re:publica
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 7 months, 2012–2022
1:03:42 · 44K views · May 19, 2012
Eben Moglen's re:publica 2012 talk argues that media which spy on and data-mine the public threaten freedom of thought, and that free technology and free culture are needed to protect it.
HN users recommend Moglen as a brilliant speaker and a top introduction to free software philosophy, and cite this talk in privacy and crypto-wars discussions.
7 comments from Hacker News
When it comes to well formulated talks about free software, none seems to beat those from Stallman's lawyer, Eben Moglen. He knows very well how to speak to a crowd, and tends to use local references and languages to explain concepts (professor of law and history of law). Stallman has excellent skills in seeing problems in software before they get noticed by everyone else, but when I want to introduce someone to the philosophy of free software I would rather put on a talk like Freedom of Thought Requires Free Media from 2012 or the now 11 year old talk Die Gedanken Sind Frei from 2004. 1: this video 2: [LINK]
Just take a look at Eben Moglen[0], he is a very brilliant speaker and a brilliant man in general. Or Jérémie Zimmermann[1] for the European side. Or Benjamin Bayart for the French side. [0] this video [1] [LINK] [2] [LINK] (in french)
From an old comment of mine on the topic: this video [1] 1. "In 1995, there was a debate at Harvard Law School – four of us discussing the future of public key encryption and its control. I was on the side, I suppose, of freedom. It’s where I try to be. With me at that debate was a man called Daniel Weitzner who now works in the White House making Internet policy for the Obama administration. On the other side was the then Deputy Attorney General of the United States and a lawyer in private practice named Stewart Baker who had been chief council to the National Security Agency, our listeners, and who was then in private life helping businesses to deal with the listeners. He then became, later on, the deputy for policy planning in the Department of Homeland Security in the United States and has much to do with what happened in our network after 2001. At any rate, the four of us spent two pleasant hours debating the right to encrypt and at the end there was a little dinner party at the Harvard faculty club, and at the end, after all the food had been taken away and just the port and the walnuts were left on the table, Stuart said, “All right, among us now that we are all in private, just us girls, I’ll let our hair down.” He didn’t have much hair even then, but he let it down. “We are not going to prosecute your client, Mr. Zimmermann," he said. “Public key encryption will become available. We fought a long, losing battle against it, but it was just a delaying tactic.” And then he
From an old comment of mine on the topic: this video [1] 1. "In 1995, there was a debate at Harvard Law School – four of us discussing the future of public key encryption and its control. I was on the side, I suppose, of freedom. It’s where I try to be. With me at that debate was a man called Daniel Weitzner who now works in the White House making Internet policy for the Obama administration. On the other side was the then Deputy Attorney General of the United States and a lawyer in private practice named Stewart Baker who had been chief council to the National Security Agency, our listeners, and who was then in private life helping businesses to deal with the listeners. He then became, later on, the deputy for policy planning in the Department of Homeland Security in the United States and has much to do with what happened in our network after 2001. At any rate, the four of us spent two pleasant hours debating the right to encrypt and at the end there was a little dinner party at the Harvard faculty club, and at the end, after all the food had been taken away and just the port and the walnuts were left on the table, Stuart said, “All right, among us now that we are all in private, just us girls, I’ll let our hair down.” He didn’t have much hair even then, but he let it down. “We are not going to prosecute your client, Mr. Zimmermann," he said. “Public key encryption will become available. We fought a long, losing battle against it, but it was just a delaying tactic.” And then he
> but (...) truly people need to be responsible for what they post online. I strongly disagree. Anonymity is an important and integral part of the internet and the free speech it enables. Moving towards this sort of thing will only be used for abuse and censorship. It saddens me how much this has become an accepted position, even on hn, and I'm quite tired of all the justifications for giving up important rights, anonymity is closely related to privacy for example, just because of some scarey boogeyman of the day. Anonymity offers the ability to criticize entities (governments, corporations, people), to communicate in ways more freely than otherwise, to discuss personal issues without fear, to have a presence online without stalkers or other abusers attack, it also avoids the most common rhetorical abuse I see, which is overreliance on argument from authority by separating the identity of the person making the argument from the argument itself, and I could go on. I could go on... Do you really think the vast amount of negatives that come with your proposal would be worth the tradeoff? this video [1] 1. "In 1995, there was a debate at Harvard Law School – four of us discussing the future of public key encryption and its control. I was on the side, I suppose, of freedom. It’s where I try to be. With me at that debate was a man called Daniel Weitzner who now works in the White House making Internet policy for the Obama administration. On the other side was the then Deputy Attorney