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#Edgeryders – Hacking for change

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I wrote the piece below for the “Hacking for Change” mission on Edgeryders, here’s the “mission brief”:

2011 was the year people across the world took to the streets, and the Internet, to try to change political systems they were unable to affect through the the “normal” channels of their respective countries, be they “democracies” or “dictatorships”. From the Arab Spring to the Indignados of Europe and the Occupy movements of the US and elsewhere, people of all ages, completely disillusioned with traditional politics, began to take their collective futures into their own hands through direct action, decentralised methodologies influenced in part by the free software movements, and hacking. Some of them actually hack: they develop and deploy technologies to enable dissenting citizens to communicate and mobiize on the issues they care about.
We’re creating situations that are impossible for governments to ignore, both in the street and online, but while some of those in power are taking note and trying to engage, traditional politics is responding in a traditional way, discrediting activists and looking for ways to block these movements and methods. Are you going to be on the sidelines dealing with the results or going to join in & hack the street?
Investigate and report about a hacktivist project. What problem is it tryng to solve? Do you think it is making a contribution? Why?
Some examples of projects which could be described as hacktivist are:
ChokePoint Project is a global censorship monitoring platform based on reliable data, visualised in a very accessible manner and featuring contextual information for each country. It will show up to date information for censorship circumvention and the legal implications involved.
GlobaLeaks is the first open-source whistleblowing framework. It empowers anyone to easily set up and maintain a whistleblowing platform. GlobaLeaks can help many different types of users: media organizations, activist groups, corporations and public agencies.
Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security known as traffic analysis
Telecomix is a cluster of internet and data loving bots and people, always striving to protect and improve the internet and defend the free flow of data. Telecomix, just like the Internet, knows no borders technological or territorial.
I’m Getting Arrested is an app to alert your lawyer, loved ones, etc … that you are being arrested with a click.
Sukey – Is an app to keep demonstrators safe, mobile & informed
Like all missions, this one is worth 250 reputation, but extra points are awarded for great content. Start now! Or get the bigger picture on We, the people.
Big big thanks to Cataspanglish for his invaluable help with this mission!

2011 was the year people across the world took to the streets, and the Internet, to try to change political systems they were unable to affect through the the “normal” channels of their respective countries, be they “democracies” or “dictatorships”. From the Arab Spring to the Indignados of Europe and the Occupy movements of the US and elsewhere, people of all ages, completely disillusioned with traditional politics, began to take their collective futures into their own hands through direct action, decentralised methodologies influenced in part by the free software movements, and hacking. Some of them actually hack: they develop and deploy technologies to enable dissenting citizens to communicate and mobiize on the issues they care about.

We’re creating situations that are impossible for governments to ignore, both in the street and online, but while some of those in power are taking note and trying to engage, traditional politics is responding in a traditional way, discrediting activists and looking for ways to block these movements and methods. Are you going to be on the sidelines dealing with the results or going to join in & hack the street?

Investigate and report about a hacktivist project. What problem is it tryng to solve? Do you think it is making a contribution? Why?

Some examples of projects which could be described as hacktivist are:

ChokePoint Project is a global censorship monitoring platform based on reliable data, visualised in a very accessible manner and featuring contextual information for each country. It will show up to date information for censorship circumvention and the legal implications involved.

GlobaLeaks is the first open-source whistleblowing framework. It empowers anyone to easily set up and maintain a whistleblowing platform. GlobaLeaks can help many different types of users: media organizations, activist groups, corporations and public agencies.

Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security known as traffic analysis

Telecomix is a cluster of internet and data loving bots and people, always striving to protect and improve the internet and defend the free flow of data. Telecomix, just like the Internet, knows no borders technological or territorial.

I’m Getting Arrested is an app to alert your lawyer, loved ones, etc … that you are being arrested with a click.

Sukey – Is an app to keep demonstrators safe, mobile & informed

Like all missions, this one is worth 250 reputation, but extra points are awarded for great content. Start now! Or get the bigger picture on We, the people.

