Whenever a person asks me for a Riseup invitation, I ask them a simple question: “why?” If their answer is “privacy”, I’ll tell them that their privacy practices are more important than the service they use. It doesn’t mean that it’s good to use Gmail, it means that if they don’t meet the basic requirements of respect for their privacy, safe tools will not help them.
Continue readingCategory Archives: Cyberspace
Google knows enough, switch to libre search
It’s needless to say that Big Tech are tracking everything you do. They know what you like, what you dislike, what you need in life, where you come from, where are you going, and many other details. They probably know about you more than you yourself. One of the biggest parts of GMAFIA, is the G, Google.
Google is one of the biggest parts of our lifes. People are depending on Google more than anything. They use Google Search to find stuff, GMail for their email service, they use Googlized Android OS, Google Maps for navigation, Google Drive for cloud storage, and other privacy-violating stuff. This is wrong.
Continue readingNextcloud is even better than Google Drive
It’s not a long time that I’ve been using Nextcloud. Before that, I had to host everything locally on encrypted drives. Google Drive (and apps) were available all the time but I didn’t want to use them because not swimming at all is much better than swimming in pool full of shit.
The situation remained the same until I found out about Nextcloud. Nextcloud is a complete solution for people like me who are careful about the software they use and how their privacy is affected.
Continue readingFree yourself from ‘Play Store’ and start using F-Droid
Almost all of our Android phones come with a modified Android OS that uses Google services. As you (probably) know, Google is not much of a privacy-respecting company to trust. I personally suggest deGoogled operating systems such as /e/ or LineageOS but if you can’t replace your Android phone OS with such operating systems, you can at least start using free software apps on your phone and get rid of Google.
F-Droid is a community-maintained software repository for Android, similar to the Google Play store. The main repository, hosted by the project, contains only free libre software apps. Applications can be browsed and installed from the F-Droid website or client app without the need to register for an account.
I believe the best app store for free software Android apps is F-Droid. You can download its APK file from their site. F-Droid supports many languages so if you want your app store in your language, you probably won’t have any problems.
You also don’t need to worry if the app you want isn’t on F-Droid. You can always find a free libre alternative app. For example, instead of GMail, you can use K-9 Mail (website – F-Droid) which are compatible with OpenKeychain (website – F-Droid) for encrypting your messages. Even if you don’t want K-9 Mail, you can have many other libre alternatives. There’s a libre software app for every need.
There’s even clients for Facebook Messenger if you still don’t want to leave it. i really suggest you to start using privacy-focused services but if you don’t want to, you still have libre clients to use with F-Droid.
Solar Opposites
I’ve been watching Solar Opposites series and the second episode (season 1) mentions privacy in funny ways. You should watch it.
I’m looking for someone who can host a WordPress website
UPDATE: I Moved to WordPress
Since few years ago, I’m building my blogs using Jekyll static site generator. Now, after some years, I’m deciding to move to a WordPress blog as I travel a lot and I want to be able to update my blog using different devices. As I explained on some toots, I can’t pay for a service based outside of Iran as my homeland is under heavy sanctions from U.S. and its allies. We can’t even open a bank account outside of Iran.
I don’t want to use a hosting service based in Iran as all of the providers have to follow rules/laws and it can be led to closing my blog if I write something that the government doesn’t like. I’m searching for someone or a foundation that can provide a host that I can install WordPress on and connect my domains to it.
My current website is kindly hosted by amazing Autistici/Inventati and they’re privacy-focused and use free software. It’s important to that the hosting service uses free software and doesn’t violate people’s rights about privacy.
If you’re interested in helping me, please drop me a message.
Victory! ICANN rejects .ORG sale to private equity firm Ethos Capital
In a stunning victory for nonprofits and NGOs around the world working in the public interest, ICANN today roundly rejected Ethos Capital’s plan to transform the .ORG domain registry into a heavily indebted for-profit entity. This is an important victory that recognizes the registry’s long legacy as a mission-based, non-for-profit entity protecting the interests of thousands of organizations and the people they serve.
We’re glad ICANN listened to the many voices in the nonprofit world urging it not to support the sale of Public Interest Registry, which runs .ORG, to private equity firm Ethos Capital. The proposed buyout was an attempt by domain name industry insiders to profit off of thousands of nonprofits and NGOs around the world. Saying the sale would fundamentally change PIR into an “entity bound to serve the interests of its corporate stakeholders” with “no meaningful plan to protect or serve the .ORG community,” ICANN made clear that it saw the proposal for what it was, regardless of Ethos’ claims that nonprofits would continue to have a say in their future.
The sale threatened to bring censorship and increased operating costs to the nonprofit world. As EFF warned, a private equity-owned registry would have a financial incentive to suspend domain names—causing websites to go dark—at the request of powerful corporate interests and governments.
