[Freedombox-discuss] Cozy, a personal cloud you can host, hack and delete

[Johan Henselmans]

On 23 okt. 2013, at 17:36, Frank Rousseau <frank.rousseau at cozycloud.cc> wrote:

> Hello all,
> 
>  I would like to introduce you to Cozy, a project that fit well with the Freedombox spirit. We started Cozy because we were annoyed by the fact that our personal data were spread among major cloud company silos. We wanted to take the full potential out of our data without worrying about privacy issues.
> 
> To solve that, we built a personal PaaS that is simple to use and allows everyone to host and build easily web applications that collaborate around their personal data. It's aimed to be run on top of a linux distribution and the software is libre and open-source. About who is behind the project, it is supported by a startup, Cozy Cloud, part of the Mozilla WebFWD accelerator (our business model is based on professional services around the solution).
> 

There are more initiatives in that direction, for instance https://www.qiyfoundation.org, with their commercial part under https://www.qiy.nl/en. They have based their framework around saml (XML security and authentication framework). At the moment their stuff is still closed source, but their aim is to set a standard in which one could get information from a person via some kind of service provider, at which you would give permission to some organization to look into your data for a specific purpose. 

I asked them about being my own service provider (which would be the basic idea of getting all the information on your own freedombox), but at the moment they were not yet able to do that. The interesting thing is that they try to set up a standards framework, like an IETF or IEEE standard. They have connectors to lots of data usurpers (passport/driver license info, school/student info, housing info, insurances, banks, shops etc) and try to make sure to make these connectors as generic as possible for a specifc branch. 

Via these connectors those information usurpers, a shop for instance, would be able to get the information that is needed for their purpose (after having permission from the owner of the information (ie you yourself). Imagine having the correct sizes of your feet and body being measured in some shop, given to you, and then you could supply another shop, tailor shoemaker with the correct info. 

If you could put all your information on the freedombox and be your own information service provider, than one would be able to even ask money for the supplied information. You’d be your own personal databank. And if some organisation, be it a state, health insurance company, dirty information provider etc does not behave correctly, one could disconnect your personal information box from that data usurper, or even better, supply it with incorrect information. Nothing better to make big data worthless as by supplying it with incorrect information.



> Yesterday, we published our first release, name "Snowden", as a tribute to the person the NSA hates the most! He provided us with proofs of what we have suspected: the cloud is not a paradise. It has helped us tremendously in explaining the benefits of Cozy, we are grateful for his work. If you want to give it a try, you will find informations in the links below.
> NB: This first version only includes the core module. The available applications (contacts, calendar, photos...) still require some work.
> 
> Annoucement : http://cozy.io/v1-snowden-release/
> Project website : http://cozy.io
> 
> If you see some way we could join our force with the Freedom Box project, let us know we would be glad to work together!
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Frank Rousseau
> 
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Johan Henselmans
johan at netsense.nl