Freedom In The Cloud

This analysis of the roots of the privacy problem in the Net, and the development of the "cloud computing" model from the previous structure of the Microsoft Era is the background to the FreedomBox project and Diaspora*, along with other efforts to use the anarchist development and distribution models we have previously discussed to deal with the privacy problems we are currently discussing. Anyone who has trouble with technical concepts I don't explain clearly enough in the talk will be doing everyone a favor by asking those questions here.

Hi- I am not sure if my previous comment uploaded (betraying my lack of technical skill) and so this is attempt two! I was interested in reading and hearing about the Freedom Box after listening to the speech 'Freedom In the Cloud'. I had not heard about the Freedom Box before and so I am interested in hearing more in class, or through this online discussion, on how the project is going. This may be a dumb question, but I could not tell from the website and the CBS news segment whether the Freedom Box is currently for sale, being distributed etc and exactly what it can do so far in terms of dreaded 'platforms' and software. Does the freedom box work within the Apple 'walled garden', which would clearly be desirable? I am also interested in hearing from you, Professor, whether there has been any reaction to the Freedom Box work from the US government. Thanks, Gillian

-- GillianWhite - 03 Nov 2012

I have a question about how in theory, searching is done in the Freedom Box. Is it contemplated that each Freedom Box will continuously scanning the whole net and storing all webpages it see? What would be the aggregated effect of billions of Freedom Boxes are scanning the whole net at the same time? Thanks, Shimeng.

-- ShimengCheng - 04 Nov 2012

Like the others, I was also wondering on the progress of the Freedom Box.

When you stated that servers have ceased to be made of iron, what did you mean? Were you referring to servers being less accessible and not made of buttons and switches now? I was confused by what the term iron meant in context.

Thank you.

-- AdithyaMani - 04 Nov 2012