[Imc-uk-process] After the server loss, what next?

[Garcon du Monde]

[nb: i cc'd london list for information. the points and proposals in
this email relate to imc-uk process]

On Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 12:49:56PM +0000, anargeek wrote:
> So, we have some lessons to learn and the opportunity to
> set things up in a more secure way. Some idea follow:

there were some great ideas in this mail - sorry it's taken so long to
follow up. however, for now, i'm gonna address practicalities...

> 2. Perhaps we should look at getting more servers
>    overseas, two ideas:
> 
>    (a) in the same place as traven, the advantage would be
>        that it would be fast (and cheap!) to transfer data
>        between the two machines and they are reliable

there are also some other options in the states and north america that
we could (and should) consider. one is koumbit.org (canada) who i know
have space; the other is mayfirst.org who are currently (now) hosting
some servers for uk indymedia.... i will come back to this.

> 4. We could make more use of virtual machines running on
>    encrypted partitions, for example for the publishing
>    server we could have one crypted virtual machine
>    running postgres (the database) and one running the
>    file system (shared with the rsync server and apache /
>    tomcat server via NFS) and then have a virtual machine
>    that just does apache and tomcat and this machine could
>    be installed from scratch using an image onto a
>    one-time encrypted files system, one with a massive
>    random key that nobody knows -- so if power is lost
>    this virtual machine would be lost forever, but
>    creating a new one from the image would be fairly
>    quick. This way there would not be any encryption keys
>    that could be handed over...

yes... i think there is a lot of potential with virtualisation that we
could make use of.

> All the above ideas would need money for the hardware (we
> have some already) and more money for the on-going hosting
> costs, this is something we are short of and most of all
> quite a bit of time and work from the techies...

money: the current practicality! actually, there is also one other
which i feel is rather lacking and we need to focus on, namely
political solidarity. while there is currently much criticism on the
newswire and various lists about indymedia not serving certain parts
of "the movement" (and i put it in quotation marks as i don't consider
myself part of the same movement that some of these people are in),
there has clearly been no solidarity in the opposite direction
(i.e. others towards indymedia). but that is a digression...

the current situation is that the sites that were on strummer are
being hosted by mayfirst.org and they have requested that indymedia
uk, if it wants to stay there, become a member of their
organisation. in the first instance, this does not represent a
financial committment, but a committment to political solidarity and
agreeing to their statement of unity [0]. personally, i think imc-uk
should also be offering them some money in return for bandwidth, and i
would suggest that something like $50/mo for the past few months and
probably $100/mo for the future would be a fair amount. note, those
are USD prices as they are situated in the states.

in the longer term, i think that we should work with other groups who
use and/or provide vservers (if that is the model of virtualisation
that we go for) for political purposes. while we may be able to afford
_a_ server - or even two - we would be stronger donating that server
to a common cause that we are part of. thereafter, there is more
security in having a distributed system such that vservers can be
moved between different physical hosts, some of which would not even
be in the same country. i am curious to know what other people think
about this.

finally, to bring it back to the "now": we do have bills etc to
pay. therefore, i'd like to propose the following:

  * we agree to the mayfirst statement of unity - deadline 2 weeks

  * we make payment for the bandwidth that was consumed in january as
    soon as we have the final bill (estimated to be approximately
    £700)- deadline for agreement 48 hoursas i cannot see this as
    being contentious and it already has the support of london
    indymedia

  * we arrange payment for mayfirst.org for a 6 month block (if we
    agree to the statement of unity) in the first instance using the
    amounts i have suggested above - deadline 2 weeks to coincide with
    the first proposal


> What doesn't kill us makes us stronger...

right! let's keep on fighting :)

soildarity,

	--gdm

[0] http://mayfirst.org/statementofunity


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