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The Joy of Slow Computing

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Re: The Joy of Slow Computing

#41

Post by seiji »

omouse wrote: post #37

>Eric Schmidt doesn’t care if I’m using Emacs Actually, yes he does especially if you use GNU/Linux because that runs the world. The importance of free/open source is so great that if the popular libraries switched to a proprietary license a lot of companies would go bankrupt paying the license fees.

Licensing is the reason all the Apple GNU tools are forever stuck on old versions now. Once the tools moved to GPLv3, Apple stopped updating them. Check out how old your version of /bin/bash is on a completely up-to-date OS X machine.

Re: The Joy of Slow Computing

#42

Post by copsarebastards »

chriswarbo wrote: post #30

> The May First team has a record of resistance to snooping law enforcement agencies; over the phone, McClelland told me about the security system they’d built around the servers, which relays its data outside U.S. borders. Hmm... If I remember correctly, sending data outside the US will cause the US security agencies to treat it as "foreign", and hence a legitimate target for surveillance.

Yes, but this is only one of the excuses US Security Agencies use to target traffic, and there are enough other excuses that almost all traffic is eligible for surveillance.

Legal approaches such as those taken by the EFF and ACLU have a lot of value, but I don't think a legal approach of trying to keep your traffic legally un-tappable is going to work. It's clear that the NSA et al are above the law and unconcerned with your rights, so until that is fixed, it's too easy to fall into a "grey" area where they have an excuse to monitor your traffic. Fundamentally this is an approach that tries to make it so the NSA won't surveil your traffic, which places an unearned amount of trust in the NSA. I think a better approach makes it so that they can't surveil your traffic--and for this there are only technical solutions.

Part of this is making sure that the NSA can't spy on who you are talking to, and every solution I know of to that bouncing traffic across multiple servers. I would be very skeptical of such a system that didn't bounce traffic overseas.

Re: The Joy of Slow Computing

#43

Post by dTal »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #25

I'm not sure I like the idea of calling the use of open source tools "slow computing", and connecting it up in people's minds the way we think about a middle-class fashion. Or maybe I'm just concerned about the middle class hipsters choosing open source tools ironically or without thought. It might give it an air of exclusion it does not - can not - deserve. I don't want open source tools to become equivalent to a mi…

I don't think you need to worry. If people are picking open source tools purely because they're cool, then that means they're cool, and that's an enormous victory.

I've also thought that "organic" would be a cute way to brand Free software, but then again "organic" food is usually more expensive...

Re: The Joy of Slow Computing

#44

Post by schoen »

superuser2 wrote: post #18
mark_l_watson wrote: post #3

As much as I enjoy playing with my Linux, OS X, and Windows 8.1 laptops, I have thought of going the free and privacy enhanced mode of Linux, running my OwnCloud, etc. The thing that holds me back is that I really rely on my Android smartphone for being able to SSH to a server anytime, write, and generally work on most stuff, only slower. The problem is that smart phones track us, even with custimization and are not…

>smart phones track us How do you imagine participating in a network such that it isn't tracking you? - Identifying which port/antenna it's receiving you on (i.e. switching tables, tower pings) is tracking. - Tagging your traffic with your unique identifier (i.e. MAC and IP addresses) is tracking. - Figuring out where to send replies to your requests is impossible without extensive, persistent tracking. How do you ha…

One important element would be to rotate the hardware identifiers frequently, and, if the network is collecting payment from its users, totally decouple billing from any persistent identifier (for example, with blinded signatures). You also want to decouple user-oriented communication services from network connectivity, so your mobile operator shouldn't give you a phone number (or e-mail address), just generic IP connectivity to reach other services that give you those things. That's a start!

The reason that we have persist identifiers with mobile phones historically is all about billing and call completion. If we did the billing and call completion at other layers that weren't tied to a mobile subscriber's identity, we could ditch the persistent identifiers and use much more temporary ones (much like you could still get on a wifi network with DHCP even if you changed your MAC address every 5 minutes, and you could also netcat anonymous voucher tokens to a network provider's server to prove your entitlement to receive connectivity).

Re: The Joy of Slow Computing

#45

Post by nickpsecurity »

hueving wrote: post #12
nickpsecurity wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would reply to that but it's easy to misinterpret a statement like that. What do you mean by that?

The popular stuff is what is frequently played which is what appeals to the lowest common denominator.

Ahh. Yeah that makes plenty of sense lol. I agree for many pop songs.

