Overview

In the first several chapters, I explain why we should prefer technological freedom. During the rest of the book I mostly explain how (with more of the “why” accompanying the more specific how-to descriptions).

Along the way I’ll offer lots of specifics. We’ll look, for example, at several versions of Linux; a mobile phone security; free software applications that give users the tools they need without reverting to the Windows or Mac worlds; alternatives to Facebook, or at least settings that preserve more of your privacy; web-browsing tools to protect your privacy and security; mobile devices and apps that give you more choices; and much more.

Sprinkled throughout the book will be writing profiles, based on interviews and other research, with:

1. people who have already made the choices I’m urging the rest of us to make; and
2. people who have invented some of the tools and systems that give you the ability to control more of your own destiny

These folks are often inspiring, and always interesting.

This project follows on the great work of (among many others) Rebecca MacKinnon Consent of the Networked); Jonathan Zittrain (The Future of the Internet--and How to Stop It); Doc Searls (“Edging toward the fully licensed world”); Richard Stallman (Free Software Foundation); and others. It will be fully open-sourced, and published under a Creative Commons license.