting open source projects.
With free software you have freedom to choose whom to buy support from.
Typically you can have commercial support from local company of your choice,
not just from single vendor.
After all if for some reason you no longer happy with you vendor you can
choose one who worth your support therefore encouraging good work.
With proprietary product you won't have much of a choice.</p>
<p>Freedom is important and has a real business value.
Too many proprietary developers work on projects they neither need nor love.
Software made with love and respect to freedom is better.</p>
<p>Conclusion:</p>
<ul>
<li>Proprietary software bad for everybody: for product; for business
(both sides, vendor and clients) and for individuals involved.</li>
<li>Proprietary software has no long-term benefits over free and open source software.</li>
<li>Any possible short-term advantage of proprietary software diminished by risks and hidden costs.</li>
<li>If TCO (total cost of ownership) considered, proprietary software loose miserably.</li>
<li>Free Open source software is safer.</li>
<li>Open source software is better - it encourages quality.</li>
<li>Free software is an ethical choice which benefits everyone.</li>
<li>Freedom itself is a merit of value.</li>
</ul>
<p>Links:</p>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drupal">Drupal</a></li>
<li><a href="http://drupal.org/">Drupal home site</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned%5Fobsolescence">Planned obsolescence</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web%5Fcontent%5Fmanagement%5Fsystem">Web content management system</a></li>
<li><a href="http://engineindustries.com/blog/jason/how-many-websites-use-drupal-lets-estimate-number-part-one">How many websites use Drupal?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://engineindustries.com/blog/jason/which-open-source-cms-has-most-active-development-community-part-two">Which Open-Source CMS Has the Most Active Development Community?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/06/30/1752220/The-Hidden-Cost-of-Using-Microsoft-Software">The Hidden Cost of Using Microsoft Software</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.cic.unb.br/docentes/pedro/trabs/stockholm.html">The Digital Stockholm Syndrome</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.lugod.org/microsoft/">Reasons to Avoid Microsoft</a></li>
<li><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/cybersource-The_Cost_of_Software_Monopoly:_How_Australian_Consumers_Lose/">cybersource-The Cost of Software Monopoly: How Australian Consumers Lose</a></li>
</ol>
Two worldshttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/two_worlds/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2011-02-19T13:00:00Z
<p>Imagine proprietary world where:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>You're have to buy every software, e-book or video you might want...</p></li>
<li><p>Bundled with all restrictions you can imagine:
you only can run/read/watch it on 'certified' device only; due limited time;
without rights to copy even for backup purposes;
with restrictions on how many times you can run/read/watch etc.</p></li>
<li><p>Bundled with contract obliging you to make regular payments in order
to keep software operational or keep book/video which is already in your
possession, readable/viewable.</p></li>
<li><p>Bundled with license for use which you have to renew on monthly or
fortnightly basis to not loose functionality.</p></li>
<li><p>With passport to prove yourself a legitimate user, protect you from
prosecution and grant you rights for support in case software/book/video
doesn't work properly.</p></li>
<li><p>With ethics stripped from you - no more lending software/book/video
to friends - it is outlawed and heavy fines apply.</p></li>
<li><p>With your rights and privacy sacrificed to unjust powers of police
and corporations spying on how you use your software/books/videos.
When at any given moment of time without probable cause you may be
asked to prove that software/books/videos you have in your possession
you legitimately bought or pay heavy fines and face a lawsuit.</p></li>
<li><p>When you right to use software/book/video may be revoked at any time
without explanation.</p></li>
<li><p>When functionality of software/book/video severely limited or full of
unwanted features: book you cannot print or perhaps even copy text from
it (quote); software will not work after upgrade of your computer
(bound to hardware) without license renew; when you cannot install
software of your choice without approval; and you can watch your video
but not if you take it abroad (DVD region restrictions)</p></li>
<li><p>When "features" should be bought/licensed separately.</p></li>
<li><p>When you forced to 'upgrade' because newly purchased software/book/video
do not work.</p></li>
<li><p>When upgrade is costly and likely bound you with obligations or necessity
to buy additional software.</p></li>
<li><p>When fears of fines and prosecution drives you decision to buy</p></li>
<li><p>Where your life have no other meanings apart from consuming or
selling</p></li>
<li><p>Where prices can be fixed at certain level to increase profit.</p></li>
<li><p>Where lock-in contracts are "normal"</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Some if not all these atrocities perhaps already familiar to you.</p>
<p>You can read more here: <a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html">The Right to Read</a></p>
<hr />
<p>Now imagine the world where</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Software/books/videos are free</p></li>
<li><p>Completely free from any obligations</p></li>
<li><p>You can lend it, make copies or even sell for profit</p></li>
<li><p>You can choose whom to buy from</p></li>
<li><p>You're free to do whatever you want (no artificial restrictions): copy, study, lend, modify.</p></li>
<li><p>Where appreciation drives donations to authors.</p></li>
<li><p>Where you're not a puppet of someone's business plan.</p></li>
<li><p>Where community makes the difference.</p></li>
<li><p>Where you can support only those who deserve it.</p></li>
<li><p>Where freedom and transparency respected.</p></li>
<li><p>Where your life has meaning because your contribution is valuable</p></li>
<li><p>Where lock-in contracts condemned and despised.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>This world is also reality.
