re:publica 2012 - Eben Moglen - Freedom of Thought Requires Free Media

When it comes to well formulated talks about free software, none seems to beat those from Stallman's lawyer, Eben Moglen. He knows very well how to speak to a crowd, and tends to use local references and languages to explain concepts (professor of law and history of law). Stallman has excellent skills in seeing problems in software before they get noticed by everyone else, but when I want to introduce someone to the philosophy of free software I would rather put on a talk like Freedom of Thought Requires Free Media from 2012 or the now 11 year old talk Die Gedanken Sind Frei from 2004. 1: ▶ this video 2: link

Just take a look at Eben Moglen[0], he is a very brilliant speaker and a brilliant man in general. Or Jérémie Zimmermann[1] for the European side. Or Benjamin Bayart for the French side. [0] ▶ this video [1] link [2] link (in french)

From an old comment of mine on the topic: ▶ this video [1] 1. "In 1995, there was a debate at Harvard Law School – four of us discussing the future of public key encryption and its control. I was on the side, I suppose, of freedom. It’s where I try to be. With me at that debate was a man called Daniel Weitzner who now works in the White House making Internet policy for the Obama administration. On the other side was the then Deputy Attorney General of the United States and a lawyer in private practice named Stewart Baker who had been chief council to the National Security Agency, our listeners, and who was then in private life helping businesses to deal with the listeners. He then became, later on, the deputy for policy planning in the Department of Homeland Security in the United States and has much to do with what happened in our network after 2001. At any rate, the four of us spent two pleasant hours debating the right to encrypt and at the end there was a little dinner party at the Harvard faculty club, and at the end, after all the food had been taken away and just the port and the walnuts were left on the table, Stuart said, “All right, among us now that we are all in private, just us girls, I’ll let our hair down.” He didn’t have much hair even then, but he let it down. “We are not going to prosecute your client, Mr. Zimmermann," he said. “Public key encryption will become available. We fought a long, losing battle against it, but it was just a delaying tactic.” And then he

From an old comment of mine on the topic: ▶ this video [1] 1. "In 1995, there was a debate at Harvard Law School – four of us discussing the future of public key encryption and its control. I was on the side, I suppose, of freedom. It’s where I try to be. With me at that debate was a man called Daniel Weitzner who now works in the White House making Internet policy for the Obama administration. On the other side was the then Deputy Attorney General of the United States and a lawyer in private practice named Stewart Baker who had been chief council to the National Security Agency, our listeners, and who was then in private life helping businesses to deal with the listeners. He then became, later on, the deputy for policy planning in the Department of Homeland Security in the United States and has much to do with what happened in our network after 2001. At any rate, the four of us spent two pleasant hours debating the right to encrypt and at the end there was a little dinner party at the Harvard faculty club, and at the end, after all the food had been taken away and just the port and the walnuts were left on the table, Stuart said, “All right, among us now that we are all in private, just us girls, I’ll let our hair down.” He didn’t have much hair even then, but he let it down. “We are not going to prosecute your client, Mr. Zimmermann," he said. “Public key encryption will become available. We fought a long, losing battle against it, but it was just a delaying tactic.” And then he

> but (...) truly people need to be responsible for what they post online. I strongly disagree. Anonymity is an important and integral part of the internet and the free speech it enables. Moving towards this sort of thing will only be used for abuse and censorship. It saddens me how much this has become an accepted position, even on hn, and I'm quite tired of all the justifications for giving up important rights, anonymity is closely related to privacy for example, just because of some scarey boogeyman of the day. Anonymity offers the ability to criticize entities (governments, corporations, people), to communicate in ways more freely than otherwise, to discuss personal issues without fear, to have a presence online without stalkers or other abusers attack, it also avoids the most common rhetorical abuse I see, which is overreliance on argument from authority by separating the identity of the person making the argument from the argument itself, and I could go on. I could go on... Do you really think the vast amount of negatives that come with your proposal would be worth the tradeoff? ▶ this video [1] 1. "In 1995, there was a debate at Harvard Law School – four of us discussing the future of public key encryption and its control. I was on the side, I suppose, of freedom. It’s where I try to be. With me at that debate was a man called Daniel Weitzner who now works in the White House making Internet policy for the Obama administration. On the other side was the then Deputy Attorney

I tend to agree. I know you are referring to karma but it also applies to comments. A few times I've found myself doing the same and then chastise myself for it. I think making comment histories private might be a potential solution, some are moving for reddit to do this. I am honestly torn, as I progress in my career and life, as a sort of contrarian type, I get more and more worried some background check algo is going to find my presence on platforms, troll my history, and find some random comment from 5 years ago that might be controversial and blackball me for it, unbeknownst to me. On the other hand, I hate the idea that we increasingly self censor as we all become more aware of this. This is why I still think anonymity is important on the internet, and lean towards burning accounts every couple of years on commenting platforms. This is also why I still value what others might call cesspools that are the chans, and of course onion sites et al. I tend to always think about this Eben Moglen talk (listen from timestamp for 4 or 5 mins) : ▶ this video

> We have police, laws, community rules, all of these things to protect our houses and personal security. If you leave the door unlocked, robbing it is still a crime. Likewise, if you walk around on an unsafe neighbourhood and get robbed, it would be ludicrous to hear "well, the city warned you that part is unsafe, so the police isn't going to investigate" The irony of this statement is that this actually happens quite often in certain east of the track neighborhoods, especially when the victim is a minority. It goes to show that this attitude, while I don't agree with it, isn't so far from the reality as you might think. Coming from out west, this is one of the cultural reasons I am pro-gun. The police are just there to draw the chalk line around your body, it is your responsibility to defend yourself, your loved ones, and your home. Always remember that the constitution was created to protect, not establish rights, rights that you have independent of the constitution itself, and of these rights, the right to self defense is one. The second amendment is simply about defense against tyranny. Even if you got rid of the second amendment I still have the right to bear arms. Which makes me wonder, how well could the right to self defense argument be applied to encryption? It's almost like everyone forgot about the 90's crypto wars, but it makes me think of something Eben Moglen said about the 90's crypto wars being just a temporary setback to TPTB; ▶ this video