Sheffield Indymedia Newswire Archive

This is a national call out to ALL

Please attend this national demonstration against Newcastle University animal testing lab

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As per normall the swp HIJACK a demonstration in newcastle

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Stephen Nyash was working with Koch FM, a station in Korogocho, a township near Nairobi.

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Since Indymedia started over a decade ago, the web has undergone major changes, with many more people and campaigns using their own blogs and sites. Corporate sites such as facebook and twitter have also become players in the exchange of information. Recent convictions of Facebook users have shown that using corporate sites can mean an increased risk for users, and whilst twitter has been more assertive about challenging police requests for user information, it remains another database which the state can potentially mine for information, for example the recent court request to Twitter for Occupy users IP addresses in the US. At Indymedia UK we still strive to find ways of getting out information about actions and campaigns to as wide an audience as possible, whilst bearing in mind the need to maintain anonymity and to reduce the risks to our users. We are currently reviewing our twitter strategy with a view to expanding the user base and getting information out to as wide an audience as posssible.

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Occupy newcastle today ceased and went home today occupy newcastle had turned into a joke full of druggies and homeless dossers.

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Claire Hardaker at the University of Central Lancashire has conducted research into the practice of 'trolling' and come up with suggestions for dealing with internet 'trolls'....

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Many users of the UK Indymedia site will have seen some strange changes over the past week and may be confused over what is going on on the site. This is an attempt to explain what is going on behind the scenes as briefly as possible. Of course, it is our own version of events and others may dispute it.

First of all, it is important to realise that the Nottingham site isn’t going to change at all. We will still be here and our feeds will still appear on the Be the Media site. They disappeared from the UK site for a few days but appear to be working again today.

When it was set up, the UK Indymedia site was the site of a London-based collective which later split up into a network of local collectives. Over time, political disagreements and interpersonal conflicts led to a total breakdown of that network as a body that could make decisions together. This was formalised in the final meeting of the network in Bradford last year. Two competing ideas for the site existed that were not mutually compatible. Because all attempts to come to an agreement over the future of the site had failed, a decision was made to ‘fork’ the site into two separate projects. In the minutes these are referred to as Group A and Group B and which have since become known as Mayday and Be the Media. The minutes note that ‘Everything has to be done by the first of May’. After this date, neither group would be permitted to use the domains indymedia.org.uk or uk.indymedia.org or call themselves UK Indymedia. In other words, the decision lay the groundwork for the closure of not just the UK network but also the UK Indymedia site:

We accept to archive www.indymdia.org.uk, indymedia.org.uk and uk.indymedia.org and indymedia.co.uk as static html with a banner on
top of each page that says along the gist of “this a archived version of the site For a active version of this page go to a.indymedia.org, there is also the aggregator at b.indymedia.org.”
There will be splash page at / that links to the archive site, site a.indymedia.org and b.indymedia.org
We agree that henceforth noone can call themselve Indymedia UK, UK network and UK collective anymore.

- Minutes of Bradford UK network meeting, Dec 2010

Nottingham Indymedia was broadly aligned with the Be The Media collective, but we agreed to support the Mayday collective’s new Indymedia application.

In April, the Mayday collective disputed that the 1st May deadline still applied because the Mayday collective’s New IMC application did not look like it would pass before that date. All prospective Indymedia collectives have to go through the New IMC Process in order to be accepted into the network. The minutes refer to a.indymedia.org and b.indymedia.org. Since Mayday did not have an Indymedia subdomain, they claimed that the Bradford agreement did not apply. A feature explaining the implications of the fork was blocked by members of the Mayday collective because they did not agree that it was accurate. No resolution to this disagreement seemed possible and 1st May approached with Mayday aiming to continue maintaining the UK site and Be the Media aiming to implement the fork.

On 1st May, the Mayday collective did not implement the fork. Be the Media claimed that they had broken the Bradford agreement and implemented some of the changes specified in the Bradford agreement (archiving UK Indymedia and putting up a splash page to link to Mayday and Be the Media sites). Mayday called this ‘an attempt to shutdown UK Indymedia’ and undid the changes. They have also blocked administrative access to UK Indymedia to all members of Be the Media.

Those who want to know more about the ongoing events surrounding this disagreement should look at the UK Process list archives.

