marc0s @marc0s@librem.one

Exciting news! Thanks to funding from the Open Technology Fund, the excellent folks at Simply Secure will be working with us to improve the usability of #Snikket, particularly our iOS app.

If you're interested in helping out with the usability study, there is an opportunity to participate with 30 minutes of your time. No special expertise required :)

Read more on our blog: https://snikket.org/blog/simply-secure-collaboration/

#xmpp

We've outlined our history syncing strategy on the ModernXMPP docs and would love for other #XMPP clients to do the same, if you're willing. This is part of a push to write a standard that outlines best practices, and we'd love to cooperate with you all! https://docs.modernxmpp.org/client/sync/

I have no words...

UK food firms beg ministers to let them use prisoners to ease labour shortages
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/aug/23/uk-food-firms-beg-ministers-to-let-them-use-prisoners-to-ease-labour-shortages

https://rocblackblock.com/

Errekaleor, Gasteiz.

Irudiaren egilea: rocblackbock.com

PSA: if anyone emails you from krita.biz, krita.io or krita.com with this "proposal", DO NOT FALL FOR IT, it's a scam. We don't own those domains and we will never spam you. Please spread the word!

If passed, the Iranian Parliament's "Protection Bill" will require international tech companies to have a legal representative in Iran to comply with laws, and cooperate with the Iranian government in surveilling users and censoring online spaces. https://www.article19.org/resources/iran-parliaments-protection-bill-will-hand-over-complete-control-of-the-internet-to-authorities/

It shouldn’t have to happen to you for it to matter to you

Federated Stories are almost ready 😁 #pixelfed #stories #activitypub

Remember to take care of yourself. You can’t pour from an empty cup.

The 2 most northerly statues of Lenin on earth, in Barentsburg and Pyramiden, respectively, both settlements in Svalbard.

The 9 Stages of Debugging:
🤔😕😫🤔🤬😲🤦🏻‍♀️😅😎

As you may have seen, #Apple is about to start scanning files on #iPhones for illegal material (not just in #iCloud but on your phone). At the same time, univ. researchers who developed a similar scanning system are warning against its use:

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/08/20/university-researchers-csam-dangerous

Tl:dr - it's way, way too easy to swap out what is being scanned for, this particular slope is far too slippery. Once you search for one thing, it's trivial to scan for pretty much anything else.

So, what's the alternative?

🧵 (1/4)

➡️ @mobian - Mobile version of Debian Linux

➡️ @postmarketOS - Mobile version of Alpine Linux

➡️ @ubports - Mobile version of Ubuntu Linux

➡️ @plasmamobile - FOSS smartphone interface developed by @kde

Probably the easiest option right now is buying a PinePhone or an /e/ degooglised phone, as they have their OSes preinstalled.

However, all these projects deserve support so that alternative phones can become as functional and as easy to use as possible.

(4/4)

If you're looking for a chance to get paid to write meaningful open source software, here's one of those rare opportunities. Fully remote.

We're hiring additional software engineers to join the SecureDrop team, an open source platform to protect journalists & whistleblowers. Our posting outlines the specific skillsets we're looking for:

https://freedom.press/jobs/sr-software-engineers-securedrop/

If this describes you, please get in touch! Happy to answer questions.

An argument that's often made is that piracy harms content creators. That music piracy impacts the revenue that artists earn through royalties, etc. The gist of the argument is "piracy hurts those who make the content you love".

Whether you believe that or not, do you know who this DOESN'T apply to?

Do you know who receive NO royalties for their published work, and in fact must PAY just to get published? Academics.

You should feel no guilt for obtaining free scientific papers. The authors are losing nothing; their research is being seen by more people than it would otherwise.

So why do they pay to get published? Reputable academic journals serve as a clearing-house. Getting your paper published in a journal is a mark of quality, indicating that your paper has been peer-reviewed and accepted as a valid contribution to science and knowledge. And I have no problem with this; people pay for certifications all the time.

What I have a problem with is that the journal, who have already been paid to publish the article, then turn around and charge the general public for access to the article. (I guess it's usually free if you're a student, but still.) Essentially the journal is taking ownership of, and restricting the dissemination of the scientific knowledge that they were paid to publish.

Publish: from the Latin publicare, "to make public". If it's behind a paywall, it's not publically available; so technically, it's not actually published.

Consider also the rise of "predatory journals", something that can only exist because of this business model. Predatory journals basically exist to scam academics into "publishing" their work in a journal that is neither peer-reviewed nor reputable. They also make money off those who want to advance an agenda; predatory journals will happily take money to publish just about any paper, including those which were outright lies or would never pass a real peer review.

The only ones who benefit financially from all of this is the journals themselves.

So, pirating academic papers may harm the journal it's published in, as they lose out on potential access fees. But the authors don't lose anything financially. And they also don't lose any value in publishing; they are paying for the legitimacy that being reviewed and published grants their work, and the journal still receives the publishing fee. And the journals will always get plenty of money flowing in from all of the universities that provide access to their students.

Who's really losing out here? Anyway, SciHub is a thing.