Tis International Speak Like a Scurvy Pirate Day this day! Arrrrrgh!
Here be a few links to help you celebrate:
All posts by James O'Keefe
How to kill standalone social networks
Yasssu has an interesting interview with Eben Moglen about a variety of topics including government surveillance, privacy, and sharing:
The topic that drew my attention to the video was his contention that Facebook would only last for about ten years before the open web and open alternatives to it won out. He cites Diaspora, GNU Social and other efforts as the tools that are leading the way to that change and I generally agree with him. However, the flaw I see with that approach is that the variety of social services that are available is increasing at a rate that a canned aggregation service will not be able to keep up. What is needed is an api for:
- who is your friend or who you follow and thus who you trust;
- the different services to share updates you make on the service;
- the different services to talk to talk to an aggregator.
Item 1 can leverage OpenId and OAuth and there are projects such as Portable Contacts, DiSo, FOAF and XHTML Friends Network that can be built upon (or rebuilt) to provide the secure social connection information.
Item 2 requires a defined api and a willingness for social services to support it. However, RSS is pretty prevalent, so building off of that shouldn’t be a complete jump into the dark.
I am not convinced that Item 3 is desirable even on a local level. Rather, the only thing I think we need to host is our public and private connection information. Once we have that information, it would be possible to use a javascript browser plug in that pulls in our connection information and builds a status page of what our friends are doing.
With these tools in place, we won’t need Facebook, Google+ or other specific social network services to act as a man in the middle to our social lives on the net.
I do like his suggestion that we all have our own plugin computers running a server like FreedomBox that act as VPN, host our website, etc.
He touches on a wide variety of other points that I find useful and his quotes are direct and pithy, so please to take the time to watch it.
On prophecies
“Among other things which they remembered in their distress was, very naturally, the following verse which the old men said had long ago been uttered:
“A Dorian war shall come and with it death.”
[Book 2, Chapter 54, Section 2]
So a dispute arose as to whether dearth and not death had not been the word in the verse; but at the present juncture, it was of course decided in favor of the latter; for the people made their recollection fit in with their sufferings [from the plague]. I fancy, however, that if another Dorian war should ever afterwards come upon us, and a dearth should happen to accompany it, the verse will probably be read accordingly.”
[Book 2, Chapter 54, Section 3]
– Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War
Senate CISPA Up For A Vote, Help Stop it!
Posting from the Massachusetts Pirate Party web site.
The Senate will have a final vote on the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 (S 3414) soon. They just passed the cloture vote for it. This bill is the Senate version of CISPA, and remains a solution looking for a problem.
Thankfully, the Senate has listened to the outcry over CISPA and has made a bill that better protects our privacy. However, it still authorizes companies to use cybersecurity as an excuse to engage in monitoring of user data and could prevent users from using privacy-tools such as TOR over their network.
This bill has the support of the White House, so we cannot count on President Obama to veto it.
We need you to tell both Senators to oppose S 3414. Please call the numbers listed below or fill out their contact forms. Thanks!
Scott Brown
(202) 224-4543
http://scottbrown.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/emailscottbrown
John Kerry
(202) 224-2742
http://kerry.senate.gov/contact/
Follow up on my guns and government oppression post
In the (generally) Facebook discussion of my Is there an instance where an armed citizenry prevented US government oppression? post, the responses were either of the form:
- it is too early to tell (as if 200 years of US history would not give us some useful examples) or
- the examples were so small they weren’t in the historical record.
I did find two US historical examples of a group of armed citizens which successfully used firearm violence to counter what they perceived as government oppression:
- The violence by Southern whites before the Civil War to get the South to succeed;
- The violence by Southern whites during Reconstruction to reestablish the power of the white planter elite.
For the white planter elites and their supporters, they perceived that they were fighting for their liberty from what they thought of as an oppressive Federal government. However, former slaves, poor whites and most people a hundred years later would doubtless have a far different perspective.
Based on these examples, I believe that guns help authoritarian, elite power and really haven’t moved us closer to a more just society or even kept government from being oppressive. In the examples above, they have been used to foster oppression.
The larger issue I get from my albeit brief analysis is that when firearms are used by those not in power, then they will be opposed by the larger society by all means necessary (see the examples in the earlier post). When those with firearms do have power, then there isn’t a need to resort to firearms or if they do, then they can use the power of the state to full effect to back them up.
In my mind, the historical examples don’t back up the thesis that an armed citizenry keeps oppressive government at bay, but I am still willing to hear about other examples.
