Richard Stallman’s Hypocritical Stance on Cell Phones | Hacker News Reader

Richard Stallman’s Hypocritical Stance on Cell Phones

daringfireball.net

13 pointsshawndumas11 comments

This blog post is just silly, and in my own opinion nothing more than failed linkbait. In no way, shape, or form is this hypocritical. By borrowing a phone, RMS is not making the person he is borrowing it from more trackable. They already made up their minds to own a phone, thus being trackable. Neither is he making it easier to listen in on them (he actually is making it harder). Finally in no way, shape, or form is he making himself more trackable by doing this.

The only way a could consider this hypocritical is if he asked to borrow a phone from somebody who at all times turned their phone of, and only briefly turned it on to make calls. But I'm rather sure that if he asked to borrow a phone from somebody, and their reply was, "sorry, I would rather not turn it on because I don't want to be tracked", he would respect that.

But isn't the point of RMS to set the example of how the rest of us should only use free software?

That's like Ghandi asking a random passerby to slap someone for him.

Not quite sure about this comparison. AFAIK Ghandi is famous for living by example. I have never heard or read about RMS saying anything about living by his example. I have however, heard him talk about that he lives by his own principles because they matter to him. And he tells you explicitly what he considers you to be, if you have other opinions than him.

Last time I went to one of his lectures he clearly stated that you should do you best to avoid using proprietary software _for your own good_, while he said that creators of proprietary software were evil.

I have a hard time seeing this as hypocritical, unless he actually goes on record stating that «you should not own a mobile phone, and you should never ask to borrow a mobile phone when needed».

If asked, RMS might well point out that using other peoples' cell phones for his own calls not only makes him harder to track, but also adds just a little bit of noise to Big Brother's tracking data on them. (Not that I've asked him, but every so often, he tries to arrange swaps of Boston subway/bus pass cards ("Charlie Cards") around MIT for that exact reason --- to try to scramble tracking data.)

Seems perfectly coherent. How would someone track me through your phone?

I don't think Gruber's objection is that it's an incoherent position, rather that it violates Stallman's stated morals.

It's along the lines of being against killing animals for food, but eating a burger because your friend bought the meat and grilled it for you.

I would not kill an animal myself, but I had parts of at least two distinct ones for lunch today.

He said hypocritical, not incoherent.

There are not many ways to be hypocritical and not be somehow incoherent.

People concerned with cell phone privacy and tracking should check out:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/09/cellular-customer-d...

AT&T seems like the worst offender with regards to storing tracking information:

The biggest difference in retention surrounds so-called cell-site data. That is information detailing a phone’s movement history via its connections to mobile phone towers while its traveling.

Verizon keeps that data on a one-year rolling basis; T-Mobile for “a year or more;” Sprint up to two years, and AT&T indefinitely, from July 2008.

This is only hypocritical if when Stallman says "phone", he always means "cell phone". Just to be a devil's advocate, he could be talking about a landline which generally doesn't track movement, doesn't run software, and doesn't get turned into a listening device.

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