We hope that the situation can be resolved and that both projects can continue in independence from one another.

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It was with great consternation that I followed the Indymedia UK saga on the Newswire – the split camps of BeTheMedia and Mayday, and the possible suspension of the site. While I am not a part of any IMC Kollective, and have not followed the in-depth discussions and meetings that have been had about IMC UK’s future, I would like to say a little on the importance of the site, both as a reader and contributor to IMC UK.

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On November 30th 1999 thousands of anti-capitalist/globalisation activists gathered in Seattle, USA to protest against and successfully shut down a meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). A large part of their grievance was that the WTO was effectively operating in secret with no reporting of the decisions it was making and the effect those decisions were having across the world. So by way of a solution a group of activists set up the Independent Media Centre or "Indymedia" for short. The idea was create a network of un-moderated, open publishing websites so people from all over the world could share news about the decisions being made in the name of globalisation and the actions that were being taken to protest against them. The Independent Media Centre was probably one of the most successful ideas to come out of the Seattle protests and there are now 180 Indymedia sites across the world in places as diverse as Japan, Israel, Kenya and Burma making Indymedia the blueprint for the sort of "Citizen Journalism" that's become so fashionable recently.

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The Bradford consensus decision is invalid on two counts if it was the intention, deliberate or otherwise, to expel Group A from the global network.

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Last week the respected alternative news project SchNEWS published a story revealing long term malicious use of indymedia by elements within the states police apparatus. The piece was base on the so-called 303 Gateway article written collaboratively by a number of indymedia admins and proposed in secret as a feature for the UK site over six months ago. The proposal was blocked by London and Northern IMC. They claim they failed to get agreement on amendments aimed at distancing themselves from admissions within the article that indymedia admins had in fact had access to IP logs despite having repeatedly said the opposite in the past. Both London and Northern said that they would have no objection to the article being published as a feature on Indymedia UK if it was made clear within the article that the IP logging was a feature found within the MIR content management system used by IMC UK and its regional sites Birmingham, Cambridge, Liverpool, Oxford, Sheffield and South Coast, not those using alternative CMS such as Bristol, London, Northern, Nottingham and Scotland. However it seem tonight that their claim has be proven a lie...

The draft article stated, "what has never been openly stated before is that the CMS system we use has a number of anti-abuse measures which include the ability to monitor for particular IP addresses and log their behaviour." The draft goes on to say, "site admins believed that they would never be able to gain the trust of posters, if the range of anti-abuse measures were made public. As is often the case, once a body has failed to be completely open about something, it becomes 'the elephant in the room' and so a situation was created where the new and current admins were actively blocked from bringing these measures into the open. The stalemate continued until now, with site admins proposing a new approach of coming clean about the measures that are in place, and others in the collective blocking this."

Prophetically, that stalemate over coming clean about the IP logging meant that no consensus was possible on publishing the article. There was no way that the information about the governments disinfo campaign could be published without revealing that indymedia had been lying about IP logs. Apparently some suggested it could be published via a different alt media outlet while leaving out the info about indymedia but the story would have been weak without the evidence gathered by indymedia admins.

The impasse remained but then the draft article was leaked by a disgruntled admin using the name 'indyleaks'. The posts were repeatedly hidden from the indymedia sites it was posted to and a filter set up on IMC UK to automatically hide it whenever posted.

There remains no consensus about publishing the article which includes a frank admission that indymedia has misled its user since 2003. However the lack of consensus is now a moot point since SchNEWS has ran the story and Birmingham IMC has published the 303 gateway article as a feature on it's own site.

 https://publish.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/01/472622.html

Both the story about the government running a disinfo campaign via indymedia, and the story that indymedia UK has been hiding the truth about IP logging for all these years, that is big news for activists at a time when trust is already in short supply.

As the article says "continuing to gloss over the reality in a misleading way was detrimental to Indymedia UK, and that there was no small likelihood that at some stage we could be outed." Now that the truth is out, lets hope indymedia can recover from the damage to its credibility and move on to become more open and honest with its users.

Fisher

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Attached is a CSV file (which should open in Open Office) of all the posts from gateway-303.energis.gsi.gov.uk and gateway-202.energis.gsi.gov.uk that were caught by the anti-abuse filters set up to detect this Police abuse of the site.

