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Christine Hall of FOSS Force has interviewed Richard Stallman with a series of seven questions. The interview wraps up with a question about LLMs and a question about service as a software substitute which leads to a discussion about digital surveillance.
Let’s contrast this with traditional systems of age verification to see how much worse this is. When you buy alcoholic beverages, a store clerk will ask to see your ID, but won’t record your identity, only take note of your age. That practice respects your privacy; its surveillance impact is null. But digital age verification systems record who you are, and precisely everything you do.
At 73 years old, I am sure all the sites that do age verification would rule I am old enough. But doing the age verification would give them my name or an ID number, and I refuse to give them that.
Because of my age, I am entitled to a discount card for the Boston trains and buses. But the card would record my identity every time I board a subway train or bus. I would rather pay full fare than submit to that.
I don’t own a car, or want to, but we need to stop cars from reporting where people go. I hope to find a mechanic who will work out how to convert connected cars into “disconnected cars.” I think it could be done by wrapping some sort of metal sheets around the antennas that transmit privacy-violating data, or receive GPS. Or perhaps just unscrewing them. To do navigation, use a stand-alone GPS receiver that isn’t connected to the car’s surveillance system.
One of the dangers of tech companies storing your personal data — and personal data about you — in their servers is that agents of repression can get that data from the company without even informing you.
For more about digital surveillance, see
https://gnu.org/philosophy/surveillance-vs-democracy.html.
One long-running theme which RMS emphasizes is that software freedom remains a moral issue.
Previously:
(2023) The Four Freedoms and The One Obligation of Free Software
(2018) Happy 35th Birthday GNU!
(2018) RMS on a Radical Proposal to Keep Your Personal Data Safe
(2017) The Free Software Movement is Barking Up the Wrong Tree
(2017) US Court Upholds Enforceability of GNU GPL as Both a License and a Contract
(2015) GNU Prophet Richard Stallman Calls Windows and MacOS Malware
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 03, @01:24AM (2 children)
"Just"? Good luck! You need to find where the RF circuits are, and no matter how hard you try, some RF will leak out. Point is, for many of us it's much easier once you find the RF circuits and identify the SMD antenna (easy for EE's like me) you can, well, I'd find the chips feeding it and remove their power. That's only if I'm ever forced to have a 'net connected car. I'll keep my jalopies thank you.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Unixnut on Thursday September 03, @04:45PM (1 child)
Problem is that I suspect modern cars will not work unless they are connected to the mothership. If you disconnect/power down the tracking/spyware subsystems the car might not start, or it will be in "limp" mode until you go to a services to have them re-connect you (chargeable of course).
It will probably end up being forced, the EU has already started banning older cars from cities "to help the environment", and I expect they will carry on doing so and extending it until your choice is always-connected spyware on wheels, or using always-connected spyware public transport/taxies.
I know non-car (and even non-techy) people deliberately buy cars 2014 and older as anything newer is already too computerised and spyware infested, I too stick to even older cars, but they are getting expensive, hard to get parts for and maintain.
(Score: 2) by Bentonite on Friday September 04, @01:08AM
In a few more years, the Chinese will make enough improvements to LFP batteries and electric motor hardware, to allow for cheaply handcrafted, fully free GNU/Car and get better range than any older car.
Too bad the primary obstacle will be the government, who will complain about the quality of such vehicle.
Older cars don't seem to be much different to modern cars when it comes to the expense and difficultly of getting parts and carrying out maintenance.
Ideally a decent older car wouldn't need anything but fluid changes (until it comes time to replace the timing chain and brake pads) and with a cheap crappy car, you can ignore minor issues, like a slightly clogged fuel filter.