[00:00.000 --> 00:02.880]  This session right now is Indymedia in 2004.
[00:03.320 --> 00:05.340]  Before they begin, I've got a couple of announcements to make.
[00:05.560 --> 00:16.740]  First of all, it's probably going to be, but we're not sure yet, but there will probably be a remote feed to the video room on the second floor for Jello Biafra later.
[00:17.320 --> 00:18.220]  More on that later.
[00:19.020 --> 00:21.380]  Area C has a concurrent speaker schedule.
[00:21.840 --> 00:24.180]  Going on right now is Scavenger Hunt RNC.
[00:24.880 --> 00:26.920]  At 1 o'clock, you have Hacking the iPod.
[00:27.000 --> 00:28.660]  At 2, Why Forensics Sucks.
[00:29.460 --> 00:31.920]  3, Python in the TCP IP stack.
[00:32.400 --> 00:33.940]  4, Media Streaming.
[00:35.300 --> 00:36.560]  So that's the schedule.
[00:36.720 --> 00:37.520]  We said we'd announce it.
[00:37.600 --> 00:38.080]  We just did.
[00:41.240 --> 00:42.120]  And that's it.
[00:42.260 --> 00:44.640]  Right now, I'd like to introduce Indymedia in 2004.
[00:54.220 --> 00:54.660]  Hello.
[00:55.320 --> 00:56.040]  Hi, everyone.
[00:59.320 --> 01:04.900]  So this is the panel on Indymedia, the Independent Media Centers, all around the world.
[01:05.840 --> 01:07.140]  And we have a... Oh, yeah.
[01:07.300 --> 01:07.560]  Hey there.
[01:08.880 --> 01:10.380]  So, my name is Mike.
[01:10.560 --> 01:17.160]  I work in addition to the Independent Media Centers, where I work largely on local tech issues.
[01:17.160 --> 01:19.640]  I also work with 2600 Magazine.
[01:20.640 --> 01:29.780]  And we're going to give a talk here about Indymedia and some of the stuff we're planning for the Democratic and Republican conventions.
[01:30.420 --> 01:33.160]  And just, you know, what else we're up to.
[01:36.900 --> 01:38.000]  My name is Lee.
[01:39.780 --> 01:44.880]  I also do a lot of work with sort of global Indymedia, Texas admin stuff.
[01:46.220 --> 01:54.820]  And I also work at a radio and television show called Democracy Now, doing the same sort of independent media of itself.
[01:55.720 --> 01:56.480]  Thank you.
[01:58.560 --> 01:59.600]  My name is Arun.
[01:59.820 --> 02:04.100]  I work with the New York City Independent Media Center, specifically its print project.
[02:04.100 --> 02:08.570]  I work with a lot of other media organizations around the city.
[02:09.100 --> 02:16.980]  And I'm working with a bunch of different groups to host an independent media convergence center during the convention.
[02:16.980 --> 02:18.540]  And I'll talk a little about that.
[02:21.450 --> 02:23.670]  So why don't we advance to our first slide?
[02:24.390 --> 02:25.990]  It says, what is Indymedia?
[02:28.890 --> 02:35.730]  So yeah, I guess in general, it's a global network of producers, journalists, organizers, and technicians.
[02:36.130 --> 02:41.550]  And the idea is that the media, you could take it into your own hands.
[02:41.550 --> 02:53.030]  And I guess it started centered around the internet in 1999, Seattle.
[02:54.190 --> 02:58.470]  It's kind of from... I've never actually talked to the individuals involved.
[02:58.650 --> 03:02.770]  But apparently, I've heard this many times that it was sort of thrown together at the last minute.
[03:02.910 --> 03:07.550]  And they're like, oh, we have this internet message board content management thing.
[03:07.550 --> 03:14.550]  And, you know, it might be a good idea to use it for this big protest.
[03:14.550 --> 03:19.870]  And it kind of spun off like exponentially from there.
[03:20.350 --> 03:28.190]  And now there are over 100 grassroots collectives spanning six continents.
[03:28.470 --> 03:32.270]  Which is kind of amazing every time I think about it.
[03:32.270 --> 03:43.770]  But there's a lot of involvement in... especially in South America, Europe, and North America.
[03:44.110 --> 03:50.650]  And there's also... there's a couple in Africa and Asia that...
[03:50.650 --> 03:58.370]  Obviously, there's a stronger language barrier there for Americans or English speakers.
[03:58.370 --> 04:01.670]  So, personally, I don't know as much about that.
[04:03.490 --> 04:05.230]  You want me to talk about the global network?
[04:05.490 --> 04:05.670]  Yeah.
[04:07.590 --> 04:10.470]  The whole composition of the global network is rather fascinating.
[04:10.670 --> 04:17.590]  As Lee said, it started... it was set up prior to the WTO ministerial in Seattle in 1999.
[04:17.590 --> 04:20.690]  And everybody kind of knows about what happened there.
[04:20.970 --> 04:25.170]  The street protests, a lot of the violence, the days of running battle.
[04:25.370 --> 04:29.990]  But really, what made Seattle Seattle was in the media.
[04:30.330 --> 04:35.290]  Because people could really bypass the corporate media on a mass scale.
[04:35.450 --> 04:42.570]  The open publishing software allowed individuals to post all sorts of content directly to the newswire.
[04:43.530 --> 04:48.270]  Whether that was audio, video, photos, reports from the streets.
[04:49.030 --> 04:52.070]  And I think it was getting about five million hits a day.
[04:52.290 --> 04:53.950]  It was beating all the corporate networks.
[04:53.950 --> 04:57.330]  And this was done for free with freeware.
[04:57.950 --> 04:59.990]  Just through a whole volunteer network.
[05:00.290 --> 05:02.070]  They had very little money to operate.
[05:02.250 --> 05:05.710]  And it just spawned an enormous response.
[05:05.710 --> 05:11.610]  Because people didn't really have to rely on the corporate bullshit anymore.
[05:12.030 --> 05:15.350]  And they could really see what was going on and evaluate for themselves.
[05:16.090 --> 05:23.550]  And that kind of had this exponential effect both in North America and around the world.
[05:24.210 --> 05:28.570]  And one of the interesting things is where indie medias tend to be concentrated.
[05:28.570 --> 05:32.110]  There's something about, like, 50 in the U.S. alone.
[05:32.390 --> 05:37.230]  So maybe about 40% of the global network just resides within the US.
[05:37.230 --> 05:40.030]  And then it's very active in Europe and Latin America.
[05:40.190 --> 05:44.570]  Basically, where there's strong social movements, you'll find indie media.
[05:45.010 --> 05:50.490]  But there's also a lot of barriers to technology, obviously, in much of the world, the third world.
[05:50.690 --> 05:54.350]  So, like Africa, there's very few indie media centers.
[05:55.350 --> 06:00.670]  There's Southern Africa, and I think Nigeria, and maybe someplace in West Africa is about it.
[06:00.850 --> 06:03.610]  But most of the continent, they don't have the resources.
[06:03.850 --> 06:09.270]  There was a Congo IMC for a little while, and they had, like, one computer, and it broke.
[06:09.550 --> 06:13.730]  And there's just all these issues with technology, resources, capital.
[06:14.270 --> 06:22.430]  Like, say, the New York Independent Media Center, we go through maybe, like, $10,000 a month in terms of revenue and expenses.
[06:22.430 --> 06:27.430]  In the third world countries, someplace like Bolivia, it might be $100 a year.
[06:27.810 --> 06:32.050]  And they might have one computer that everybody has to take turns on.