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“No - stuff that - SHUT the place: Let’s not all stand around like lemmings - lets shut the place!Bring ladders and wire cutters. If there are enough of us we can shut it!” - a pretty average comment on Indymedia you might think - if a little gung-ho. In fact it was posted there by the police - and SchNEWS has the proof.

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The Mayday Indymedia Collective presents a screening Human Resources from Metanoia Films at 6.00 PM on Saturday 29th of January 2011 at the Cowley Club 12 London Road, Brighton, BN1 4JA. To be followed by a discussion. Read on for more information about the Mayday Indymedia Collective and other events that weekend.

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Everyones being talking about Mark since Oct but what have people learned or changed? We always knew that the state was interested in our activities and that they send people to our meetings and monitor our email etc. However it seemed unlikely that the cops would take us seriously enough to go to such extreme lengths to embed a cop in our circles so deep or for such a long time. Sure, the cops would have their snitches among us, those who dedication to the cause could not compete to their own dedication to drink, drugs, parties and easy cash. Of course we also knew that the corporations we target would also be spying on us and that there were companies who specialised in infiltrating our groups and selling info to whoever would pay. When the news about Mark broke, the surprise wasn't that we had been infiltrated, it was the it was a cop and not simply a private detective or a friend turned informer.

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We are writing this statement in support of democracy.

Since Sunday, November 28th, WikiLeaks and five major newspapers from around the world (The Guardian, The New York Times, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, El Pais) have been publishing redacted versions of leaked US Diplomatic Cables in an ongoing story that has become known as "Cablegate." The identity of the original leaker is - as yet - unconfirmed

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Attached is a recording of a session at the Sheffield Anarchist Bookfair on 22nd May 2010, titled, An Activist Guide to the Web, a talk exploring the potential advantages (and dangers) of new technologies to political activists.

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Police have dropped their controversial six-month investigation of a Sheffield IT worker who had a minor role administering the activist website Indymedia UK.

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Attached is an interview about Indymedia that was broadcast on Sheffield Live  http://www.sheffieldlive.org/ on 1st May 2009 to mark World Press Freedom Day, 3rd May  http://www.worldpressfreedomday.org/ topics covered include the recent server seizure,  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/actions/2009/strummer/

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Recent events have got people talking and thinking about security implications of using indymedia or other online publishing outlets. Below is a guide to how to implement security measures for hiding your identity online.

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Here is the latest from the register about the arrest related to the latest imc server seizure. The arrested man is a sys admin who hosted several servers including the indymedia server. Apparently this is enough to get you held for 8 hours and bail conditions. But the comments get it -  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/10/indymedia/comments/

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Police act on web comment including judge's details

A man has been arrested in connection with comments posted to the activist news site Indymedia.

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As part of a Day of Action Freedom not Fear, radical tech collectives from Europe and beyond have come up with the following statement which summarises what their position on privacy rights is.

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The Truth Revolution Radio show from 1st March 2008 (adverts edited out) is attached. Guests include Indymedia activists Chris Burnett from Los Angeles and Chris from Sheffield Indymedia.

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A take on abstract activism in motion, living, breathing, and coming damn close to performing miracles.

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A new indymedia mailing list has been created to help facilitate communication and collaboration between photographers working on environmental and social justice reporting. If you regularly go out to document protests etc with a camera, please join this list.

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Local newpaper editor Danny Lockwood is being sued by Dewsbury Labour MP
Shahid Malik.
Lockwood has decided this matter is all about freedom of speech and has decided to start a fighting fund to pay his legal team.
However he has enlisted the help of resident BNP "folk" band "Red Claire"

Red Claire consists of BNP councillors Colin Auty and Paul Cromie along with BNP candidate Frank Atack.
Red Claire played at this years BNP Red,White and Blue festival.
They are playing at the Park Public House in Batley,a pub that regularly holds BNP meetings and has even had Nick Griffin speak there.

This isn't the first time Lockwood and the Press have shown support for the BNP.
But this has been the most open and blatant.

Please register your polite protests with the Dewsbury Press.

 lockwood@newspost.co.uk
or
 martin@dewsburypress.co.uk

Alternatively telephone them at 01924 439498

Please keep it polite please.

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