In the long term I'd like to see that every computer sold in the western world came configured as standard as freedom-enabled: this would mean mesh networking, encryption, a steganographic filing system, etc, out of the box.
This would have two advantages. One is that western governments would find it difficult to take freedom away from the internet.
The other is that authoritarian governments would either have to abandon the free internet and implement their own locked-down and incompatible one, or they would have to accept that they can't control their people's communications. The advantage this would give the west in any future cold war against China is, I hope, obvious.
I'm standing for election to the Scottish parliament later this year. If I'm elected I'll try to get something like this implemented.
"I'm standing for election to the Scottish parliament later this year. If I'm elected I'll try to get something like this implemented."
I'd really like to hear how the voters are responding to such an issue. Do people understand, more or less, the technology, the ramifications, the options? Do they care? Do they care once <something> is explained? That sort of thing.
There are a number of comments posted on HN to the effect that "mere" users don't care, don't understand, can't be bothered, etc. That they only care that Stuff Works, for some limited definition of "works". I'd like to think that's not true, but my sample set of non-geeks is probably too small to make broad statements about the general population.
> I'd really like to hear how the voters are responding to such an issue. Do people understand, more or less, the technology, the ramifications, the options?
The vast majority don't (yet). That's one reason why the Pirate Party is going to have other policies as well!
In the long term I'd like to see that every computer sold in the western world came configured as standard as freedom-enabled: this would mean mesh networking, encryption, a steganographic filing system, etc, out of the box.
This would have two advantages. One is that western governments would find it difficult to take freedom away from the internet.
The other is that authoritarian governments would either have to abandon the free internet and implement their own locked-down and incompatible one, or they would have to accept that they can't control their people's communications. The advantage this would give the west in any future cold war against China is, I hope, obvious.
I'm standing for election to the Scottish parliament later this year. If I'm elected I'll try to get something like this implemented.