Die Free Software Foundation Europe und alle Freunde Freier Software, Verbraucherrechte und freien Wettbewerbs können sich seit einigen Tagen über einen weiteren Erfolg beim Thema Routerzwang freuen. Nachdem das Bundeswirtschaftsministerium (BMWi) das Thema Routerzwang in die eigenen Hände genommen hatte und einen Gesetzentwurf (TK-Endgerätegesetz) verfasst hat, der größtenteils unseren Vorstellungen entspricht, wurde dieser Entwurf der EU-Kommission und den Mitgliedsstaaten für Kommentare und Änderungswünsche vorgelegt. Dabei wurde nach Ablauf der sogenannten Stillhaltefrist ausschließlich eine formelle Unklarheit bemängelt und der Gesetzestext im Inhalt gebilligt.
Yesterday I’ve been asked by a good friend of mine why I am investing so much time in the FSFE (Free Software¹ Foundation Europe) instead of putting more energy in other organisations with more focus on privacy issues. The background of his question is that I’m quite concerned about governmental and commercial surveillance and the lack of really private ways to communicate with each other and the impact this has on our online and offline behaviour. With Laura Poitras‘ recent movie „Citizenfour“ awarded with an Oscar, I use the media attention as an icebreaker to talk with my friends about these topics if the situation allows it.
“It’s Valentine’s day and you’re writing a blog post? Are you nuts?” you might ask. Well, but it’s not only Valentine’s day but also I love Free Software day. This day is proclaimed every year on February 14 by the Free Software Foundation Europe to thank all developers and contributors of Free Software (software you can use for any purpose, which source code you or others can analyze, which can be modified and distributed).
I recently saw that the Free Software Foundation Europe is offering a new and very interesting internship position. That’s a great opportunity for every student interested in Free Software and political activism — and for me to write about my internship I completed from October 2013 until end of March 2014. Here’s a report I wrote some time ago:
In my opinion, the latest NSA leaks reached a new level of boldness. Oh wait, maybe you are one of the people that keep saying “Of course NSA is spying on all of us, but I’m safe: I use Tor/VPN, deleted my Facebook account, and I completely switched to secure operating systems, so I got this going for me.” If so I congratulate you, these are important steps and I hope there will be more people like you.