[New-imc] Mayday IMC

[Chris]

Hi

On Sat 09-Apr-2011 at 08:30:26PM +0200, Bartolomeo wrote:
> 
> It's good to hear that there are people who do not agree
> to the use of the IMC-UK MIR system as spyware.
> Nevertheless, I find it hard to believe that the quotes
> above are "common ground across the collective". I
> talked to a member of your collective who is admin on
> IMC-UK and who defended the spying. He believed that it
> was a just cause to monitor users for the sake of
> retaliation against the cops. To be honest: I do not
> trust your reassurances as they lack reflection on the
> betrayal against the users of IMC-UK.

UK Indymedia hasn't been "spying" on it's users, in this
case the only people we can be accused of "spying on" is
the UK Government -- this is the "user" that was being
tracked and clearly they don't count as a legitimate user.

UK Indymedia has been using filters to track posts from
specific UK Government IP addresses which activists in the
UK knew were being used by the Police to attempt to
disrupt and derail activists campaigns -- it was due to
several reports on activist web site about abuse from
gateway-202.energis.gsi.gov.uk and
gateway-303.energis.gsi.gov.uk that filters were put in
place to flag up any comment of article that originated
from these addresses.

This was done in self defence -- the police in the UK have
used articles and comments on UK Indymedia as evidence
against activists in court cases and to justify Indymedia
server seizures and raids on activists homes.

Sheffield Indymedia, Birmingham Indymedia, Oxford
Indymedia and the Mayday Indymedia collective all argued
that the 302 and 303 posts, which are made up of attempts
at divide and rule, gloating about sentances for activists
and classic agent provocateur postings seeking to incite
illegal activity, should be made public. Nottingham
Indymedia also too this view:

  Indymedia admins had a responsibility to share the
  information they had collected with the wider activist
  community. To fail to disclose the strategies of
  systematic disruption, smearing and incitement that had
  been connected to one particular government gateway
  would have been to fail the very people who rely on
  Indymedia.

  http://nottingham.indymedia.org/articles/921

However telling activists about the posts originating from
UK Government IP addresses was blocked by London
Indymedia, London Indymedia is still involved in the admin
of the UK Indymedia site. London Indymedia wanted to keep
the abuse by the police a secret and also to remove the
ability for the posts from these IP addresses to be
tracked.

It was a relief when SchNEWS, in effect, broke the block
(which didn't in any case apply to them) with the
publication of their article:

- INTER-NETCU
  http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news755.php
  
Once the story was public, Birmingham and Sheffield
Indymedia took the view that there was no point in
continuing to respect the block to the story from London
Indymedia since it no longer made any sense -- the story
was now public -- it wasn't a secret any longer.

Birmingham Indymedia published the feature article about
the police abuse that London Indymedia were and still are,
blocking from being published on the UK Indymedia front
page:

- Advocating Domestic Extremism - Cops on Indymedia - An
  Exposé
  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/birmingham/2011/01/472560.html

Later that day Sheffield Indymedia also published a
feature article about the case:

- Gateway 303: Police Disinformation on UK Indymedia
  http://sheffield.indymedia.org.uk/2011/01/472575.html

And the following day the full list of articles and
comments that the filters had flagged up as originating
from gateways 202 and 303 was also published:

- Full list of Gateway 303 and 202 posts to IMC UK
  http://sheffield.indymedia.org.uk/2011/01/472619.html

This was done because we believe it is important that
activists are aware of the extent of disinformation and
attempts at on-line disruption that originate from the
state. It is nice that there has finally been some limited
coverage of this aspect of the information war in the
corporate media, for example:

- Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media

  Military's 'sock puppet' software creates fake online
  identities to spread pro-American propaganda

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks

- The need to protect the internet from 'astroturfing'
  grows ever more urgent

  The tobacco industry does it, the US Air Force clearly
  wants to ... astroturfing – the use of sophisticated
  software to drown out real people on web forums – is on
  the rise. How do we stop it?

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2011/feb/23/need-to-protect-internet-from-astroturfing

We consider that the filters to track the postings from
the UK state constitute legitimate self-defence of
independent media.

> How come that SchNEWS was able to present a list of
> articles posted by a certain IP?

SchNEWS didn't publish the list of articles and comments
from 202 and 303, this was done on UK Indymedia.

> Who collected this data? What did they do with it? Do
> further dossiers exist? Are the person responsible for
> this betrayal designated admins of mayday.indymedia.org?

What "betrayal" are you talking about? The "betrayal" to
abide by the attempts of London Indymedia to hush up the
Police abuse and keep it secret from activists?

All the best

Chris