> If you don’t want it you could write her and state the reasons you do > not want this bill rather than poking the list for reactions. I already did contact her. I thought it may be of interest to other people on this list. > What exactly are you looking for in a "libre" phone? Open source > software? Yes, and the knowledge that nobody but I have the ability to restrict access to what I can and can't do on my own phone. > I cannot tell how a kill switch is going to take my freedoms, at least > any more than whatever else already currently happening with the cell > phone industry. I agree that the cell phone industry isn't the most freedom-respecting industry out there. I admit I haven't looked at it with a fine tooth comb for a while, but I've heard good things about Replicant. I have an N900 now and, while it's not completely open source, it's quite close. The problem I see is that this would *require* phones to be shipped with a "feature" that many individuals find undesirable. > the companies that > manufacture and sell the phones do not have any real incentive to > bring a stop to it because most people buy another one once they lose > their original. Which has the potential to lead to crappy implementations if they're forced to do it by the government... I should state that I'm not completely against this bill. Cell phone theft is definitely a growing problem. But it has to be implemented very carefully (with libre software in mind) and I'm not optimistic that this will happen, especially in the age where the fact that you have to decide whether to "jailbreak" into your own phone is widely accepted. -Max -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://mailman.mn-linux.org/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20140127/c40fd5f8/attachment.pgp>