240 rader
12 KiB
HTML
240 rader
12 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
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<html newsdate="2014-12-09" type="newsletter">
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<head>
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<title>FSFE Newsletter - December 2014</title>
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</head>
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<body class="newsletter article" microformats="h-entry" id="nl-201412">
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<h1 class="p-name">FSFE Newsletter – December 2014</h1>
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<h2>More demand from the EU institutions</h2>
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<p newsteaser="yes">The new European Commission is currently setting the direction of its policy
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making for the coming five years. The FSFE is in frequent contact with
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Commission staff, who currently see open doors for Free Software in Brussels.
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We want to make sure to use this momentum to push for changes on software
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procurement, standardisation, and device sovereignty. So our president Karsten
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Gerloff participated in several meetings.</p>
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<p>In November the European Parliament (EP) organised a conference to inform
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members of the parliament about the IT services available to them. It featured
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a panel discussion led by Adina Valean, the new EP Vice President in charge of
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ICT, with a contribution from Giancarlo Villela, the director of the EP’s IT
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department. After the panel discussion, Karsten got the chance to <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2014/11/19/free-software-for-the-european-parliament-fsfe-comments-at-dg-itec-forum/">contribute
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a few brief remarks about the EU institution’s live streams, DebianParl, and
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vendor lock-in</a>.</p>
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<p>In the beginning of December Karsten was again at the Parliament, this time
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at a <a
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href="http://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2014/12/04/workshop-on-open-standards-for-ict-procurement/">workshop
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on “Open Standards for ICT procurement”</a>. The real value of those events, as
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so often, was in the people who are there. The workshop provided an opportunity
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for the small community pushing Free Software and Open Standards in procurement
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to meet and share updates. So in the future we can push together with them for
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positive changes.</p>
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<h2>There is no cloud just other people’s computers</h2>
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<p>Another event Karsten participated in was the presentation of the report on
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“cloud” computing and interoperability by the Brussels-based lobby organisation
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ECIS’s. Karsten documented the meeting in <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2014/11/14/some-common-sense-recommendations-on-cloudy-computing/">his
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blog post “Some common-sense recommendations on cloudy computing”</a>.</p>
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<p>Just a few days later our new <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/new-stickers-and-leaflets-no-cloud-and-e-mail-self-defense/">“there
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is no cloud just other people’s computers”-stickers arrived in our office</a>.
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We received lots of positive feedback about the stickers, and now added them to
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our <a
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href="https://fsfe.org/contribute/spreadtheword.html#promo-material">promo
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packs</a>. We are planning to have some more merchandise with this slogan ready
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for our booth at FOSDEM from 31 January to 1 February 2015 in Brussels.</p>
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<h2>Progress with “email self-defence” leaflets</h2>
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<p>Beside the new stickers, you can now also order new leaflets, to promote our
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sister organisation’s “email self-defence guide”. Originally we produced this
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leaflet in German for the annual Berlin “freedom not fear” demonstration in
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September. Afterwards volunteers all over Germany <a
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href="/contribute/spreadtheword.html#promo-material">ordered</a> and
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distributed them. For example, one cinema gave out a leaflet for everybody who
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bought a ticket for the Snowden documentary “Citizienfour”. Meanwhile we had to
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reorder the German version for a third time and since the end of November we
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have been sending out the English version to Free Software supporters
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throughout Europe.</p>
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<p>In the next weeks our <a
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href="/contribute/translators/translators.html">translators</a> and <a
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href="/contribute/designers/designers.html">designers</a> will finalise a
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Chinese, Dutch, French, Greek, Italian, and a Spanish version. For 2015 we
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want to enable local Free Software supporters to distribute this and other
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leaflets at libraries, universities, schools, cinemas, companies, restaurants
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and cafes, shops and in other places.</p>
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<h2>FSFE’s translators: they are just awesome</h2>
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<p>This brings us to a badly needed thank you note. During the last 12 months
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we published the newsletter monthly. Two of the editions were written by our
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volunteer Heiki ”Repentinus” Ojasild, so your editor could enjoy his vacation.
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Our newsletter was available in 6 languages on average (lowest 4 languages
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highest 9 languages). We had newsletters in Albanian, Dutch, English, French,
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German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Serbian, and Spanish.</p>
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<p>Your editor is proud to work in a team with such dedicated volunteers. They
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translate the newsletter, the leaflets mentioned above, plus other FSFE news.
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They enable more people around the world to read about Free Software in their
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mother tongue, and are therefore a crucial part of the FSFE. So your editor
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would like to deeply thank our <a
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href="/contribute/translators/translators.html">growing translators team</a>
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for this important work.</p>
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<h2>Something completely different</h2>
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<ul>
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<li>The year is almost over, and it is reporting season. <a
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href="http://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2014/12/01/preview-what-fsfe-did-in-2014/">Our
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president published a sneak preview of things we achieved in 2014</a> covering
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our work on: public procurement, the Free Software pact, compulsory routers,
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improving information material, informing about “trusted computing” and “Secure
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Boot”, organising Document Freedom Day, answering legal questions, as well as
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our participation events such as workshops, panel discussions, or organising
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booths.</li>
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<li>In the last newsletter we asked you to help the FixMyDocuments campaign.
