[CIMC-working] Fwd: [IMC-Tech] server issues

[donald goldhamer]

CIMCers,

Since we have been discussing relocating our service off of stallman... I
thought some of the (security/legal) issues brought up in this note are of
particular post-911 interest. 

--Don
                ---------------

From: "indy-tec" <imc-tech-de@squat.net>
To: <imc-tech@lists.indymedia.org>
Cc: <imc-eurotech@lists.indymedia.org>
Subject: [IMC-Tech] server: question about your opinion for a future-proposal
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2002 01:06:21 +0200 (CEST)

hi all,

this mail contains:

1. a short report about the legal situation of the germany imc and
the server here in germay where  several indymedia sites are being hosted
as well as the "mir" developer's CVS. (http://mir.indymedia.org)

2. a question about your opinion for a future-proposal.

1:
our main problem at this point is: imc germany has no legal structure
at all. so our lawyer would not be able to defend indymedia.de because it
simply does not exist legaly. only our provider as well as individual
activists could be made responsible.

as well the domain registration should be changed.

the domain indymedia.de is registrated by:

Domainname:  indymedia.de
Domaininhaber:
c/o Matt Price
Esmarchstr. 16
D-10407 Berlin
Germany

Matt is a friend and indymedia-acitivist who now lives in canada.
see more: http://www.denic.de/servlet/Whois

see also the the european legal report for the media democracy day:
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-europe/2002-October/001099.html

--- snip ---
IMC Germany - POLICE AND STATE intimidation

IMC Germany has so far politely declined police requests for log files
of articles but is aware of an intimidation process investigated by
police and a number of repressive state bodies.  Indymedia.de has been
threatened with several civil lawsuits for libel and defamation by many,
including a right-wing journalist who also participated in an
anti-Indymedia press campaign supported by Conservative politicians. One
local section of the secret police (Verfassungsschutz) refers to Indymedia
as "extremist" which in German legal terms means "criminal" rather than
"radical" and could result in criminalisation. See general repression
article: http://de.indymedia.org/2002/10/31186.shtml
---snap ---


so we want to change this situation. the indymedia.de collective will
start a foundation like "friends of indymedia". this foundation shall
become registrar of he domain indymedia.de later. but we don't want to
have our "productionserver" anymore in germany  and under this domain.


2:
what we are looking for:
we are looking for a server in the usa or canada which we could use
a "mir production server" and on which than could run the cms, and
databases for indymedia.de as well as for other indymedia sites, too. some
of the indymedia.de tech-team as well as some of the mir-coders volunteers
would help administrate the server and help new imc's to get their site
running if they whant to use "mir".

the german "mir" now is running for open posting:
https://admin.de.indymedia.org and the "admin-interface" here:
https://admin.indymedia.de/admin/servlet/Mir
also we would like to ask the indymedia network later if both could run
under the indymedia.org domain.

oure "production server"  could stay here in germany and host a lot of
other indymedia sites more, like ecuador, swizzerland, ambazonia, etc. at
the same time there are new impulses to start the project of a european
server. and we also want to bring in the idea of a "amnesty legal
stucture" for indymedia in this discussion process: imc-sites should be
hosted in a different country than the imc works in. every imc's sites
should be  hosted in a different country. this could also include the
domain registrations - but this could take a while ;)

anyway: there are also doubs if it is really a good idea to host the
european sites on a machine in europe. but all this needs to be
discussed later on the imc-tech, the imc-europe-tech and the
mir-coders-list.

Please note that this is not a "official" proposal. first we would like to
hear your opinion. if you consider this to be a good idea we will write a
proposal and send it to the lists.

so we want to ask you now:
is it possible to find a piece of hardware [we will find funds for
that for sure later ;)] and a good place for it with a lot of bandwidth?


what do you think?

thanks in advance!
some of the indymedia.de tech-team

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