Re: <nettime> indymedia servers in UK seized by FBI

["lsi" <stuart@cyberdelix.net>]

Well I'll come outta lurking and opine that in the long run this is a damn 
good thing to happen.  The actual damage was minimal.  But the lessons 
learned for the community are crystal-clear, none-the-less.

1. Decentralisation is a wonderful thing.  More please.

2. We cannot trust or rely upon our societies to protect us (but we knew 
that already I guess) .... do not seek protection by the law; seek 
immunity from it.

3. New techniques are required to fully survive a take-down like this. 
In particular, if contentious content was made available on P2P networks, 
in such a way that websites such as the IMC's could download and display 
it, then there would be no point in taking down the webservers, because 
they are not hosting the content - the network itself is.

These actions by our governments do little but hasten progress to a fully 
independent media network.  That is, a content network that cannot be 
disrupted.  With the stakes so low in this particular case, one can but 
wonder what might happen if a truly shocking expose happened to appear on 
the activist nets.  The confiscation of the IMC servers highlights the 
urgent need to develop community systems that can withstand such activity, 
and allows the community to dissect what happened and grow from it.

Go in hard - come back harder.

Stuart



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Stuart Udall
stuart at@cyberdelix.dot net - http://www.cyberdelix.net/

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  * Origin: lsi: revolution through evolution (192:168/0.2)



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