Meet Private Internet Access

Private Internet Access (PIA) was a generous supporter of LibrePlanet 2018 and the Free Software Foundation as a patron. As one of the largest VPN services available, they have customers all around the world. Their VPN works with free software VPN clients like OpenVPN. They recently announced their intention to release some of the software they produce under a free license.

I had a conversation with Christel Dahlskjaer, their director of sponsorships and events, about their views on free software, digital rights, and user freedom. She emphasized that PIA uses their resources for the defense of free software, digital rights, and civil liberties, which are among their greatest concerns.

Through partnerships, PIA educates and helps people learn about and work towards better safety online and the mitigation of privacy risks. They bring this support to "activists, dissidents, journalists, whistleblowers, and digital nomads," in addition to everyday users of their VPN services, Dahlskjaer said in identifying their user base.

PIA is built on free software -- literally and ideologically. "We are acutely aware that free software is at the foundation of the vast majority of the technology that we rely on, and indeed founded our business on," said Dahlskjaer. "We believe that software freedom goes hand in hand with civil liberties and digital rights, and it is natural for us to support the development and use of free software."

"The digital landscape is changing and, as individuals, we are facing real risk from the monetization of data, surveillance, privatization, and risk of potential bad actors. Now is the time to act when it comes to taking (back) control of our data and our digital rights," she went on.

"Draconian leaders continue to be misinformed or have an agenda separate of the people, leading to poor legislation across the board, regardless of one's jurisdiction. It continues to become clear that the greatest challenge is the legal landscape for new technology. That being said, with the continued advancements we have seen with applied cryptography, the time when technology simply transcends is drawing nigh. We will win. I assure you, we will win."

The Free Software Foundation is excited to have the support of Private Internet Access in LibrePlanet, our other work, and the greater free software community.

You can read more about Private Internet Access on their Web site, and also read job descriptions online.

What is a VPN?

A VPN is a Virtual Private Network. It "extends a private network across a public network, and enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network" (Wikipedia). This gives users of a VPN enhanced privacy and security. While frequently used by companies and organizations to provide access to servers or an intranet to those not in the office, a VPN is also invaluable for activists, journalists, whistleblowers, and any end user looking to increase the trust they have in their networks. VPNs can be used to access any Web sites or Web services.

Help improve the Free Software Directory by adding new entries and updating existing ones. Every Friday we meet on IRC in the #fsf channel on irc.freenode.org.

Tens of thousands of people visit directory.fsf.org each month to discover free software. Each entry in the Directory contains a wealth of useful information, from basic category and descriptions, to providing detailed info about version control, IRC channels, documentation, and licensing info that has been carefully checked by FSF staff and trained volunteers.

When a user comes to the Directory, they know that everything in it is free software, has only free dependencies, and runs on a free OS. With over 16,000 entries, it is a massive repository of information about free software.

While the Directory has been and continues to be a great resource to the world for many years now, it has the potential to be a resource of even greater value. But it needs your help! And since it's a MediaWiki instance, it's easy for anyone to edit and contribute to the Directory.

This week we are improving everyone's luck by resurrecting dead entries. While we always want to keep growing the Directory by adding new entries, every now and then we need to do some spring cleaning to wipe away the detritus. Millions of users visit the Directory each year, but we want to make sure they're not stumbling into a graveyard of out-of-date information. So this Friday the 13th, we'll be hunting dead links and reviving older entries!

If you are eager to help, and you can't wait or are simply unable to make it onto IRC on Friday, our participation guide will provide you with all the information you need to get started on helping the Directory today! There are also weekly Directory Meeting pages that everyone is welcome to contribute to before, during, and after each meeting.

Here at the Free Software Foundation (FSF), we're never surprised when another violation of privacy by Facebook or other bad actors is exposed: it has long since been obvious that Facebook is a gold mine for government surveillance and advertisers. However, we also recognize that social media has become a crucial part of everyday life, which is why we urge you to ditch Facebook and instead utilize freedom-respecting, distributed, user-controlled services like GNU social, Mastodon, or Diaspora.

