Richard Stallman’s Hypocritical Stance on Cell Phones
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Richard Stallman’s Hypocritical Stance on Cell Phones
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Re: Richard Stallman’s Hypocritical Stance on Cell Phones
#2Seems perfectly coherent. How would someone track me through your phone?
Re: Richard Stallman’s Hypocritical Stance on Cell Phones
#3[deleted]
Re: Richard Stallman’s Hypocritical Stance on Cell Phones
#4Seems perfectly coherent. How would someone track me through your phone?
I don't think Gruber's objection is that it's an incoherent position, rather that it violates Stallman's stated morals.
It's along the lines of being against killing animals for food, but eating a burger because your friend bought the meat and grilled it for you.
Re: Richard Stallman’s Hypocritical Stance on Cell Phones
#5Seems perfectly coherent. How would someone track me through your phone?
He said hypocritical, not incoherent.
Re: Richard Stallman’s Hypocritical Stance on Cell Phones
#6Seems perfectly coherent. How would someone track me through your phone?
He said hypocritical, not incoherent.
Re: Richard Stallman’s Hypocritical Stance on Cell Phones
#7People concerned with cell phone privacy and tracking should check out:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/09/cellular-customer-d...
AT&T seems like the worst offender with regards to storing tracking information:
The biggest difference in retention surrounds so-called cell-site data. That is information detailing a phone’s movement history via its connections to mobile phone towers while its traveling.
Verizon keeps that data on a one-year rolling basis; T-Mobile for “a year or more;” Sprint up to two years, and AT&T indefinitely, from July 2008.
Re: Richard Stallman’s Hypocritical Stance on Cell Phones
#8If asked, RMS might well point out that using other peoples' cell phones for his own calls not only makes him harder to track, but also adds just a little bit of noise to Big Brother's tracking data on them. (Not that I've asked him, but every so often, he tries to arrange swaps of Boston subway/bus pass cards ("Charlie Cards") around MIT for that exact reason --- to try to scramble tracking data.)
Re: Richard Stallman’s Hypocritical Stance on Cell Phones
#9This blog post is just silly, and in my own opinion nothing more than failed linkbait. In no way, shape, or form is this hypocritical. By borrowing a phone, RMS is not making the person he is borrowing it from more trackable. They already made up their minds to own a phone, thus being trackable. Neither is he making it easier to listen in on them (he actually is making it harder). Finally in no way, shape, or form is he making himself more trackable by doing this.
The only way a could consider this hypocritical is if he asked to borrow a phone from somebody who at all times turned their phone of, and only briefly turned it on to make calls. But I'm rather sure that if he asked to borrow a phone from somebody, and their reply was, "sorry, I would rather not turn it on because I don't want to be tracked", he would respect that.
Re: Richard Stallman’s Hypocritical Stance on Cell Phones
#10Seems perfectly coherent. How would someone track me through your phone?
I don't think Gruber's objection is that it's an incoherent position, rather that it violates Stallman's stated morals. It's along the lines of being against killing animals for food, but eating a burger because your friend bought the meat and grilled it for you.
I would not kill an animal myself, but I had parts of at least two distinct ones for lunch today.