In 2013 the world was stunned by the scandals related to tracking. We've realized that the dystopian world, where governments watch almost everyone's move is perpahs not that far from the truth we thought it can be.

As it was mentioned several years ago, the Internet browser will become important than the operating system in the future. And indeed, we now use Internet browsers from all the software in our computers predominantly. These browsers need data and we provide it. Such a data can be our names, ID numbers, personal data, or information where we've been to and who we've met. But what if all the data are not only kept or stored but eventually – transmitted to someone? How can we be sure that if we agree that we want the browser not to track any information it is actually not tracking?

In 2002 the European Commission issued a directive that was later adopted by the member states, that forbids such a behavior; i e. that user's on-line activities cannot be tracked without their consent. In order that the Commission will be able to understand and evaluate the tracking mechanisms of the current world, a working group has been set. Despite years that passed, the group that represent both citizen initiatives and advertising and software industry, did not come to any conclusions.

In the meantime the 2013 wiretapping and tracking scandals occurred.

I've had two random comments on my recent blogpost about Anakata and freedom on twitter that were so interesting I wish to recite them here, with longer commentary than 140 characters:

Henrik Kramshoej (professional security consultant with an understanding of business and economics with regards to securing enterprises) says the following:

"houses are not people, and they should not be protected by criminal law as if they were people." so what about burglary?

Computers are, in addition to not being people, also not houses. If an apartment in an apartment block is burgled, we do not protect the apartment block owner, we protect the apartment owner or the resident of the apartment. But actually, in the vast majority of cases we also don't do that because less than 5% of all burglaries are ever investigated by the police. This is why private security is very common in apartment blocks now. That is a major difference between IT crime law and house burglary law: in the former, we have a specific goal and ambition to protect whoever provided the flawed security system or whoever owns the computer ("the house") where different entities co-exist. In house burglary law, we have a clear focus on protecting the individual whose home was burgled.

The two legal regimes covering private real estate and computers are based on completely different problem formulations, and relatively similar solutions. The solution, as explained by Mr Kramshoej, is that

if NOT kept illegal to break into computers you will allow a lot to try it, which will require costly protections for all :( [...] just investigating a simple breakin is extremely costly and smaller companies and orgs will suffer greatly :-(

What's reasonable to respond if you don't like digital rights management (DRM), now that the EU Commission is anyway asking? At Exile6e we did a basic answering guide for the consultation here. Please share, remix and re-do and put on your own website! :-) If you want to read the original questions, please find them here, and a very pedagogical tool for making consultation reply documents from Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland can be found here. The future awaits!

To act against DRM redefining what law is and means, and to stop it from becoming a tool for those that don't like competition and innovation, it's probably best to make replies for question 13 and question 73 in the consultation. But DRM touches many different areas of copyright: copy protection is also a topic for questions 32(b), 36(b), 58, 76 och 80.

How to propose legalized file-sharing in the Commission consultation on copyright has taken up many of my thoughts in the last few days. At Exile6e we did a basic answering guide for the consultation here. Please share, remix and re-do and put on your own website! :-) If you want to read the original questions, please find them here, and a very pedagogical tool for making consultation reply documents from Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland can be found here. The future awaits!

What is needed to legalize file-sharing is a right to privately or without profit incentives make works available. You can put this down in reply to question 8 of the consultation, but also in question 23. The question is rather how to motivate this proposal.

Question 8 is about potential problems with "the making available right". You don't have to bother that the Commission's question is asked in a cryptical way. It works splendidly well to explain that you are disappointed, sad and upset as a European citizen that torrent-trackers, streaming sites, direct connect hubs, lyrics and subtitles websites, et c are being blocked, that their owners and users are criminalized and hunted by both police and aggressive copyright lawyers. Listing examples is important - find personal examples or historical examples that tie back to EU countries!

Various movements, political parties and NGOs do organize conferences from time to time. So why should the Pirate meeting that took place in Maastricht this weekend be special?

Well, it was I guess this was the first conference, that was actually organized – in a squat. Landbouwbelang, it might be a hard name to remember, but it is actually a squat/culture center in an abandoned factory at the banks of the Maas River in Maastricht, Netherlands.

The whole event took two days and the participants were from many countries from around the region (Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium). I was the only one who came there from Amelia's team. The organizers were Belgians, the speakers pretty much lot of people from Civil Society – as well as from the Pirate Party.