[06:33.150 --> 06:44.310]  So a lot of what we try to do is technology transfer, get computers, send them to the third world, help them with funding, and to be able to set it up.
[06:44.390 --> 06:47.850]  But it is a real barrier, just as it is the language barrier also.
[06:47.850 --> 06:53.930]  And you also find that in regions where you have repressive governments, there are no indie media at all.
[06:54.110 --> 06:59.810]  Like, there's not one single indie media in China, whereas there are now, I think, at least three in India.
[07:00.010 --> 07:04.570]  But again, it's a reflection both of strong social movements and access to technology.
[07:10.520 --> 07:17.340]  Oh, but, and lastly, indie media is you, for a big mistake.
[07:18.200 --> 07:24.180]  But, so, yeah, how is the media distributed?
[07:24.180 --> 07:33.140]  Because, uh, it's, uh, for me, it's, uh, indie media as, as, like, a name or a concept, uh, isn't really any one thing.
[07:33.600 --> 07:45.500]  Um, uh, just because of the decentralized nature of it, um, like Arun was explaining, it's, uh, it's kind of hard to really put your finger on, like, what is it, you know, what is it doing?
[07:45.500 --> 07:50.400]  And for me, the most valuable, uh, what it's the most valuable for is the distribution network.
[07:50.860 --> 07:55.940]  Um, and, uh, I was just showing the, the global indie media website on that projector.
[07:56.280 --> 07:59.680]  Um, and that's just one of the, the, of the hundred.
[07:59.800 --> 08:01.760]  And they all sort of follow that similar format.
[08:02.500 --> 08:07.360]  Um, um, I don't know if you noticed, but there's this, uh, open publishing page.
[08:07.660 --> 08:15.780]  Um, it's, uh, uh, I guess philosophically, a lot of the, uh, it started out as, uh, unmoderated, uh, an unmoderated forum.
[08:16.300 --> 08:19.220]  Um, you can imagine that that, uh, caused some problems over time.
[08:19.960 --> 08:23.680]  Uh, there's a lot of people that don't really agree with the messages.
[08:24.260 --> 08:26.720]  They're very intent on explaining that.
[08:27.020 --> 08:36.220]  Uh, so a lot of, uh, uh, a lot of policy kind of decisions went into the, the, um, local IMCs themselves.
[08:36.480 --> 08:41.920]  But nonetheless, um, that's the main distribution, uh, form of distribution is, uh, the web.
[08:41.920 --> 08:45.680]  And text and photos, obviously they're the simplest to publish.
[08:46.440 --> 08:50.560]  Um, and can't, some, some sites can accept audio and video.
[08:50.800 --> 08:56.760]  But it's, that again is usually, uh, dependent on the local, um, tech collective.
[08:57.060 --> 09:01.500]  And, uh, how much storage and how much they're willing to, uh, to work.
[09:02.380 --> 09:02.900]  Um.
[09:03.420 --> 09:06.180]  There's of course also resource sharing among the global networks.
[09:06.520 --> 09:10.540]  So, uh, you know, web hosting in some of the global south is very expensive.
[09:10.540 --> 09:13.200]  And, uh, in New York it's very, also very expensive.
[09:13.400 --> 09:17.240]  But we can maybe find someone who has a server that will let us put it in their basement.
[09:17.520 --> 09:19.320]  And, uh, share those resources.
[09:19.640 --> 09:24.540]  So that we can, you know, attempt to distribute audio, video, uh, photographs.
[09:25.320 --> 09:28.120]  Throughout the web, uh, fairly cheaply.
[09:28.160 --> 09:29.240]  As cheaply as we can make it.
[09:29.400 --> 09:34.080]  Of course, uh, web video just, the technology really isn't there yet so much.
[09:34.080 --> 09:36.360]  We get these, like, little postage stamp size things.
[09:38.200 --> 09:39.920]  Especially if you want to use free software to do it.
[09:40.300 --> 09:40.400]  Yeah.
[09:41.880 --> 09:46.340]  So, you know, but we try and have a variety of distribution methods.
[09:46.560 --> 09:48.840]  So Arun, do you have some copies of the paper maybe with you?
[09:49.180 --> 09:50.760]  I put them on in the back.
[09:50.920 --> 09:55.360]  So if you look in the back, uh, the Independent, which is, uh, New York City.
[09:55.900 --> 10:01.240]  Uh, a lot of folks that are working on this newspaper that comes out every two weeks now.
[10:01.580 --> 10:07.180]  And so there's, to provide access to people who may not have the web, may not know, to go to Indymedia.
[10:07.300 --> 10:13.560]  So there's this kind of variety of distribution methods that I think is really, uh, not just the web anymore.
[10:16.400 --> 10:19.960]  The next, uh, item on the slide is newsprint through local collectives.
[10:20.140 --> 10:22.340]  Maybe, uh, I got, like, sort of led up to that.
[10:22.500 --> 10:24.840]  But maybe you could talk about that.
[10:24.840 --> 10:29.580]  Yeah, um, like I said, I specifically work on the newspaper.
[10:29.760 --> 10:32.860]  And for a variety of reasons.
[10:33.060 --> 10:35.820]  We do publish a lot of stuff on the web.
[10:35.820 --> 10:41.340]  Obviously, the web has both an immediacy and a reach and a cost effectiveness.
[10:41.740 --> 10:46.600]  Uh, that newsprint doesn't, you know, every single sheet of newspaper costs something.
[10:46.780 --> 10:50.700]  The web, once you have the technology, it's, uh, relatively inexpensive.
[10:50.700 --> 10:55.660]  You can usually rely on volunteer labor, though that's been a mixed bag.
[10:55.900 --> 10:57.140]  Like, we've had a lot of success.
[10:57.140 --> 11:02.740]  But at the same time, we have difficulty, like, updating our websites or trying to change our code.
[11:03.840 --> 11:06.020]  Newsprint, um, it costs a lot of money.
[11:06.020 --> 11:16.660]  We have a monthly printing bill of about $2,500 to, uh, we produce about 30,000 to 40,000 copies of the paper and distribute it.
[11:16.740 --> 11:24.340]  But the fact of the matter is that there's still, even within New York City, plenty of people who don't have access to the web.
[11:24.340 --> 11:31.680]  And, personally, also, in my opinion, the newsprint has a permanency that you can't replicate on the web.
[11:31.680 --> 11:36.440]  That it does tend to get taken more seriously because a lot more energy goes into it.
[11:36.640 --> 11:38.740]  Anyone can post something onto the web.
[11:38.740 --> 11:48.420]  It's a lot more difficult to publish your own newspaper, to go through all the editing, the fact-checking, the research, than to distribute it out there and to get it taken seriously.
[11:48.420 --> 11:57.180]  And so, I think there is an inherent bias, in terms of readers, towards trusting something more in a newspaper than on the web.
[11:57.180 --> 11:59.920]  It doesn't say that the content is any better or worse.
[12:00.000 --> 12:06.400]  But, I think that's kind of the way, you know, we perceive things as consumers of news.
[12:09.380 --> 12:14.400]  And, as I was also going to say, there's all sorts of print projects that are going on throughout the world.
[12:14.960 --> 12:21.040]  Though, they tend to be concentrated in countries where you can get access to the resources.
[12:22.000 --> 12:32.980]  Third world countries are more successful with the websites because, even in, you know, places like the Andean regions, people can still access internet cafes.
[12:33.320 --> 12:37.520]  Whereas, for them to produce a newspaper, it costs a hell of a lot more money.