Big big thanks to Cataspanglish for his invaluable help with this mission!

HACKING FOR CHANGE: CHOKEPOINT PROJECT – WHO WATCHES THE WATCHMEN?

February 6 2012

During the uprising in Egypt, in January 2011, the order was given to “turn off” the Internet, sending shock-waves around the world. Murmurs were heard of US security agencies and American politicians asking for access to a similar kill switch.

Since then Internet access has been manipulated in many other countries where citizens have sought to bring down regimes, while in other places there are ongoing restrictions to free Internet access, despite this access being declared a fundamental human right by the United Nations.

These actions force us to look at who owns The Internet?

The ChokePoint project is a response to the Arab Spring uprising where a group of us wanted to take action and do something useful. The project is made of 2 parts, one being a near real-time internet censorship monitoring platform. This includes a data collection part and a visualization element which is a public facing site. We will be able to monitor whether connections have been cut in specific regions of countries, helping alert journalists and activists. The platform will be based on reliable data, visualized in a very accesible manner, featuring contextual information for each country. This system could also help in natural disaster situations by detecting the extent of damage done. See a prototype here: http://euhackathon.chokepointproject.net/

At the same time we are developing an educational project to inform politicians, NGO’s, journalists, researchers, students and other interested parties about the realities of how the Internet works, including its underlying structures, through workshop modules aimed at the non-geek and focussed on participation.

When we began the project, we didn’t know the real scope of what we were trying to achieve, but it quickly became apparent that we didn’t have the skills needed to carry it out.  We reached out through our networks and were lucky to find some very talented, very committed people and gained some buzz by winning the Next Idea category at Ars Electronica.

Some of the team came together at the Chaos Communication Camp in August to work on the system architecture and subject it to the scrutiny of people from around the world working on similar projects. The architecture is vital in this project because it is necessary to get real data from users worldwide, often in hostile environments and without compromising their security.  Again the network responded and we made some very important contacts. Since then we’ve been working on the dataviz as well as doing outreach with politicians, hackers, journalists, bloggers, organisations, rights groups and anyone else with an interest. The prototype platform was developed at the the first EU Hackathon at the EU parliament in Brussels in November, and we’ve done workshops & presentations and attended many events. Oh yes, and started to work on fund-raising as we’ve been doing this in our “spare time” up until now.

Ironically, I’m not a “hacker” at all, if by hacking we’re talking about technical skills. But I do have a JFDI (Just F***ing Do It) mentality which I guess is similar to hacking. The situation now is probably worse than when we began the project so doubtless the knowledge aquired and contacts made so far will be even more useful in the future.

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Release time!

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Well, we’ve been pretty quiet around this blog what with moving to Berlin and all. However we have been pretty busy behind the scenes, with Ana continuing to push the boundaries of governmental social media use and I’ve been mainly occupied with the ChokePoint Project. So I’m proud to show something at last from what I’ve been up to (cross-posted from CPP):

Finally, a release!

Above is a screenshot of our first, very beta release of euhackathon.chokepointproject.net

It was put together for the 1st EUhackathon held in Brussels on November 8th & 9th 2011. It’s a prototype, a proof of concept. Here’s the ‘About’ from the release site:

What we did:

We built this test version of a planned larger platform using broadband statistics provided by Measurement Lab (M-Lab) and the Transparency Reports published by Google. The former contains continuous information about the Internet speed at various locations in the world. By analyzing this data, we can estimate the Internet connectivity status for the countries and cities covered by the data.

Our main aim has been working to build a platform to give people a tool to know what’s happening in their country now and over the historical period, augmented with information on law and lobbying activities. We created a branch of our application for the hackathon and this is the result of 1,5 days work.

Some use of dummy data:

The landing page of this example app is displaying dummy data for the current incidents listed under the map. It’s there to give you an idea of what this application could become. Obviously getting radar jamming data is a completely different from monitoring internet traffic.