What music have I been listening to?
I sorted at my iTunes list by # of plays and got this top ten play list from the last year:
- Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea
- Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (Remix)
- Not a Love Song by Uh Huh Her
- Totoro
- Hey Bulldog by The Beatles
- Yellow Submarine by The Beatles
- All Together Now by The Beatles
- Ni Na La by Solas
- Explode by Uh Huh Her
- Eleanor Rigby by The Beatles
Before you think I am a big Beatles fan, I should point out that seven of the ten songs are ones my daughter chose. Pulling out the kids songs, my top ten play list for the past year has been:
- Not a Love Song by Uh Huh Her
- Ni Na La by Solas
- Explode by Uh Huh Her
- Panic Switch by Silversun Pickups
- Common Reaction by Uh Huh Her
- Bitch by Republica
- Covered by Uh Huh Her
- Wait Another Day by Uh Huh Her
- Bang Bang Bang by Sohodolls
- Sour Times by Portishead
Not really sure what this indicates about me except that I prefer female singers with (marginally) edgy lyrics. But, then I knew that already.
Is there an instance where an armed citizenry prevented US government oppression?
One of the assumed truths in the US is that an armed citizenry will prevent the US government from becoming oppressive and taking away our liberties. Recently I have seen people state that the Tea Party folks brought guns to their rallies and the police were respectful of their rights to assemble, but the Occupy movement (and various left-oriented movements in the past) didn't have guns and so got attacked by the police.
I am curious about this line of reasoning and have been seeking an actual instance of when an armed citizenry prevented government oppression.
I can think of examples where an armed citizenry didn't stop government oppression such as:
- Shay's Rebellion,
- the Whisky Rebellion,
- post-civil war oppression and disenfranchisement of African-Americans,
- the anarchists around the turn of last century and
- the internment of the Japanese during World War II,
- the treatment of the Black Panther Party in the 60/70s.
Indeed that the anarchists or Black Panther party had weapons (and sometimes used them in self-defense) were used as excuses to use overwhelming government power and surveillance on them, which is part of the reason nonviolent tactics proved more effective.
Are there instances where firearms really did stop government oppression or did they only serve to bolster the power and privileges of the (generally) white wealthy power structure? I know some of you will think the question is loaded, but I am seriously trying to find an instance where firearms did stop government oppression.
ACTA is Dead!
Reposted from the Mass. Pirate Party blog.
In a 478-to-39 vote, the European Parliament rejected ACTA. For all intents ACTA is dead. Without EU support and with other countries rejecting it, ACTA is unlikely to go anywhere.
No doubt parts of it will reappear in other secret draft treaties, especially the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement. But on this Independence Day, we thank all who voiced their opposition to ACTA, especially the European Pirate and Green Parties!
Rango and Bragg
Short post today, though I may have more later.
Searching around to watch something with the family on Wednesday, we happened on Rango, which we missed when it came out in theaters. It was funny and seemed a Chinatown with cartoon animals and a happy ending. Johnny Depp was the voice of Rango, so its humor was a little off center, which I rather liked.
On Thursday, the kids went to see the local fireworks show while my wife and I went to a Billy Bragg concert. I was surprised that I saw fourteen people I knew there, especially since many were folks I would not have expected to be there. The first half of the concert was his Woody Guthrie/Mermaid Avenue songs, while the second half was made up of his other work. The crowd was a mix of ages, though generally white, and a higher percentage of folks over 40.
Three quotes of his I rather liked:
- socialism is organized compassion
- the cynicism that is our enemy is our own cynicism
- our enemy is not capitalism, or conservatism, it is our own cynicism
The last quote not withstanding, he is still very much the socialist and a fine musician and song writer at that.
I’ll be at the Liquid Feedback Hackathon this Sunday, 3pm
The German Pirate Party created Liquid Feedback over a year ago to allow party members to debate and decide on their platform and other issues. They have been using it successfully. Here is a video explaining it (in English):
On Sunday, 7/1, I will be helping with the Massachusetts Pirate Party’s hackathon to get our own copy of Liquid Feedback running. We will start at 3pm and will go until we are done or until asked to leave, whichever comes first. The hackathon will be at 45 Bromfield #2, Somerville 02144.
Please sign up if you want to help so we know who will be there.
If you cannot make it in person, then you can join us on the #masspirates irc channel at pirateirc.net. We will also post our progress at the #masspirates twitter hashtag.