Recent news regarding United States governmental agencies collecting and monitoring data across the Internet were pretty well known for years among the tech community. The details and the specific activities, such as the PRISM project might not have been matters of common knowledge though. It remains nonetheless true that any organisation or individual who is connected to the Internet -which means a lot of of them on the Earth- needs to be able to keep both its privacy and the ownership of its data. It is not just a matter of national interest and sovereignty for countries. It is not just a political matter that might be solved between the United States and Europe for instance. The right to privacy and data ownership is a fundamental right, on the Internet and elsewhere.

 There have been extensive discussions about this topic inside Mandriva, and we felt we needed to stress that these concerns are extremely important to us and should be the same to you.

 Mandriva has committed itself to protecting its customers' privacy and digital independence for years. But we would like to show you how, by using Mandriva's technologies and solutions as well as the upcoming OpenMandriva Linux distribution, it will be possible to significantly minimize and the data collection by specific governmental agencies and even keep its privacy and the ownership over one's own data.

 Here are several steps one can take in order to regain its control over its data and its systems while using entirely Free and Open Source Software stacks:

  • Source and pick commodity hardware that is manufactured outside of the U.S., possibly by vendord who are not based there. You can acquire an entire infrastructure from these vendors starting with servers to desktops, laptops, tablets and even smartphones.

  • For your hosting or your bandwidth choose a provider that is located in France, Europe or any country that does not snoop and collect your data as it passes on the network.

  • Choose Mandriva Business Server to power the core of your business: Mandriva Business Server is entirely developed in France, by Mandriva S.A. At its core we use a modified version of Mageia, which is french community distribution as well.

  • You can run generic Free and Open Source Software on top of it such as application servers, calendar servers, etc. The nice part here is that you can already run them on top of MBS.

  • For your desktops, run the upcoming OpenMandriva Linux distribution. OpenMandriva is a community powered project based in France. It has rebased itself on ROSA, a Linux distribution that's also based on former Mandriva distributions coming from Russia. You end up with an entire infrastructure that relies on non-US vendors and that does not put your data in a location that lets U.S. governmental agencies collect and monitor what belongs rightfully to you.

  • Last but not least, you can manage your entire IT systems by using Mandriva Pulse2. Mandriva Pulse is an unique solution for managing heterogenous and multi-sites IT systems and it can scale from 20 seats to well over 20,000 seats.

Mandriva is commited to ensure your privacy and the protection of your data. The solutions we develop are developed in France and in Brazil. We don't hand over your data to anyone and we are not subject to U.S. regulations concerning data monitoring as well as export bans.

 Today more than ever, Mandriva is committed to provide you with the best choice and to ensure your digital independence.

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