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With the support they received, they have now <a
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href="https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/node/110097">compiled a list of over 15,000
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editable documents from the European institutions not available in the Open
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Document Format</a>.</li>
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<li>WhatsApp adopted a secure end-to-end encryption method developed for the Free
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Software app TextSecure. Torsten Grote takes a look at <a
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href="http://blog.grobox.de/2014/whatsapp-end-to-end-encryption-federation/">what
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that means for Free Software</a>.</li>
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<li>Local events: FSFE had a <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/flx/2014/11/11/t-dose-2/">booth at T-Dose in the
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Netherlands</a>. Our Dutch Fellows organised the booth together, Kevin Keijzer
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gave a talk about “Discrimination of Free Software (users) in education”,
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Maurice Verheesen spoke about “Digital Sovereignty For Europe”, and Felix
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Stegerman talked about <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/flx/2014/11/09/my-t-dose-talk-the-internet-of-things-opportunities-and-dangers/">the
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opportunities and dangers of the “Internet of Things”</a>. Beside that, our
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Berlin group organised a <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/majestyx/2014/11/12/fiffkon-2014-leak/">booth at
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the FiFFkon</a> at the Technical University Berlin.</li>
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<li>Guido Arnold published a summary of <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2014/11/free-software-in-education-news-october-2/">what
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happened in education throughout Europe during October</a>.</li>
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<li>The French Fellow Alexandre Keledjian published <a
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href="https://github.com/dervishe-/f-droid-web/wiki">F-Droid-Web, a simple and
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lightweight web interface to F-Droid server</a>. It provides an easy way to add
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a new software repository to your mobile using qr-codes, and to browse the
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F-Droid catalogue by name, category, summary, license type, and
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description.</li>
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<li>From the <a href="http://planet.fsfe.org">planet
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aggregation</a>:</li>
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<ul>
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<li><a
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href="http://creative-destruction.me/2014/12/04/fsfe-needs-your-support-for-2015/">Mirko
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Böhm, FSFE Fellow and KDE community member, wrote about why you should support
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FSFE’s work</a>, which in his words is: to protect, explain, and organise the
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freedoms to use, study, share, and improve software.</li>
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<li>Daniel Pocock <a
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href="http://danielpocock.com/amnesty-detekt-false-sense-of-security">questions
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if Amnesty is giving spy victims a false sense of security</a>. In his post he
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provides a letter template to sent to Amnesty.</li>
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<li>“EOMA68” is an open electronic interface standard, designed to support
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the development of small computing devices. Nico Rikken wrote <a
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href="http://nicorikken.eu/blog/why-eoma68-will-advance-both-free-software-and-free-hardware/">why
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EOMA68 will advance both Free Software and free hardware</a>.</li>
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<li>Mario Fux explains how you <a
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href="http://blogs.fsfe.org/mario/?p=257">can contribute as a non-developer to
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KDE</a>.</li>
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<li>Beside that we had some technical HowTos on the planet, including: Kevin
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Keijzer who reports from <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/the_unconventional/2014/11/16/installing-ubuntu-without-proprietary-software/">his
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experience trying to install Ubuntu without proprietary software</a>.</li>
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<li>Hannes Hauswedell who wrote about <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/h2/2014/11/04/encrypting-crons-daily-mail/">how to
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encrypt cron’s daily mail on FreeBSD</a>. His HowTo pertains to FreeBSD in
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particular, but he is “sure all you GNUsers out there will figure out the
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necessary changes”.</li>
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<li>Mirko Böhm who describes <a
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href="http://creative-destruction.me/2014/11/13/configure-your-gaming-mouse-on-linux/">how
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to configure a gaming mouse on GNU/Linux in a way that you can work and play at
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the machine</a>.</li>
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<li>And Max Mehl who is now running his own Git (a decentralised version
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control system) instance which also includes a <a
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href="http://blog.mehl.mx/2014/sharing-is-caring-my-git-instance/">script to
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delete all meta data from PDF files in a directory</a>.</li>
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</ul>
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</ul>
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<h2>Get active: Get a smartcard and support us</h2>
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<p>Next year, we will push harder than ever to weave software freedom into the
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fabric of our society. To enable us to intensify our work with the European
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Commission, to let more people know about Free Software, and to continue our
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other work <a href="/news/2014/news-20141203-01.html">we still need €190,000
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for 2015</a>.</p>
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<p>As an individual the best way to support the FSFE’s work financially is to
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<a href="/join/join.html">become a Fellow (a sustaining member of the
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FSFE)</a>. All Fellowship contributions directly benefit our work towards a
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free society.</p>
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<p>Fellows receive a state-of-the-art Fellowship smartcard which, together with
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the free GnuPG encryption software and a card reader, can be used to sign and
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encrypt e-mails, to securely log into a computer from a potentially insecure
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machine using SSH, or to store the user’s hard disk encryption keys. Since the
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encryption key is stored on the card itself, it is almost impossible to
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steal.</p>
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<p>Thanks to all the <a href="/contribute/contribute.html">volunteers</a>, <a href="http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join">Fellows</a> and
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<a href="/donate/thankgnus.html">corporate donors</a> who enable our work,<br/>
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<a href="/about/kirschner">Matthias Kirschner </a> - <a href="http://www.fsfe.org">FSFE</a></p>
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<!--/e-content-->
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</body>
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<sidebar promo="about-fsfe"><!--
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<h3>FSFE News</h3>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="/news/">Press Releases</a></li>
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<li><a href="/news/newsletter.html">Newsletters Archive</a></li>
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<li><a href="/events/">Upcoming Events</a></li>
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<li><a href="http://planet.fsfe.org/">Planet Blogs</a></li>
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<li><a href="/contact/community.html">Free Software Discussions</a></li>
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</ul>
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--></sidebar>
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<author id="kirschner" />
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<date>
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<original content="2014-12-08" />
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</date>
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<followup>donate</followup>
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<tags>
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<tag>newsletter</tag>
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</tags>
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</html>
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mode: xml ***
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