FITUG e.V.
Förderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft
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------- Forwarded message follows ------- Date sent: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 15:41:50 -0500 From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> To: politech@politechbot.com Subject: FC: SpyTV, interactive television, and lessons about free software Send reply to: declan@well.com
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Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 22:42:35 -0700 (MST) From: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> To: politech@politechbot.com Subject: Interactive TV and its lessons about free and non-free software
Please take a look at www.spyinteractive.com. It explains how interactive TV can be turned to unsavory ends by the developers of the system.
This problem creates a paradox for personal-data-protection laws, because Interactive TV can be used to manipulate you even if the information it gathers about you is never sent out of your house.
A lesson can be drawn from this which I think the site itself does not draw: that any non-free program that you allow into your life, if it is in a position to receive complex instructions from the Internet, is a potential agent to manipulate or interfere with you, and cannot be trusted. Hence free software is not just important for programmers. It is the only way non-programmers can have software they can trust.
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ for more about the philosophy of the Free Software Movement.
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