[IMC-Tech] [imc-irl] embedded youtube videos should not be used on imc??

[terence at indymedia.ie]

First of all, thanks for the info below. I was not aware of these
developments and I will look into it further. However, it also requires
our readers to be familiar with this because so many people now use
YouTube and other sites. Ideally the Indymedia network needs to have their
own using hosting + free software (as in the initiative below).

Regarding YouTube + other embedded videos on Ireland Indymedia, we have
been allowing these for more than a year. There are 2 issues. When you
merely look at a story and the embedded video throws up the image even
though it does not play, it still contacts the YouTube site to retrieve
the image and so allows them to relate your IP against the story, since I
am sure that would be in the referral address (HTTP_REFERER). The guys at
Bristol IMC have come up with a good solution to this part of the problem.
We can optionally not display the initial image of the YouTube and just
use a link and when you click on this, it then generates the embedded
YouTube code. This will be available in the next release of Oscailt and I
have already tested it. We will give users the option to have this as a
setting. So that solves that problem.

The second problem is then when you actually want to view the video. There
is nothing we can do there, other than try and switch to other embedded
videos sites or develop our own as below. But as I alluded to above, it
will take time for the community of users to shift over.

Regarding policy, on Indymedia Ireland, we have choosen to use YouTube and
other videos, even though it is not a solution we like. Other Indymedia
sites are free to make their own choices in this area.

Regarding IP tracking and state surveillance, I have to agree with JD's
earlier email that they probably can already track what they want and
routinely do so. For example as far as I know, all ISPs have to track
usage already. The governments will happily have you believe that they
can't do this and I think this may be why they go through the motions of
requesting logs and taking servers as in the recent case in the UK, but I
think the main purpose is to intimidate and scare off people. There may
well also be an issue with all the different agencies like the police,
special branch, the various branches of the secret services and numerous
quasi private and private agencies all with varying degrees of access and
security clearance to the data routinely collected by the main
evesdropping agencies like the NSA (in US) and GCHQ (UK) and whoever else
in the other countries. People should make no mistake that the
capabilities of both NSA + GCHQ are far beyond what people realize. But
from the states point of view, it is important to play it down and lure
people into a sense that they really are hiding their IPs and general
access. That way they hope to catch people doing whatever it is they are
looking for as presumably these people will think they are not being
tracked/monitored. Nevertheless we should never make it easy for them nor
be reckless. We should do what we can. And as I said, these various
agencies may all have all sorts of turf wars over access to this data. At
the end of the day, it is indeed all about the individuals right to
privacy and we should strive to do whatever we can to increase it, but
governments have vast technical resources and we shouldn't pretend they
don't. Denial won't help us.

-Terence

> Hi all,
>
>     There is a tool for uploading videos (in testing) at
> images.indymedia.org , so, it's not necessary to upload your stuff to
> youtube anymore.
>
>     The software choosen is Anydata ( http://devel.anydata.tv ), if do
> you want a username/password to try out, just tell. Videos have better
> quality than in Youtube and there's no watermark. Anydata handles  mp3,
> wav, all video formats and all image formats, so, you don't need to
> upload videos in some place and audios somewhere else :D
>
>
>     Nowadays it stores:
>           - Files (PDF, all video, some audios, all images.... we were
> even able to preview and index all formats supported by OpenOffice)
>           - URLs
>           - Contacts
>           - HTML "notes"
>
>     Please, guys, ask for a testing account and help us improve this GPL
> software!
>
>     Currently we are implementing it in three other sites:
>
>           http://anydata.hangar.org for multimedia repository
>           http://directori.moviments.net an open directory of social
> movements, worker union's and non profits
>           http://training.gnun.net   for hosting training materials of
> GNU/Linux
>
>
>     All they are based upon our testing template, however the look is
> completly independent, as shown with the RSS feed, which in fact it's
> just another template :D
>
>
> Cheers,
>
>
> Kenneth
>
> En/na garcondumonde ha escrit:
>> hello,
>>
>>
>>> On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 12:26 PM, Fun Peace <fuspey at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> I feel this is for a wider dialogue with the imc-ie collective:
>>>> GDM wrote:
>>>>  "embedded youtube videos should not be used - this allows logging of
>>>> IPs
>>>> of all visitors to the (indymedia) page by youtube, which indymedia
>>>> should
>>>> not do."
>>>> im not sure what was, is the imc-ie view on this?
>>>> this discussion arises from a imc-org feature proposal for article
>>>> presently on imc-ie, including embedded vids via youtube
>>>>
>>>> perhaps others might offer light
>>>> regards, dunk
>>>>
>>> I think this horse left the barn a long time ago - the issue is moot,
>>> IMHO.
>>>
>>> Indymedias have to stop thinking that the state's internet surveillance
>>> is
>>> as unsophisticated as ten years ago.  It is safe to assume that every
>>> bit
>>> and byte that flows from and to indymedia.ie is monitored in some way.
>>>
>>
>> perhaps that is a good reason for people to *not* use indymedia ireland
>> then?
>>
>> really, in all seriousness, do you really think that?? the uk imc (not
>> very far from ireland, and operating under similar laws) recently had a
>> server seized for exactly the reason that the state was trying to trace
>> someone - and was otherwise unable to. for full information, please look
>> at the website: https://www.indymedia.org.uk for further info. in
>> particular, i would point you to the second or third feature article
>> which
>> specifically addresses the question "how do you know that indymedia uk
>> does not keep logs?" and also at the various links from that article.
>> you
>> might also like to search through the archives of the imc-tech list
>> which
>> has had - if not this - very similar discussions in the past about
>> ip-logging, embedding of other sites within articles (rather than just
>> links - and, perhaps i misunderstand what ireland is actually doing
>> here),
>> use of alternative media players to achieve youtube-type functionality,
>> etc.
>>
>> solidarity,
>>
>>        --gdm