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Richard Stallman on Data Autonomy [video]

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Re: Richard Stallman on Data Autonomy [video]

#91

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

zekevermillion wrote: post #78
castratikron wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't sound like he's advocating that everyone run their own server. He said that if you require your data be available all the time, then you should run your own server; otherwise, you should keep your data on your computer. That being said, I don't see a problem storing data on someone else's computer as long as that data is encrypted and I alone have the ability to decrypt it. Trusting someone to encrypt your…

Yes, I wonder if RMS has any objection to clouds where the user data is encrypted end-to-end, like with Tahoe-LAFS. Does that count as running your own server if you have client-side encrypted data through Tahoe backed up on Amazon servers? Or is there too much info leaked, or some other way that Amazon could engage in hostile behavior with respect to data it cannot read?

If there is no risk of surveillance or lock-in, he'd probably be ok?

After all, "cloud" is a pretty ill-defined term. He certainly doesn't object to things because someone calls them "cloud-something", but because of the power structure they entail--which happens to include stuff such as surveillance and lock-in with a lot of the stuff that's currently being sold as "cloud services".

Re: Richard Stallman on Data Autonomy [video]

#92

Post by Sanddancer »

zanny wrote: post #86
iheartmemcache wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bunnie Huang (of MIT fame, original cracker of Xbox, proponent of open hardware [see: Chumby, Novena, etc]) has a really interesting talk given at the Media Labs in '15 at his alma mater[1]. It's about 1:15 but fully worth the watch including the QA, if you have any interest in 'open hardware'. That Rockchip run's on a fairly complicated 4core ARM. So which while the instruction set may be open, so is Intels. They'll…

Are there any non-license encumbered protocols similar to USB? I know DisplayPort is royalty free. How does that even work when you can run USB over Displayport? I know there is no open band 4G standard, and while WIMAX is close its only advertised for support on restricted radio bands, which is not good enough. But radio spectrum allocation already is an extremely fucked up mess that needs dissolved all on its own.

There's only a license for USB if you want to use the USB trademark, or if you want your own Vendor ID. Pretty much every chip with USB already has paid the money for the Vendor ID because it makes headaches due to collisions, etc, much, much less likely. However, if you need an id, http://pid.codes/ has pids for your use for free. USB over DisplayPort, the company almost certainly has paid for a USB vendor ID, for much the same reason. If you're making a few million chips, the amortized cost of the license becomes less than a penny. Displayport, if you don't want to carry USB, there's no requirement to -- the displayport connectors on my video cards certainly don't carry USB.

Regarding similar protocols, there really isn't anything. One of the lessons from the Bad Old Days is that not having a centralized registry is that you get frustrating conflicts and huge interoperability problems.

With radio spectrum allocation, it's fucked up for a number of reasons, and dissolving it would cause even more problems. Radio astronomy needs clear areas of bandwidth so they can look over the sky and analyze, emergency responders need the same so people can be directed quickly, local broadcasters need it so that people can actually broadcast. Cell phones need them so they can communicate with towers. Radio technology is /complicated/ and at higher frequencies, it only gets moreso. That's why devices need licensing -- if someone screws up the radio hardware/software, it can easily impact more than themselves. Abolishing any sort of spectrum allocation would only lead to a commons that would quickly degrade and send us right back to corded devices.

Re: Richard Stallman on Data Autonomy [video]

#93

Post by kordless »

Frondo wrote: post #66
kordless wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stallman does a good job of calling out cognitive dissonance, as do most individuals with wisdom. The question is why are you and others "fine" with running your services on someone else's systems? I think the answer lies in what Stallman said about keeping your software and data "under your control". If someone has control of the services you use, or the data you store in those services, there exists a clear manner…

I'm fine with relying on other people because I do it for every other part of life already. I don't grow my own food, I don't produce my own medical supplies, I don't build my own wifi devices and I don't pave my own roads. No one engaged in modern western-civilization does; we all rely on everyone around us all the time to live and do things. Cloud backup services, VPSes, photo-hosting sites, Twitter, whatever, they…

> If cost and time were no object, I'd pay someone else to manage every single bit of my infrastructure, and task them with the responsibility for making sure it kept working. I wouldn't ask how, it'd be their job, the thing I'm paying them for.

In the hypothetical discussion we're having, I gave you unlimited time and resources. With that, you chose to let someone else to manage and control your data instead of managing and controlling it yourself, for what appears to be no gain. The logical conclusion is either a) you don't care if someone else has ALL of your data, or b) you don't understand that giving someone else your data will eventually result in the loss of control over that data over some given period of time.

