- Free-software-melb - lists.softwarefreedom.com.au

Audio from last night's meetup, new committee
by Ben Sturmfels 22 Apr '16

22 Apr '16

Hi Folks, Congrats to our new 2016-2017 committee, Ben Minerds (Pres), Michael Verrenkamp (Vice Pres), Damien Zammit (Secretary) and Ben Finney (Treasurer)! Again big thanks to the other members of our previous committee Scott Junner, Ben Minerds and Ben Finney. It's been a very productive year. :) I've just published the audio from last night's meet-up on our MediaGoblin server: https://media.freesoftware.org.au/u/bens/m/free-software-melbourne-22-april… https://media.freesoftware.org.au/u/bens/m/slides-free-software-melbourne-y… Next meet-up is on Thursday 19 May. Look forward to seeing you then! Cheers, Ben

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Free Software Melbourne committee election, 2016-04
by Ben Finney 21 Apr '16

21 Apr '16

On 14-Apr-2016, Ben Sturmfels wrote: > In addition to our regular Gnews, we'll also be holding a brief > committee election for the upcoming 12 months. Being an informal > group, elections are quick and easy. Would you like to get involved > and be a key part of making Free Software Melbourne awesome? We're > looking for a President, Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer. I won't be able to make it this evening, my apologies. Since people have been happy with me as Treasurer to date, I hereby nominate myself again for the office of Treasurer in this committee. -- \ “When you go in for a job interview, I think a good thing to | `\ ask is if they ever press charges.” —Jack Handey | _o__) | Ben Finney <ben(a)benfinney.id.au>

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Email Self Defence: Following through
by Ben Finney 17 Mar '16

17 Mar '16

On 09-Mar-2016, Scott Junner wrote: > Actually, we'll be working through the Email Self Defence course > <https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/en/> created by Free Software > Foundation. Thank you to everyone who attended, everyone who helped us prepare this event, and especially those who helped people new to email encryption at the workshop. The Email Self-defense course led us through setting up and demonstrating the tools. Here are some important next steps: * Reflect on the security implications. Defending online communications from unwanted eavesdropping is not a set-and-forget add-on. It is a brute fact that the issues need to be understood in order to stay secure. We went some way to that at the workshop. The course material <URL:https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/en/> has a brief section “Use It Well” with major points, and a link to the “Next Steps” article. * Use a passphrase. XKCD 936 <URL:https://xkcd.com/936/> “Password Strength” explains that what makes a passphrase effective is not a short jumble of arbitrary unmemorable characters, but *length* (a handful of actual words), and *randomness* (don't choose those words yourself). No punctuation or garbled text needed. I am the Debian maintainer for the XKCD Passphrase Generator as the ‘xkcdpass’ package <URL:http://packages.debian.org/xkcdpass>. You can also use a site like <URL:http://useapassphrase.com/> that is a useful reference for why to do this, and how to do it yourself if you choose. * Store your passphrases securely and conveniently. Each passphrase you use for each service should be unpredictable, unique, and different on each service. This means you need a program to help you track which passphrase gets you into which service. The same store of your credentials needs to be available and up-to-date on each device you might need to access those passphrases. Adam Bolte taught us about <URL:https://www.passwordstore.org/> Password Store a while ago. Since then it has grown clients to help you track the same database of credentials across all your devices. Now go forth and communicate freely and securely! -- \ “If we listen only to those who are like us, we will squander | `\ the great opportunity before us: To live together peacefully in | _o__) a world of unresolved differences.” —David Weinberger | Ben Finney <ben(a)benfinney.id.au>

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Re: [free-software-melb] VPAC
by Brian May 09 Feb '16

09 Feb '16

Retry. Brian May <brian(a)linuxpenguins.xyz> writes: > Might want to remove this line from the webpage: > > "We thank VPAC for generously providing the venue for our meetings." > > I note from the website that the meeting location has changed: > > Electron Workshop 31 Arden St, North Melbourne, Victoria, 3051 > > I will have to think about this, the location isn't nearly as > convenient, and probably mean a 90+ minute trip home instead of a 60+ > minute trip home. > -- > Brian May <brian(a)linuxpenguins.xyz> > https://linuxpenguins.xyz/brian/ -- Brian May <brian(a)linuxpenguins.xyz> https://linuxpenguins.xyz/brian/

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Viewing YouTube videos with free software
by Tim Hamilton 09 Feb '16

