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Mr. Schneier and friends have created a new website to promote a change to the socio-economic technical milieu we are currently facing.
He suggests we need to have "public interest technologists" to help the situation.
He writes:
"We need technologists who work in the public interest. We need public-interest technologists.
Defining this term is difficult. One Ford Foundation blog post described public-interest technologists as "technology practitioners who focus on social justice, the common good, and/or the public interest.""
Is he right? How can this be implemented without becoming as riddled with government agents, spies and mafias as the key positions of our corporations and institutions are right now?
Full disclosure: this writer has been a public interest technologist for a while now and I have actually alluded to the need for something like what is being suggested on multiple occasions, 'a different kind of organization' is the way I put it, way back a few months ago.
Discuss.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 14 2019, @10:19AM (1 child)
That initiative usually just leads to schools handing out locked-down junk ridden with non-free proprietary user-subjugating software. It denies students the ability to educate themselves about how the software operates (via the source code), the ability to make changes to the software, and independence. Schools are supposed to promote education and independence, which is why they should never use proprietary software or, even worse, force students to use it.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday October 14 2019, @11:46AM
Yes, that's another related area that needs advocating. Walled gardens are bad. In the past, and without meaning to, the keepers of these gardens would do a very effective job of showing everyone why walled gardens are bad by doing something stupid, such as taking away popular functionality or content. And they'd spout laughable propaganda that DRM was good because it kept users safe from piracy. Windows Vista was an example of that kind of stupidity. These vendors of the proprietary backpedal quickly when they see they've pushed their customers too far. Yet the customers still settle too fast, for too little. Maybe some advocacy could help show them they're still getting a bad deal.