Hans-Christoph Steiner @eighthave@librem.one

@thisven We are exploring funding for litigation and lawyers, that is looking promising. Meetings like this require technical people to spend quality time reviewing documents and joining meetings. #FSFE @edri and other orgs like that do have lawyers and policy people, and are doing a good job engaging on these issues, especially given limited resources. If you're ready to donate now to support this specific work, I recommend giving money to FSFE and EDRi.

In the end, it was a series of six meetings, each lasting two hours, with 75 pages of quite technical background material. We really need more public interest involvement in these kinds of things, but it is no surprise that few people want to do this kind of thing in their spare time. I always thought I'd contribute code, I'm still surprised to be invited to these things. It is clear that #FreeSoftware voices carry a lot more weight in this setting. How can we get more people involved?

Looks like the existence of this study is public info, here's the EC tender https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/dma-commission-launches-call-tenders-study-mobile-ecosystems-2023-09-19_en

There were some other key people there too on their own time, I'd like to thank them for their work too! And some people there for their job were also giving valuable input. (I can't mention who anyone is because of the NDA).

@hub yeah, crazy isn't it? I think they made it NDA'ed so the mega corps would participate. Plus I think its just EC habit: commission work from big consultancies, which do NDA and corporate think by default.

On my own time, I have to read a ~50 page document produced for the #EuropeanCommission in order to effectively participate in a two hour meeting where #FDroid is pitted against #BigTech on the #DigitalMarketsAct and its requirements around installing and allowing other #AppStore options.
Its all NDA'ed so I can't ask for help.
This game is really rigged for the megacorps. Wish me luck! Here's to fighting the good fight!

More fun with #DigitalMarketsAct meetings! This time I'm in some meetings organized by the European Commission, run by a super expensive, multi-national consultancy. We are in with well paid representatives of #BigTech, some academics, and a couple public interest techies like me. Volunteers like me are again driving the key points that will make or break the #DMA. I applied to #FordFoundation to fund our work, but was rejected. How can we in the #EU get more people paid to represent users?

@a_sator Es gibt eh schon zu viel Bodenversiegelung und Bodenverbrauch in Österreich.

Nothing like a massive flowing river in the middle of a city to show us who is boss:

Enforcing #FreeSoftware via contracts rather than licenses is an interesting idea:
https://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Features/A-Post-Open-World

@sabreW4K3 @fdroidorg Mostly it is just luck, there isn't any preferencing, if that's what you mean. Bigger, more complicated apps are more likely to run into build problems, that's another factor.

@guardianproject FYI a big portion of the work this position will handle will be directly supporting #FDroid, including grants and admin work. #FreeSoftwareJobs

European Competition Network's #DMA conference summarized how our digital infrastructure is working, e.g.

"The narrative of #security excuse, which is so often used by big tech players, is a self-serving story created by the incumbents who have the ability to solve incredibly complicated technical problems. Security solutions are not intractable and do not prevent compliance. Once security is taken care of, consumers obviously like choice"

https://www.acm.nl/en/publications/ecn-digital-markets-act-conference-2024

#gatekeepers #BigTech

The CIA has a long track record, documented from their own archives and elsewhere, of breaking just laws about torture, kidnapping, murder, due process, etc. On top of that, they have built a system to ensure they rarely have to face the consequences. 4/4

#DarkNetDiaries 113 makes a very dangerous conclusion that sometimes governments need to break the law. In many countries, the law is the law, and there are no exceptions. I'm fortunate to live in one: Austria. The US Constitution does not say that the government can break the law for security reasons. The US executive branch decided that, and the checks and balances are failing. The right standard comes from MLK Jr: people should break unjust law, but accept the consequences. 3/

The #CIA has a well documented, decades-long history of using coercion and even murder, from Abu Ghraib to the Korean War. If you want extensive detail, see the National Security Archive. Or a great book on the topic is Killing Hope, by William Blum. The CIA even hosts a free PDF of the book, if you trust downloads from them ;-) https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad-compound/13/130AEF1531746AAD6AC03EF59F91E1A1_Killing_Hope_Blum_William.pdf 2/

The #CIA is doing more PR these days, like putting up agents for interviews on popular podcasts where the interviewer won't contradict their #spin or even outright lies, like "the CIA does not spy on Americans". I heard a clear example of this on #DarkNetDiaries episode 116 Mad Dog, where the agent said the CIA doesn't typically use coercion. The key spin word is "typically". Most agents are paper pushers, so they aren't torturing, but the CIA does regularly and frequently torture people 1/