Every week free software activists from around the world come together in #fsf on irc.freenode.org to help improve the Free Software Directory. This recaps the work we accomplished at the Friday, April 21th, 2017 meeting.

This week the theme focused on table top games. There are entries for many table top games in the Directory. The entries aren't just limited to playable games though. This week we also looked at code which fosters the development of new table top type game software.

If you would like to help update the directory, meet with us every Friday in #fsf on irc.freenode.org from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. EDT (16:00 to 19:00 UTC).

You are invited to the 2017 GNU Hackers' Meeting, which will take place at Tagungshaus Mühlrain.

The GNU Hackers' Meeting is a friendly, semi-formal forum to discuss technical, social, and organizational issues concerning free software and GNU. This is a great opportunity to meet GNU maintainers and active contributors. This year, accommodation and all meals are included in the cost of registration.

The program is yet to be finalized, but attendees should anticipate organized events that last until late afternoon each day. (Here's last year's program, including recordings of sessions.) In the evening, there will be opportunities for impromptu talks, informal demonstrations, conversation, and walks in the forest. Many people will arrive on the evening before the first day of the meeting.

Contributors and attendees from all backgrounds and with all levels of technical expertise are welcome. Those from under-represented backgrounds are particularly encouraged to attend.

The call for participation is also open now. Presentations can cover a wide range of subjects, both technical and social, related to the GNU project or to the Free Software movement as a whole.

To register, follow these instructions.

You will find full details on the meeting, including a detailed schedule TBA, here.

Participate in supporting the Directory by adding new entries and updating existing ones. We will be on IRC in the #fsf channel on irc.freenode.org.

Tens of thousands of people visit directory.fsf.org each month to discover free software. Each entry in the Directory contains a wealth of useful information, from basic category and descriptions, to providing detailed info about version control, IRC channels, documentation, and licensing info that has been carefully checked by FSF staff and trained volunteers.

While the Directory has been and continues to be a great resource to the world over the past decade, it has the potential of being a resource of even greater value. But it needs your help!

After last weeks focus on financial software it seemed like a good chance this week to break its monopoly. This week we are going to work on games, and not just any kind of games. This week we'll be taking a big risk by focusing on table top ones. Although there are currently over thirty games listed, this section needs to grow big like a battleship. Come this Friday, we hope you'll deal yourself in and play a round with us.

If you are eager to help and you can't wait or are simply unable to make it onto IRC on Friday, our participation guide will provide you with all the information you need to get started on helping the Directory today! There are also weekly Directory Meetings pages that everyone is welcome to contribute to before, during, and after each meeting.

Every week free software activists from around the world come together in #fsf on irc.freenode.org to help improve the Free Software Directory. This recaps the work we accomplished at the Friday, April 14th, 2017 meeting.

This week the theme was financial, accounting, and math software. We were helped out by some regular volunteers who had the categories nicely updated recently. jorgesumle looked at a payment platform, but found some issues and they were able to contact the maintainers about. tfisgnag also joined in to get some training on updating entries in the Directory. We hope to see them back again this week, and hope you'll join us too.

If you would like to help update the directory, meet with us every Friday in #fsf on irc.freenode.org from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. EDT (16:00 to 19:00 UTC).

On April 3, Trump signed in to law Senate Joint Resolution 34, nullifying broadband privacy rules that were to take effect at the end of 2017, and preventing the FCC from introducing similar rules in the future. This leaves Internet users in the United States with little recourse if their Internet service providers (ISPs) want to collect and even sell information about their Internet activity. By 2015, more than half of all broadband customers in the United States purchased from a single company, in part due to monopolization of broadband offerings.

The right to use the Internet without fear of indisciminate bulk surveillance is an important aspect of software freedom. We've spoken out against mass surveillance by governments before, and when people's options for Internet access become limited to a few huge companies, they become more vulnerable to the possibility of having records of their Internet activity collected.

The new rule would have required ISPs to protect individually identifiable customer proprietary network information (like application usage and geolocation), personally identifiable information (including physical address, date of birth, and government ID numbers), and content of communications (like the text of an email or the audiovisual information in a video chat). It would have prevented your ISP from selling that information to marketers, redirecting your searches (presumably in exchange for payment by a third party), and doing other uncomfortable things without having to tell you what they are up to, as EFF describes. Not having such protections in place is doubly creepy because many ISPs require the use of modems that only work with proprietary software that keeps you from knowing everything the modem does.

The good news is, some state lawmakers have already stepped up to secure Internet privacy for their constituents at the state level. In Minnesota, Senator Ron Latz successfully added an amendment addressing the collection of customers' personal data by ISPs to a bill under consideration. In Washington state, bills in a similar spirit have been introduced in the Senate and House. The Center for Democracy and Technology reports on several other state-level efforts to counter Joint Resolution 34 currently under way.

If you live in the United States, you can support these state level efforts by calling, writing, or emailing your legislators:

• If a bill has been introduced, and they support it: thank them and tell them why this issue matters to you
• If a bill has been introduced and they do not support it (yet): tell them why they should
• If no bill has been introduced (or your legislature is not currently in session): tell them why they should introduce a measure

And wherever you are, now is a good time for a refresher on how to protect your privacy online. Here's three easy but important steps to take:

• The FSF's Email Self-Defense Guide will help you learn to protect your email communications by using GnuPG to encrypt them.

• Always use HTTPS to encrypt your Web traffic from being read by anybody but the browser and the server of the site you're visiting. EFF's HTTPS Everywhere is a browser extension that will help you do this automatically.

• Use Tor. Recipient of the 2010 Free Software Award for Projects of Social Benefit, Tor may offer the greatest protection from tracking by your ISP. You must still take precautions to encrypt your Web traffic in concert with Tor.