[12:37.520 --> 12:41.260]  And it could take up their yearly budget just to do one issue.
[12:42.340 --> 12:48.500]  So, in the US, and I think in Europe, you find, like, a fair number of newspaper projects.
[12:48.500 --> 12:51.160]  But, not so much in the rest of the world.
[12:56.790 --> 12:59.930]  So, the next distribution point is video.
[13:01.550 --> 13:07.830]  Through public access television, mail order, and BitTorrent, and archive.org.
[13:08.410 --> 13:13.370]  I think video is probably, as far as distribution, is one of the biggest technical challenges.
[13:13.650 --> 13:14.930]  Just because you're moving.
[13:15.230 --> 13:18.430]  There's so many different... digital video is complicated, to face it.
[13:18.770 --> 13:23.830]  There's so many different codecs and formats and ways to do it, edit it, and whatever.
[13:24.130 --> 13:27.330]  And then, just distributing it requires a certain amount of...
[13:27.330 --> 13:33.370]  certain lowest common denominator of resources, which is still kind of high, if you're thinking globally.
[13:36.450 --> 13:42.810]  Personally, one of the things that I think has the most promise is using archive.org as a distribution...
[13:42.810 --> 13:44.390]  video distribution point.
[13:45.490 --> 13:49.190]  I have some personal involvement with archive.org, because Democracy Now!
[13:49.230 --> 13:54.590]  is archived there daily in uncompressed audio format, which is kind of unbelievable.
[13:54.930 --> 13:58.490]  They just invited me to upload a 300 megabyte WAV file every day.
[13:59.110 --> 14:03.570]  And it does all of their... all of the transcoding and munging on the server side.
[14:03.790 --> 14:05.410]  And it's a public service.
[14:05.630 --> 14:08.810]  And they're starting to do... or they do that with video, as well.
[14:09.570 --> 14:14.630]  Obviously, uploading uncompressed video over the internet is kind of ridiculous.
[14:17.110 --> 14:28.890]  But I actually did get an invitation to put a bunch of video on a hard disk and mail it to them.
[14:29.050 --> 14:34.770]  And they said that they would archive it and transcode it and put it all up for me.
[14:34.850 --> 14:38.830]  Which I was kind of shocked, but they seemed very serious.
[14:40.450 --> 14:43.450]  And they have a considerable amount of bandwidth.
[14:43.770 --> 14:44.830]  It's not amazing.
[14:45.650 --> 14:47.050]  I think they have a 10 megabit connection.
[14:47.890 --> 14:53.150]  And they seem to have a black hole of storage space.
[14:53.310 --> 14:53.830]  It's endless.
[14:56.770 --> 14:58.070]  So, yeah.
[14:58.410 --> 14:59.230]  And they... I don't know.
[14:59.430 --> 15:02.770]  Last time I checked, they're not using any sort of P2P type thing.
[15:02.770 --> 15:10.870]  A lot of the uses of BitTorrent and other P2P type networks are kind of dependent on the local...
[15:11.450 --> 15:13.730]  The local collective that's doing it.
[15:13.970 --> 15:16.850]  If people are, you know, savvy enough to set it up.
[15:17.010 --> 15:20.230]  And I would assume that they would need to set up their own tracker and whatnot.
[15:22.090 --> 15:22.810]  Any other?
[15:25.290 --> 15:26.590]  And then audio.
[15:28.810 --> 15:31.970]  Through Low Power FM, Pirate Radio, and the web.
[15:33.390 --> 15:34.510]  There is...
[15:34.510 --> 15:36.750]  In the United States, there...
[15:36.750 --> 15:38.790]  I know, there's a lot.
[15:39.010 --> 15:48.150]  Or there's a couple of indie media, local indie media collectives that are using good old FM airwaves to broadcast.
[15:48.550 --> 15:52.010]  One of the more notable ones is Radio Volta in Philly.
[15:54.810 --> 15:57.150]  And they broadcast through...
[15:57.150 --> 15:58.130]  Help me out here.
[15:58.350 --> 15:59.090]  I think it's still...
[15:59.930 --> 16:03.630]  There's a local radio station in Philly that they have some...
[16:03.630 --> 16:04.350]  No idea.
[16:04.570 --> 16:04.910]  No idea.
[16:05.050 --> 16:05.550]  Okay, never mind.
[16:05.850 --> 16:07.050]  Well, they go to...
[16:07.050 --> 16:10.890]  I think it's philly.indymedia.org or something like that.
[16:12.870 --> 16:15.590]  And, obviously, Pirate Radio is a little bit more secretive.
[16:16.990 --> 16:17.470]  And...
[16:17.470 --> 16:18.270]  It's not that hard.
[16:18.650 --> 16:19.870]  Pirate Radio is not that hard.
[16:20.910 --> 16:27.890]  In the past year, there have been, just in New York City, at least three or four Spanish-language churches.
[16:27.890 --> 16:32.370]  For some reason, they all decided about the same time to start setting up Pirate Radio stations.
[16:33.150 --> 16:33.510]  And...
[16:42.100 --> 16:48.000]  And, of course, there's some legal risk there, but it's really technically not that difficult to set up a Pirate Radio station.
[16:48.620 --> 16:53.080]  There was a panel on it on Friday, and just, you know, start broadcasting.
[16:54.880 --> 16:55.640]  So...
[16:55.640 --> 17:00.140]  And then there's the web, which is, as we know, the global medium.
[17:01.120 --> 17:03.260]  And there is a...
[17:04.560 --> 17:05.320]  I'm...
[17:06.160 --> 17:06.820]  There's a...
[17:06.820 --> 17:07.320]  There's a...
[17:08.420 --> 17:10.380]  An IceCast server available.
[17:10.700 --> 17:12.100]  I'm the admin for it.
[17:12.320 --> 17:14.860]  And it's on a global radio list.
[17:15.020 --> 17:25.320]  And a lot of people, especially in Europe and South America, are using that to broadcast their local radio shows in a MP3 and AUG format.
[17:26.760 --> 17:33.820]  And there is also a radio.indymedia.org, which I could bring up on the screen.
[17:37.610 --> 17:43.050]  That's a little bit less dynamic as a live stream.
[17:43.330 --> 17:53.830]  It's basically a similar type of content management system, but it's specific to radio and audio recordings.
[17:53.830 --> 17:56.890]  And it's, you know, as you can see, there's...
[17:56.890 --> 18:02.590]  The center column has some pretty recent posts, a lot from a couple days ago.
[18:02.990 --> 18:05.050]  So it gets a lot of use.
[18:05.810 --> 18:09.730]  And it's a good source of pre-produced clips and things.
[18:14.820 --> 18:17.220]  So one of the things that we do...
[18:18.260 --> 18:23.400]  Indymedia was founded largely on the web, so we use a lot of technology in the Indymedia network.
[18:24.380 --> 18:26.100]  The kind of...
[18:26.100 --> 18:30.440]  I guess we're going to talk a little bit more about email lists in a bit, but they're kind of...
[18:30.440 --> 18:41.540]  The main way that Indymedia gets run is by email, which is kind of disturbing maybe, but very effective for communicating internationally with people in different time zones.
[18:41.800 --> 18:45.360]  And English isn't their first language, and this and then the other.
[18:46.020 --> 18:51.220]  And so we use, you know, a variety of technologies to help us communicate.
[18:51.220 --> 19:03.040]  But there's a lot of opportunities for folks, maybe in the audience or folks you know, to get involved with Indymedia, to start working on some of the projects that we're talking about today.
