Russia uses Microsoft to suppress dissent

[Sam Tuke]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39136836/ns/world_news-the_new_york_times

"Given the suspicions that these investigations are politically motivated, the
police and prosecutors have turned to Microsoft to lend weight to their cases.
In southwestern Russia, the Interior Ministry declared in an official document
that its investigation of a human rights advocate for software piracy was
begun ?based on an application? from a lawyer for Microsoft.

In another city, Samara, the police seized computers from two opposition
newspapers, with the support of a different Microsoft lawyer. ?Without the
participation of Microsoft, these criminal cases against human rights
defenders and journalists would simply not be able to occur,? said the editor
of the newspapers, Sergey Kurt-Adzhiyev."
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[Hugo Roy]

Hi all,

Microsoft recently announced they would change something in their policy
to avoid that in the future. But sure it's a very bad advertising for
them.

See also Glyn Moody's article quoting the New York Times where he places
the issue within Free Software advocacy. I particularly agree when he
writes that he doesn't understand why those NGOs, promoting Freedom
etc., don't already use Free Software, as this would protect them better
against that sort of things, but sure against all sort of intrusions.

I remember for example one of the heads of Greenpeace in France, whose
laptop was very weakly protected (using Microsoft Windows and stuffs)
and information was leaked to companies he fights against (like Total).

So I think the second interesting question is:

how do we, Free software supporters and Free software NGOs, can
cooperate more with other NGOs to explain them:
- the values of freedom carried by Free Software
- the inherent advantages in terms of control and security over their
information
- the collateral advantages in terms of hacktivism online, etc.

What do you think is the answer? Are you also working with other NGOs
not related to the software field?

Best regards,
--
Hugo Roy im: hugo at jabber.fsfe.org
French Coordinator http://www.fsfe.org/about/roy

The Free Software Foundation Europe works to create general
understanding and support for software freedom in politics, law,
business and society. Become a Fellow http://www.fsfe.org/join
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[David Gerard]

Post by Hugo Roy
how do we, Free software supporters and Free software NGOs, can
- the values of freedom carried by Free Software
- the inherent advantages in terms of control and security over their
information
- the collateral advantages in terms of hacktivism online, etc.
What do you think is the answer? Are you also working with other NGOs
not related to the software field?

Wikimedia may be a helpful example to use. It is not a
software-related charity, but an educational one. However, because
it's full of FOSS nerds, it has a strong free software policy [*].
This extends to a lot of the stuff a charity uses - e.g., WMF
contributes paid development effort to CiviCRM.

Wikileaks is a news organisation rather than a charity per se, but
Julian Assange's paranoia started well before he needed it - software
such as Rubberhose, specifically for NGO workers operating in
dangerous situations.

Suggestion: a page about software useful for charities, and email
wikitech-l when a first draft is up asking for other stuff WMF uses
and that WMF workers know about even if they don't use it.


- d.


[*] WMF used Java when it had not been entirely freed yet, and the
image servers were until recently on Solaris 10 for the sake of ZFS (I
believe this is changing).

[Matthias Kirschner]

Post by Hugo Roy
See also Glyn Moody's article quoting the New York Times where he places
the issue within Free Software advocacy. I particularly agree when he
writes that he doesn't understand why those NGOs, promoting Freedom
etc., don't already use Free Software, as this would protect them better
against that sort of things, but sure against all sort of intrusions.

This reminds me about my first university paper :) I explained why
organisations which cooperate with developing nations have to use Free
Software:

Kulturtechnik Software -- Warum Organisationen, die mit
Entwicklungsl?ndern kommunizieren, Freie Software einsetzen m?ssen
<http://www.difficulties.de/mk/papers.html>

Regards,
Matthias