Mise à jour de la base de données, veuillez patienter...

Join the FSF and friends on Friday, September 5, from 2pm to 5pm EDT (18:00 to 21:00 UTC) to help improve the Free Software Directory by adding new entries and updating existing ones. We will be on IRC in the #fsf channel on freenode.

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 Free Software 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!

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!

According to Heise online, the intelligence agencies of the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, have used HACIENDA to map every server in twenty-seven countries, employing a technique known as port scanning. The agencies have shared this map and use it to plan intrusions into the servers. Disturbingly, the HACIENDA system actually hijacks civilian computers to do some of its dirty work, allowing it to leach computing resources and cover its tracks.

But this was not enough to stop the team of GNU hackers and their collaborators. After making key discoveries about the details of HACIENDA, Julian Kirsch, Christian Grothoff, Jacob Appelbaum, and Holger Kenn designed the TCP Stealth system to protect unadvertised servers from port scanning. They revealed their work at the recent annual GNU Hackers' Meeting in Germany.

Please be sure to share this with everyone you know who cares about bulk surveillance.

We must fight the political battle for an end to mass surveillance and reduce the amount of data collected about people in the first place. On an individual level we have to do everything we can to thwart the surveillance programs that are already in place.

No matter your skill level, you can get involved at the FSF's surveillance page.

Ethical developers inside and outside GNU have been working for years on free software that does not keep secrets from users, and programs that anyone can review to remove potential vulnerabilities. These capabilities give free software users a fighting chance against surveillance. Now, our community is turning its attention to uncovering and undermining insidious programs like HACIENDA. Free software and its ideals are crucial to putting an end to government bulk surveillance.

Share this news with your friends, to help make people aware of the importance of free software in fighting bulk surveillance.

Jacob Appelbaum of the TCP Stealth team gave a remote keynote address at the FSF's LibrePlanet conference this year. Watch the recording of "Free Software for freedom: Surveillance and you."

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"Knocking down the HACIENDA" by Julian Kirsch, produced by GNU, the GNUnet team and edited on short notice by Carlo von Lynx from #youbroketheinternet is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NoDerivatives 3.0 Unported License.

Spanish

Join the FSF and friends on Friday, August 22, from 2pm to 5pm EDT (18:00 to 21:00 UTC) to help improve the Free Software Directory by adding new entries and updating existing ones. We will be on IRC in the #fsf channel on freenode.

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 Free Software 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!

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!

RMS was invited to give a TEDx talk at "FREEDOM (@ digital age)" in April and took the opportunity to explain the fundamentals of the free software movement to the general public. In this speech, RMS specifies the issue and makes the stakes clear; he explains what a computer is and who controls it, what the various implications of free software and of proprietary software are for you, the user, what you can do to stop being a victim, what the obstacles to computer-user freedom are, and how you can make a difference.

The TEDx talks are "designed to help communities, organizations, and individuals to spark conversation and connection through local TED-like experiences." At these events, screenings of videos, like this one, "or a combination of live presenters and TED Talks videos — sparks deep conversation and connections at the local level."

We hope you share the recording, to help raise awareness and inspire conversations and connections in your own circles, and introduce a friend, loved one, or acquaintance, to this "first step in the liberation of cyberspace."

We've embedded this talk using the HTML5 video element, but of you watch any TEDx talks on YouTube, please remember to use a free program like youtube-dl instead of your browser, because watching YouTube in your browser requires proprietary JavaScript.

Many thanks to Théo Bondolfi, François Epars, Florence Dambricourt, and the TEDxGeneva core-team for making this speech possible. Thank you to Ynternet.org and HEG-GE for hosting and supporting the event, and to Sylvain & Co., La Belle Bleue, and Jus de Fruits Suisses, ProLibre, and the Fondation Emilie Gourd, Piguet Galland & Cie., Lifelong Learning Programme, Hes.so Genève, My Big Geneva, and Smala for their support.

P.S. RMS does not draw a salary from the FSF, but your donations do support the coordination of events and videos like this. We'd love to produce more introductory videos. Can you donate $25 today?

This recording is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 license.

Read this post in Spanish

An original drawing of the ISEE-3 spacecraft from the 1970s.

The International Sun-Earth Explorer-3, or ISEE-3, was launched in 1978 by NASA to monitor activity on the sun. After three years of observation, NASA repurposed the satellite, which soon became the first spacecraft to visit a comet. The mission ended in 1999, when NASA abandoned ISEE-3 to orbit the Sun, despite the fact that twelve of the satellite's thirteen instruments were still working.

In 2008, when it was discovered that the satellite was still transmitting a signal and would fly close to Earth, NASA realized that they no longer had the funding or equipment to reinitiate contact. So a volunteer group of scientists, programmers, and engineers organized the ISEE-3 Reboot Project, which was crowd-funded with over $150,000 in donations, and set out to contact the spacecraft, fire its engine, and bring it closer to Earth to resume its original mission.

To do this, the group turned to GNU Radio, a free software toolkit for implementing software-defined radios and signal processing systems. Modifying the software to communicate in the 1970s satellite protocol, members of the reboot project were able to gain access to the spacecraft and fire its thrusters in early July, and will soon attempt to move the satellite into an orbit close to Earth.

You can support GNU Radio by making a donation through the FSF's Working Together for Free Software Fund. To get more involved, attend the annual GNU Radio Conference, to be held this year between September 15th and 19th in Washington, D.C.

The successes of the ISEE-3 Reboot project demonstrate the importance of developing, maintaining, and promoting free software. With dozens of contributors and thousands of users, GNU Radio is written to be shared, learned, and improved by anyone, anywhere -- unlike the lost proprietary communications equipment used by NASA.

This is the second time we've lauded the use of free software for space exploration in the last two years. Read our 2013 blog post about the choice of GNU/Linux as the operating of the International Space Station.

"This openness to inquiry, collaboration, and 'standing on the shoulders of giants' is at the heart of all science," wrote John Gilmore, a founding member of the GNU Radio project, in an email to the FSF. "The GNU Project has institutionalized those principles in a vast community of software authors and users. And GNU's legalized freedom and sharing [...] enable many people to use it and contribute to it -- such as these volunteers."

This blog post was written by FSF campaigns intern Alex Patel. More information about the FSF's internship program is available on our Internships page.

This article is also available in Spanish