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Notices by Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com), page 8

  1. Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Friday, 05-Oct-2018 22:16:09 EDT Mike Gerwitz Mike Gerwitz
    • Christine Lemmer-Webber
    I haven't had much time to read my GNU Social feed over the past few months, but every time I do, I end up playing Emacs tetris because of @cwebber's avatar.

    Not that I'm complaining.
    In conversation Friday, 05-Oct-2018 22:16:09 EDT from social.mikegerwitz.com permalink
  2. Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Oct-2018 20:50:59 EDT Mike Gerwitz Mike Gerwitz
    https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2018/aug/22/commons-clause/
    In conversation Wednesday, 03-Oct-2018 20:50:59 EDT from social.mikegerwitz.com permalink

    Attachments

    1. Software Freedom Ensures the True Software Commons
      from Software Freedom Conservancy
      Proprietary software has always been about a power relationship. Copyright and other legal systems give authors the power to decide what license to choose, and usually, they choose a license that favors themselves and takes rights and permissions away from others.The so-called “Commons Clause” purposely confuses and conflates many issues. The initiative is backed by FOSSA, a company that sells materiel in the proprietary compliance industrial complex. This clause recently made news again since other parties have now adopted this same license.
  3. doctorow (doctorow@mamot.fr)'s status on Monday, 01-Oct-2018 12:04:12 EDT doctorow doctorow

    Justin Trudeau's NAFTA concessions include 20 year copyright extension
    https://boingboing.net/2018/10/01/o-no-canada.html

    In conversation Monday, 01-Oct-2018 12:04:12 EDT from mamot.fr permalink Repeated by mikegerwitz

    Attachments

    1. Justin Trudeau's NAFTA concessions include 20 year copyright extension
      By Cory Doctorow from Boing Boing
      Justin Trudeau's NAFTA concessions include 20 year copyright extension
  4. Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Thursday, 06-Sep-2018 23:27:26 EDT Mike Gerwitz Mike Gerwitz
    #LibrePlanet2019 will be March 23-24 in the Greater Boston Area in MA:

    https://libreplanet.org/2019/

    This is the one event that I must make it to each year, and I encourage everyone to attend and see the faces of many that are at the heart of the free software community.

    Consider submitting a session! Or, if you can't make it but plan on watching online, maybe help someone else attend by contributing to the travel fund. The call for sessions ends October 26th.

    I'll be attending again this year, and I plan on submitting a session proposal. I won't have the time to do my 100+hr research talks like the past couple years, so maybe I'll fall back on something more technical that I won't have to research.

    It's still a ways off, but if you do plan on attending, do let me know so I can say hello!
    In conversation Thursday, 06-Sep-2018 23:27:26 EDT from social.mikegerwitz.com permalink
  5. Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Aug-2018 00:11:46 EDT Mike Gerwitz Mike Gerwitz
    • sajith
    @sajith I was not aware; thanks for sharing.
    In conversation Wednesday, 01-Aug-2018 00:11:46 EDT from social.mikegerwitz.com permalink
  6. Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Tuesday, 31-Jul-2018 23:38:33 EDT Mike Gerwitz Mike Gerwitz
    • codesections
    @codesections Ah, small world! I think it's generally preferred that others link to works, rather than the original author (with the exception of "Show HN" things). HN is a news aggregator; it exists for others to share links with one-another.

