OurSQL Episode 15: Eben Moglen's Keynote at the 2007 MySQL Conference

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"Freedom Businesses Protect Privacy"
Eben Moglen, director of the Software Freedom Law Center, discusses why Free Beer isn't so good if your data are getting drunk! The keynote looks at how "Free as in Freedom" businesses help prevent the ultimate privacy catastrophe.
 
This speech is not to be missed! 
 
 
 
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What I found funny and sad

What I found funny and sad at the same time was that as Eben was speaking on the importance of not giving all your personal information to corporate data miners, all other keynote speakers were essentially talking about the direct opposite: How cool it is to hand all your personal data to these awesome web 2.0 websites.

I think reminding people about the need for privacy is very important. You do not want marketeer to know you better than you know yourself. Then again Eben glanced over the fact that a lot of web 2.0 sites are very much based on crossing personal data with that of others or with proprietary databases. So even if the tools are available as OSS, the data is not.

Lukas -- all excellent

Lukas -- all excellent points. Actually, I found that he wasn't saying "don't give your information out" but that "think about what the consequences are". For instance, I'm OK with using gmail and giving them free access to my data so they can improve my search engine.

Just like I'm OK with my "interest-free loan" to the US government -- that is, I overpay from my paycheck to get a refund at the end of the year during tax time. So the government has my money and earns interest on it...so what?

Same with Google, I'm OK with that.

The important thing is to be cognizant of that. Also, to be cognizant that if *I* use gmail, and you send mail to me (directly or indirectly, as this comment box sends mail to me, so you sent mail to me indirectly just now) then the things you say are giving gmail free access to help their search engine get better.

I thought Eban's speech was mostly "be careful of what you're freely giving out, even if you protect your social security number, mother's maiden name, your name and address, you are still giving tons of information out."

It wasn't necessarily an identity theft warning. I saw it similar to "never put on a webpage what you wouldn't want your mother to read....nor all of your coworkers".

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