On September 23, 2015, the Laboratory for Ideas, Student Leadership, and Advocacies or IdeaLab partnered with the Carolinian Circle of Young Diplomats for the annual celebration of Software Freedom Day (SFD). The event was held at the Moot Court, University of San Carlos - Downtown Campus.

 

SFD celebrates the impact of Free and Open-Sourced Software or FOSS. The goal in this celebration is to educate students about the benefits of using FOSS in education, in government, at home, and in business -- in short, everywhere. This year’s theme is #EndlessFOSSibilities. The speakers included Mitchie Tabirao from 8layer and Raspberry Pi – Philippines, Robert Reyes from Mozilla Philippines, Aureson Banaria from Access, and Zach Dilworth from Kryptonite and Drupal Pilipinas.

 

They all talked about different aspects of having freedom by choosing the right software. It was about keeping your privacy while exploring the web and putting yourself out there. Basically, the one lesson we will never forget from this forum was "think before you click".  Miss Universe 2015 Pia Wurtzbach said this statement when she answered during the final stage of Miss Philippines. Congresswoman Leni Robredo, a member of the panel of judges, asked her, “Social media is now a very powerful tool of communications. Can you tell us your thought about Internet censorship?” Wurtzbach responded, “ I think that we should be careful of what we post online, especially with our thoughts and our opinions that we don’t hurt anybody… so always think before you click. Thank you.”

 

Indeed, the benefits of computer software are endless. Naming all of those will be longer than this article. However, the security threats of computer software are also endless. You may think you are alone in your room but someone out there is already looking at you through your webcam. You may think no one else knows your password but someone has already hacked and logged into your accounts. You may think you have good credentials and resumes but someone has already copied your profile on LinkedIn and published it as his own.

 

In this day and age where everyone is always looking down on their phones and tablets, anything and everything is traceable. From your location to your work down to your deepest darkest secret, you never knew it but someone is already messing with you. And this should not be the case. The Internet is where we should be free to express ourselves without having to worry of bad case scenarios. This is why we celebrate the Software Freedom Day. This is also why we should share this to our friends and family so they too will be aware of how they can combat software fraud and crime.