    Thanks for sharing it, though. I'm happy to see the topic getting attention.
    In conversation Tuesday, 31-Jul-2018 23:38:33 EDT from social.mikegerwitz.com permalink
  7. Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Tuesday, 31-Jul-2018 23:10:08 EDT Mike Gerwitz Mike Gerwitz
    in reply to
    • Mike Gerwitz
    • samir
    @samir (I say "degrade", but I don't mean for that to sound as though plain text is inferior---I'd usually rather have plain text.)
    In conversation Tuesday, 31-Jul-2018 23:10:08 EDT from social.mikegerwitz.com permalink
  8. Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Tuesday, 31-Jul-2018 23:09:16 EDT Mike Gerwitz Mike Gerwitz
    • samir
    @samir I'm hoping that websites themselves strip out a lot of the junk, not just provide alternative sites. If a site is well-written, it should degrade well to plain text. I'm in favor of progressive enhancement.
    In conversation Tuesday, 31-Jul-2018 23:09:16 EDT from social.mikegerwitz.com permalink
  9. Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Tuesday, 31-Jul-2018 22:30:50 EDT Mike Gerwitz Mike Gerwitz
    in reply to
    • Mike Gerwitz
    • Christine Lemmer-Webber
    @cwebber ...and I could have just have looked at the pages using the image (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra_(metaphor)). TIL! Thanks for the reference.
    In conversation Tuesday, 31-Jul-2018 22:30:50 EDT from social.mikegerwitz.com permalink
  10. Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Tuesday, 31-Jul-2018 22:28:40 EDT Mike Gerwitz Mike Gerwitz
    • Christine Lemmer-Webber
    @cwebber Admittedly, I don't get the reference. But any club Chris Webber is in sounds like a pretty cool club to be in to me! ;)
    In conversation Tuesday, 31-Jul-2018 22:28:40 EDT from social.mikegerwitz.com permalink
  11. Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Tuesday, 31-Jul-2018 22:10:58 EDT Mike Gerwitz Mike Gerwitz
    This article is popular right now on HN:

    https://pxlnv.com/blog/bullshit-web/

    It's something that many of us have been saying for many years. But I've been largely insulated from it: I have blocked all scripts and ads (for privacy and security reasons, but also because most sites serve proprietary JavaScript code) for years. If it weren't for my research (https://mikegerwitz.com/talks), I wouldn't have realized just how bad it has become.

    I've also run all my browsing through #Tor for years. And what this article reminds me of (but does not mention; this is unrelated) is how Tor used to be so painfully slow---worse than dialup. It has improved drastically over the years, but by design, it's always going to be slower than directly connecting to a webserver.

    But despite that, websites often finish loading for me much faster than those who use the "normal" web over a normal connection, because it's not loading so much shit. That also allows me to stick to <256MiB of data per month on my mobile plan, despite browsing sites linked to on HN and despite the extra packets from Tor itself. (Btw, text.npr.org is great, for those who didn't know of it.)

    The very things that got me downvoted into oblivion on HN years ago are now the popular, obvious things. Why do things have to get so _bad_ before most people begin to care?
    In conversation Tuesday, 31-Jul-2018 22:10:58 EDT from social.mikegerwitz.com permalink

    Attachments

    1. The Bullshit Web
      My home computer in 1998 had a 56K modem connected to our telephone line; we were allowed a maximum of thirty minutes of computer usage a day, because my parents — quite reasonably — did not want to have their telephone shut off for an evening at a time. I remember webpages loading slowly: ten […]
  12. Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Jul-2018 22:58:10 EDT Mike Gerwitz Mike Gerwitz
    in reply to
    • Free Software Foundation
    @fsf Though, I do suspect that the user is referring to non-free software when he/she says "our own software"; such software does not work for us and is _not_ our own. But free software does serve the user, and is something users can call their own.

    Despite my emphasis, it's good to see the perspective.
    In conversation Wednesday, 25-Jul-2018 22:58:10 EDT from social.mikegerwitz.com permalink
  13. Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Tuesday, 24-Jul-2018 21:26:55 EDT Mike Gerwitz Mike Gerwitz
    in reply to
    • Mike Gerwitz
    To clarify: they cut out the beginning part of the question but left the end of it to make it seem as if the reporter was asking Putin something entirely different.
    In conversation Tuesday, 24-Jul-2018 21:26:55 EDT from social.mikegerwitz.com permalink
  14. Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Tuesday, 24-Jul-2018 21:18:58 EDT Mike Gerwitz Mike Gerwitz
    Wow. The White House has omitted, from their official transcript of the Trump-Putin meeting in Helsinki, the most memorable part of the meeting:

    https://social.mikegerwitz.com/url/39414

    I just saw reported on MSNBC that they also _edited the question out of the video_.

    This is what you expect from Russia. From China. From North Korea. From authoritarian regimes that exercise full control over their population and control what information reaches them. This 1984-style rewriting of history is deeply troubling.

