Death: To solve all the problems!

Posted on by

You want all your problems to be solved? Die! Just think about it. You won’t have any concern or need or trouble. You won’t overthink about anything; in fact, you won’t think at all. There’s no injury you’ll suffer of after death and there’s no pain. Death is a wonderful answer that will guarantee your freedom of all pain and suffering and anything unpleasant.

But we don’t want to die, do we? We only live once and we want to live it good. We fight the troubles to be able to enjoy the life. The reason we fight the troubles is that the life itself is so much precious that it is worth the fight. We have a lot of amazing things in our life that we don’t want to miss and we continuously put our effort to make it better.

As much as death is effective to solve all of our problems, we don’t take it as an answer. A good answer to our problems will erase the unpleasant stuff from life without touching the pleasant ones, or it acts with least impact on the good ones. A good answer won’t wipe everything, it’ll just clears the mess while it keeps everything else.

If someone suggests death to you to solve, say, your pain in your broken leg, you’d call that person crazy, right?

Sometimes we think about solutions to some problems that may seem rational and effective but they’re destructive and possibly worst thing to do. We make some decisions or give advice that we think are awesome but they’re rather idiotic.

The consequences of our decisions are much more important than the short-term effects on problems we want to solve. Dealing with a problem for a little bit longer may seem uncomfortable but it can be much much better than a destructive solution that solves the problem but also wipes everything else.

I think about this when I want to make a decision, even small ones, and I hope I make much better decisions from now on.

Auto-update is a bad idea

Posted on by

So if you know me a little, you probably know that I’m all in for computer user freedom and having people fully in charge and control of their computing. I’m a free software advocate and I’m very careful about my own computers and digital devices.

One thing that I believe is a bad idea implemented in most of our operating systems or digital devices is auto-update. Automatic updates allow users to keep their software programs updated without having to check for and install available updates manually. The software automatically checks for available updates, and if found, the updates are downloaded and installed without user intervention.

So the user has no idea what is being downloaded, when it is being installed, how does the update work, what will be the effect of the new update. In a perfect world where everyone is good and all programs respect users’ interest, auto-update is a pretty awesome idea but sadly we don’t live in such world.

Automatic updates are bad for privacy and some security aspects. Turning on auto-update on a system puts you in danger of trusting the device manufacturer to behave good. Anything could be contained in the update and the possible harm may not be reversed.

The update could contain a back door and the door can open the way for anyone to sabotage your computing. Universal backdoor is the way to go if you wish to be colonized and dependent and get your device shut down when it suits the vendor.[1]

If you’re using free software, you can study your program and monitor its changes but you’re still vulnerable as a program being free (as in freedom) won’t technically disallow insecurities being implemented on your device but you still have more chance on reversing the changes and/or monitor what is happening to your device.

I understand if many people don’t have enough time or knowledge to keep all their devices up-to-date or verify every update manually but handling updates manually often has more benefits than turning on auto-updates.

Less politics, more conversation

Posted on by

Living in Middle East, you can’t stop thinking of politics. Everything happening here impacts the whole world and everything happening in world impacts the region. Simplest aspects of life in MENA (Middle East and North Africa) are highly influenced by politics. Well, it’s the same all around the world but I can’t think of any other region that has this kind of heavy impact on world. Well of course White House or Kremlin Palace can change the world but those are places built for such thing.

When United States adds to its sanctions against Iran, the whole region and the whole world changes. When Russia sold weapons to Saudi, when Emirates started normalizing their relations with Israel, everything in world was impacted. When OPEC decides about its oil price or production rate, everything in world is influenced.

Naturally, people here and all around the world feel the impact as well. Prices change, regimes make new decisions, new wars get started, old wars come to an end, etc. But here in Middle East, the impact is much more influential. Almost all of us in MENA are living under a dictatorship and under the shadow of a new war.

The point is that you can’t stop being involved in politics, you can’t even stop thinking about it here. An American, a French, an Italian, or a German can claim that perse is not political because they’re much more stable than Middle Easterners but here we’re all political, we may die tomorrow because of a new war in the region.

I run a business here. During the Iran Talks, currency price fluctuations are at the highest level and my business which relies on products produced in China and Viet Nam suffers. A simple smile from any part of the talks can change everything for small businesses like mine.

However, human mind and body has a capacity for stress and processing the events happening here. I’m trying to think less about politics knowing how impossible it is and have more conversation. I try to avoid political news, get away from people talking about politics, and comment less about stuff happening.

Of course to completely remove politics from my life I have to get out of earth with next spacecraft but even that doesn’t remove politics completely (what if politicians on earth decide I no longer have right to exist?).

I try to have more conversation, seeking for reason, solution, and answer rather than just listening and reading news and repeat the pointless cycle. I try to reduce the heaviness of everything happening by keeping my mind solid and with focus. Instead of repeating news to each other, I try to have conversation with people and know what they think of their future and know what is their desired system of thought and ruling.

There’s no doubt for me that I continue my political fight and I’ll continue walking towards my political goals but maybe in a different way but this time I try to do it focusing on people and conversation.