[19:04.520 --> 19:08.700]  So we have on there... I don't think we really need to read it.
[19:08.860 --> 19:10.000]  You're all literate.
[19:11.760 --> 19:19.820]  There's just... you know, just stop by, stop by physically, stop by on the internet and, you know, get involved.
[19:19.820 --> 19:25.340]  We really would love to have people of the competencies that are found here.
[19:26.020 --> 19:30.700]  There's also this website, docs.indymedia.org.
[19:30.880 --> 19:32.220]  It's a wiki.
[19:32.620 --> 19:52.580]  And I can't say that it's the best organized wiki ever, but it is useful and it has quite a lot of information on it, including points on how to get involved with your local tech collective.
[19:55.560 --> 20:07.980]  So, yeah, basically it's the same as you just saw on the previous slide, but you know, there's a bunch of introductory kind of information if you're frustrated and want to, you know, get involved.
[20:11.840 --> 20:18.540]  Oh, also, the last point is, there is, Indymedia does have its own GPG key server.
[20:19.160 --> 20:27.740]  And it's not, like, GPG signatures and stuff like that is not used that much.
[20:29.160 --> 20:38.500]  But I've found doing sysadmin work, it's incredibly valuable, because it really is a good way to develop that web of trust.
[20:38.760 --> 20:45.000]  And especially if you could have face-to-face meetings and do geeky things like exchange key signatures in person and all that stuff.
[20:45.300 --> 20:48.100]  This happens rarely, but sometimes it does.
[20:48.260 --> 20:55.160]  And it's a good way to get plugged in if you're into Unix and that kind of stuff.
[20:58.600 --> 21:09.580]  So, these websites, we have this notion of open publishing that we talked a bit about, where anyone can just come in and post their experiences, their opinions, their whatever, to our websites.
[21:10.220 --> 21:14.000]  Of course, in order to facilitate all this, it's no surprise you need software.
[21:14.600 --> 21:21.360]  The original software to do this was this project called Active, which was great.
[21:21.500 --> 21:22.880]  It was great from the user's perspective.
[21:22.880 --> 21:26.400]  It was a horrendous nightmare from the admin's perspective.
[21:26.800 --> 21:29.300]  It wasn't built at one time.
[21:29.520 --> 21:35.000]  It was sort of built, I think, collectively by people all around the world over the course of, like, two years, I think.
[21:35.000 --> 21:42.040]  Yeah, it's the only software I've ever heard of that if you want it to work, you must have on your server both MySQL and Postgres.
[21:42.800 --> 21:44.500]  It was very...
[21:46.040 --> 21:47.740]  And PHP and Perl.
[21:47.920 --> 21:48.100]  Yeah.
[21:48.440 --> 21:49.320]  And SSI.
[21:49.520 --> 21:51.060]  It was a mess.
[21:51.340 --> 21:57.560]  So, people said this is a mess, and so now not very many people are using that horrible mess.
[21:57.560 --> 22:05.820]  The three kind of most popular projects to do this sort of thing now are Mir, SFactive, and Dada.
[22:06.740 --> 22:09.180]  Mir is kind of very, very slick.
[22:09.480 --> 22:15.300]  It's a Java servlet for publishing, but it actually generates static HTML pages.
[22:15.520 --> 22:22.620]  So that you can mirror these things, you can cache them, you can do all the things you can do with static HTML very, very efficiently throughout the web.
[22:23.240 --> 22:24.700]  And it's very neat.
[22:25.720 --> 22:34.220]  The others are SFactive, which is written in PHP, and comes out of San Francisco, as you can guess by the name.
[22:34.720 --> 22:35.580]  There it is.
[22:35.980 --> 22:40.900]  And it's got themes, and it's pretty... it's colorful, it's fun.
[22:41.100 --> 22:42.620]  And a militant CNN dude.
[22:43.160 --> 22:43.500]  Yeah.
[22:43.720 --> 22:44.500]  What is he doing?
[22:45.740 --> 22:48.700]  I guess he's defending the CNN logo, which is kind of odd.
[22:48.940 --> 22:49.480]  Okay.
[22:51.260 --> 22:55.800]  The third one, which is actually the one we use here in New York, is called Dada IMC.
[22:55.980 --> 22:57.440]  It comes out of Baltimore.
[22:58.120 --> 22:59.080]  And there it is.
[22:59.820 --> 23:01.160]  It has easy installation.
[23:01.620 --> 23:01.800]  Yeah.
[23:02.120 --> 23:03.040]  It does, actually.
[23:03.200 --> 23:03.660]  It's not so bad.
[23:03.800 --> 23:05.820]  Yeah, it's probably one of the best ones I've used.
[23:05.960 --> 23:08.040]  And it's got a lot of cool features.
[23:08.700 --> 23:09.580]  Easy administration.
[23:10.020 --> 23:12.980]  Yeah, it's fun software, and it's written in PHP.
[23:14.740 --> 23:16.880]  Some of the cleanest PHP I've ever seen.
[23:17.060 --> 23:20.160]  I'm kind of afraid that when I edit it, it makes things worse.
[23:23.100 --> 23:25.480]  Yeah, you have to be an excellent coder to work on it.
[23:25.580 --> 23:26.300]  It's a prerequisite.
[23:28.320 --> 23:29.760]  Does that mean you're a bad coder?
[23:32.000 --> 23:32.400]  Yes.
[23:34.500 --> 23:38.200]  Well, the bad coders, you know, can come in and screw things up.
[23:39.000 --> 23:40.920]  Or improve things, depending on how you look at it.
[23:40.940 --> 23:41.800]  It happens all the time.
[23:41.800 --> 23:42.180]  It's fun.
[23:42.340 --> 23:46.440]  And, of course, all three software packages are free software.
[23:47.220 --> 23:50.660]  I think they're all under the GPL, if not something similar.
[23:50.680 --> 23:52.580]  If you want to get really detailed data, it's the LGPL.
[23:53.420 --> 23:54.220]  The LGPL.
[23:54.400 --> 23:54.580]  Sorry.
[23:54.800 --> 23:56.660]  Even though it's not a library, which is...
[23:56.660 --> 23:59.960]  So, they're all free software.
[24:00.600 --> 24:05.700]  The indie media movement and the free software movement, of course, have a lot of goals in common.
[24:07.180 --> 24:09.820]  And it's very silly for us to not use free software.
[24:10.200 --> 24:12.040]  I guess Java is not free.
[24:12.040 --> 24:18.640]  But all the servers are generally running Debian, because we're kind of freedom-obsessed people.
[24:20.080 --> 24:22.560]  So, all right.
[24:22.820 --> 24:27.480]  And we should add, back on the previous slide, that there's other code bases than these three.
[24:28.160 --> 24:31.760]  There's a list on the wiki, if you are interested in that.
[24:32.340 --> 24:35.820]  A lot of them, just a caveat, a lot of them are out of date.
[24:36.920 --> 24:41.080]  And just because there's a link there and it says, this is an indie media code base, don't believe it.
[24:41.080 --> 24:42.440]  We should look at it first.
[24:42.620 --> 24:45.140]  Like, for example, IMC Slash, which is based on Slash code.
[24:45.460 --> 24:46.960]  They haven't touched it in three years.
[24:47.540 --> 24:47.940]  Yeah.
[24:50.260 --> 24:50.660]  Yeah.
[24:52.520 --> 24:56.440]  So, all these systems require a lot of work to run.
[24:56.540 --> 25:01.100]  And it's even more interesting because a lot of the time that people are running it...
[25:01.100 --> 25:03.960]  Well, all the time that people are running it are in all different countries.