    We're used to lies from Trump and his administration, but blatantly and so obviously attempting to conceal actual history---where so many other accounts exist, and where so many people were present---is a new low. And a stupid one at that, considering it is so easily refuted.
    In conversation Tuesday, 24-Jul-2018 21:18:58 EDT from social.mikegerwitz.com permalink

    Attachments

    1. The White House Transcript Is Missing the Most Explosive Part of the Trump–Putin Press Conference
      from The Atlantic
      It’s not clear whether the omission was intended, but the meaning of a key exchange is dramatically altered as a result.
  15. Yale Privacy Lab (privacylab@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 20-Jul-2018 11:42:45 EDT Yale Privacy Lab Yale Privacy Lab
    in reply to
    • Mike Gerwitz

    @mikegerwitz as we say in teaching materials... Access to source is a prerequisite for - not a guarantee of - software security.

    In conversation Friday, 20-Jul-2018 11:42:45 EDT from mastodon.social permalink Repeated by mikegerwitz
  16. Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Thursday, 19-Jul-2018 22:14:08 EDT Mike Gerwitz Mike Gerwitz
    • ar.al🌻
    • Mozilla
    @aral I am opposed to certain decisions @Mozilla has made, but characterizing Mozilla as a "surveillance capitalist" is dishonest and undermines a lot of good, important work that they do.
    In conversation Thursday, 19-Jul-2018 22:14:08 EDT from social.mikegerwitz.com permalink
  17. Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Thursday, 19-Jul-2018 22:03:51 EDT Mike Gerwitz Mike Gerwitz
    • Yale Privacy Lab
    @privacylab The article also mentions:

    > In 2006, the same period when ES&S says it was still installing pcAnywhere on election systems, [attackers] stole the source code for the pcAnyhere software, though the public didn’t learn of this until years later in 2012 when a hacker posted some of the source code online, forcing Symantec, the distributor of pcAnywhere, to admit that it had been stolen years earlier. Source code is invaluable to [attackers] because it allows them to examine the code to find security flaws they can exploit.

    It's worth noting that access to the source code of the software should have no impact on the security of that software---"security through obscurity", as it is called, is not security. Users should expect that the source code for all software they use has been made publicly available (and is free/libre software) as a precondition for any claims of "security" so that anyone and everyone can audit it, track changes, and improve upon it.
    In conversation Thursday, 19-Jul-2018 22:03:51 EDT from social.mikegerwitz.com permalink
  18. Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Jul-2018 21:01:09 EDT Mike Gerwitz Mike Gerwitz
    https://engineering.riotgames.com/news/riots-approach-anti-cheat

    Wow. The antithesis of software freedom taken to an extreme.
    In conversation Tuesday, 17-Jul-2018 21:01:09 EDT from social.mikegerwitz.com permalink

    Attachments

    1. Riot's Approach to Anti-Cheat
      https://riot.com/2mgcpBj #RiotTechBlog
  19. Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz@social.mikegerwitz.com)'s status on Sunday, 08-Jul-2018 22:21:47 EDT Mike Gerwitz Mike Gerwitz
    The EFF helps to defend a language teacher against #patent abuse, which they argue as invalid under Alice:

    https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/07/effs-help-language-teacher-responds-ridiculous-patent-threat

    They further used it as an example to Congress on how disastrous bad patents can be.

    I love seeing stories like this: I support the EFF with membership not only because of the good, important work that the do at a policy and activism level, but also because of the work they do in defending the rights of individuals and small groups that would be unable to do so themselves.
    In conversation Sunday, 08-Jul-2018 22:21:47 EDT from social.mikegerwitz.com permalink

    Attachments

    1. With EFF’s Help, Language Teacher Responds to Ridiculous Patent Threat
      from Electronic Frontier Foundation
      Foreign languages have been taught, and studied, for thousands of years. People who teach languages are the last folks that should be dealing with patent threat letters—but incredibly, that’s exactly what has happened to Mihalis Eleftheriou. Hodder and Stoughton, a large British publisher, has sent...
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