Well, isn’t that even more political?

The three laws of personal devices

Posted on by

Law 1

Your devices must work in your interests and your interests alone.

Law 2

When a feature can be built so that algorithms and data are kept exclusively on the person’s own device, it must be built that way.

If a feature cannot be built in this manner, all data must be end-to-end encrypted and the owner of the device must be the exclusive holder of the private key.

Law 3

The hardware, software, and services must be free as in freedom.

This writing is modified and posted under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license, originally written by Aral Balkan.

EdTech malware

Posted on by

Tech corporations are taking over the field of education by pushing their proprietary products into educational institutions of all levels. Proprietary applications loaded with malicious functionalities such as surveillance and collection of sensitive personal data—among many others—are being imposed on schools’ staff, teachers, students, and even parents. With the rapid expansion of online teaching, these proprietary educational technologies not only spread dramatically across schools, but they went from the classroom to the home.

This is not to say that educational technology is a bad approach per se. The problem arises when the software used in EdTech is nonfree, meaning it denies students the rights that free software grants all users.

Nonfree EdTech fails to assist the learning process by forbidding students to study the programs they are required to use, thus opposing the very nature and purpose of education. It does not allow school administrators and teachers to safeguard students’ rights by forbidding them to inspect the source code of the programs they run. It does not enable parents to make sure their children are protected from surveillance, data collection, and other mistreatment by the owner of the proprietary program.

Proprietary video conferencing software, as well as other nonfree programs, are tethered to online dis-services that collect large amounts of personal data. The school may have to agree to the company’s unjust terms of dis-service. The school, in turn, will typically force students to create an account on the dis-service, which includes agreeing to the terms.

EdTech companies are already developing great power over the students in the schools where they operate, and it will get worse. They use their surveillance power to manipulate students by customizing learning materials in the same way they customize ads and pieces of news. This way, they direct students into tracks towards various levels of knowledge, power and prestige.

These companies also structure their terms and conditions so that they are never held responsible for the consequences.

This article argues that these companies should get licenses to operate. That wouldn’t hurt, but it doesn’t address the root of the problem. All data acquired in a school about any student, teacher, or employee, must not leave the school’s control: whatever computers store the data must belong to the school and run free software. That way the school district and/or parents can control what it does with those data.

Join us in the fight against the use of nonfree software in schools.

This writing is copyrighted to GNU Education Team and GNU.org web site, licensed under CC BY-SA.

Copying is not theft

Posted on by

Many publishers often refer to copying they don’t approve of as “piracy.” In this way, they imply that it is ethically equivalent to attacking ships on the high seas, kidnapping and murdering the people on them. Based on such propaganda, they have procured laws in most of the world to forbid copying in most (or sometimes all) circumstances. (They are still pressuring to make these prohibitions more complete.)

The supporters of a too-strict, repressive form of copyright often use words like “stolen” and “theft” to refer to copyright infringement. This is spin, but they would like you to take it for objective truth.

Unauthorized copying is forbidden by copyright law in many circumstances (not all!), but being forbidden doesn’t make it wrong. In general, laws don’t define right and wrong. Laws, at their best, attempt to implement justice. If the laws (the implementation) don’t fit our ideas of right and wrong (the spec), the laws are what should change.

People should have right to copy and share what they own. When you purchase something you should be able to do whatever you want with it and that means you should be able to copy it, share it, keep it secret, use it as you wish, burn or destroy it, or even throw it away without using it. If it’s yours, it should work as you wish, not as someone else says.

Many refer to copying as piracy or theft to manipulate you so you think you’re doing something ethically wrong but copying is not theft. In theft, you take something from somewhere or someone but with copying you’re just creating a new piece of that thing.

Imagine your car gets stolen but it’s still there!

If you don’t believe that copying not approved by the publisher is just like kidnapping and murder, you might prefer not to use the word “piracy” to describe it. Neutral terms such as “unauthorized copying” (or “prohibited copying” for the situation where it is illegal) are available for use instead. Some of us might even prefer to use a positive term such as “sharing information with your neighbor.”

A US judge, presiding over a trial for copyright infringement, recognized that “piracy” and “theft” are smear-words.

Part of this post is taken from GNU.org web site.

Happy birthday Aaron Swartz

Posted on by
Swartz in 2012 protesting against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) (licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)

November 8 is Aaron Swartz’s birthday. He was involved in the development of the web feed format RSS, the Markdown publishing format, and the organization Creative Commons. He is also a co-founder of Reddit.

Born in 1986, his work focused on civic awareness and activism. He helped launch the Progressive Change Campaign Committee in 2009 to learn more about effective online activism.

Sadly, he was charged with two counts of wire fraud and eleven violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, carrying a cumulative maximum penalty of 1 million dollars in fines, 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution, and supervised release. Swartz declined a plea bargain under which he would have served six months in federal prison. Two days after the prosecution rejected a counter-offer by Swartz, he was found dead by suicide in his Brooklyn apartment. In 2013, Swartz was inducted posthumously into the Internet Hall of Fame.