Re: Richard Stallman on Data Autonomy [video]

#95

Post by crististm »

dang wrote: post #79
crististm wrote: post #10

Do you have an agenda or you just can't think on your own? By your own description you should up your game a little before writing off some argument as "laughable".

Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News. We ban accounts that do this, so please don't do this. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10919602 and marked it off-topic.

When the only criticism to "a cloud inside your head" is "laughable" I can't help to think it comes either from malice or ignorance. A real argument should carry more weight. (And I realize this goes both ways).

Re: Richard Stallman on Data Autonomy [video]

#96

Post by crististm »

nbadg wrote: post #65

I'm sorry, but this is profoundly naive. If the name "Richard Stallman" weren't attached to it, you wouldn't have watched this video. The world doesn't have time for everyone to deploy their own server. I mean, honestly, ask yourself if you even have time to do this, or if it's just yet another project that's going to get piled on top of the Raspberry Pi and Beaglebone Black you have sitting in your projects box. Plu…

Does end-to-end encryption answer the problem of vanishing servers?

Re: Richard Stallman on Data Autonomy [video]

#97

Post by dang »

crististm wrote: post #95
dang wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News. We ban accounts that do this, so please don't do this. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10919602 and marked it off-topic.

When the only criticism to "a cloud inside your head" is "laughable" I can't help to think it comes either from malice or ignorance. A real argument should carry more weight. (And I realize this goes both ways).

I know, but the bias to think that it's malice or ignorance is much stronger than it ought to be, so if we don't all consciously practice the benefit of the doubt, things are guaranteed to get acrimonious.

Re: Richard Stallman on Data Autonomy [video]

#98

Post by zanny »

Sanddancer wrote: post #92
zanny wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any non-license encumbered protocols similar to USB? I know DisplayPort is royalty free. How does that even work when you can run USB over Displayport? I know there is no open band 4G standard, and while WIMAX is close its only advertised for support on restricted radio bands, which is not good enough. But radio spectrum allocation already is an extremely fucked up mess that needs dissolved all on its own.

There's only a license for USB if you want to use the USB trademark, or if you want your own Vendor ID. Pretty much every chip with USB already has paid the money for the Vendor ID because it makes headaches due to collisions, etc, much, much less likely. However, if you need an id, http://pid.codes/ has pids for your use for free. USB over DisplayPort, the company almost certainly has paid for a USB vendor ID, for m…

I just want to point out there is a distinction between allocating spectrum for certain purposes and selling it to private companies. I would never recommend not having a frequency band restricted to emergency communications, though I admit I'm not informed enough about astronomy to know what is optimal there, but I still feel outright saying "you cannot produce radio waves of frequencies, ever" is a very blunt solution.

My larger point is that we have observed in the last twenty years that while signal congestion can be real, we can also now build radios sophisticated enough to deal with it much better than in the past. Things you cannot have interfered with like air traffic control and emergency broadcasts should absolutely be given their own channels, but technology has improved enough that we can certainly stymie their band allocations they are given today without compromising integrity assuming the use of more capable radios.

But even then, I'm not strongly arguing to do any of that - I think it is possible, but I also don't think its particularly necessary - we could simply de-privatize most of the sold off spectrum to private companies to be used for public communications and in the common interest. Think of the Internet bandwidth over air we could get if we had gigahertz of available channels between the 500 to 5000mhz bands.

Re: Richard Stallman on Data Autonomy [video]

#99

Post by baldfat »

metakermit wrote: post #63
baldfat wrote: post #55

Anyone find it funny that the video is on a non-Stallman CC-ND License? > Q6: Can you comment on the Creative Commons licence? Richard Stallman: The thing is, it's meaningless to talk about Creative Commons licence. The bad thing about Creative Commons is that it has produced a broad series of licences that have nothing in common. In fact, if you look at these licences and determine what is the freedom that is common…

Actually, Stallman himself asked us to mark the video under that license (he proof-read the post).

Really????? Well that is pleasantly surprising.

Re: Richard Stallman on Data Autonomy [video]

#100

Post by simonebrunozzi »

autoreleasepool wrote: post #27

If BTsync ever goes open source or SyncThing ever achieves the quality and functionality of BTSync, then achieving autonomy over our data will be easy. I use BitTorrent Sync with my FreeNas box. It's absolutely amazing. I am able to completely subvert the cloud and have all my data synced across devices. The mobile app is a user-friendly delight. I was able to share 15 GBs of vacation videos with 10 of my non-techie…

What you just built for yourself is something that should become an open source product, and many people would use it.
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