-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 25/06/12 04:07, Sandy Harris wrote: > Can a computer actually function as "An organizing tool for > democratic activists in hostile regimes"?
Can a letter, a printing press or a telephone be used as an organising tool? Clearly the answer is yes. So it would be strange if the digital equivalents of those things couldn't also be used as organising tools. > Such regimes routinely imprison dissidents without much in the way > of legal safeguards. Does anyone imagine they would not stomp > rather firmly on anyone they caught with a Box? That's not an argument against the Freedombox, it's an argument against trying to oppose an authoritarian state. Dissidents risk punishment no matter what tools they use. All we can do as tool-makers is to ensure that the tools we create don't make dissidents easier to find or easier to punish - preferably, the opposite - and that they allow dissidents to make informed choices about the risks they're willing to take. > In many of the countries where one might hope to see Boxes used to > resist oppression, they would be illegal under existing law. In > China, for example, you need a license to use crypto at all, with > an exception for things built into other products such as SSL/TLS > in a browser or the file encryption in MS-Word. Nevertheless, people in China routinely use encrypted communication tools like Ultrasurf and Tor to circumvent the national firewall. The law on paper and the law on the ground are two different things, especially in authoritarian states. Don't get me wrong - I think it's absolutely right to take a critical approach to any project with lofty political goals. Thanks for raising that perspective, even if I happen to disagree this time. Cheers, Michael -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJP6CrNAAoJEBEET9GfxSfM+c4H/iw+w1QTh46ExKA1c8874iaC f6yeIT/2+k4TmXkDBmyTkl9fmYIJroy2pB0bYHtsASX0ukJFfM1Er4uLqGlqqx5W S+7Fc8ar0ZPTx85Z/zmvMQmsEjQYbmPGHg5tpBs0BJEYMGnI/kIG1pHC5LDRKrTU +/xWp75ilrf/AAR2yliwk611Ya+3U3QMUqT8NHZ+h4Ovgu7CUCEUD961MUQ8MAhI KalkMJdTcvdVTQt5nMHNSv57FYJ6iPPZszh9OYyEuZASo4e5cjjF9MGhCExIPbJv VRfXGt/tzx3/h4zBR5uZEDyWRvz+k1T/JKuiZuupk+nMk8ysUuFBzpxXBuLI0AU= =u6f2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Freedombox-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss
