Online Privacy – troutish.net

It’s time – Shift the Rock (like Gough).

That classic Gough Whitlam campaign slogan “It’s Time”, is as relevant today in 2015 as it was the day his campaign launched in 1972.

The space for progressive political and economic change is once again widening, after having come under repeated attack by conservatives ever since Gough was dismissed via Double Dissolution in 1975.

At Progress, I attended a workshop called “Moving the Rock – Shifting Power for Sustained Change”, hosted by Sam La Rocca and Holly Hammond. Points raised in that workshop provided some of the key takeaways for me. Particularly, a strong reminder about the value and role of radicals.

It’s about the intersection of what is ideal and what is ‘politically achievable’. Continue reading It’s time – Shift the Rock (like Gough).

The Internet gives me hope. #100daysofblogging #Day53

The internet is one of very few things which gives me hope for the future of humanity.

Well actually it’s much more than just ‘the internet’ as a tool which give me hope.

It’s not just the sheer volume of information. It’s not just the ability to communicate instantly with dozens of people from different locations all at once.

It’s more than that.

It’s the communities I’ve become a part of and the huge variety of people I’ve met online.

From the random US citizens I spoke to on IRC in 1996, to Iraqi bloggers I met online in 2004, to local activists I met through Twitter and Facebook in 2011.

The fact that I can meet these people from the safety of my own home has made me a different person than I would have been otherwise. It broke cultural barriers and freed me from relying on mainstream sources to learn about other parts of the world.

The shareware, freeware and open source culture of online communities supply endless, high quality free to use applications for nearly every task imaginable. Continue reading The Internet gives me hope. #100daysofblogging #Day53

Patent Ending – Tesla opens up patents to competitors. #100daysofblogging #Day12

Yesterday one of the worlds leading technological innovators, Tesla Motors, announced it would open up free access to all of it’s technology patents.

I’ve never really been a fan of the patent-enforcement industry.

To me the idea of preventing a technological breakthrough from being used widely in society is counter-productive. The purpose of scientific discovery is not to line the pockets of investors, but to advance the efficiency and improve the lives of the whole human race, and indeed the lives of other animals too. So this is a smart move, in my opinion.

When a company as big as Tesla says the current patent system is not working, and genuinely does something to get around it, that sets a precedent. Continue reading Patent Ending – Tesla opens up patents to competitors. #100daysofblogging #Day12

Shut Down the National Security Agency

This is an open call to members of the international community, whether citizen, corporate or governmental, encouraging you to act immediately to circumvent and block the global communications surveillance systems set up by the National Security Agency. Additionally, I call on the United States Government to shut down the NSA entirely, as it has massively overstepped the bounds of acceptable’ state surveillance and made a mockery of both international and US domestic law.

The eyes, ears and fingertips of the NSA are all over the innocuous digital communications of people not suspected of any crime, all across the globe, including here in Australia. If you use services provided by Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, or Yahoo, your private data is probably being stolen too. Yes, that’s right, YOUR data.

Soak that up for a second.

Now, if you are anything like me you are probably wondering, who is this organisation that’s stealing my personal data? What information about me are they harvesting? What are they doing with this information? Do they have a warrant? Is it even possible to monitor all existing internet connections at once? How are they doing it? Can I stop them?
Continue reading Shut Down the National Security Agency