An ag(e)ing hacker - posts tagged as "politics"

Opernhaus Zürich does not deserve you — 2022-02-19 15:00 Updated: 2022-05-16 21:55

Yesterday evening, February 18, E. and I went to the Zürich opera to see Mozart’s Don Giovanni produced by Sebastian Baumgarten(1): <https://www.opernhaus.ch/en/spielplan/calendar/dongiovanni/2021-2022/>. We were looking forward to a well-deserved happy night out to celebrate how Switzerland had started to look less like a police state. “Freedom day” was supposed to begin at midnight on the 17th—Except, we discovered, at Opernhaus Zürich: there the gratuitous obtuse oppression continues and the house requires you to keep wearing the stupid face masks if you attend. This surprise ruined my mood and completely destroyed the experience for me. Opernhaus Zürich is a venue I [...] Read more

Thanks for fighting against the European copyright directive — 2018-09-11 21:50 Updated: 2021-11-18 17:48

As I am writing this, the European Parliament is debating the disastrously liberticide copyright Directive. After out previous mailing campaign (The European Parliament has voted against the copyright directive, for now (<https://blog.ageinghacker.net/posts/20>)) organized along with a group of GNU friends, we again contacted the Members of the European Parliament before the forthcoming vote. I wish to name all the people who helped by translating the text into several languages and improve it, working tirelessly and with very little time: Christopher Dimech, Yavor Doganov, Rafael Fontenelle, Alexandre Garreau, Bruno Haible, José Marchesi, Tom Uijldert. Thank you all, friends. Update: we failed. [...] Read more

The European Parliament has voted against the copyright directive, for now — 2018-07-06 00:47 Updated: 2022-10-29 02:03

The EU copyright directive in its present form has deep and wide implications reaching far beyond copyright, and erodes into core human rights and values. For more information I recommend Julia Reda’s analysis at <https://juliareda.eu/eu-copyright-reform/>, which is accessible to the casual reader but also contains pointers to the text of the law. Today on June 5, following a few weeks of very intense debate, campaigning and lobbying including deliberate attempts to mislead politicians (<https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180703/16343340172/>), the European Parliament voted in plenary session to reject the directive in its current form endorsed by the JURI committee, and instead reopen the debate. It [...] Read more

Privacy 2013: Why. When. How --- a talk by Werner Koch — 2013-08-05 23:05 Updated: 2013-08-26 12:16

A couple days ago Sylvain (<http://www.beuc.net>) asked me to proofread his transcription of the latest talk by Werner Koch (<http://werner.eifelkommune.de/>). That was an occasion for listening carefully to what Werner has to say about electronic communication privacy in the global police state. Following his speech while paying attention to the text was instructive for me and, I think, a good use of my time. Werner is very competent on the subject: he’s a security expert and, as you probably know, the main author of GPG (<http://gnupg.org>). [Werner Koch speaking] Werner speaking: a frame from the video, CC-BY-SA <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/>. I’ve known [...] Read more

European unitary patent amendments — 2012-12-10 13:17 Updated: 2012-12-11 19:40

Please call the Members of the European Parliament right now, asking them to support amendments 74 and 76 on the Unitary Patent directive. <http://call.unitary-patent.eu/campaign/call2/unitary-patent-plenary-12-2012?setlang=en> • Amendment 74 restates that software is not patentable, as already expressed by the European Parliament in 2003 and 2005; • amendment 76 makes explicit the legislator’s control, in particular the European Parliament’s. Without this amendment the European Patent Office would not be accountable to enforce any limit on patentability, thus opening the door to unlimited US-style patenting of abstract ideas including pure software. All amendments, including 74 and 76: <http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+AMD+A7-2012-0001+071-078+DOC+PDF+V0//EN> The plenary vote will take [...] Read more

ACTA as a test for democracy in Europe — 2012-02-11 02:01 Updated: 2019-10-06 02:40

The conflict couldn’t be more clear. On one side you have the copyright and patent lobbies pushing for even more draconian measures against private behavior, more limitations to freedom of expression, and more power for them on top of what they already have in this war of the rich against the poor. On the other side, of course, there is the public interest. Seeing what the European Parliament does on this occasion will be a test of its worth: will another European institution bend to the pressure of rich lobbies, or will it respect its democratic mandate? Will it prove [...] Read more