[25:04.360 --> 25:06.360]  You know, speak all different languages.
[25:07.600 --> 25:15.960]  So, communicating the sysadmin, I'm sure if you've ever tried to coordinate sysadmin with someone who's in the same office as you, you know what a hassle it can be.
[25:17.060 --> 25:22.640]  So, you know, a global distributed network where all these people have access to the server is even more fun.
[25:23.280 --> 25:25.340]  But it seems to work most of the time.
[25:25.340 --> 25:29.480]  There's a global tech collective, which is...
[25:29.480 --> 25:31.280]  It's multilingual, of course.
[25:31.460 --> 25:32.860]  It's all volunteer-based.
[25:33.220 --> 25:35.620]  And do you want to add to that?
[25:35.720 --> 25:37.260]  You work more with it than I do.
[25:39.440 --> 25:44.740]  Most of the day-to-day type stuff is done over IRC.
[25:44.740 --> 25:49.380]  I just found out recently some people are starting to use Silk, which I think is great.
[25:49.560 --> 25:52.860]  But I personally don't, so I have very little comment on that.
[25:53.300 --> 25:58.720]  If you're not familiar with Silk, it's a secure internet live conferencing.
[25:58.960 --> 26:04.860]  And it's a key-based IRC kind of system.
[26:05.000 --> 26:05.640]  And it's awesome.
[26:06.100 --> 26:21.580]  The guarantee that I've read is that when you send a private message to someone, you can be almost absolutely certain that you are sending it to that person, which makes it really good for shuffling passwords back and forth and not feeling dirty about it.
[26:25.560 --> 26:26.100]  What else?
[26:26.580 --> 26:32.420]  Yeah, I mean, probably the most difficult part is meeting, because it's global.
[26:32.620 --> 26:36.180]  Everybody's operating on GMT, and they're all around the world.
[26:36.400 --> 26:41.600]  And I've seen people have meetings to try and figure out what time to have a meeting.
[26:43.240 --> 26:45.880]  And eventually it does all fall together.
[26:46.120 --> 26:57.000]  But sometimes you just have to commit to having a meeting, or for you personally, at 3 in the morning, when for someone else it's noon and they're all awake and stuff.
[26:57.660 --> 26:58.180]  Depending.
[27:04.230 --> 27:05.030]  What's next?
[27:05.410 --> 27:05.950]  Email list.
[27:06.010 --> 27:07.050]  A lot of email.
[27:07.730 --> 27:09.850]  A lot of email.
[27:09.850 --> 27:15.470]  Lists.indymedia.org, I think, may even be the largest mailman site in the world.
[27:16.970 --> 27:22.430]  But we use email to communicate within and among the local IMCs.
[27:23.830 --> 27:27.110]  So if you can load this page, there's...
[27:27.110 --> 27:28.510]  I mean, look at all these lists.
[27:28.970 --> 27:29.970]  You just scroll down.
[27:30.110 --> 27:32.770]  They go on and on and on and on and on.
[27:32.850 --> 27:36.450]  It hasn't loaded the page yet, so I can't scroll all the way down, because there's so many of them.
[27:36.690 --> 27:39.950]  There's so many lists that the index page is slow to generate.
[27:42.010 --> 27:49.150]  But we use these lists for coordinating, you know, among and between the local IMCs.
[27:49.310 --> 27:55.550]  So, for example, for the Republican National Convention, we're going to talk in a bit about this media space we're building.
[27:55.830 --> 28:03.010]  Now, all these people want to come to New York and help with the space and help in the planning, but they're not here yet, so they can't come to our physical meetings.
[28:03.930 --> 28:15.130]  So, we get a lot of input through the email list, and it works surprisingly well, especially if you have the time to read it.
[28:15.970 --> 28:18.770]  There's, of course, you know, the problems inherent in the email list.
[28:19.030 --> 28:24.110]  They're impersonal and people don't read them and all that.
[28:24.290 --> 28:27.530]  But, by and large, we do get stuff done.
[28:27.990 --> 28:38.170]  Well, they also provide a really good... they're a good form of institutional memory for the collective, because they are all archived on the web, which is both good and bad.
[28:38.330 --> 28:42.890]  A lot of newbies kind of aren't aware of that.
[28:43.030 --> 28:49.650]  And then someone in some local collective will have a meeting at their house, and they'll be like, come to my house.
[28:49.650 --> 28:55.070]  I live at, you know, 39, you know, 5th Old Gate Road, and here's my phone number, and blah, blah, blah.
[28:55.070 --> 28:58.830]  And then they'll search on Google for their name, like, a month later.
[28:59.010 --> 29:01.170]  And they'll be like, wait, why is my home address the first hit?
[29:02.550 --> 29:12.750]  Yeah, when someone pointed that out, that everything on our print list was basically, you could Google it up, the traffic dropped precipitously immediately afterwards.
[29:13.170 --> 29:23.630]  And it is a little bit of an issue, because you don't want to talk about sensitive internal matters when anyone can just find it.
[29:23.790 --> 29:31.430]  Because, like, we've had issues about big advertisers, and so we can't really put it out on the list, because they could easily find it.
[29:32.310 --> 29:35.550]  But, nonetheless, it is useful as an organizing tool.
[29:36.030 --> 29:36.710]  Do you have a question?
[29:38.270 --> 29:41.170]  Do you want to come to the mic so that other folks can hear you?
[29:43.890 --> 29:44.570]  Is it on?
[29:44.570 --> 29:45.550]  All right.
[29:46.110 --> 29:46.750]  Just yell.
[29:47.070 --> 29:47.910]  All right, whatever.
[29:49.670 --> 29:50.550]  Just yell loud.
[29:50.990 --> 29:53.510]  Have you considered editing your robots files?
[29:56.030 --> 30:00.870]  Well, some of the lists do actually have closed archives where you need to be on the list to join.
[30:01.110 --> 30:07.310]  But, in general, we want, as much as possible, to be kind of an open network where we're transparent.
[30:07.570 --> 30:12.750]  Like, if you're not a part of this yet, we want you to know, you know, what we're about.
[30:12.750 --> 30:18.750]  So, sometimes this causes problems, but I think the general consensus is usually that the benefits outweigh them.
[30:19.710 --> 30:24.790]  Yeah, though, I mean, as you can imagine, it's also, it's more along the spectrum.
[30:25.050 --> 30:28.870]  Like, what part are you going to close, and what do you keep open?
[30:29.110 --> 30:39.850]  Like, for our general print list, it's, the archives are open, but we have administrator approved for non-members.
[30:40.850 --> 30:46.970]  Because, and I've been doing the administration, we get, like, probably 20 emails a day, half of which are spam.
[30:47.250 --> 30:52.810]  So, I have to go through and sort them all out and block all the new addresses.
[30:54.350 --> 30:58.870]  And, generally, there are three or four or five that are worth sending along.
[30:58.870 --> 31:06.390]  But, in the past, when we didn't have it like that, we would just get overwhelmed with all sorts of crap on the listserv.
[31:06.390 --> 31:15.630]  And then there's, we also have had to ban a couple of people from our listserv, because, individually, they would just muck things up so much.
[31:15.750 --> 31:21.090]  All it takes is one wingnut to start a flame war on a listserv that can last for months.
[31:22.110 --> 31:22.750]  No.
[31:24.330 --> 31:26.250]  What about, go ahead.
[31:26.770 --> 31:27.130]  Okay.
[31:27.530 --> 31:33.090]  What about, news groups are certainly easier to handle for the reader than email?
