[imc-tech-solidarity] Re: Rosario's project

[evan@protest.net]

Hey Hendrix. I'm cc'ing the tech-solidarity list in the hope that we can
start moving the conversation away from cc lists and random emails to a
list where we will all be able to chat and colaborate.

We haven't started talking formally about a followup shipment after the
ecuador container. I personally would like to do one to Argentina. I've
talked to Sebastian, Nikito, and JB over irc but so far it doesn't seem
like much is being arranged on your end in terms of figuring out how to
recieve them.

The other imc which is really excited and getting organized to recieve
computers is the Sao Paulo collective of the Brasil imc. We need some way
to decide which imc's we send boxes to when.

I know the portland folks want to start building boxes for argentina in
early Deciember. This weekend i'm going down to oakland to help at accrc
with some computers going to argentina. When I'm there i'll be able to
help gauge when and how many computers we'll be able to get from them.

On Wed, 9 Oct 2002, hendrix wrote:

> The idea came from the moment we heard about wireless-network hardware
> donation possibilities (plus the already known computers donation).
>
> Some objetives (rough):
> * To provide internet access (and therefore computers) to wide spread
> populated neighborhoods thru people's libraries, NGOs, etc.
> * To give technical support and teach on basic (maybe more!) computer
> knowledge to people in each one of this 'nodes'.
> * To teach (communicate, talk about) Indymedia's experience.
> * To motivate the use of this tool (website).

Those objectives seem good. I personally like the way the Ecuador IMC has
been working through the principles and values by which they will decide
who will recieve computers and how they will go about distributing them.

> Now, what I need to ask you (cause I know you're into this donations to latin
> america) is:
>
> - What type of computers are mostly donated?. (Micro, RAM, disks,...)

The computers are all Pentium I's and II's. They are between 100mhz and
300mhz. We are trying to put at least 64 megs of ram but many only have 32
megs and some have as much as 128megs. They have hard drives ranging from
1 to 4 gigs.

> - How many NICs and related hardware could be obtained?. (old ISA Cards are
> welcome too!)

They all have NIC cards. We need them to do the installation. Some, maybe
half, of the computers have modems and sound cards.

Some of the computers have other things such as zip drives, jazz drives,
cd burners, tape backup drives. At least for Ecuador we also threw in
about 40 hub's and switches. There was tons of other stuff like a few
boxes of ethernet cables, some tv's and who knows what else.

> - How about wireless network hardware? (some specs too, please)

Well we've been told that we'll get a big donation of 802.11 gear but it
hasn't arrived yet. The donation has 25 building to building bridges, a
few dozen antennas, cables, and a dozen 802.11 cards. Hopefully it will
show up so we can give the gear to various imc's. We're a little worried
that the donar company will think our projects are too radical. :( We're
not telling them exactly what they are for. Just sayin got build community
wireless networks in south america. ;) Which is totally true.

> Once we know about the connectivity, we could move toward the people and
> organizations willing to participate.

The other option is for a slow connection to use packet radio. Mostly this
is good for remote locations where you can't get access to phone lines. I
was thinking if we wanted to get cooperativly run factories or piquetero
camps online with a computer we could do that with packet radio.

in solidarity,
evan

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