Poor Ted, poor all of us...
Annual EFF Awards: Alexandra Elbakyan, Library Freedom Project, and Signal
31–40 of 43 posts
Re: Annual EFF Awards: Alexandra Elbakyan, Library Freedom Project, and Signal
#32I've supported EFF (with money and praise to acquaintances) for years and somehow never came across these awards, cool
Re: Annual EFF Awards: Alexandra Elbakyan, Library Freedom Project, and Signal
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe it doesn't sell all your data, but Signal's threat model is surveillance capitalism alone: >The application uses a centralized computing architecture >Registration for desktop use requires an iOS or Android device >Signal uses mobile telephone numbers as an identifier for users. >OWS had received a subpoena requiring them to provide information associated with two phone numbers for a federal grand jury investig…
Your grandma could use Signal. What is use of messaging app that nobody else will/be able to use with you? (like pgp and otr) Yeah its useless. You have to go to users. If you complain that Signal is bad because its on iOS and Andriod… good luck chatting with your two postmarketOS friends.
My grandma can't use Signal because she has neither iOS nor Android, dumbphone works better for her.
Re: Annual EFF Awards: Alexandra Elbakyan, Library Freedom Project, and Signal
#34Alexandra Elbakyan is a real life hero. She's done more for the democratization of science than just about any person alive at the moment, and at great personal expense.
Re: Annual EFF Awards: Alexandra Elbakyan, Library Freedom Project, and Signal
#35I'm not sure Elbakyan receiving this award is particularly appropriate, considering she is strongly pro-Putin and is a big fan of Joseph Stalin (she regularly quotes him on VK).
You mean she is a Russian. Being a Russian implies that if you want to stay alive as a highly visible Russian that you are pro-Putin, regardless of how you really feel. If you don't then there is a good chance that you will be declared a foreign agent and end up in jail or dead. The realities of living in present day Russia should not be underestimated.
Have a look at Zemfira, another Russian who did speak out against Putin. And Zemfira is a lot more popular than Elbakyan is in Russia. That said I have no evidence one way or another what Elbakyans real position is on any of this but I'd be careful to judge, especially for someone who is in the crosshairs of many powerful and wealthy organizations.
As for Stalin: there are no excuses for Stalins wrongs. And yet, you'd be surprised how many Russians to this date revere him. This along the lines of 'he was a bastard, but at least he was our bastard'. He kept Hitler at bay on the Eastern front (at massive cost in lives) and that alone makes him a hero in the eyes of many in Russia. In that sense he has some of the same feelings associated with his person that for instance Churchill in the UK has or Roosevelt and Truman in the United States. From a Western point of view any appreciation for Stalin is likely moderated by what happened during the cold war but from a Russian POV, especially with the massive propaganda machine there you have to contend with a severely distorted image.
This is very complex and Russians (also those in exile) are having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that this time around they are the bad guys. It's obvious to me and to you but patriotism is a weird force that can cause all kinds of cognitive dissonance to be suppressed and for people to stop seeing clearly. Germans are still struggling with this today (to some extent, but hopefully less every year) and I suspect that Russians will have similar problems for many decades to come. Ukraine will be rebuilt but Russia will be a pariah state without a chance of parole and you can expect people inside Russia to be living in a state of denial and confusion for long after this is over.
Re: Annual EFF Awards: Alexandra Elbakyan, Library Freedom Project, and Signal
#36Earlier this week it was a Wired hit piece telling us Signal is full of alt-right boogymen and naziquadroons. Now they're the champions of digital freedom. I'm gonna have whiplash!
I would be dubious of privacy-focused services that are not full of nazis, criminals, and other unsavory individuals.
Journalists, whistleblowers, protesters and other "freedom fighter" needs are the same as criminals, in fact they may be criminals according to their local laws. You can't have one without the other.
Re: Annual EFF Awards: Alexandra Elbakyan, Library Freedom Project, and Signal
#37I'm not sure Elbakyan receiving this award is particularly appropriate, considering she is strongly pro-Putin and is a big fan of Joseph Stalin (she regularly quotes him on VK).
A lot of American "Libertarian" techbros are extremely pro-Russia and pro-Putin. It's not surprising that they have given Elbakyan this award. Privacy and espionage is not the only reason we Europeans should detach from Silicon Valley as fast as possible. Using services owned by libertarian VC people like David Sachs is akin to willingly handing data out to Putin.
Using services that don't hand out data to any known Russian company is handing out data to Russia? What?
Re: Annual EFF Awards: Alexandra Elbakyan, Library Freedom Project, and Signal
#38I'm not sure Elbakyan receiving this award is particularly appropriate, considering she is strongly pro-Putin and is a big fan of Joseph Stalin (she regularly quotes him on VK).
It's not relevant at all. What is, is that she has been founding and leading figure behind the largest e-library and probably the biggest contributor to the anti-copyright movement by that alone.
Support of Putin and Stalin are among a slim majority in Russia, too. You cannot denigrate somebody's achievements because you disagree with what they have to say outside of them. If you want to do that, you may as well deny James Watson's contributions to DNA science.
Re: Annual EFF Awards: Alexandra Elbakyan, Library Freedom Project, and Signal
#39I'm not sure Elbakyan receiving this award is particularly appropriate, considering she is strongly pro-Putin and is a big fan of Joseph Stalin (she regularly quotes him on VK).
I mean, that sucks, but honestly she's not a ~digital influencer~. So I don't think her views matter that much.
Re: Annual EFF Awards: Alexandra Elbakyan, Library Freedom Project, and Signal
#40I'm not sure Elbakyan receiving this award is particularly appropriate, considering she is strongly pro-Putin and is a big fan of Joseph Stalin (she regularly quotes him on VK).
You mean she is a Russian. Being a Russian implies that if you want to stay alive as a highly visible Russian that you are pro-Putin, regardless of how you really feel. If you don't then there is a good chance that you will be declared a foreign agent and end up in jail or dead. The realities of living in present day Russia should not be underestimated. Have a look at Zemfira, another Russian who did speak out agains…
Um. Interesting. I knew about Elbakyan's Sci-Hub work, but until now I never knew she believes Joseph Stalin is a god: https://sci-hub.se/why-stalin-is-god
>Hence even if nobody considered Stalin to be a God, he was a real God - in the truest sense of the word, as we can see from the high level of love people had towards him. Someone may disagree by saying: there was a censorship in the Soviet Union, and it was impossible to say anything against Stalin - therefore everyone loved him. However, we must admit: the censorship was done by the people - there must be someone who sends you to prison if you don't love Stalin...
>Hence Stalin was not just an ancient pagan god - but he was that God christians believe in. In a critical moment for the country and for the whole humanity he came down to Earth, wearing a cool mustache avatar, and restored the order: he revived economics and created the powerful science. He created a communist paradise for righteous people, while bad people were sent to GULAG. He won the war against the evil forces of Hitler, and even restored Israel, as he promised to do long time ago.