Stallman: Facebook is Mass Surveillance (opens in new tab)

PS: AGPL is the strictest GPL there is, like, LGPL is a looser version of GPL. It pretty much means, you give away almost all the stack. I don't understand the whole license, but I do know it's the strictest.

The problem is: FB has all these things together: blog, e-mail, network of people and surfing habits (inside FB, at least). For you and recursively for each friend of yours.

Remember it's not just IP address, but could be cookies. Facebook can set a cookie that will be stored in your browser and will be sent to facebook each time. So if your laptop moves around, then the facebook cookie follows you.

Since this is at the browser level there are browser extensions that will block this for you if you want.

Well it can be way worse than just a simple IP. When you ask for a picture your browser send a bunch of infos about you that can be dangerous because it gives a footprint. If you want to see that go to that page ( hosted by EFF) it shows you how it can be used to fingerprint you: http://panopticlick.eff.org/index.php?action=log&js=yes

Also there are other attacks that can be used to go even further using for example browser cache. The browser cache has a field that can be set by the server and generally is the date for the expiration of content you are asking. But... when first designed it accepts a random string, so for example an UUID... This cache cannot be cleaned with normal procedures and you are tagged without your consent.

Other techniques can be used with Flash and cookie revival has been actively performed by companies like Quantcast. (look it up on the net)

So... what Mr. Stallman has said is true to an extent that only few people know and that's a pretty big deal.

A few points:

1) To Stallman, having the 4 Freedoms[1] to any software you acquire (paid or not) is an Human Right. And of course, you don't violate human rights just because it employs some people. So your question is completely irrelevant to him.

2) It's Free is as in Freedom, not Beer. You can charge for free software and in fact he encourages you to charge as much as you can. Of course, any of those buyers might start distributing it for free, but on the other hand, people could have also bought the Humble Bundle for almost nothing and yet they chose to pay a decent amount.

3) You're discounting the software - possibly most of it - which is produced either in-house or by a company contracting with another to write it. If a company needs some software which doesn't exist yet, or to add some feature to an existing FOSS package, they'll pay.

In fact, I have friends which work on a company which makes money by adapting Free Software to others' needs.

4) You're leaving out value adds. Red Hat makes money, despite CentOS. Reddit makes money, despite having a repository with all the code. If your software depends on a service, you can give away the software and charge for the service.

[1]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

1) If you are busy protesting by blocking a street this causes you inconvenience as you can only physically be in one place at once. Whereas leaving your computer on to DOS while you go out to a bar isn't exactly a hardship.

2) Many of the DDOSers would not even be remotely aware of what they are doing , see the JS worm that they used recently.

This is ridiculous. I understand that the current IP legislation is a load of crap but trying to get ALL software to be free is absurd. How are developers going to live? How about groceries? Can I pay for that? Or that should be free as well?

You've just opened up a huge topic there, has been discussed on HN lots of times and while I have seen good arguments for copyright-less software in many areas (OS kernels , web frameworks etc) there are others where I don't think anyone has thought of another viable business model (at least not one that isn't even more freedom restricting in some way).

Some would argue that these areas should just disappear or be done only by hobbyists but I think I would miss professionally produced video games for example, indie or AAA.

To clarify though, I doubt that Stallman would support Anonymous or people who want to pirate software. To him any software that is not libre is irrelevant and should be rejected regardless of monetary cost or who distributes it.

The Free in Free Software stands for freedom. He is not making a statement on pricing, but on liberty.

Furthermore, I must say that his DDOS argument is a lot more valid than you give it credit. After all, it IS possible to DDOS a site without malicious intent, just ask any celebrity on twitter who tweeted about a site he or she liked. And who is to say that some protests today don't consist of people who have been either paid (western countries) or forced (eastern countries) to attend them?

Some business models are impossible without slavery. Does this mean slavery should be allowed?

Stallman's argument here is the same: if the particular software you make can't survive financially without abusing people, then you shouldn't have a right to make that software. And he considers all proprietary software to be abusing people's human rights.

So if you want to counter him, saying that it will put developers out if work is no more valid that saying that abolition of slavery is bad because of the financial hardship it would impose on the cotton industry.

To counter Stallman, you have to come up with arguments showing that non free software does not abuse its users.

let me give you an example the first few pieces of FSF software was distributed by RMS by computer tape and he charged for that and that revenue paid for his living expenses.

The other big example is Redhat/JBoss..everyone of their workers get paid through services charged..

It's only actually completely voluntary if you have infinite money and no issue (and no repercussion from) completely dropping whole social and professional circles out of your life.

And that still requires the network/system is honest about it[0], when Google automagically creates a G+ account for you when you sign up for (supposedly) unrelated services or forces you to create one to access other content, "voluntary" is really debatable. Again, unless you have no issue shedding whole social circles instantly.

[0] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/01/google-doubles-p...

Imagine I start a FREE postal delivery service for writing letters to your friends. But when your letter shows up at the destination, it is full of advertisements that I hand picked for your friend based on the content of your correspondence. Oh yeah, also the police asked for a copy of the letter. Oh yeah, and we also showed the letter to a bunch of your other friends because we changed our delivery rules and figured you wanted to opt-in. Didn't think you would mind.

But you can't complain. The service was free and you signed up voluntarily.

I'm neither pro / con on the Facebook thing. I never know when the real world rules should apply to the electrons. I think we are just making it up as we go.

My personal email. My work email (can infer where I work from this). Many of the people whom I know who searched for me on facebook. Highschool friend links (can infer my highschool and possibly even age from this). I know for a fact that they have photos of me tagged with my name.

I didn't authorize any of this, yet there it is. Never before has it been so easy to aggregate this sort of information, or perhaps even possible.

Now (regarding other more strong notes on this thread) - Stallman has his opinions and he supports them in a very logical way (albeit a bit too passionate). Moreover, he tries to support personal freedom, which in my books is more of an American value than anyone's else. So, trying to dump the real issue here by referring to what RT may be (according to what sounds like post modern cold war psychosis) is at least cheap propaganda.