September 2014 - Free-software-bris - lists.softwarefreedom.com.au

Matthew Garrett blog post
by Fraser Tweedale 29 Sep '14

29 Sep '14

Some of you may have seen this blog post from last week, entitled ``My free software will respect users or it will be bullshit''. http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/32686.html I encourage you to read it, but the concluding paragraph summarises it well: The four freedoms are only meaningful if they result in real-world benefits to the entire population, not a privileged minority. If your approach to releasing free software is merely to ensure that it has an approved license and throw it over the wall, you're doing it wrong. We need to design software from the ground up in such a way that those freedoms provide immediate and real benefits to our users. Anything else is a failure. Let's have a discussion about this article at our meeting on Thursday. For what it's worth, I disagree with it (although I agree with pretty much all of the points in support of it). Come along Thursday if you want to find out why ;) Cheers, Fraser

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Thursday 2 October LibrePlanet Brisbane meetup
by Fraser Tweedale 19 Sep '14

19 Sep '14

Details for the LibrePlanet Brisbane October meetup: Time: Thursday 2 October, 6:00 pm Venue: The Edge, Window Bay 7 Andrew Roffey, a board member of the Australian Privacy Foundation (http://www.privacy.org.au/) will present on "Free Software and Privacy". His presentation will cover: - Introduction to privacy - Threats to privacy in the digital era - How free software is important for privacy - Brief introduction on some free software projects that aim to assist privacy online - Other groups in Australia that might be of interest As usual, we will have a discussion of the month's news relevant to the free software movement, globally and locally. Please reply with news items to be discussed. We will also discuss plans for the November meetup, which coincides with the Open Source Developers' Conference (OSDC) on the Gold Coast. We might change the meeting from the regular day, or hold it on the Gold Coast, or both. After the meeting we will head to the South Bank precinct and eat food. I hope to see you on Thursday 2 October. Fraser

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Hello
by Tony Morris 12 Sep '14

12 Sep '14

Hello FSB, I am a programmer working for NICTA at Spring Hill. I was directed to this mailing list by a friend who I meet at Brisbane Functional Programming Group (BFPG). I have been using functional programming in industry for about 13 years. I am a former lecturer at universities, however, I became somewhat disillusioned to the university agenda around 2007 (long rant omitted). I have been a relatively passive advocate for free software for approximately the same amount of time. I do not take a stance on the issue of free software as I see many others do. I have children, now aged 11 and 13 who are beginning their high school education. Both of my children have grown up using the linux operating system and related GNU software at home. Their school has proposed a "bring your own laptop for education" program. The proposal specifically mentions that Microsoft Windows or Apple OSX be used. I do not know if this proposal intends to insist on either of these, or if they are listed merely because parents may be wondering if perhaps their existing laptop meets the requirements. For example, the proposal may intend to be diverse, but inadvertently only lists Windows and Apple in an effort to convey that diversity. The proposal then goes on to talk about "meeting minimum requirements" and discusses anti-virus software and so on. Nevertheless, I have decided to take a stronger stance on this issue in that my children will not be using Microsoft nor Apple operating systems. I am looking for advice on how to approach this issue, because I have not taken a strong stance like this before. Whenever I worked in say, a corporate environment that "makes sure your windows updates are up to date" (for example), I have simply worked around whatever nonsense was put in front of me and with little protest. This is usually because I have some other orthogonal goal and so don't have the inclination to address the issue directly. In this case, I think the above proposal works directly against the goal (education) and so I am compelled to intervene. If anyone has tips on this matter or has addressed a similar issue before, I would greatly appreciate hearing about it. Thanks for listening.

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Catastrophic security issue in Enigmail v1.7
by Fraser Tweedale 09 Sep '14

09 Sep '14

Enigmail v1.7 does not encrypt outgoing email in several scenarios, despite explicit indications to the contrary. It is fixed in v1.7.2 - if you are using v1.7, *upgrade now*. Details: http://sourceforge.net/p/enigmail/forum/support/thread/3e7268a4/ Fraser

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minutes of September meeting
by Fraser Tweedale 07 Sep '14

07 Sep '14

Hi everyone, Minutes of Thursday 4 September 2014 meetup: <<EOF Administration -------------- - Name of group put to vote. We are now "LibrePlanet Brisbane"! - The LibrePlanet Code of Conduct was adopted. Please take a moment to read it. - Link: http://libreplanet.org/wiki/LibrePlanet:Code_of_Conduct News ---- - HACIENDA surveillance program. - Article: http://www.fsf.org/news/gnu-hackers-unmask-massive-hacienda-surveillance-pr… - Western countries port-scanning the Internet to discover hidden or vulnerable servers. - TCP Stealth countermeasures have been implemented in Linux kernel. Paper: https://gnunet.org/kirsch2014knock - Email self-defense guide was updated for Enigmail v1.7. - Link: https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/en/ - Enigmail is a PGP plugin for Thunderbird. See https://enigmail.net/home/index.php - Australian Tax Office guidance on cryptocurrency (incl. Bitcoin) - Regarded as assets, *not currency*. - Various implications for individuals and businesses; read the guidance if you deal in cryptocurrency. - https://www.ato.gov.au/General/Gen/Tax-treatment-of-crypto-currencies-in-Au… - Software Freedom Day, Saturday 20th September - Registered events in Melbourne, Hobart and Launceston. - We should organise an event for next year! - ProtonMail beta - Request invite: https://protonmail.ch/invite - Encrypted email service incorporated and hosted in Switzerland - They *never* see email in the clear. - Interop with other email providers via symmetric encryption; passphrase must be shared with recipient out of band. - In related developments, GMail has some sort of PGP support now, and Darkmail initiative by Ladar Levinson (Lavabit) and Zimmerman (PGP) seems to be coming along. Survey of secure email services may a good topic for upcoming talk. Talk ---- Sean Chalmers entertained with a recounting of his journey from first discovering free software, then using it, to actively contributing back, and his parallel journey of gaining skills and knowledge in his field, and apply and sharing these. Slides: https://github.com/mankyKitty/fs-oss-journey. EOF Thanks to those who came along, and to Sean for speaking. We already have an interesting talk lined up for next month; if you have a topic you would like to present on please let me know. Also, please let the list (and/or me) know if there are items you would like to see covered in the news section. Cheers, Fraser

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