[liberationtech] Call for Open Letter on Skype

[Andrew Mallis]

On Dec 22, 2012, at 2:02 PM, Uncle Zzzen <unclezzzen at gmail.com> wrote:

> +1
> Best case scenario they still won't be open source, so what do we expect from them really, good intentions?


That's tantamount to saying that if a government is a dictatorship, protesting it is inconsequential.

Let's be careful that our hierarchy of values for technological implementations do not trump those we have for governance, accountability, or law.

It's high time for some good old fashioned public awareness!

A campaign that 
condemns Skype-now-Microsoft's lack of response to reasonable requests, 
champions a denial of the pending legal intercept patent, 
and points to documented abuses like Tom Skype would be à propos. 

How about a change.org (or like) petition, undersigned by you heavies. Something with a pithy headline, like:

This isn't your grandmother's skype anymore.

Much more tasty than "an open letter calling for transparency in Skype's security/privacy policy…" strictly from one technocracy to another.

I think this is where you were headed, Nadim, in proposing a website to host the letter.


Andrew Mallis
#ows Tech Ops | Occupy Directory


> 
> 
> On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 11:44 PM, Rich Kulawiec <rsk at gsp.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 12:23:30PM +0200, Nadim Kobeissi wrote:
> > Isn't it time for an open letter regarding Skype?
> 
> No.
> 
> Not that I disagree with your concerns or anything like that:
> they're valid.
> 
> But because there is absolutely no reason to expect truthful and complete
> answers from Skype.
> 
> In fact, there are many reasons to expect lies and incomplete answers,
> because it's clearly in their self-interest to provide them and because
> there are no negative consequences for them if they do.
> 
> Thus no matter how well-phrased and well-intentioned such a letter is,
> the best possible result (a response from Skype) is still operationally
> useless, no matter what it says.
> 
> ---rsk
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