Politics

  • FSFE sends open letter to the EU Commission

    Steve WoodsOpen Standards, Politics, Tech

    FSFE logoThe Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) has written an open letter to the EU Commission today – the international “Day against DRM” – asking the EU to prevent Digital Rights Management (or Digital Restrictions Management as termed by the FSFE. Ed.) technology from being closely integrated into the HTML5 standard.

    The FSFE is concerned about efforts currently in progress at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), to encourage the integration of DRM technology into web browsers. The W3C oversees many of the key standards on which the World Wide Web is based.

    The full text of the letter is reproduced below.

    To: Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem (Home Affairs)

    cc: Antonio Tajani (Enterprise)
    Viviane Reding (Justice)
    Joaquin Almunia (Competition)
    Michel Barnier (Internal Market)
    Neelie Kroes (Digital Agenda)

    Dear Commissioner Malmstroem,

    we are writing to you on the occasion of the international Day Against Digital Restrictions Management, which today is being celebrated around the world. We are very concerned about the security of European citizens, and we ask you to take action to protect them.

    The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is an independent charitable non-profit dedicated to promoting Free Software and freedom in the information society. Today we would like to direct your attention to a very specific threat to the freedom and security of computer users everywhere.

    Both at work and in our personal lives, we conduct a large part of our activity through Web browsers. Ever more of our work and life migrates into the digital domain, and many people use a growing number of web services to work, create, socialise, and express themselves. Businesses and public sector organisations similarly rely on web browsers as crucial tools to perform their everyday tasks.

    Recently, the importance of the Web browser was highlighted when numerous state agencies and IT security companies warned about a long-standing critical security problem in the widely used Microsoft Internet Explorer browser, soon followed by warnings of a vulnerability in the also widely used Adobe Flash Player.

    These incidents were only the most recent ones to highlight the importance of ensuring that such a crucial piece of software as the Web browser is fully under the control of its user. The German Federal Office of Information Security (BSI) issued a list of recommendations for secure Web browsers and their components for use in companies and public bodies on April 14. The BSI notes that due to the way they are used, “Web browsers are exposed to especially high risk from malware”. In the list of recommendations for a secure Web browser, the BSI includes the demand that Web browsers and their components should be completely auditable (Point 1.6).

    Web browsers like Mozilla Firefox or the Chromium browser have succeeded in this regard, providing the public with web browsers that are not only fully auditable, but which can also be freely shared and improved. This is in line with the Open Standards approach which has made it possible for the Internet and the World Wide Web to thrive and grow into its current role as a vital platform for economic activity, social interaction without borders, and unchained creativity.

    The protocols on which the Internet is built, such as the TCP/IP stack and the HTML standard, are fully open and implemented in myriad Free Software products. Free Software powers the vast majority of Web servers, smartphones, embedded devices, and many other applications of technology. The rise of today’s leading Web companies, such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon, would not have been possible without Free Software, and they could not operate without it today. Whatever European companies step up to challenge them are inevitably going to rely on Free Software and Open Standards as well. Free Software and Open Standards are both the foundation of our digital world, and the condicio sine qua non for its future.

    HTML5 is the latest revision of the HTML standard. It is hard to think of a standard that is more crucial for the World Wide Web. HTML5 will deliver a number of important improvements, and is set to be the basis of the World Wide Web for the coming years, and to allow for the kind of rich, responsive interactivity that will allow browsers to replace “apps” as controllers for everything from thermostats to automobiles.

    This is why we are very concerned about efforts currently in progress at the World Wide Web Consortium, which oversees many of the key standards on which the Internet and the World Wide Web are based, to encourage use of the Content Decryption Module (CDM) which cannot be audited. The CDM, though not specified in the HTML5 standard itself, is required by the so-called “Encrypted Media Extension” (EME), developed by a W3C working group. This extension’s primary purpose is to satisfy the desire of a limited number of content providers with traditional business models to generate revenue through restrictive distribution practices. With EME, the W3C would be building a bridge to let content providers take control of users’ computers, letting them impose restrictions far in excess of what consumers’ rights and copyright allow.

    The discussion about EME at W3C is largely driven by a few large US-based companies, and except the BBC takes place without significant European involvement. Given these circumstances, the discussion will likely result in a solution that fails to take the needs of European citizens, businesses and governments fully into account.

    Auditing the Content Decryption Module will be difficult, because the source code of this functionality will be a closely held secret of the company which provides it. Performing such an audit and reporting security flaws would also be illegal in the many countries which have adopted so-called “anti-circumvention” laws. Reporting a security problem in CDM would expose the reporter to the risk of prosecution for making a circumvention device.

