[Fsuk-manchester] Fwd: #DialUp the Web's inventor for security and freedom

[X]

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject:        #DialUp the Web's inventor for security and freedom
Date:   Fri, 31 Mar 2017 11:35:59 -0400
From:   Zak Rogoff, DBD <address@hidden>
Reply-To:       Zak Rogoff, DBD <address@hidden>
To:     John Rooke <address@hidden>



An image of a telephone with overlaid text that reads #DialUp to save
the Web from DRM. +1 (617) 253-5702. Tell the Web's inventor: don't
endanger our security and rights!

John Rooke—

Since the beginning of the Web—the age of dial-up Internet
connections—the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) has kept the Web's
technical standards tuned in a careful balance that enables innovation
and respects users' rights.

*14 days from now, that may change. Unless we can stop it, the W3C will
welcome a new wave of user-hostile DRM (Digital Restrictions Management)
<https://defectivebydesign.org/what_is_drm_digital_restrictions_management>
onto the Web, making it harder than ever for us to be secure and free
online.*

The wave of DRM will come from the W3C's ratification of a proposed
technical standard, EME (Encrypted Media Extensions)
<https://defectivebydesign.org/drm-in-web-standards>, which will make it
cheaper and easier for streaming video companies to build DRM into Web
sites. That will invite more abuses of users like the Sony DRM rootkit,
caught dismantling the security of users' operating systems
<https://www.defectivebydesign.org/ten-years-after-sony-rootkit>, and
more digital locks preventing important, legal things that people do
with media, like accessibility modifications, translation, commentary,
and archiving.

Netflix, Apple, Google, and Microsoft are dead-set on EME. They are
powerful—and their membership dues provide a lot of money to the W3C—but
there is a weak link in their plan: Tim Berners-Lee, the Director of the
W3C, can block EME when it comes to his desk on April 13th.

*This is where you come in: #DialUp Tim Berners-Lee now and urge him not
to endanger users by enshrining oppressive technology in the basic
standards of the Web.*



      How to #DialUp for the free Web

1: Call Tim Berners-Lee's publicly listed
<https://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/> W3C phone number: +1 (617)
253-5702. You will most likely reach his assistant or an answering machine.

2: *Be polite and get straight to the point.* We recommend you say:

    Hi, my name is [NAME] and I am calling to urge Tim Berners-Lee to
    prevent Encrypted Media Extensions from becoming a W3C
    recommendation. I believe that the Web should promote user freedom
    and security, not undermine them. Please make sure that Mr.
    Berners-Lee receives this message. Thank you.

3: Click this link
<mailto:address@hidden> to
email us, so we can announce how many people called Berners-Lee. You
will not be automatically added to our email list (but you can join here
<https://defectivebydesign.org/join>).

*Can't call the US?* Call your closest W3C office
<https://www.w3.org/Consortium/Offices/staff/> (they are spread across
the globe) and ask them to relay your message to Tim Berners-Lee.

Share on GNU Social <https://status.fsf.org/notice/212659> or Twitter
<https://mobile.twitter.com/fsf/status/847566397853007872>.

Though EME is designed specifically for streaming video DRM, its
ratification would catalyze long-simmering projects to add DRM to text
<https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/interoperability-and-w3c-defending-future-present>
and image
<https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/theres-no-drm-jpeg-lets-keep-it-way>
standards on the Web. Perhaps worst of all, EME's ratification would
lend political capital to the laws that make it a crime to circumvent
DRM, even for security research, which is a crucial public
accountability mechanism for software.

But we don't have to settle for this. There is deep opposition to EME
within the W3C community—unsurprisingly, most of the people who dedicate
their lives to improving the Web don't want DRM enshrined in it.
Berners-Lee himself sees EME less as an improvement to the Web, and more
as a necessary evil to placate streaming companies and Hollywood
<https://defectivebydesign.org/blog/response_tim_bernerslees_defeatist_post_about_drm_web_standards>.
If we can show him an unprecedented grassroots demand to reject DRM in
Web standards, we have a chance to win on April 13th. Stand up for the
free Web you love, and #DialUp Tim Berners-Lee now.

Zak Rogoff
Campaigns Manager

/You are receiving this email because you signed Defective by Design's
petition against DRM in Web standards
<https://my.fsf.org/civicrm/profile/create?gid=183&reset=1>. We invite
you to join Defective by Design's primary email list
<https://www.defectivebydesign.org/join> and receive updates on all our
initiatives to abolish DRM./

/Read online:
https://defectivebydesign.org/blog/fourteen_days_dialup_and_save_web_drm/

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