Jew World Order

 Hour 1&2 — Josh Gay (Licensing and Compliance Manager @ Free Software Foundation) on network security and the NSA

 Hour 3 — Charles Goyette (Author; Former talk show host) on the upcoming Mises Circle event in Phoenix Nov 7th in which he is one of the speakers

CALL IN TO SHOW: 602-264-2800

September 16th, 2015

Declare Your Independence with Ernest Hancock

on LRN.FM / Monday – Friday

9 a.m. – Noon (EST)

Studio Line: 602-264-2800 

Hour 1

Paul Rosenberg (FreemansPerspective.Com) joins Joshua Gay for the first 30 minutes to discuss network security issues. Please reference http://www.freemansperspective.com/microsoft-spying/

Joshua Gay

Licensing and Compliance Manager at the Free Software Foundation

Webpages:

http://joshuagay.org/

http://www.fsf.org/

Joshua works with Donald in our licensing and compliance team, and has twice previously worked with the FSF as a campaigns manager. He is a programmer and activist whose interests revolve around technology, government, education, and computer user-freedom.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a nonprofit with a worldwide mission to promote computer user freedom and to defend the rights of all free software users. Read more.

Free software developers guarantee everyone equal rights to their programs; any user can study the source code, modify it, and share the program. By contrast, most software carries fine print that denies users these basic rights, leaving them susceptible to the whims of its owners and vulnerable to surveillance.

The FSF provides critical infrastructure and funding for the GNU project, the foundation of the popular GNU/Linux family of free operating systems and the keystone of the Internet.

Our Campaigns Team creates educational materials about free software, convenes the yearly LibrePlanet conference and goes toe to toe against powerful interests that threaten computer user rights.

Our Licensing & Compliance Lab defends freely licensed software from proprietary hoarding, advises on licensing issues, and certifies devices that Respect Your Freedom.

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SUMMARY

The FCC is working on regulations to mandate manufacturers implement digital locks on near-all electronic devices.  These are not the type of locks to protect people from malicious parties, but the type of locks that prevent users from installing software on their device. At the same time the proposed rules will still give “authorized parties” the ability to make changes to the software. This means is that manufacturers will have to prevent end-users, security experts, key software developers, and others from controlling their own devices. Innovators will not be able to innovate, security experts will not be able fix and test bugs, and end-users will not be able to select which applications they wish to install. These things will all be pre-determined by an industry which already has a notoriously poor track record in these areas. Most improvements, fixes, and new features come about as the result of an active developer community outside of industry. There changes only later being incorporated by manufacturers. Rather than improve the security situation or stop end users from breaking otherwise saner rules the FCC will cause an already difficult atmosphere to be worsened.

OVERVIEW OF FCC NPRM ON EQUIPMENT AUTHORIZATION – ET Docket No. 15-170

Smart phones, laptops, baby monitors, HVAC systems/digital-thermostats, tablets, wireless routers, and many other types of common electronic equipment emit radio frequencies. The FCC is responsible for making sure these devices do not interfere with other radio signals (weather, emergency services, airport services, etc). The FCC does this by first creating technical regulations that minimize the potential for causing interference to radio services and then requiring that device sellers have their equipment tested and certified to comply with the technical requirements. Once a device is certified it can be marketed and sold.

This summer the FCC released a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM)[0] stating that they are doing a massive overhaul of their equipment authorization requirements for device sellers. Many of the proposed changes are good, in that they streamline the procedure so it is less burdensome on device sellers. However, some of the proposed technical requirements for devices go beyond simply making sure that a device operates in a way that does not cause harmful interference with other radio frequencies. There are new requirements that will require devices to be designed to prevent the owner from modifying certain parts of the software on the device.[1][2] So, while the equipment seller would still be allowed to install updates to software on the device you own any time they wish, you won’t have the permissions to do the same thing.

Not all individuals may care about these restrictions. But, many will, including companies, hospitals, schools, local governments, and others institutions that want to be able to maintain control over their communications, network security, and information infrastructure. If software is found to have security bugs (such as from the expert analysis done by security specialist) or if it simply isn’t working the way they want it to, then people look to see if others have made the changes they want, and if not they either make those changes themselves or ask or pay someone else to do that for them. Making your computer work the way you want it to work is a pretty straight forward driving force of innovation. And it is one that has worked well for over 30 years now.

It should also be viewed as a matter of both personal and national security. Our wireless communication infrastructure is often critical and vital infrastructure. A large portion of equipment sellers are not even based in the United States (they are often in China and other countries in which the legal jurisdictions and courts are much harder to make use of than within the United States). Certainly, it should be easy to find common ground that we should not have regulations that allow only those foreign sellers to issue updates to computers we own and use to control our homes and businesses, while at the same time denying ourselves the same level of control over our machines. In general, our ability to control our wireless communications infrastructure is of vital importance for individuals and the nation at large.

[0]:

http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2015/db0722/FCC-15-92A1.pdf

[1]: http://www.federalregister.gov/a/2015-18402/p-255

[2]: http://www.federalregister.gov/a/2015-18402/p-318