[Imc-oceania] FWD: Changes To Catalyst - URGENT

Fri Oct 13 14:30:06 UTC 2006

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hi,

Cameron Gregg wrote:
> We are writing to tell you, urgently, that Catalyst needs to stop our
> internet
> hosting within a month. If you, or your group have a website, email
> list, web domain name, or
> cat email address with us, you will need to make other arrangements as soon
> as humanly possible. Your absolute deadline for moving your site, list,
> email accounts and/or domain name hosting needs to be 15th of
> November 2006.

this is extremely sad, i'm sorry that it's ended up like this as cat have done a
fantastic job over the years and should be congratulated for that.

from an indymedia pov, i guess there are a few lists that should be moved to
lists.indymedia.org and help for this will need to be requested through the
listwork group, probably best by contacting listwork at sos.indymedia.org. it's a
shame pabs is away - although i'm sure he's having a much better time on his
boat trip :-)

> Unfortunately we can't avoid this, because if we don't make some
> radical changes now Catalyst could
> come to a grinding halt rather than making a graceful transition. You
> are welcome to join us in Catalyst's next
> incarnation with a focus on the community building aspects of our
> project. Catalyst was set up over ten years ago as an anarchist
> community web activist project, at a time when it was much harder to
> access the internet. But
> times have changed and now that there is an Internet Service Provider
> on every corner, we are going back to our roots, supporting grassroots
> networking and mutual aid.

and activism??

> Luckily, there are many organisations and companies offering reasonably
> priced and reliable hosting. Most commercial webhosts offer sites,
> lists, email accounts and domain
> name hosting. You can also access free email and mail lists at Gmail and
> Yahoo Groups.We've listed some below to get you started.

ok, this is actually pretty shocking! that you are promoting organisations like
gmail or yahoo.... there are HUGE problems with such corporate, capitalist
entities that i would have thought people at cat would be aware of: not least
their collusion with governments and other "authorities," their detailed logging
of what people are up to (ip addresses, social demographics, linking people with
their personal/private details, and so on).

some of this was discussed recently at the pga europe conference, in august. at
the "digital struggles" strand of that meeting, techs from around the world (not
just, although mainly, europe) discussed a security policy for activists. this
is available in draft format as the "autonomous servers security protocols"
(draft 2) [0]. there were also many other discussions related to the activist
tech community, especially with regard to concerns about security. it might be
worth looking at the index page of the meeting notes [1].

> http://bur.st
> http://www.blinddog.net
> http://netaxxs.com.au
> http://www.mdwebhosting.com.au
> http://www.sykit.net/
> this is only a sample.

i don't know any of these, nor their policies on ip logging, security, etc. it
would, perhaps, be better to recommend other tech-activist collectives:

mutualaid.org
resist.ca
aktivix.org
nadir.org
free.de
so36.net
plentyfact.net
autistici.org
sarava.org
tachanka.org

and probably a whole host of others that i've forgotten or am not even aware of...

it may be that some of these are not able to take "random" subscribers, or are
temporarily over-worked and thus not able to help, but as an organisation
catalyst might be able to approach some other collectives and ask for help, say
that there are X number of people who have emails hosted, and would they be able
to help? there are Y websites, or Z email lists, and so on... it is a shame to
just abandon people to recreating their lists and so on with google or yahoo.

well, i haven't much left to say, really, just i'm pretty shocked and surprised
at this all - although i must admit it's not really that unexpected. i wish you
all the best in whatever you may get up to now, but ask that you please consider
providing suitable information to the people you have been trying to help thus
far. a little bit of forward thought (and asking for help appropriately) can go
a long way... it may even be that an extra month or so (the end of the year?)
might provide time for some others to help.

peace,

	--gdm

[0] http://stamp.poivron.org/SecurityProtocolsWorkingGroup/DraftTwo
[1] http://stamp.poivron.org/MeetingNotes

> Catalyst will be re-emerging in the next couple of months with a new
> system, and a new way of working, on the axxs.org server. Cat.org.au
> will still exist, but we will be focussing all of our attention on the
> projects that mean the most to the activist community. Most
> importantly, we will be putting a lot of work into a new version of
> ACTIVE, and if you'd like to  continue your relationship with Catalyst
> (and our projects), we'd welcome your active involvement.
> 
> This time round we will be focussing on as we relaunch active.org.au,
> a sustainable web activist information
> sharing tool. The new and improved Active will allow you to have your
> own site, with your own domain and
> events calendar, a huge improvement on the simple listing in the
> groups area, as at present. This will put you
> in the driver's seat, and makes us all less dependent on tech experts.
> We're talking empowerment! Anyone who is interested in taking part in
> this exciting new project is welcome to join the discussion list, and
> to check out the developments as they take place:
> 
> E.G.
> http://lists.cat.org.au/pipermail/devactive/2006-September/000017.html
> http://lists.cat.org.au/pipermail/devactive/2006-September/000019.html
> as listed in the devActive archives at:
> http://lists.cat.org.au/pipermail/devactive/
> 
> 
> Wrapping Up:
> 
> Here's a list of things to do before the 15th of November:
> - Download your web page files and texts
> - If you have a site with it's own domain name, make sure you change
> the domain name server details from ns1.cat.org.au and ns2.cat.org.au
> to the addresses provided by your new hosts. This often takes a couple
> of days to switch over � don't leave it to the last minute.
> Regrettably, we're unable to offer you any assistance with these tasks.
> 
> Regarding Personal Email Accounts and Email Lists:
> 
> Don't panic. We will do everything we can to leave you with some kind
> of useful archive of your personal email and email list archives. We
> will try to provide a single file with all your mail after the 20th of
> November.
> Our volunteer technical resources are completely stretched so suitable
> offers of technical or other assistance will be appreciated.
> 
> We'd like to take this opportunity to thank the many generous hands
> who've helped for over ten years, and hope to continue doing what we
> do best - helping activists.
> 
> Hugh and Leah
> Volunteers for Catalyst
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Imc-oceania mailing list
> Imc-oceania at lists.cat.org.au
> http://lists.cat.org.au/mailman/listinfo/imc-oceania
> 

- --

http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Main/GarconDuMonde
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