[31:33.410 --> 31:36.090]  I mean, why don't you, can you have some parallel news groups?
[31:37.170 --> 31:38.790]  It's simpler for us.
[31:38.910 --> 31:39.830]  People like email.
[31:40.090 --> 31:41.190]  People understand email.
[31:41.430 --> 31:47.810]  Especially folks who are non-technically inclined, like email.
[31:47.810 --> 31:48.430]  I can't think.
[31:48.630 --> 31:48.970]  Well.
[31:49.330 --> 31:51.650]  It's probably, I'm sure it's technically possible.
[31:52.510 --> 31:56.530]  I guess that's, you know, it's kind of a good point as a corollary.
[31:57.070 --> 32:02.690]  Is a lot, because it is volunteer-based, there is that problem of labor.
[32:03.310 --> 32:08.070]  And, you know, it may sound trivial, but it is, you know, it is an issue.
[32:08.070 --> 32:15.230]  And a lot of technical decisions may not be the best technical decisions, but they have been made.
[32:15.690 --> 32:24.150]  Just simply because, well, there are enough people, like all of you, volunteering.
[32:26.170 --> 32:26.890]  Yeah.
[32:27.990 --> 32:32.270]  But, you know, and now with Gmail, it's going to revolutionize everything.
[32:32.270 --> 32:33.270]  Sorry.
[32:36.550 --> 32:37.610]  Enough about mail.
[32:38.850 --> 32:39.870]  Yeah, that's boring.
[32:40.670 --> 32:40.990]  All right.
[32:41.230 --> 32:42.750]  This is somewhat interesting.
[32:45.590 --> 32:51.510]  Well, I guess we sort of talked about most of these points already, kind of developing the web of trust.
[32:52.110 --> 33:02.430]  Obviously, if you're administering a network of websites, you can't just go around giving everybody access.
[33:04.090 --> 33:08.710]  I guess you could if you're really obsessive about it, but it doesn't happen that way.
[33:09.970 --> 33:28.790]  But a lot of security concerns usually kind of, they get focused around big protests and international events like the Republican National Convention that's happening here in New York City at the end of August.
[33:30.590 --> 33:52.650]  Around the world, Indy Media has been subject to quite a lot of police surveillance and, I don't know, just generally associated with fairly targeted, unpopular in the eyes of the law groups, even though it is a news organization.
[33:53.090 --> 33:55.470]  And, you know, they're...
[33:55.470 --> 33:56.510]  I don't know if...
[33:56.510 --> 34:03.550]  I guess it's up to your local collective, but most Indy Media collectives, I know, aren't really trying to hide behind the guise of objectivity.
[34:03.770 --> 34:05.090]  But it is news.
[34:08.110 --> 34:10.750]  And journalists kind of aren't really...
[34:11.610 --> 34:14.730]  It's not necessarily an advocate for any sort of political...
[34:15.570 --> 34:15.950]  Whatever.
[34:16.630 --> 34:17.110]  I'll stop rambling.
[34:18.230 --> 34:25.510]  But there is, yeah, physical security around convergences and is a pretty important thing.
[34:26.370 --> 34:43.410]  There's been a number of undercover police that have infiltrated convergence spaces and offices and volunteered to help and just generally do stuff, which usually gets people pretty paranoid when they find it out.
[34:43.590 --> 34:52.990]  And if you're not prepared, then nothing really productive comes of it except for a bunch of people that are afraid to do anything, which is...
[34:52.990 --> 34:58.910]  Though I have to say, they're not too bright, because 90% of the time, they look like cops.
[34:59.230 --> 34:59.550]  Right.
[34:59.650 --> 35:01.070]  They're wearing the undercover uniform.
[35:01.070 --> 35:04.810]  I think it's like tight jeans, a bomber jacket.
[35:05.030 --> 35:05.050]  Right.
[35:05.050 --> 35:05.970]  They're usually kind of wide.
[35:06.410 --> 35:11.110]  They've got the cop mustache and, you know, they're overly muscled.
[35:11.590 --> 35:15.530]  I must say, well, we welcome, of course, sports fans into the indie media network.
[35:15.710 --> 35:19.410]  A large percentage of them happen to be cops, so...
[35:19.410 --> 35:23.970]  Yeah, one of the big tip-offs are talking about sports and if they get really interested.
[35:25.870 --> 35:32.410]  Of course, there's also the need to balance the security culture with the openness that we want.
[35:33.910 --> 35:39.190]  As Lee hinted at, there are people who just won't do anything because they're so afraid the cops will find out.
[35:39.590 --> 35:42.190]  Even when they aren't doing anything, even slightly illegal.
[35:43.470 --> 35:49.770]  So there's a real need for balance that I think, as a global collective, we're still trying to figure out.
[35:51.550 --> 36:02.770]  And then another one is around these convergences and protests, there's sort of ad hoc computer networks.
[36:03.030 --> 36:10.790]  They're kind of, I guess, a lot like this place, wired over sometimes weeks in advance, usually days in advance.
[36:11.270 --> 36:12.170]  Sometimes neither.
[36:13.430 --> 36:15.350]  Usually far less expertly, though.
[36:16.650 --> 36:17.190]  Yes.
[36:18.270 --> 36:19.630]  Yeah, this network is nice.
[36:20.230 --> 36:24.330]  But obviously there's security concerns with that.
[36:25.350 --> 36:32.430]  And I'm sure most of you in the audience are really into network security, so I won't ramble on about that.
[36:32.950 --> 36:34.530]  But it's a concern.
[36:34.530 --> 36:46.530]  And also, I guess, that sort of leads up to a more as, as like, you know, someone who's into network security, hacker-ish type.
[36:48.590 --> 36:56.970]  Personally, I feel sort of an obligation to try and be a conduit of knowledge and awareness about this subject.
[36:56.970 --> 37:02.750]  And treat it in a somewhat, I don't know, level-headed manner.
[37:03.070 --> 37:05.130]  Because a lot of people just don't think about it.
[37:05.970 --> 37:10.130]  And, you know, they think, oh, well, I'm not doing anything that needs security.
[37:10.130 --> 37:12.530]  So, obviously, I don't need to pay attention to it.
[37:12.650 --> 37:14.110]  You know, I have nothing to hide, blah, blah, blah.
[37:15.390 --> 37:20.910]  And just, you know, getting people aware of how the internet is a public medium.
[37:21.110 --> 37:23.370]  And how to transfer information securely.
[37:23.710 --> 37:28.190]  And just various accessible ways to get at that.
[37:28.390 --> 37:32.490]  Because, you know, a lot of Unix-based cryptosystems are great.
[37:32.610 --> 37:33.450]  And they work really well.
[37:33.530 --> 37:34.250]  And we all use them.
[37:34.430 --> 37:38.930]  But they're not exactly the most accessible to someone who isn't interested in that kind of stuff.
[37:38.930 --> 37:43.250]  So, even if it pains you to learn the user-friendly stuff.
[37:43.570 --> 37:47.090]  It's good to sort of have a running list of what's out there and what's available.
[37:47.490 --> 37:49.050]  And you can recommend it to people.
[37:49.310 --> 37:53.110]  And if they don't use it, then it's their own damn fault.
[37:57.460 --> 37:58.700]  Free software is great.
[37:58.980 --> 38:00.020]  It's really useful.
[38:00.500 --> 38:01.880]  And it's politically great.
[38:01.960 --> 38:02.660]  And it works.
[38:03.040 --> 38:03.160]  Yeah.
[38:04.040 --> 38:05.120]  Most of the time.
