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Re: [Bug-gnuzilla] GNU LibreJS won't be removed from GNU IceCat
From: |
Ivan Zaigralin |
Subject: |
Re: [Bug-gnuzilla] GNU LibreJS won't be removed from GNU IceCat |
Date: |
Wed, 28 Feb 2018 10:12:53 -0800 |
User-agent: |
KMail/4.14.10 (Linux/4.4.115-gnu; KDE/4.14.32; x86_64; ; ) |
On Tuesday, February 27, 2018 23:36:37 bill-auger wrote:
> On 02/27/2018 01:33 PM, Ivan Zaigralin wrote:
> > I realized that in order to make the web useful without
> > having to run nonfree software, we must *unscript* it. Fixing individual
> > pages/domains will not solve the problem posed by the disposable software;
>
> just to be clear about the words you are using - where first you
> mentioned "drive-by-download" and now you say "disposable software" -
> you meant the same by these yes? "disposable software" is quite better -
> that says it very precisely - not unlike a plastic diaper
Well, they are two different facets of the same complex human+computer
language+protocol we call the web.
Disposable software (which we could also call transient software) is pretty
much anything rapidly generated by a computer, but especially the obfuscated
code, which may also be salted to fool automated detectors. The key property
of such software is that it's not intended for audit (no one has such
capacity), and the obfuscated part of it is resistant to audit. It is also, as
you pointed out elsewhere, mostly useless outside of its intended context.
Drive-by-downloading should really be called drive-by-execution (but that's
too gruesome :), and this term refers to a specific user-side policy, not
software. The policy is: upon loading a web page, have the web browser
automatically download and execute arbitrary (and often disposable) code from
absolutely anywhere on the web.
This is a very detrimental policy. It's bad for agents who follow it, and
because so many people and computers follow it, it also ruins the web for the
rest of us. This last bit is a good reason to fight it with legislation aimed
at protecting the rights of people who choose not to engage is this madness.
Make commercial and government sites provide free-software-friendly fronts and
all that.
But another side of that issue is educating the users, and here I am very
pessimistic. And we probably do need to educate the users if we are ever to
get the popular support for appropriate legislation. But users are in a
baaaaaad state of mind these days. I am personally blown away by every person
who is not *aghast* at the fact that they are not allowed to own a mobile
phone. Even the people who believe in the sanctity of private property are
seemingly unable to connect the dots. Without the right to repair or even
control, these are rentals in every sense of the word. Indeed, telling others
how to repair devices powered by nonfree software will likely result in a
prison sentence in US:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act
What chance do we have explaining the subtle exploitation via the disposable
software, when users stampede storefronts hoping to become proud renters of
devices which rob them of basic consumer rights, and spy on the most intimate
details of their private lives 24/7, text+sound+video?
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- Re: [Bug-gnuzilla] GNU LibreJS won't be removed from GNU IceCat, (continued)
- Re: [Bug-gnuzilla] GNU LibreJS won't be removed from GNU IceCat, bill-auger, 2018/02/22
- Re: [Bug-gnuzilla] GNU LibreJS won't be removed from GNU IceCat, Julie Marchant, 2018/02/22
- Re: [Bug-gnuzilla] GNU LibreJS won't be removed from GNU IceCat, David Hedlund, 2018/02/22
- Re: [Bug-gnuzilla] GNU LibreJS won't be removed from GNU IceCat, bill-auger, 2018/02/22
- Re: [Bug-gnuzilla] GNU LibreJS won't be removed from GNU IceCat, David Hedlund, 2018/02/26
- Re: [Bug-gnuzilla] GNU LibreJS won't be removed from GNU IceCat, bill-auger, 2018/02/27
- Re: [Bug-gnuzilla] GNU LibreJS won't be removed from GNU IceCat, Ivan Zaigralin, 2018/02/27
- Re: [Bug-gnuzilla] GNU LibreJS won't be removed from GNU IceCat, bill-auger, 2018/02/27
- Re: [Bug-gnuzilla] GNU LibreJS won't be removed from GNU IceCat, bill-auger, 2018/02/27
- Re: [Bug-gnuzilla] GNU LibreJS won't be removed from GNU IceCat, bill-auger, 2018/02/27
- Re: [Bug-gnuzilla] GNU LibreJS won't be removed from GNU IceCat,
Ivan Zaigralin <=
- Re: [Bug-gnuzilla] GNU LibreJS won't be removed from GNU IceCat, Narcis Garcia, 2018/02/22
- Re: [Bug-gnuzilla] GNU LibreJS won't be removed from GNU IceCat, Ivan Zaigralin, 2018/02/22
- Re: [Bug-gnuzilla] GNU LibreJS won't be removed from GNU IceCat, Narcis Garcia, 2018/02/22
- Re: [Bug-gnuzilla] GNU LibreJS won't be removed from GNU IceCat, Ivan Zaigralin, 2018/02/22
- Re: [Bug-gnuzilla] GNU LibreJS won't be removed from GNU IceCat, Narcis Garcia, 2018/02/22
- Re: [Bug-gnuzilla] GNU LibreJS won't be removed from GNU IceCat, Loic Duros, 2018/02/22
- Re: [Bug-gnuzilla] GNU LibreJS won't be removed from GNU IceCat, Ivan Zaigralin, 2018/02/22
- Re: [Bug-gnuzilla] GNU LibreJS won't be removed from GNU IceCat, bill-auger, 2018/02/22
- Re: [Bug-gnuzilla] GNU LibreJS won't be removed from GNU IceCat, Julie Marchant, 2018/02/23
- Re: [Bug-gnuzilla] GNU LibreJS won't be removed from GNU IceCat, Narcis Garcia, 2018/02/23