There are free books, movies and software.</p>
<p>Both worlds indeed have poor/selfish consumers who don't give anything back.
However free world driven by doing-the-right-thing, a powerful force encouraging
appreciation.</p>
<p>Free world is fear-less - it's much harder to do wrong thing.</p>
<p>Both worlds are more or less today's reality.
You can choose which one to live.
By making choice you're shaping our future.
Your choice matters.
Which world is right for you?</p>
Internet Filteringhttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/internet_filtering/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2010-03-23T13:00:00Z
<p>Recently I read many articles on Australian Internet Filtering and
I have a feeling that its worthlessness is wildely misunderstood.
Let's say we need to filter some "inapropriate" pages from
one trillion URLs (this is a number of pages indexed by Google,
according to their blog record posted in July 2008<sup>1</sup>)
which is 1,000,000,000,000 pages. This number can be considered
as well-known Internet since those pages can be effectively found
and accessed. Let's assume 10,000 URLs can be revised on daily basis
so in the end of year it'll be 3,650,000 pages reviewed total which
is 0.0004% (rounded up) of all pages available.
This is filter's "effectiveness" and please note that Internet is
changing rapidly so this work has to be done all over including
revising malicious pages on block list.
If every 10th page goes to block list it will be 365,000 pages
per year and they has to be revised as well.
According to Google every day few billion pages are being added
to index<sup>1</sup> so please do the math to see how much faster
internet is growing comparing with review speed.</p>
<p>However proposed filtering is not entirely worthless.
I believe it can be particulary good for filtering political opposition
since that kind of resources are easier to find because their sources
are usually well-known.
I know many people say "it is unlikely that politicians want to do this",
but let me ask you, how do you know it? It doesn't matter if you believe
politicians are mean or stupid, sometimes they do silly things and this
filtering proposal itself is good enough example.</p>
<p>If someone aims a gun on freedom you don't need to wait for shooting to
begin because the threat alone is bad enough. I believe if this censorship
instrument will be introduced sooner or later it will be used improperly.
What do you think filtering it's being used for in most if not all countries
famous for their mandatory internet censorship?</p>
<p>Even worse, this thing will negatively impact Australia's international prestige.
Nobody proud of having mandatory censorship - it's a shame and embarrasment.
We can only feel more isolated. Internet filtering will always be suspected of misuse.</p>
<p>From implementation point of view, how poweful filtering servers should be to check
every URL requested in real time against list of all (tens of thousands?)
blacklisted sites without noticeable delay?
What will happen if those servers are down?
No internet or just no filtering?</p>
<p>From moral side, what's the benefit pretending that violence and sex crimes
do not exist? What government claims to protect our children from is not even
scope of their interest.</p>
<p>Do you know that in USSR newspapers tend not to report disasters to
not worry people.
Even when Chernobyl tragedy happen it hasn't been reported in media
on time. Many people died because of ignorance and misinformation.
This is an example how censorship can protect people from reality.</p>
<p>Just by protesting against this ludicrous idea we can not only save
ourselves from embarrasment but also save some budget money.
Any use of those money will be better then this little "protection"
because if 0.0004% of your body covered by clothes you are still very naked.</p>
<hr />
<p>With deep respect to <a href="http://www.efa.org.au/">EFA</a>.
Please support their <a href="http://openinternet.com.au/">anti-filtering campaign</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p>[1] <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/we-knew-web-was-big.html">
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/we-knew-web-was-big.html</a></p>