[38:05.140 --> 38:05.640]  Everyone here knows that.
[38:07.100 --> 38:07.580]  Right.
[38:07.580 --> 38:13.880]  But, again, sort of the same as a security culture.
[38:14.120 --> 38:17.360]  It's something that a lot of people don't understand.
[38:17.780 --> 38:21.740]  One of the most common responses I get is, oh, that's like freeware.
[38:22.940 --> 38:25.760]  Like, oh, can I get it off download.com or something.
[38:25.760 --> 38:33.760]  And a lot of people that are used to just sort of, you know, grabbing their wares for their Windows box and whatever.
[38:34.820 --> 38:36.080]  Maybe even not even using them.
[38:36.660 --> 38:40.000]  It takes, it's a big philosophical leap to say, well, wait a minute.
[38:40.100 --> 38:42.160]  This is like, it's not like freeware.
[38:42.420 --> 38:43.680]  It's like free software.
[38:43.680 --> 38:46.900]  And you have to sort of, you know, sort of stay up if you're not already.
[38:47.160 --> 38:50.840]  Get up on the, on the, the philosophy behind it and why it's useful.
[38:51.120 --> 38:58.280]  And, uh, um, try and construct your own sort of rhetoric and, and argument as to why it's useful.
[38:58.620 --> 39:07.800]  Um, and, uh, generally it's, uh, if you, especially within, within any media, um, if you could, if you go on the anti-capitalist kind of tip.
[39:07.800 --> 39:14.460]  But, you know, a free software is, I think, personally, I think is essentially an anti-capitalist form of, uh, of technology.
[39:14.720 --> 39:16.740]  So, that's a good little hook them in.
[39:17.220 --> 39:19.360]  Um, so yeah, just, just promote it.
[39:19.500 --> 39:21.560]  And, uh, again, stay up on what's available.
[39:21.840 --> 39:29.440]  Um, even if it's not necessarily your, your specialty or if it's a, if it's an application that, um, you, you don't wanna, you, you don't use every day.
[39:29.760 --> 39:36.520]  Just be aware of its existence and certain general resources of, where you could point people to, like, you know, someone wants to edit audio.
[39:36.520 --> 39:39.760]  Um, Audacity is a great open source audio editor.
[39:39.860 --> 39:42.760]  You might not have to know how to edit, or use Audacity.
[39:43.200 --> 39:45.000]  But, we point people to it.
[39:45.540 --> 39:46.260]  Stuff like that.
[39:48.880 --> 39:52.080]  Yeah, that's, yeah, I wanna talk about the RNC.
[39:52.380 --> 39:52.620]  Yeah.
[39:52.860 --> 39:54.280]  The Republicans are coming.
[39:54.800 --> 39:56.140]  And, I don't want them here.
[40:01.040 --> 40:06.020]  So, I guess most of you are aware, of course, I should say it again in case anyone is living under a cloud.
[40:06.020 --> 40:17.720]  Uh, that the, uh, the New York City, uh, the New York, uh, City is going to be host to the Republicans this August, where they will apparently have a convention.
[40:18.140 --> 40:22.740]  Uh, and, and most conventions I've been to, I either learn something or decide something.
[40:22.900 --> 40:24.600]  I don't think the Republicans are doing either.
[40:24.600 --> 40:27.480]  But, uh, they are causing a lot of traffic jams.
[40:28.200 --> 40:40.800]  Um, and, we, uh, the estimates are, I guess, that half a million people are going to either come out of their houses or come to New York City to protest the Republicans.
[40:40.800 --> 40:44.360]  And, and to say, you know, stop your silliness, basically.
[40:44.660 --> 40:45.660]  Stop your evilness.
[40:46.320 --> 40:48.800]  And, uh, Indie Media is going to be covering it.
[40:49.240 --> 40:58.760]  And, uh, we're assuming, you know, a thousand, uh, or so journalists from all around the country, in the world, I guess, are going to be coming to town.
[40:58.760 --> 41:03.220]  And, uh, we need to, you know, help them do their jobs.
[41:04.400 --> 41:15.100]  Um, so we're, we're building, or we're, we're working on building a space, uh, where we can have, uh, we can host these journalists and let them do their work.
[41:15.320 --> 41:17.640]  This is, of course, a huge logistical challenge.
[41:18.000 --> 41:20.700]  Um, we're working on finding the space.
[41:21.140 --> 41:22.700]  Uh, what do you think, Arun?
[41:22.880 --> 41:24.520]  We'll, we'll, we'll get it done soon.
[41:24.520 --> 41:25.300]  Uh, yeah.
[41:25.340 --> 41:29.340]  Yeah, we're, we're just nailing down the, uh, last minute details.
[41:29.880 --> 41:35.820]  Um, and we, we could have, like, a couple thousand journalists, uh, show up.
[41:36.040 --> 41:39.420]  There's going to be something 15,000 at the RNC itself.
[41:39.680 --> 41:49.040]  But based on our previous experience at the World Economic Forum, we had about, uh, 250, 300 journalists, uh, register with us.
[41:49.180 --> 41:53.140]  And that was only about 20,000 people in the streets.
[41:53.140 --> 41:56.240]  And that was one day of protests.
[41:56.620 --> 42:02.400]  And during the RNC, the protests actually start on Thursday, August 27th.
[42:02.460 --> 42:13.080]  And then for the next week, there's multiple protests, um, by every group, uh, you can imagine, uh, for the following seven, seven days, morning, afternoon, and evening.
[42:13.280 --> 42:15.920]  Um, all sorts of stuff from marches and rallies.
[42:15.920 --> 42:20.860]  There's, uh, plan for an unemployment line stretching the length of Manhattan.
[42:21.120 --> 42:28.180]  And some faith-based groups are talking about doing a circle of light, like having people ring Manhattan and, uh, hold up lights.
[42:28.400 --> 42:31.700]  Um, 31st, that should be when things are a little more interesting.
[42:32.240 --> 42:37.200]  There's, uh, been a lot of calls for, uh, direct action, uh, that day around the city.
[42:37.520 --> 42:43.320]  And, uh, uh, I even, uh, I've started to see the first calls for, uh, hacktivists, uh, to, uh, start doing stuff.
[42:43.600 --> 42:46.000]  Um, there isn't anything organized yet.
[42:46.000 --> 42:52.960]  It's more of just a general call, but it'd be great if everybody can get involved, um, either in the streets or online.
[42:53.120 --> 43:03.680]  Because I, I think it's clear, you know, whatever you think of the Republicans' economic policies, in terms of civil liberties and, uh, electronic freedom, uh, they're pretty bad.
[43:04.140 --> 43:05.940]  And, uh, they're attacking all of us.
[43:06.240 --> 43:10.940]  So, this, uh, week offers us a, our chance to show them up somewhat.
[43:13.420 --> 43:22.520]  So, uh, in addition to, to, uh, to all that, all the political reasons to be here, there's a lot of kind of work that needs to be done.
[43:22.780 --> 43:25.480]  And, uh, if any of you want to help, you know, come see us.
[43:25.980 --> 43:30.200]  Um, we're, we're, we're obtaining this space, should be finally shortly.
[43:30.460 --> 43:34.300]  And, and, uh, once we'll, we've got it, we'll need to wire it.
[43:34.400 --> 43:40.920]  We need phone lines, we need fancy dispatch systems, we need computers, we need, you know, wiring for all that.
[43:40.920 --> 43:42.020]  And we need it.
[43:42.180 --> 43:44.040]  You know, we don't have a budget so much.