In the meantime, something needs to be done to halt the overall abuse of data, and in today's issue of The Guardian, FSF president and founder Richard Stallman (RMS) offers a bold proposal: that systems need to be legally required to not collect data in the first place. “The basic principle is that a system must be designed not to collect certain data," he writes, "if its basic function can be carried out without that data.” He demands that this change go far beyond Facebook:

“Broader, meaning extending to all surveillance systems, not just Facebook. Deeper, meaning to advance from regulating the use of data to regulating the accumulation of data. Because surveillance is so pervasive, restoring privacy is necessarily a big change, and requires powerful measures.”

As an example of a system that could be adjusted to work this way, RMS notes that London trains and buses don't actually need to centrally record records of where people travel in order to work, although they now do so, which is a fundamental invasion of privacy. He also offers the example of GNU Taler, a convenient digital payment system that keeps payers anonymous: this is a system that already exists and respects users' privacy.

Read the rest of this article at The Guardian.

Help improve the Free Software Directory by adding new entries and updating existing ones. Every Friday we meet on IRC in the #fsf channel on irc.freenode.org.

Tens of thousands of people visit directory.fsf.org each month to discover free software. Each entry in the Directory contains a wealth of useful information, from basic category and descriptions, to providing detailed info about version control, IRC channels, documentation, and licensing info that has been carefully checked by FSF staff and trained volunteers.

When a user comes to the Directory, they know that everything in it is free software, has only free dependencies, and runs on a free OS. With over 16,000 entries, it is a massive repository of information about free software.

While the Directory has been and continues to be a great resource to the world for many years now, it has the potential to be a resource of even greater value. But it needs your help! And since it's a MediaWiki instance, it's easy for anyone to edit and contribute to the Directory.

Twinkies were invented in Schiller Park, Illinois on April 6, 1930, by James Alexander Dewar, a baker for the Continental Baking Company. Realizing that several machines used to make cream-filled strawberry shortcake sat idle when strawberries were out of season, Dewar conceived a snack cake filled with banana cream, which he dubbed the Twinkie.

So one can say that Twinkies arose out of a capitalist understanding of time as a refined notion of the Judeo-Christian idiom "waste not want not." So for this week's Directory, we will focus on "time-shifting," both the legal construct as it interacts with free software, as well as free software that enables things like time-shifting.

If you are eager to help, and you can't wait or are simply unable to make it onto IRC on Friday, our participation guide will provide you with all the information you need to get started on helping the Directory today! There are also weekly Directory Meeting pages that everyone is welcome to contribute to before, during, and after each meeting.

• artanis-0.2.4
• autoconf-archive-2018.03.13
• automake-1.16.1
• datamash-1.3
• dionysus-1.4.0
• foliot-0.9.7
• gawk-4.2.1
• gnuhealth-client-3.2.6
• help2man-1.47.6
• icecat-52.6.0
• libunistring-0.9.9
• linux-libre-4.15.13
• mcron-1.1
• mcsim-6.0.0
• nano-2.9.4
• octave-4.2.2
• parallel-20180322
• shepherd-0.4.0
• time-1.9

For announcements of most new GNU releases, subscribe to the info-gnu mailing list: https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnu.

To download: nearly all GNU software is available from https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/, or preferably one of its mirrors from https://www.gnu.org/prep/ftp.html. You can use the URL https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/ to be automatically redirected to a (hopefully) nearby and up-to-date mirror.

A number of GNU packages, as well as the GNU operating system as a whole, are looking for maintainers and other assistance: please see https://www.gnu.org/server/takeaction.html#unmaint if you'd like to help. The general page on how to help GNU is at https://www.gnu.org/help/help.html.

If you have a working or partly working program that you'd like to offer to the GNU project as a GNU package, see https://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation.html.

As always, please feel free to write to us at maintainers@gnu.org with any GNUish questions or suggestions for future installments.