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You won't find FSF on Facebook

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Re: You won't find FSF on Facebook

#31

Post by jedsmith »

ryanto wrote: post #4

This article is a joke, it's something I would expect to find on some tech/news gossip website. Is this what FSF has become? > so many sites — including TIME — use Facebook's user-tracking "Like" button, Zuckerberg is able to collect information about people who aren't even users of his site. These are precedents which hurt our ability to freely connect with each other. He has created a network that is first and fore…

> Is this what FSF has become?

You mean there was a time when FSF didn't launch ideological arguments to demand that people use software from the GNU Project?

I'm not picking a side, just pointing out that this is par for the course. If it isn't GPL, it's evil.

Re: You won't find FSF on Facebook

#32

Post by SwellJoe »

elehack wrote: post #22
smcl wrote: post #20

"Because so many sites — including TIME — use Facebook's user-tracking "Like" button, Zuckerberg is able to collect information about people who aren't even users of his site" I thought you had to have a facebook account to "like" something, either on facebook itself or sites with the FB "like" link. Anyone know otherwise? edit: Just logged out of FB, opened a random Time article ( http://www.time.com/time/world/arti…

The "Like" button infrastructure (images, JavaScript) is loaded from Facebook's servers via a cross-domain request. Those servers can theoretically use cookies or IP addresses in conjunction with referrers to do tracking even without clicking Like, for both authenticated and unauthenticated users. Some content is loaded off of their CDN, which I highly doubt is doing any tracking. The non-CDN pings are quite possibly…

"I highly doubt is doing any tracking."

On what evidence do you have this doubt?

facebook has a long history (the entirety of their existence) of being extremely greedy about personal data. Whenever outsiders have had the chance to see inside their thought process on collecting data, it has always been clear they'll collect anything and everything they can. What they're doing with it might not be nefarious; but they love personal data like no company ever before, and go to great lengths to own it.

I'd be surprised if they aren't tracking every request that passes through their servers and gathering usage patterns of everyone on the Internet, regardless of whether someone is logged into facebook or not, and regardless of whether the request originated on a facebook property. That's just the kind of thing facebook does, as far as I can tell. If they aren't doing it already, it's just a matter of time.

Re: You won't find FSF on Facebook

#33

Post by jedsmith »

hasenj wrote: post #26
ryanto wrote: post #4

This article is a joke, it's something I would expect to find on some tech/news gossip website. Is this what FSF has become? > so many sites — including TIME — use Facebook's user-tracking "Like" button, Zuckerberg is able to collect information about people who aren't even users of his site. These are precedents which hurt our ability to freely connect with each other. He has created a network that is first and fore…

> Is this what FSF has become? What do you mean? This is what FSF has always been like. They're shockingly zealots in defending absolute gpl-style freedom over all your digital goods. In all honesty I don't think a decentralized and "Free" facebook would work. The centralization is a feature that most people want; it's part of why it "just work" without you having to become a system (or a network) administrator. Imag…

Yes, he did.

http://mashable.com/2010/05/28/zuckerberg-diaspora/

Re: You won't find FSF on Facebook

#34

Post by [deleted] »

chriscorcoran wrote: post #23
jfm3 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you use words like "Unix pipes" when you don't know what they mean?

Yeah, that was an attempt at sarcasm. Clearly it didn't work. I was tying to imply that FSF types want all web apps to be accessible via the command line. Because who needs a fancy tabbed browser when you've got lynx? Just for the record, I am well aware of what Unix pipes are and how to use them :)

[deleted]

Re: You won't find FSF on Facebook

#35

Post by gloob »

joebananas wrote: post #9
ascendant wrote: post #7

FSF doesn't like a service that doesn't operate exactly how the FSF thinks they should. Shocking. I don't take anything they or their pseudo-communist leader say seriously anymore. Back when Stallman started attacking OpenBSD because of their ports tree I knew he had finally lost it.

Why do you use words like communism when you don't know what they mean?

I expect that by "communism" the poster means "a belief system I don't agree with"[0]. (In fairness, given that there are probably dozens of mutually-incompatible Marxist/socialist/communist philosophies, combined with the poster's use of the prefix "pseudo", means that pretty much any belief can, with sufficient effort, be described as "pseudo-communist".)

[0] (My understanding (I'm Canadian) is that this use of the word is a rather quaint Americanism, and has, fortunately, mostly failed to propagate into other dialects of English.)

Re: You won't find FSF on Facebook

#36

Post by tedunangst »

joebananas wrote: post #9
ascendant wrote: post #7

FSF doesn't like a service that doesn't operate exactly how the FSF thinks they should. Shocking. I don't take anything they or their pseudo-communist leader say seriously anymore. Back when Stallman started attacking OpenBSD because of their ports tree I knew he had finally lost it.

Why do you use words like communism when you don't know what they mean?

"Everything must be shared" sounds like a reasonable (if simplified) definition for both communism and FSF's goals.

Re: You won't find FSF on Facebook

#37

Post by chriscorcoran »

gloob wrote: post #29
chriscorcoran wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that was an attempt at sarcasm. Clearly it didn't work. I was tying to imply that FSF types want all web apps to be accessible via the command line. Because who needs a fancy tabbed browser when you've got lynx? Just for the record, I am well aware of what Unix pipes are and how to use them :)

I don't entirely understand why you would spend your time trying to imply something about the FSF that is completely unrelated to what the FSF cares about. Could you fill me in, perhaps?

I tried to make a joke playing off the stereotype of what some people think those working for the FSF look like. In short that they're all typical unix grey beards and are professional internet curmudgeons. It didn't work. Sorry.

Re: You won't find FSF on Facebook

#38

Post by michaelchisari »

IvarTJ wrote: post #6

Facebook appears to have had a tremendous effect on countries like Tunisia and Egypt. The alternatives that FSF lists may not have been as effective because of the technical difficulty for a large number of people to set up such a service.

True, but most people won't have to set up an Appleseed server. Most people will just join an existing one, much like email services.

And the potential for decentralized alternatives in places like Tunisia and Egypt are much greater than Facebook.

Centralized services are much easier to block or shut down than decentralization.

Re: You won't find FSF on Facebook

#39

Post by elehack »

SwellJoe wrote: post #32
elehack wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "Like" button infrastructure (images, JavaScript) is loaded from Facebook's servers via a cross-domain request. Those servers can theoretically use cookies or IP addresses in conjunction with referrers to do tracking even without clicking Like, for both authenticated and unauthenticated users. Some content is loaded off of their CDN, which I highly doubt is doing any tracking. The non-CDN pings are quite possibly…

"I highly doubt is doing any tracking." On what evidence do you have this doubt? facebook has a long history (the entirety of their existence) of being extremely greedy about personal data. Whenever outsiders have had the chance to see inside their thought process on collecting data, it has always been clear they'll collect anything and everything they can. What they're doing with it might not be nefarious; but they…

I'm speculating that the CDN servers are running stripped-down, static-file-only HTTP servers that don't integrate with a more complex user-identification and logging infrastructure to help with throughput.

I could be completely wrong.

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