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by Dan Gillmor
Not many years ago, I was a happy acolyte in the Church of Apple. I spent most of the day using a Macintosh laptop. I used an iPhone. I had a Facebook account with hundreds of “friends,” and used Google’s search engine almost exclusively. While I worried about misuse of my information by third parties, I didn’t do much about it. I was so in love with technology that I adopted the latest and greatest without considering the consequences.
I still love technology, and believe it plays a transformative role in our lives. But as I’ve learned more about how it works, and how powerful interests want it to work, the more I’ve realized the need to make some changes.
So, today, I’m writing this on computer running Linux, the free and open operating system. I own an Android smartphone, modified to remove restrictions the manufacturer and carrier would prefer to impose. I have closed my Facebook account, and use search engines in much different ways. And I am much more cautious about what I’ll allow third parties to know about me and my activities.
By making these and many related choices, I have made parts of my life slightly less easy, or at least less convenient. But I have gained something more important: liberty. I use the devices I purchase as I choose; I decline to live in the increasingly restricted environments that so many technology and communications companies have imposed on their customers. And to the extent that I am able, I’m preventing snoops, corporate and governmental, from watching my every move without my consent. On balance, I believe, I’ve made my life better.
That’s why I’m doing this project: to help you make your own decisions.
My goal is simple: I’ll try to persuade you to do what I’m doing, or to go at least part of the way toward declaring your own independence. In the end, you may well prefer to stick with the conveniences of the Mac, Windows, iPhone and the rest. (I still use all of them for occasional bits of work.) But I hope you’ll at least consider what you’re giving up when you make those choices, not just what you gain. I want you to have open eyes and an open mind as you decide what you want technology to do for you, in the context of your own needs and your values.
In this book, and on the accompanying website, I’ll tell you about the various options and methods to recapture some privacy and freedom in your use of technology (assuming you want them). In several of the most popular tools, such as the Linux operating system, I’ll provide a basic user’s guide to get you started.
I’ll also note, where appropriate, the irony or maybe even hypocrisy inherent in some of my own choices. As a shareholder in Amazon and Netflix, I’ve invested in a certain amount of control-freakery. I’ve posted this outline, at least temporarily, as a Google Document, and am spreading word via Google+ and Twitter, in order to get as much participation as I can -- even though I may ultimately conclude that Google is itself a serious threat (I’m not there yet and may never be).
Using Google to push this project forward is an almost perfect example of the convenience/effectiveness trade-offs. Occasionally, however, the tools I’ll describe will raise ethical and legal questions, not just issues of convenience and ease of use. In all cases, I’ll tell you about the trade-offs and dilemmas you will face if you move part or all of the way toward technological liberty.
Why do I keep using the word “liberty,” anyway? Because this is truly about your freedoms. They are in jeopardy now, and the trajectory is not a positive one.
- EmergingEmpires
- Governments
- TechLiberty
- OpenSource
- GetStarted
- Android
- ProtectingYourData
- UsingMedia
- Publishing
- WhatsMissing
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