    In consequence, individuals, companies and organisations (including the European Commission) would likely end up increasing the amount of software with unknowable security problems which it uses in a high-risk setting.

    Integrating DRM facilities into HTML5 is the antithesis of everything that has made the Internet and the World Wide Web successful. It is directly contrary to the interests of the vast majority of Internet users everywhere, and especially in Europe.

    Recommendations

    The discussions within W3C are now at a crucial juncture in this regard. It is still just about possible to prevent the W3C from making it too easy to effectively require the inclusion of such secret, inauditable software in Web browsers.

    • We urge the Commission to engage with the W3C and ensure that the organisation takes these concerns on board as it decides on the adoption of the Encrypted Media Extension (EME).
    • We further ask the Commission to underline its commitment to the security and freedom of Europe’s citizens by pledging not to make use of the Encrypted Media Extension in its own infrastructure, even if EME would be standardised by W3C.
    • At a minimum, the W3C should require covenants from EME participants through which they promise not to take action against entities who report and demonstrate vulnerabilities in EME and the CDM; and covenants to safeguard entities who reverse-engineer and publish details of EME and CDM implementations for the purpose of interoperability, including interoperability with Free Software.

    At FSFE, we look forward to supporting the Commission in taking the appropriate actions to safeguard the interests of Europe’s citizens and companies, and remain at the Commission’s service.

    Sincerely,
    Karsten Gerloff, President Free Software Foundation Europe

  • May contain traces of Greens

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

    Election leaflets from the Liberal Democrats are renowned amongst followers of politics for their inaccuracies, in particular their dodgy ‘bar chart’ graphs.

    With the European Parliament elections later this month, sitting Liberal Democrat MEP for the South West Graham Watson has been getting his leaflets out. Those leaflets feature the picture below.

    ld_lab_green

    Here we have a typical picture of smiling Liberal Democrats campaigning for better rail services in Bristol. Keen watchers of politics will notice some familiar local LD faces, such as former Bristol councillor ‘Jolly’ Jon Rogers, sitting Bristol councillor Tim Kent and Bristol West MP Stephen Williams.

    Keener eyes will also spot prominent local transport campaigner and Green Party member Julie Boston, as well as sitting Bristol Labour councillor Mark Bradshaw.

    Well done, Lib Dems!

    Hat tip: Anna McMullen.

  • UKIP poster corrected

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics

    Somewhere out there in the UK, someone is taking a spray can to UKIP’s xenophobic European Parliament election campaign posters.

    UKIP poster amended to read No to Mass Hysteria

    Hat tip: Maria Aretoulaki

    Incidentally, if you get a UKIP election leaflet and you don’t wish to pollute your paper recycling with it, you can return it free of charge to them at the following address:

    UKIP FREEPOST
    RLSU-HZBG-UBBG
    Lexdrum House
    Heathfield
    Devon
    TQ12 6UT

  • ORG: Don’t sell our tax data, HMRC!

    Steve WoodsMedia, Politics

    The current government’s asset stripping of the British state has now moved onto HMRC, according to an article in yesterday’s Guardian. To quote directly from the Guardian piece:

    The personal financial data of millions of taxpayers could be sold to private firms under laws being drawn up by HM Revenue & Customs in a move branded “dangerous” by tax professionals and “borderline insane” by a senior Conservative MP.

    The senior Conservative MP in question is David Davis, who has taken a particular interest in civil liberties in recent years. According to The Guardian, Davis has said:

    “The officials who drew this up clearly have no idea of the risks to data in an electronic age. Our forefathers put these checks and balances in place when the information was kept in cardboard files, and data was therefore difficult to appropriate and misuse.

    “It defies logic that we would remove those restraints at a time when data can be collected by the gigabyte, processed in milliseconds and transported around the world almost instantaneously.”

    HMRC logo
    HMRC – your data isn’t safe in their hands

    Outside Parliament, the Open Rights Group is campaigning against the madness that has afflicted the taxman. According to ORG, the use of personal data without consent is meant to be against data protection laws, so what are the Information Commissioner and Data Protection Registrar doing about this proposed flagrant breach of data protection legislation?

    In the meantime, the ORG has set up a petition to which you can add your name. The petition reads as follows:

    I call on the government to halt plans to sell personal tax data to private companies and researchers. Please don’t sell our private financial information to companies. Anonymisation is not foolproof and it is my right to object to my information being shared in this way.

    Any access to my personal information held by the government should only be given after my explicit personal consent.

    Sign the petition.

    I have. My financial data submitted to HMRC is meant for them alone, not to be sold to the highest bidder, even in allegedly ‘anonymised’ format.

