On Wed, 2007-01-17 at 00:01 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: > On Tuesday 16 January 2007 10:43, Rick Sewill wrote: > [...] > >I apologize if people think this discussion is appropriate on this list. > >I do not. No fruitful information is being added to this discussion. > >This discussion seems to have a life of its own, and does not go away. > > I'm sorry too Rick, but you are asking us to do the equ of taking our > problem on down the hall to the janitors closet. > Having this discussion on the Fedora list IS taking the problem down the hall to the janitors closet, or the water cooler. Get it widely distributed. Go to slashdot. Wait...that's not enough. Slashdot is for techies. Slashdot is a bigger janitors closet. Get the attention of people who can make a difference. Get involved in the political process. You blame the Republicans for being opposed to Net Neutrality and being in favor of surveillance at the cost of your personal privacy, and for what the NSA is doing, become a Democrat. http://www.democrats.org has a daily open thread where people can vent. Start venting where it will do some good. The following is a URL for the Tuesday Open Thread: http://www.democrats.org/a/2007/01/tuesday_open_th_21.php Fill the Open Threads up with your concerns. Let the politicians know. You think the Democrats are as bad as the Republicans. Get involved. I think the Democrats can be changed. Not sure about the Republicans. Finally, put your money where your mouth is. Like it or not, money counts as much as votes. Be persistent. Organize. Grass roots can sometimes trump money. Don't tell me I don't care. Tell me instead, how you are being helpful. Tell me instead, what you have done and are going to do that helps. Make a list of action items. Get volunteers to work on your list. Maybe your list will look something like this: 1) Find out if Selinux contains a NSA backdoor. People on this list are software engineers. People in a selinux mailing list are too, and know the code better. 2) Find out if the chips from Intel or AMD have a NSA backdoor, if you can. Maybe you cannot without running afoul of laws. That is where you need political muscle, in Washington, to have a very legal investigation into this question. 3) Find out if the box makers are putting a special chip on their boards that give the NSA a backdoor, if you can. Same caution about running afoul of laws. Legal investigations can do what vigilantes cannot. 4) find a means to get your point across. Influence the Democratic or Republican political party. Personally, I think the Democrats are easier to influence, but that is my choice, and maybe I am wrong. > Normal folks don't normally consider stuff like this in detail, > particularly of the sort some of the links provided in this thread (thank > you very much, providers. Some of those are real eye openers). > > However, sweeping it under the rug by folks like us is exactly how we have > managed to get into this pickle in the first place. The problems or > paranoia we have been discussing this past few days really do need > airing, if for no other reason than to give the more one track minded > people a clue that there really is a concern, and that this concern > should be dealt with by the masses (read that as us, and any neighbors > you can rope into the cause too) in sufficient numbers that we end up > getting the perps attention. Isolating it to a list whose sole focus is > related to this particular subject will not very often tilt the scales of > justice back toward the center. There just aren't enough numbers to be > any great concern to TPTB. Put it on a major list and we might be able > to get the apathy you seem to want to represent off of dead center if we > all push or pull in the same direction. > Normal folks are not on the Fedora mailing list. In the grand scheme of things, the Fedora list is a water cooler list. We are here to learn about Fedora. We are here to get help on Fedora. To us, the Fedora list is important. Is it important outside Fedora? This discussion is going to go nowhere. The audience is too small. The audience is devoted to Fedora, a segment of the Linux community. Hopefully, in time, more people will use Linux...if we are nice to all the newbies and are patient with their questions. At this moment, the Linux community is still small, little more than a big janitors closet. To see you waste yourself in this discussion, not having a plan, not finding out the facts, not having volunteers to do the grunt work, not voicing your concerns in the political blogs where it might do some good...enough of my rant. To imply I don't care is as far from the truth as you can imagine. I can't compete with the rich and powerful. My only strength is strength in numbers with others who believe as I do. I have to expend my limited, paltry resources wisely. This discussion, on this mailing list, is not a wise use of resources. If you have the money, go mainstream. Get facts on television or in some newspapers which have large circulations. Those who do not live in the United States have a role too. You can use facts to influence your politicians. Maybe your politicians can apply pressure to the United States. Don't you see the important steps? 1) get facts...why do you need facts? Normal people won't believe there is a problem; they like security. Normal people will believe you represent some fringe opinion. You need facts to get an investigation going to get more facts. You need political muscle. 2) find a way to use the facts to fix the problem Guess what...to fix the problem, you again need political muscle. Once again, Where is your list of action items? Who are the volunteers who are going to do each action item? Create a mailing list where you and the volunteers can plan and act. I could easily delete all "How NSA Access..." messages. It is much harder watching you waste your energy floundering around, knowing you will eventually give up and go back to your quiet life, without having a plan and volunteers...without doing any good. Don't you see why this mailing list is not the appropriate venue?
