www/philosophy surveillance-vs-democracy.html

[Richard M. Stallman]

CVSROOT:        /web/www
Module name:    www
Changes by:     Richard M. Stallman <rms>       14/01/19 05:24:25

Modified files:
        philosophy     : surveillance-vs-democracy.html 

Log message:
        Add section about self-protection in general.
        Minor cleanup about bitcoin.

CVSWeb URLs:
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/philosophy/surveillance-vs-democracy.html?cvsroot=www&r1=1.13&r2=1.14

Patches:
Index: surveillance-vs-democracy.html
===================================================================
RCS file: /web/www/www/philosophy/surveillance-vs-democracy.html,v
retrieving revision 1.13
retrieving revision 1.14
diff -u -b -r1.13 -r1.14
--- surveillance-vs-democracy.html      6 Dec 2013 00:34:21 -0000       1.13
+++ surveillance-vs-democracy.html      19 Jan 2014 05:24:24 -0000      1.14
@@ -157,6 +157,34 @@
 collect data starting at that date.  As for suspending or momentarily
 ignoring this law, the idea would hardly make sense.</p>
 
+<h3>First, Don't Be Foolish</h3>
+
+<p>To have privacy, you must not throw it away: the first one who has
+to protect your privacy is you.  Don't tell a company such as Facebook
+anything about you that you hesitate to publish in a newspaper.  Don't
+tell a company such as Facebook anything about your friends that they
+might hesitate to publish in a newspaper.  Never give any web site
+your entire list of email or phone contacts.  Keep your own data;
+don't store your data in a company's &ldquo;convenient&rdquo;
+server.</p>
+
+<p>Don't use non-free software since, as well as giving others control
+of your computing, it
+is <a href="/philosophy/proprietary-surveillance.html"> likely to spy
+on you </a>.  Don't
+use <a href="/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html">
+service as a software substitute </a>; as well as giving others
+control of your computing, it requires you to deliver all the
+pertinent data to the server.  It's safe, however, to entrust a data
+backup to a commercial service, provided you encrypted the data,
+including the file names, with free software on your own computer
+before uploading it.</p>
+
+<p>However, even the most rigorous self-protection is insufficient to
+protect your privacy on or from systems that don't belong to you.
+When you communicate with others or move around the city, everyone's
+privacy depends on the practices of society.</p>
+
 <h3>We Must Design Every System for Privacy</h3>
 
 <p>If we don't want a total surveillance society, we must consider
@@ -245,9 +273,10 @@
 payments&mdash;anonymous for the payer, that is.  (We don't want the
 payee to dodge taxes.)  <a
 href="http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/05/lets-cut-through-the-bitcoin-hype/";>
-Bitcoin is not anonymous</a>, but technology for <a
+Bitcoin is not anonymous</a>, though there are efforts to develop
+ways to pay anonymously with Bitcoin.  However, technology for <a
 href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.12/emoney_pr.html";> digital
-cash was first developed 25 years ago</a>; we need only suitable
+cash was first developed in the 1980s</a>; we need only suitable
 business arrangements, and for the state not to obstruct them.</p>
 
 <p>A further threat from sites' collection of personal data is that
@@ -456,7 +485,7 @@
 
 <p>Updated:
 <!-- timestamp start -->
-$Date: 2013/12/06 00:34:21 $
+$Date: 2014/01/19 05:24:24 $
 <!-- timestamp end -->
 </p>
 </div>