[liberationtech] Fighting Surveillance by Improving OpenSource Surveillance

[Nick]

Hi Fabio,

Quoth Fabio Pietrosanti (naif):
> A frequent thinking is, how can we "troll" the surveillance industry
> with unconventional methods?
> 
> A very nice, yet controversial, way could be to improve Opensource
> Surveillance Technologies.

OK, at best this would succeed in shrinking the surveillance 
industry, due to being primarily for support and training, rather 
than licensing. But what you're really enabling is easier and more 
effective surveillance, so overall I can't imagine a scenario based 
on this tactic where the amount of surveillance and censorship was 
reduced.

Your email reads like a troll of the list, frankly, but regardless,
the topic is related something I have worried about myself; I work 
on free OCR software that I know is being used in surveillance 
programmes.  It isn't something I am happy about, but I decided that 
I should continue to work on the software, as it's useful and 
important outside of the world of surveillance too.

Nick