We need more data:

If you know of relevant data sets either historical or dynamic that you think would benefit this project, please let us know. Real-time, yes, we know that will kinda of important, don’t you think?

Team for the hackday: Chris Pinchen, Ruben Bloemgarten, James Burke, Simon Funke, Florian Rathgeber, Javier Arturo Rodríguez

Release notes

This release has two objectives: to visualise the M-Lab & Google Transparency data and to show what we are working towards with the ChokePoint Project.

Drilling down

On opening euhackathon.chokepointproject.net the visitor will see the map with clickable red “incident” indicators, a link to info about the country they are viewing from, and dummy data for the current incidents listed under the map (see the image above). Clicking on the “What’s the state of the Internet in (viewers country)?” or the red indicators on the map will open a page for that place.

The page by default opens with the Transparency data visible. Clicking the pointer next to each incident will reveal more information about that incident.  Clicking on the pointer next to the Connectivy Status category will open  a drop down where the M-Lab data can be explored.

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TransEuropExpress

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I’ve been riding trains around Europa since August and the last couple of weeks have seen visits to Amsterdam to prepare the ChokePoint Project workshop at Impakt Festival in Utrecht, followed by the workshop itself, before going to Brussels to participate in the 1st EUhackathon for transparency at the EU Parliament. On Thursday I’ll be heading back to Catalunya to present ChokePoint Project at Nits Digitals 11 in Vic, so will hopefully see lots of peeps there.

Oh yes, in the meantime we moved. From Luxembourg to Berlin. By train of course.

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Open Data Day Barcelona

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images

The cool cats over at http://opendatabcn.org/ are putting together the Open Data Day Barcelona as part of the International Open Data Hackathon 2011. Their first contribution has been to translate the open call by event founder David Eaves to Catalan and Spanish. Last year they got the event together in no time at all and even though (like this year) it clashed with one of the many extended bank holidays in Spain, some of the most dedicated #opendata peeps in Barcelona showed up. Hopefully this year, with the call being far earlier, there'll be a bigger turnout and hopefully some "official" particpation from all these spanking new Open Data projects of Barcelona City Council and the Generalitat – it will be great if these peeps take the opportunity to get down & dirty with some citizen hackers for a change.

Here's an interview I recorded with @codehead form the Open Data Day Barcelona team for Kfé Innovación, where he talks about the importance of open data (in Spanish):

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PodCamp Barcelona update

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podcampBarcelona2010.png

 

[es]

Tal vez sea por la época del año pero, últimamente, ha habido un gran interés por si se organizará o no PodCamp Barcelona 2011.

A continuación nuestras reflexiones:

PodCamp Barcelona 2008 se organizó, sobre todo, porque hacíamos podcasting y pensábamos que sería muy interesante ir a un evento relacionado con ese tema. Al no encontrar ninguno lo suficientemente cerca como para poder ir, decidimos organizar uno nosotros. En ese momento había muy pocos eventos en torno a los llamados "nuevos medios", "web 2.0" o "medios sociales" pero ahora hay un montón de ellos. 

Hay una tendencia a hacer eventos "Porque toca" y es algo con lo que estamos profundamente en desacuerdo. Organizar eventos con el mismo formato y con los mismos temas una vez más, no le vemos el sentido. Teniendo en cuenta lo sucedido en las #acampadas, las ocupaciones y la reutilización del espacio público en España y otros lugares durante este año, creemos que un PodCamp es bastante redundante.

Reconocemos que los eventos son importantes para las comunidades y uno de los objetivos iniciales de PodCamp Barcelona (junto con el Barcelona Social Media Café) era crear comunidad. Sin embargo, con el uso extendido del social media y las herramientas "web 2.0", la gente se ha centrado en comunidades específicas como periodismo, gastronomía y vino, open data, open gov, marketing,  etc.