I suggest watching “The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz” documentary video. It features interviews with his family and friends as well as the internet luminaries who worked with him. The film tells his story up to his eventual suicide after a legal battle, and explores the questions of access to information and civil liberties that drove his work.

Global Encryption Day

Posted on by

Today is the first Global Encryption Day. On this day, we ask people to Make the Switch to encrypted services like Tor. Encryption is our most vital and important tool against surveillance and privacy/security-violating services and programs.

Our digital life is secured and private because of encryption. Encryption allows us to survive the dangerous time we’re living in. When our data is collected in every way possible, encryption makes us able to fight; to fight for our lives, fight for our privacy, fight for our security, fight for our freedoms, and fight for our rights.

When governments and organizations/corporations are trying hard to profile us in any way possible, encryption makes us able to resist. When everybody is trying to violate our privacy, or jeopardize our basic human rights, encryption makes us able to resist.

On Global Encryption Day we ask people to switch to encrypted services and programs:

  • For instant messaging, I use XMPP which is encrypted by OMEMO,
  • For voice/video calls, I use Jitsi, which has end-to-end encryption,
  • I only use web sites that encrypt my connection using TLS (HTTPS),
  • I use GNU+Linux operating system which lets me encrypt my computers’ hard drive,
  • I use LUKS/LVM to encrypt my portable hard drives,
  • I use GPG/PGP to encrypt my emails,
  • I use KeePassXC which encrypts my password vault,
  • I use Nextcloud which encrypts my files on the cloud,
  • and I use many more services and programs use encryption to make sure I’m private and secure.

In honor of this inaugural Global Encryption Day, the Tor Project, along with 148 other organizations and businesses have signed the Global Encryption Day Statement, calling on governments and businesses to reject efforts to undermine encryption and instead pursue policies that enhance, strengthen, and promote use of strong encryption to protect people everywhere.

As an individual, you can get involved with Global Encryption Day by:

Anti-vaxxers don’t want you to see all the pictures!

Posted on by
Picture of two kids. The left one didn't receive the smallpox vaccine and has smallpox all over him, the right one has received the vaccine and is not infected.
The right kid received the smallpox vaccine, the left one hasn’t.

This is a genuine photograph that was taken in the early 1900s by Dr. Allan Warner of the Isolation Hospital at Leicester in the UK. Warner photographed a number of smallpox patients in order to study the disease.

The two photographed boys were the same age and both had smallpox. The only difference is that one of them was vaccinated and the other was not. The smallpox vaccine was one of the oldest man-made vaccines that many people refused to inject due to fear and superstition, and as a result the disease was not completely eradicated.

Dr. Warner believed that the best way to challenge fear and misinformation about vaccination was to show the horror of the disease and the clear evidence of vaccination in the workplace through photography. Smallpox was eradicated worldwide after widespread vaccination in the 1960s and 1970s in the early 1980s.

The Internet Archive has digitized the atlas of clinical medicine, surgery, and pathology. From page 426, you can see various pictures that anti-vaxxers probably don’t want you to see.

Vaccination has helped us to survive, and it’ll do the same in future.

Little things in life

Posted on by

The last two years were difficult for everybody. Well not everybody, many capitalists got richer because of the situation and many lived an easy life because of their wealth. But it was pretty hard for rest of us. The crisis is still ongoing and many still are in danger or face restrictions.

Honestly, my life hasn’t been much changed much. I spend most of my time alone and I don’t have much to do with people. Socializing is not my thing and I have a very small circle of friends. I’ve traveled during this time and I have spent some time with my family, like I always did. So not much changes here.

I appreciate being alive and I appreciate every big and small thing happened in my life which formed the current me. However, I’ve been thinking about how I’m here where I am and found out that every small thing happened in my life were as effective as every major one. Every small thing changed me a little and directed me to where I’m standing.

In fact, if it wasn’t for those small things, I wouldn’t be here. I appreciate small joys of my life. I appreciate them as much as I appreciate every other small major happiness or sadness I experienced or am going to experience.

For example, since 2012 when I got familiar with free software, I admired what Richard Stallman does and now I get the chance of working with him in GNU Project, directly. Or since about a year ago, Alexandre Oliva follows me on a social network I’m in.

I love the happiness I feel when I buy new clothes. I love the happiness I feel when I but a new accessory for myself. I feel alive when I eat a new food. I feel joy when someone thanks me for what I did for them. Like, every week, I get few messages from people who are new in free software movement and they tell me they’re contributing to the movement because my work inspired them; that makes me feel I’m the coolest person alive.

I enjoy my life with these little things. Small things that may not matter for anybody else. I enjoy being alive exactly for these little stuff. I know the day I don’t get happy for these small stupid stuff, I’m not alive any more.

I’m very happy that I can write a blog. I’m very happy that I can talk to people I love. I’m very happy to have few very good friends. I’m very happy I own my own business and I work with people I like.

I’m very happy because I can go to beach. I’m very happy because I give love to people. I’m very happy because I help those in need. I’m very happy because I have no regrets, I know I did what I could, maybe I could do better, maybe not, but I have no regrets.

I’m happy, I’m hopeful, and I’m alive.