[43:44.300 --> 43:47.180]  So, um, so it's, it's a challenge.
[43:47.360 --> 43:50.680]  But I think, uh, a challenge that indie media is well suited to.
[43:50.900 --> 44:00.860]  I should add, of course, that we're working in coalition with a number of other, uh, local independent media movements, uh, media groups, uh, in order to get all this done.
[44:01.380 --> 44:04.000]  But, but, uh, the more people seriously, the better.
[44:06.320 --> 44:10.080]  And, yeah, and our, our website's not gonna handle the load, so.
[44:10.480 --> 44:10.720]  Yeah.
[44:11.060 --> 44:11.220]  Yeah.
[44:11.660 --> 44:12.800]  If you know how to do that.
[44:16.170 --> 44:16.810]  Question time?
[44:16.810 --> 44:18.110]  Yeah, let's take some questions.
[44:18.510 --> 44:21.970]  We only have about, uh, a little under five, ten minutes left, so.
[44:23.750 --> 44:24.650]  So let's get started.
[44:26.590 --> 44:26.990]  Hi.
[44:27.610 --> 44:28.730]  Uh, is the mic up?
[44:33.360 --> 44:34.080]  Let's go ahead.
[44:35.000 --> 44:35.400]  Um,
[44:41.160 --> 44:53.060]  my question, I don't even know if this is a question or, I guess, at the beginning, if you talk about it, is, like, kind of the traditional press, they all get credentialed, and, you know, credentialed press are what?
[44:53.680 --> 44:58.860]  At least the United States, so they can probably, at least in the Western world, are recognized as actually being journalists.
[45:00.220 --> 45:08.000]  Like, does, at, at, at, at, at, even on the age or at the local level, does anybody get credentialed, or is it just something that happens?
[45:08.240 --> 45:08.960]  Yes and no.
[45:09.660 --> 45:17.260]  Um, it's, he was asking about press credentials, and whether, uh, Indy Media, uh, journalists get press credentials.
[45:17.560 --> 45:34.980]  Yes, if, if, if you're doing, going out and, uh, doing real reporting, um, it's, it's a lot easier to get press credentials, especially if you're working in conjunction, uh, with a new newspaper, because then you can give clips, and usually who you're getting credentialed from is the,
[45:34.980 --> 45:39.880]  uh, police department, um, or some other, uh, agency.
[45:40.160 --> 45:49.220]  Like, within New York, a lot of, uh, our reporters and photographers are, uh, credentialed by the NYPD, and that allows them to cross police lines.
[45:49.360 --> 45:53.740]  And we also have a couple people who are credentialed at the United Nations.
[45:53.740 --> 46:06.100]  Um, if you don't have a paper, it's a little tougher, because you can't actually, they always want to see clips, and so how do you physically send them a clip of something that's online?
[46:06.720 --> 46:08.720]  Um, it's, it's harder to verify.
[46:08.980 --> 46:13.540]  And regarding the Republican National Convention, that was a bit of an interesting experience.
[46:14.040 --> 46:17.940]  Uh, a, a number of us went there to get, uh, credentialed, and we were blacklisted.
[46:18.580 --> 46:26.000]  Um, we were already, now, this is supposed to be an open event that's being put on with hundreds of millions of dollars of, uh, public monies.
[46:26.320 --> 46:29.000]  Uh, New York City, New York State, U.S.
[46:29.180 --> 46:31.500]  Government, you know, all taxpayer money.
[46:31.880 --> 46:37.840]  And, uh, they had us on a blacklist, and, uh, they wouldn't let democracy now get the credential, either.
[46:38.620 --> 46:40.520]  Um, not, not surprising.
[46:40.940 --> 46:41.840]  Uh, you know.
[46:42.320 --> 46:44.620]  But, uh, that's the way the Republicans work.
[46:45.100 --> 46:47.000]  They're very, uh, they're very sneaky.
[46:47.360 --> 46:50.060]  Um, or sometimes pretty, pretty upfront.
[46:50.060 --> 46:53.660]  Uh, they had a sort of media walkthrough, uh, in December.
[46:53.980 --> 46:56.980]  I actually got a tour of, of the space, courtesy of the Republicans.
[46:57.400 --> 47:04.480]  Um, and, and, uh, so I went and said I was from 2600, which I guess they never heard of before, because they'd let me in.
[47:04.960 --> 47:11.060]  Uh, but Arun went, uh, and said he was from Indy Media, and was, uh, immediately got to meet some Secret Service folks.
[47:11.080 --> 47:13.360]  Yeah, I was told to talk to the nice Secret Service men.
[47:14.160 --> 47:16.160]  Uh, so the moral is, say you're from 2600.
[47:16.320 --> 47:26.280]  Yeah, well, the moral doesn't work, because then they, they, I guess, actually read the publication, and gave me some line about how they don't credential quarterlies, uh, at the RNC.
[47:26.880 --> 47:35.240]  Uh, however, there is a publication called Congressional Quarterly, which, strangely enough, is credentialed, so if you can figure this out, you know, let me know.
[47:41.660 --> 47:45.800]  Okay, um, we will answer your question very quickly, and then we have to go.
[47:47.080 --> 47:51.200]  The question was, being a global network, how do we implement our editing policy?
[47:52.460 --> 47:57.760]  I, it really depends on, it's, it's basically who's, uh, doing the work.
[47:58.000 --> 48:08.440]  Um, so in terms of the global Indy Media website, it's the people who are day-to-day active on it, to decide, uh, what gets put on there, what doesn't.
[48:08.560 --> 48:10.240]  It also depends on what part.
[48:10.460 --> 48:28.060]  The, any Indy Media site, the, the very, the right-hand side is the open news wire, the center is, uh, the features, and those tend to be put up by the local collective themselves, so there's a much higher, uh, level, standards in terms of what gets put on in the center column.
[48:28.060 --> 48:41.620]  And, you know, as, as we noted, that in the, uh, open news wire, we've had to do a lot more moderation, because, um, once Indy Media started to become well-known, it started to be taken over by right-wingers.
[48:41.840 --> 49:01.540]  We would have neo-Nazi posts on there, um, creationists, white supremacists, and then just people, you know, 14-year-olds posting porn, or just stupid comments, and so it kind of forced a lot of, uh, the locals, and each local would decide for itself what its,
[49:01.600 --> 49:11.960]  uh, moderation policy is, and how much to moderate, and how, how much not to, and it has often caused, like, little firestorms of controversy with people yelling, they're being censored.
[49:12.700 --> 49:26.380]  Um, and then, you know, it's, it's the same with anything, like, with the print or video, like, if you're deciding what gets in the video, it's usually the person who's editing the video, or with the print project, it's usually the people who are working on the paper.
[49:26.600 --> 49:33.040]  That's one of the good things about Indy Media, um, that those who do the work are the ones making the decisions.
[49:33.040 --> 49:39.780]  Of course, that then is biased against those who don't have a lot of free time to put into the project.
[49:40.340 --> 49:42.800]  But, it seems it balances it out pretty well.
[49:44.280 --> 49:48.200]  Okay, uh, I think, uh, we have to go now.
[49:48.400 --> 49:49.600]  But, uh, thank you all for coming.
[49:49.880 --> 49:54.360]  And if you want to get involved, uh, do the things on the slide, or talk to one of us.
[49:54.360 --> 49:55.380]  Thank
[50:08.570 --> 50:12.050]  you very much.
[50:12.710 --> 50:13.590]  Yeah, anything.
[50:13.590 --> 50:32.430]  Thank you.