Estamos orgullosos que cada PodCamp Barcelona ha sido diferente. Hubiese sido fácil y sinceramente aburrido, repetir el mismo evento cada año, pero tuvimos la suerte que la comunidad estaba inspirada y añadió ideas y acciones, por ejemplo la contribución espontánea de @Moof  con @PBCNTweetlation en el 2009 y su posterior desarrollo en 2010 por @Moof y @pdavenne es un brillante ejemplo que dio una nueva dimensión. En la última edición hubo menos presentaciones y como novedad se organizaron talleres durante una semana,  creando espacios para proyectos como el nuevo enfoque de Kfé Innovación que se está extendiendo por todo el mundo.

Además ya no vivimos en Barcelona ni cerca de ella. Andamos por el norte de Europa: nueva vida y nuevos proyectos. ¿Significa esto que nunca vamos a organizar otro PodCamp Barcelona? No lo sabemos. ¿Significa que no vamos organizar nada más en Barcelona? Pensamos que sí. Pero no vamos a organizar PodCamp Barcelona 2011.

Así que gracias a todos los que habéis preguntado, y gracias a todo el mundo que ha participado en PodCamp Barcelona desde 2008. Son los participantes que hacen que cualquier evento sea un éxito y si la gente ha estado preguntando acerca de PodCamp Barcelona 2011, entonces parece que sí ha sido un éxito 😉

 

[ca]

Potser sigui per l'època de l'any però, últimament, ha hagut un gran interès per si s'organitzarà o no PodCamp Barcelona 2011.

A continuació les nostres reflexions:

PodCamp Barcelona 2008 es va organitzar, sobretot, perquè fèiem podcasting i pensàvem que seria molt interessant anar a un esdeveniment relacionat amb aquest tema. Al no trobar cap a prop com per poder anar-hi, vam decidir organitzar un nosaltres. En aqueix moment hi havia molt pocs esdeveniments entorn dels anomenats "nous mitjans", "web 2.0" o "mitjans socials" però ara hi ha un munt. 

Hi ha una tendència a fer esdeveniments "Perquè toca" i és una cosa amb el que estem profundament en desacord. Organitzar esdeveniments amb el mateix format i amb els mateixos temes una vegada més, no li veiem el sentit. Tenint en compte el succeït a les #acampades, les ocupacions i la reutilització de l'espai públic a Espanya i altres llocs durant aquest any, creiem que un PodCamp és bastant redundant.

Reconeixem que les trobades són importants per a les comunitats i un dels objectius inicials de PodCamp Barcelona (juntament amb el Barcelona Social Media Cafè) era crear comunitat. No obstant, amb l'ús estès del social media i les eines "web 2.0", la gent s'ha centrat en comunitats específiques com periodisme, gastronomia i vi, open data, open gov, marqueting, etc.

Estem orgullosos que cada PodCamp Barcelona ha estat diferent. Hagués estat fàcil i sincerament avorrit, repetir el mateix esdeveniment cada any, però vam tenir la sort que la comunitat estava inspirada i va afegir idees i accions, per exemple la contribució espontània de @Moof amb @PBCNTweetlation al 2009 i el seu posterior desenvolupament al 2010 per @Moof i @pdavenne és un brillant exemple que va donar una nova dimensió. A l'última edició va haver-hi menys presentacions i com a novetat es van organitzar tallers durant una setmana, creant espais per a projectes com el nou enfocament de Kfé Innovación que s'està estenent per tot el món.

A més ja no vivim a Barcelona ni prop d'ella. Caminem pel nord d'Europa: nova vida i nous projectes. Significa això que mai organitzarem un altre PodCamp Barcelona? No ho sabem. Significa que no organitzarem res més a Barcelona? Pensem que sí. Però no organitzarem un PodCamp Barcelona 2011.

Així que gràcies a tots els que heu preguntat, i gràcies a tothom que ha participat a PodCamp Barcelona des del 2008. Són els participants que fan que qualsevol esdeveniment sigui un èxit i si la gent ha estat preguntant sobre PodCamp Barcelona 2011, sembla que sí ha estat un èxit 😉

 

[en]

Maybe it's just the time of the year, but there's been a lot of interest recently in whether there will be a PodCamp Barcelona 2011.