09 Feb '16

> > Date: Sat, 30 Jan 2016 16:20:56 +1100 > From: Ben Finney <ben+freesoftware(a)benfinney.id.au> > To: free-software-melb(a)lists.softwarefreedom.com.au > Subject: [free-software-melb] Viewing YouTube videos with free > software (was: Tor onion services: more useful than you > think) > Message-ID: <851t8zfxs7.fsf(a)benfinney.id.au> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 > > Andri Effendi <fusionman133(a)gmx.de> writes: > > > To watch [a video at a YouTube URL] with exclusively Free Software, > > you can use VLC Media Player. > > Another option, which I make use of, is the ‘youtube-dl’ program > <URL:https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/> which simply parses the page, > finds the video, and downloads it with an appropriate file name. > > Packaged in many systems; in Debian it is ‘youtube-dl’. > > One caveat: the program essentially is a clever web scraper, so it is > vulnerable to the site changing how its pages are put together. YouTube > itself is notorious for changing frequently such that scrapers break. > You need to keep a program like ‘youtube-dl’ up to date to ensure you > can continue to download videos. > > Another option for viewing YouTube with Free Software is Minitube which provides a GUI frontend for YouTube without the need for a browser. Homepage here: http://flavio.tordini.org/minitube Git Repo here: https://github.com/flaviotordini/minitube Review here: https://linuxluddites.com/shows/episode-54/ Tim -- Vote NO in referenda.

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Tor onion services: more useful than you think
by Andri Effendi 30 Jan '16

30 Jan '16

Hi Free Software Sydney and Free Software Melbourne, I came across this talk on The TOR Project's Twitter page. The talk is titled "Tor onion services: more useful than you think [32c3]". The video is an update you on what's going on with Tor onion services, aka Tor hidden services. Here is a Youtube Link from a talk at Chaos Computer Club. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh9D2r-ck40 To watch it with exclusively Free Software, you can use VLC Media Player. 1. Open VLC 2. hit File, 3. choose "Open Network Stream," 4. paste in the main YouTube URL 5. Click Open The video should start playing after a few seconds. Kind Regards, -- Andri Effendi <fusionman133(a)gmx.de> Organiser of The Free Software Movement in Sydney www.freesoftware.org.au/ GPG fingerprint: 8438 138D ECDA 05E0 591F F2B4 4721 0F03 AC24 DF73 Confidentiality cannot be guaranteed on emails sent or received unencrypted.

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TPP being signed in NZ on 3 Feb - petition
by Ben Sturmfels 29 Jan '16

29 Jan '16

Hi Folks, Sounds like we're much closer to the TPP signing than I realised - Australia is planned to sign on 3 Feb. Please add your name to the following online petition if you have a moment: http://action.sumofus.org/a/australia-tpp/ Cheers, Ben

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A Project, I would like to get going in 2016 - From Andri Effendi
by Andri Effendi 09 Jan '16

09 Jan '16

Dear Free Software Sydney, Firstly I would like to welcome a new member to the group Ellen ForSyth. Thank you for joining us! I welcome you personally to our group. Now I would like to discuss... There is a project collaborating with the ACLU in the US. It's called the Library Freedom Project (LFP). “The Library Freedom Project is a partnership among librarians, technologists, attorneys, and privacy advocates which aims to make real the promise of intellectual freedom in libraries. By teaching librarians about surveillance threats, privacy rights and responsibilities, and digital tools to stop surveillance, we hope to create a privacy-centric paradigm shift in libraries and the local communities they serve.” https://libraryfreedomproject.org/ourwork/ Here is a document that was given to me by Alison Macrina, the organizer of the US based project. It is a document that is described in an American context that is used with in ACLU to promote this project. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6a6GidWUZ4PWWU3WFFveTdiNkk Also there is a document titled "join LFP" which is another Document that explains more about the US based project. https://libraryfreedomproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/join-LFP.pdf I want to start an Australian based project in Sydney. Currently I have code named the project I wish get started "Free Libraries Australia". Please let me know if you are interested. ***In Addition *** If you are not already doing so please start using TOR Browser https://www.torproject.org Start using GNU Privacy Guard (Email Encryption) learn how: https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/en/ ***In Addition *** Kind Regards, -- Andri Effendi <fusionman133(a)gmx.de> Organiser of The Free Software Movement in Sydney www.freesoftware.org.au/ GPG fingerprint: 8438 138D ECDA 05E0 591F F2B4 4721 0F03 AC24 DF73 Confidentiality cannot be guaranteed on emails sent or received unencrypted.

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Gnews
by Ben M 24 Nov '15

24 Nov '15

Hi all, Just posted links to this months Gnews on our past meetup page: http://freesoftware.org.au/melbourne/past-meet-ups/ Our content management system didn't like the ".odp" extension, so I had to tack ".rm" on the end... which unix fans will recognize as "remove" ;) Thanks again to Michael for a fun and entertaining Gnews in Gnovember. ~~ Ben M

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Re: [free-software-melb] [free-software-melb-announce] Thu 2015-11-19, 18:00
by Ben Finney 16 Nov '15

16 Nov '15

On 12-Nov-2015, Ben Sturmfels wrote: > Look forward to seeing you there! Have I used enough exclamation > marks? I think so! Yes! > Thursday 15 October, 6-8pm (followed by dinner at nearby restaurant) > VPAC Head Office Training Room > Level 1, Building 91, 110 Victoria Street I won't be able to attend, I'm sorry to say. Someone else with an access card (Brian May?) will need to let the group into the building and from there into the room. -- \ “Technology is anything that wasn't around when you were born.” | `\ —Alan Kay | _o__) | Ben Finney <ben(a)benfinney.id.au>

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