In a blog post about its decision, ICANN also pointed out how the deal risked the registry’s financial stability. They noted that the $1.1 billion proposed sale would change PIR “from a viable not-for-profit entity to a for-profit entity with a US$360 million debt obligation.” The debt was not for the benefit of PIR or the .ORG community, but for the financial interests of Ethos and its investors. And Ethos failed to convince ICANN that it would not drain PIR of its financial resources, putting the stability and security of the .ORG registry at risk.
“ICANN entrusted to PIR the responsibility to serve the public interest in its operation of the .ORG registry, and now ICANN is being asked to transfer that trust to a new entity without a public interest mandate.”
ICANN was not convinced by the token “stewardship council” that Ethos proposed in an attempt to add an appearance of accountability. Echoing EFF’s own letter, they noted that “the membership of the Stewardship Council is subject to the approval of PIR’s board of directors and, as a result, could become captured by or beholden to the for-profit interests of PIR’s owners and therefore are unlikely to be truly independent of Ethos Capital or PIR’s board.”
Many organizations worked hard to persuade ICANN to reject the sale. We were joined by the National Council of Nonprofits, NTEN, Access Now, The Girl Scouts of America, Consumer Reports, the YMCA, Demand Progress, OpenMedia, Fight for the Future, Wikimedia, Oxfam, Greenpeace, Consumer Reports, FarmAid, NPR, the American Red Cross, and dozens of other household names. Nonprofit professionals and technologists even gathered in Los Angeles in January to tell ICANN their concerns in person. The coalition defending the .ORG domain was as diverse as .ORG registrants themselves, encompassing all areas of public interest: aid organizations, corporate watchdogs, museums, clubs, theater companies, religious organizations, and much, much more. Petitions to reject the sale received over 64,000 signatures, and nearly 900 organizations signed on. Joining them in their concerns were Members of Congress, UN Special Rapporteurs, and state charity regulators [pdf].
A late development that affected ICANN’s decision was the letter [pdf] from California’s Attorney General, Xavier Becerra. Citing EFF and other members of the coalition, Becerra’s letter urged ICANN to reject the sale. Although ICANN received many last-minute appeals from some parts of its policymaking community urging the organization to ignore Becerra’s letter, ICANN acknowledged that as it is a California nonprofit, it could not afford to ignore its state regulator.
Because PIR is incorporated in Pennsylvania, that state’s courts must approve its conversion into a for-profit company. Pennsylvania’s attorney general is investigating the sale, and may also weigh in. In its rationale, ICANN states that it will allow PIR and Ethos to submit a new application if they are able to get the approval of this other body with authority over the deal. But all of the reasons behind ICANN’s rejection of the sale will confront Ethos in Pennsylvania, as well.
This decision by ICANN is a hard-fought victory for nonprofit Internet users. But the .ORG registry still needs a faithful steward, because the Internet Society has made clear it no longer wants that responsibility. ICANN should hold an open consultation, as they did in 2002, to select a new operator of the .ORG domain that will give nonprofits a real voice in its governance, and a real guarantee against censorship and financial exploitation.
Government apps during pandemic
There’s daily reports about violating people’s privacy during Cornoavirus pandemic and some of these violations are happening because of proprietary apps published by governments which keep track of people. The idea of government keeping people safe by forcing them to stay home is something I can understand (yet disagree with) but governments are not trustworthy and there’s a high risk that they keep these data/profiles even after pandemic to misuse.
Continue readingCriticizing privacy violations
Criticism of violating people’s privacy is not limited to a particular organization or individual. If any service (etc.) violates users’ privacy rights, it should be criticized. Doesn’t matter if it’s libre, proprietary, governmental, or private. People’s privacy should be respected no matter what service you’re providing or how your service is working. If you can’t respect people, change your service and if you can’t change it then stop.
We should all agree that most people in the world don’t know how their private life and privacy is being violated and there’s some people that spread disinformation in support of these services. We should also stop calling these data-hungry companies “services” because what they provide is a platform to steal people’s data and it’s not a service.
We don’t encourage people to stop using Google because we don’t like Google (I mean we don’t like it but it’s not the point), we tell people stop using Google because Google and other similar evil corporations are violating people’s rights (and that’s why we don’t like it). If a free software service tracks people or violates people’s privacy rights in any way, it should be criticized too. We should not have double standards or differentiate between services; specially when it comes to libre services as such services may create a bad impression of free software among users.
Don’t waste server resources
I’ve talked about it before many times but as I see this happening again and again, I write it here too. Most of free software services are provided by individuals or small teams/collectives that are generous enough to spend their time and money to help society be more free and secure. We should know that nothing is free; we may not pay for these services but the maintainers are paying to keep their software/serivce up. They pay for servers, domain names, developing costs, and some other stuff.
Some people may not be able to donate or help developing these libre software/services but the thing we can do is to avoid causing more costs for the maintainers. It’s actually pretty simple. Just don’t create an account on a libre service/software if you don’t need it. This can reduce the amount of data that those maintainers should store/handle on their paid server and this can help their service cost less.
I encourage you to share this note (or a similar one) with your friends to help these service providers.