Tsikbal: from my perspective

As this post at wired.com , saying that you don't have nothing to hide is not the right way to make a case for or against surveillance. Surveillance in itself is not something good or bad, it's a tool that can be helpful in many ways from keeping us safe to learning new things. The post makes a good point about how anything we do can be illegal somewhere. Not only that, laws evolve as society does. As such, things become legal or illegal with time as society views changes overtime or to accommodate technological changes. To add complexity to something that is already hard to follow, the law books reflect the way the views of the society that codify them. As such, we all have done something that it's illegal somewhere at some point in time. Not because we are bad, or criminals, but because the laws are different at different places. Even within a same country, laws may differ between different states and counties. So, if we let law enforcement agencies know everythi...

I find it amusing, ironic and a bit sad that Blackberry blasts Apple for its use of encryption to protect their user's privacy. In more than one way, I didn't see coming something like this from Blackberry, who's encryption software is one of the best and the reason many of its costumers use it to begin with. But most importantly, while it's true that criminals and terrorists make use of encryption, using as that an argument against encryption is a fallacy. Encryption isn't the most important tool than enables criminal or terrorist actions, or makes it impossible to conduct or collect data to prevent or punish those actions. Most importantly, that encryption can be used to do bad doesn't take away that most uses are legit and it protects the privacy of good people. Saying that it was because of encryption, that law enforcement and intelligence agencies are not able to prevent crime and terrorism is shortsighted and at the verge of being a lie. To b...

I find it ironic that most of the biggest software and hardware companies are using open source to build their own systems, they keep telling their costumers that they should put their trust on proprietary systems. It seems that foolish that those companies that use open source to build their system, don't embrace open source on the costumer side. In a way, they are losing on the most important side of open source software and hardware. After all, who would be more interested in making their software and hardware even better than the costumers who use it. Costumers invest more than money on the systems they use, they also invest time and build expertise on those systems they use. With this in mind, it makes sense to let the costumers that use your system to actually be able to freely contribute to make the system as a whole better. After all, they are more likely to find things to improve or bugs to fix since they come to scenarios that are hard to replicate in other w...

After the terrorist attacks in Paris last week, many have called encryption as something that we need to give up in the name of safety. Many of those voices say that encryption enabled the terrorists to carry out their attack, because it made it's movements to pass undetected. The truth is far more complex, and encryption was not an major factor in the terrorist ability to carry out the attacks. The whole intelligence gathering apparatus failed, since there are many other ways to gather information about people. Focusing on the communications made via smart phones, or the information stored on a hard drive, is to narrow. People moves no only on a virtual world, but they also need to contact other people on the real world. As such, saying that people who use encryption on their electronic devices must be doing something bad are evil is not only shortsighted, but dangerous. Most people who use encryption, myself included, just want to keep something private. The obsessiv...

As an free and open source software advocate, that actually uses it on my personal laptop on daily basis, I find most arguments for and against it a bit exaggerated. I do recommend free and open source software to be used by all, it's just a matter of finding the right software for the needs of the user. For most users, I'd recommend Ubuntu or Linux Mint since I've first hand experience with both of this distros and they cover the needs of most users with not that much of a learning curve. Most importantly, these two distros have all the software that most people normally uses on daily basis. As such, they wont miss their proprietary software all that much since they can do all what they are used too without a problem. With Ubuntu and Linux Mint they can still have access to software like Firefox, Chrome, Spotify and Skype. For other software, there are options available that work at least as well as their counterparts in Windows or Mac OS X while being user fr...

There are many arguments on how modern technology is dehumanizing people, yet I think that modern technology is changing what it means to be human. There has been several technologies that have changed the curse of humanity through out history, yet it's hard to pick a time in history in which technology has changed humanity as much, and as deeply, so many aspects of humanity in such a relatively short time. It's impressive how much technology has permeated to every day life, and how much we have come to expect it to just work. It has allowed us to do so much more, that it has augmented our experiences in ways that would be unimaginable just a few decades ago. Not just what we can physically has been enhanced, but our minds and senses have been enhanced in ways that we can really understand yet. In more than one way, this could mean a chance to make humanity better as a whole. Yet, it seems that how good this new chance is not yet certain because the signs are still...

Blackberry has been somewhat of a dilemma for me, since I like the security and the quality of its smart phones. Yet, that its OS is closed source OS is something that I don't really endorse as an open source advocate. Now that Blackberry has made official it's Priv smart phone launch, all changes. Since it's powered by Android, and it comes with Blackberry's security features baked into it from the start, it makes quite an interesting proposition. This combination makes it quite an interesting proposition for people who support FLOSS and those are mindful of their privacy. Now, we'll have to wait until the device hits the market to know how good Priv actually is. Yet, one can be hopeful that it will be quite a good handset, since Blackberry's hardware is quite solid and Android is quite the solid OS as well. The plus for me, is the fact that the Priv comes with a physical keyboard. Call me old fashioned, but I still prefer having a physical keyboa...

The news that Steam just crossed the 1,500 games natively available on Linux is great news not only for Steam itself, but the whole Linux ecosystem. While it still lags far behind the number of games available for Windows and OS X, that the mark is significant in itself. It means that Steam is viewed as a viable gaming platform by developers, since it has been adding about a 100 new games a month for a while now. And while Steam still has some pains due to the lack of driver support for some graphic cards, the fact that there people developing and buying games for Linux helps the ecosystem as a whole. Since it gives a reason to GPU manufactures to start supporting their cards on Linux, they are going to have to make available their drivers on the OS if they want to have a piece of the market for themselves. With this, all the Linux ecosystem wins as a whole. The game developers working to make their games on Steam, and the people buying those games, are a driving force to...

The irony of a 9th grader being arrested because he took a clock he made to school is not only big, but quite disheartening as well. One should think that schools would a place a student should be able to bring something like that without fear, specially of being arrested and suspended because of it. As a matter of fact, the reaction one would expect from the teachers and other staff would be the opposite. I mean, they should be quite interested in fostering that kind of skills and mentality on their students for the better. This issue is made even worse, when one takes into account that the US is starting to lag behind other developed countries on that skill set. Not only that, many of the teenagers and kids are loosing interest on perusing and engineering or science degree stuff like this will only push them further away from those fields. Schools should be one of those places where their students could safely share and practice building things like that. Specially, sin...

The news that the city of Munich is contributing upstream are good, really good, news. They mean two important things for open source software, and both can't be understated. To begin with, it comes to show that open source software can be successfully deployed even in places as important and complex and city governments. The argument that open source software can't compete with proprietary software has been rendered muted, and in such a way that its hard to dispute. There are a few other places where software could effectiveness could be tested more throughly than a government, even if it is at a city level. Secondly, it comes to show that contribute upstream is not something that just a few can do. The only requirement is to have an IT department that has the technical knowhow to implement the changes needed to the needs of the particular entity to then share does changes upstream. When there is that aspect, then it makes it more of a matter of will to contribut...

To hear that the Ada Initiative is closing down, is not something an open source advocate wants to hear. Specially when it's an initiative that brings women to the open source community, by empowering them and giving them the skills needed to be a part of the community. Though not all is lost, since their resources are going to be left behind so they can keep benefiting others, the ideal would be that the Ada Initiative to be able to keep on their work. In many ways, there is a need for women to have place like Ada Initiative as support. Though I'd love to see these kind of initiatives moving away from helping women against harassment and those kind of issues, to being being able focus on other kind of support to women who want to move and work on open source software. When we lose an initiative like this, not only women lose. We all lose, since it could mean that many talented women could choose to move away from working on open source software, and deprive the c...