  • Crapita and the MoJ: still wasting public money

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics, Social Media

    Crapita’s mismanagement of the courts and tribunals interpreting contract for the Ministry of Justice may not be getting as much publicity now as previously (posts passim), but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t stopped wasting public money, as the tweet below from yesterday reveals.

    As Leisha doesn’t mention the type of court involved, there’s no certainty how many thousands of pounds this laxity has cost, but once again justice is being delayed, contrary to one of the few clauses of Magna Carta still in legal effect (posts passim).

    One might even think that the one organisation that should be concerned about this – the Ministry of Justice – seems to be less concerned with justice and more with covering up its own and Crapita’s serial incompetence.

  • ORG meet-up at St Werburghs

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics, Tech

    ORG logoThe Open Rights Group (ORG), an organisation which exists to preserve and promote your rights in the digital age, is holding a meet-up at 8.00 pm on Thursday 24th April 2014 at St Werburgh’s Community Centre, Horley Road, Bristol, BS2 9TJ (map).

    Following the Snowden revelations on GCHQ’s role in Prism, Open Rights Group, Big Brother Watch, English PEN and Chaos Computer Club spokesperson Constanze Kurz are challenging the UK government at the European Court of Human Rights.

    The European Court has completed its preliminary examination of the case and has asked the British Government to justify how GCHQ’s practices and the current system of oversight comply with the right to privacy under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

    The court has also given the case a rare priority designation. The British government now has until 2nd May to respond, after which the case will move into the final stages before judgement.

    Join ORG in Bristol to hear from Dan Carey, the solicitor for the application, as he explains what the challenge hopes to achieve and how it will progress from here.

    We’ll also be hearing about the Don’t Spy On Us campaign from ORG’s Policy Director, Javier Ruiz, as ORG asks the public to sign its 6 key principles on mass surveillance.

    The event will provide a fun and informal way to meet with other local ORG supporters, as well as an opportunity to learn about mass surveillance.

    Please join the meetup group if you’re interested in coming along.

  • Political proofreading failure

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Politics

    Below is a picture of part of an actual election leaflet delivered recently to somewhere in South Bristol by the local Liberal Democrats.

    Lib Dem leaflet with the wording Anywhere Council
    Is it a three horse race too, Lib Dems?

    Note that local party hacks have omitted to change this generic national leaflet’s wording from ‘Anywhere Council’ to the name of the relevant local authority.

    I for one would like to wish the candidate involved – [Insert Name Here] – every success.

    Hat tip: Bristol Red.

  • ODF recommended for Galicia’s public sector

    Steve WoodsOpen Source, Open Standards, Politics, Tech

    Galicia's coat of armsJoinup, the EU’s public sector open source news website, reports that the government of Spain’s autonomous region of Galicia is recommending that the region’s public sector organisations adopt Open Document Format (ODF, ISO 26300) for editable electronic documents and PDF for non-editable electronic documents.

    “This will facilitate the re-use of documents and the creation of derivative works”, the government writes in a guide which was published on 26 March, Document Freedom Day (posts passim). Public sector bodies are also being advised to make their documents available using a copyleft licence, such as Creative Commons’ CC-by-SA.

    The guide ‘Boas prácticas para a liberación de publicacións da Xunta de Galicia‘ (Good Practice Guide for liberating Galicia government documents) has been written by Galicia’s free software resource centre, the ‘Oficina de Coordinación de Software Libre’ (Ocfloss). The report is available in both ODT and PDF formats is also published under the CC-by-SA licence.

    The guide also contains advice for the public sector on how to manage intellectual property rights in respect of its documents, images and multimedia files, as well as guidance on the creation of derivative works.

  • New Bristol coat of arms

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

    There’s a meeting of Mayor George Ferguson’s cabinet today down at City Hall the Counts Louse today.

    Amongst the items on the agenda are the sale of the freehold of Avonmouth and Royal Portbury Docks for a mere £10 mn. to the Bristol Port Company.

    However, there are more controversial items to be discussed. A mole down the Counts Louse has revealed that a new coat of arms and motto for the city have been proposed. Our new elected autocrat Mayor believes “Virtute et Industrial” (Virtue and Industry) is no longer appropriate given the changes he’s made since being elected and believes the city would be better served by the more apposite “Carpe Omnium” (Grab it all). He also believes the city’s coat of arms should be redesigned too, likewise to reflect his achievements.

    For the benefit of readers I’ve mocked up the new motto and a new coat of arms to show what Bristol could be letting itself in for.

    a mock coat of arms featuring red trousers and the motto Carpe Omnium
    Bristol’s new coat of arms?

    The council press office is denying rumours that the Cabinet is also discussing a motion to rename the city Georgetown in honour of the Mayor.

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