Re: The Joy of Slow Computing

#46

Post by nickpsecurity »

yoz-y wrote: post #19
nickpsecurity wrote: post #2

It was an interesting and different kind of article. I particularly loved his attack on companies' claims to democratize some function. I know there's two meanings to the word but we're better off using (verbally and as consumers) the more important one. They're just cheapening the concept for profit. The other thing I liked was how the author took ownership of the situation while expecting less at the same time. I h…

For me "democracy" in this context is used as social equality and commonness (both are dictionary definitions). As such, I think that "democratising" and "making cheaper for profit" are far from being mutually exclusive. Companies use the word democratising because of a lack of a better word I assume. Nevertheless, and this is apparent from the article, the biggest price to pay for Slow Computing is to consecrate it…

You're right about the equality aspect of things getting cheaper. We discussed this on Schneier's blog. It's compatible with "make accessible to everyone" definition. I think, playing devil's advocate, my counter was that we often don't get the same thing because we lack the quality, support, or privacy of prior, paid solutions. My Gmail, Dropbox, and so on are selling me out. My MyKolab and secure hosting solution cost a bit more with totally different effect.

I think the "features" are getting democratized by most of these companies but other critical aspects don't. They don't either because they cost too much to implement or too much profit will be lost by opportunities to sell users out. So, as part of it gets democratized, a serious loss happens as either a tradeoff or straight subversion. The original it isn't democratized: only a watered-down, less trustworthy version which may or may not be a good deal. More good ones all the time, at least. :)

Thoughts?

Re: The Joy of Slow Computing

#47

Post by superuser2 »

schoen wrote: post #44
superuser2 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>smart phones track us How do you imagine participating in a network such that it isn't tracking you? - Identifying which port/antenna it's receiving you on (i.e. switching tables, tower pings) is tracking. - Tagging your traffic with your unique identifier (i.e. MAC and IP addresses) is tracking. - Figuring out where to send replies to your requests is impossible without extensive, persistent tracking. How do you ha…

One important element would be to rotate the hardware identifiers frequently, and, if the network is collecting payment from its users, totally decouple billing from any persistent identifier (for example, with blinded signatures). You also want to decouple user-oriented communication services from network connectivity, so your mobile operator shouldn't give you a phone number (or e-mail address), just generic IP con…

Receiving calls is a critical (/the only) point of a cell phone for many people. How do you route the right call to the right hardware if you can't associate the hardware with a phone number?

Re: The Joy of Slow Computing

#48

Post by jcbrand »

panzerboy wrote: post #36
jcbrand wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My 2c. I host my own mail server, owncloud, RSS reader, bookmarker, blog and a bunch of other stuff. I don't particularly like sysadmin tasks or having to update stuff and then hope that nothing breaks, but I love the fact that I'm in control of my data and my computing experience. On my phone I've been using Android without a Google account and I use the F-droid app store. There are definitely still ways I'm being s…

Can you please elaborate a bit on what you're using for your RSS reader and bookmarker? (and the bunch of other stuff :-) Thanks!

I've been wanting to write a blog post about this transition for ages. Perhaps I should.

Here's a quick list:

* Cloud (files, contacts, photos, calendar): https://owncloud.org

* RSS Reader: http://selfoss.aditu.de/

* Bookmarks (ala pocket): https://www.wallabag.org/

* Email: http://www.iredmail.org/

* Chat/XMPP: http://prosody.im

* Git: http://gitolite.com/gitolite/index.html

* Blog: Blogophile static site generator (but wouldn't recommend anymore, Jekyll is better).

I keep my contacts and calendar on owncloud and sync to my Android with DavDroid https://davdroid.bitfire.at/what-is-davdroid

On my phone I installed CyanogenMod without Google apps but I recently got a one+ phone with CM installed by default (with Google apps). https://oneplus.net/

Re: The Joy of Slow Computing

#49

Post by schoen »

superuser2 wrote: post #47
schoen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One important element would be to rotate the hardware identifiers frequently, and, if the network is collecting payment from its users, totally decouple billing from any persistent identifier (for example, with blinded signatures). You also want to decouple user-oriented communication services from network connectivity, so your mobile operator shouldn't give you a phone number (or e-mail address), just generic IP con…

Receiving calls is a critical (/the only ) point of a cell phone for many people. How do you route the right call to the right hardware if you can't associate the hardware with a phone number?

If you want to do that, you need to register with someone who can give you a phone number, but ideally not your carrier. You could conceivably have a SIP-like model where you can send control connections over Tor and media connections over the regular Internet.

(I think the Guardian Project has tried making actual VoIP calls over TCP over Tor, and I don't know how well it worked out for them. So I'm assuming you won't be able to route the media streams anonymously, maybe just the control channel.)

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