So here's our thoughts on the subject:

When we began PodCamp Barcelona in 2008 it was primarily because we were doing podcasting and thought it would be really interesting to go to such an event. As we couldn't find any close enough to get to, we decided to do it ourselves. At that time there were very few events around the so-called "new media", "web 2.0" or "social media" but now there are plenty of them.

There is a tendancy to do events "porque toca" (because it's now a ritual) which is something we profoundly disagree with. If there's nothing new or interesting to do or say, if it just the same format and speakers refritos we don't see the point. In the light of the #acampadas, the occupations and reuse of public space in Spain and other places this year, we feel that a PodCamp is pretty redundant.

We recognise that events are important to communities and one of the initial aims of PodCamp Barcelona (along with the Barcelona Social Media Café) was to create community. However as the use of social media and "web 2.0" tools has spread, peeps have become more focussed on specific communities such as journalists, food & wine, open data, open gov, marketing etc.

That each PodCamp Barcelona was different is something we are proud of. It would have been easy, and frankly boring, to repeat the same event every year – but we were lucky that peeps were inspired and added considerably to the mix. The spontaneous contribution by @Moof of @PBCNTweetlation in 2009 and the subsequent development of it in 2010 by @Moof and @pdavenne is a brilliant example which gave a new dimension. Last year we added workshops and cut down on presentations which led in part to the development of a new iteration of Kfé Innovación which is now spreading around the world.

The other thing is that we no longer live in or near to Barcelona. Right now we're off in northern Europe sorting out our next destination. Does this mean we'll never do another PodCamp Barcelona? We don't know. Does it mean we'll never do anything else in Barcelona? We doubt that. But we won't be doing PodCamp Barcelona 2011.

So thanks to everybody who has been asking, and thanks to everyone who has participated in PodCamp Barcelona since 2008. It's the participants who make any event a success and if people have been asking about PodCamp Barcelona 2011, then we think we can qualify it as that 😉


Ana & Chris

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Teething troubles

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Hola – I've just moved this site to new servers and am working out some teething troubles with images (which kind of buggers up the post I'm working on "Snapshots from an extraordianary summer") – "normal service" will be resumed ASAP. In the meantime the rest of the site IS working 😉

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ChokePoint Project selected as 2011 winner of [the next idea] of Prix Ars Electronica

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cppars

 

Very happy to announce that the Choke Point Project has been selected as 2011 winner of [the next idea] voestalpine Art and Technology Grant as part of the Prix Ars Electronica 2011.

Here’s what the Ars Electronica post says about the project:

“As an upshot of recent revolts in the Arab world, the Choke Point Project raises the question of who actually exercises control over the internet. The WWW is generally perceived as a decentralized medium, and many people hold the opinion that it can be used as a means of  communication beyond the reach of power relationships and unimpeded by authoritarian structures. Recent events, however, reveal that this view doesn’t correspond to reality at all. Rather, individual politicians are able to cut off internet access on the part of an entire nation. The declared aim of this project initiated by the P2P Foundation is to locate nodes of the internet and to demonstrate how simple it is to prevent large segments of the populace from getting online. But this project is much more than the visualization of a “map of the Web”; it also collects strategies and opportunities to evade just such weak spots in order to free th internet from the clutches of power structures and turn over control to the individual.”

The prize consists of a 3 month residency in the Ars Electronica Center and a cash stipend in the amount of €7,500.

In the meantime James & yours truly are have been putting together the team, looking for funding and learning tons of stuff. We'll be having the first meeting of most of the team on June 16th in Amsterdam, just realised it's 25 years since I last went there!

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ChokePoint Project – towards a distributed internet infrastructure

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1824810_300

Right now, I'm mainly spending my time on doing stuff for the P2P Foundation – one of the main things being coordinating the ChokePoint Project along with James Burke.

Here's the video presentation of the project, along with the transcription.

 

Chokepoint project introduction from Choke Point Project on Vimeo.

 

Video transcription:


On Janurary 27th, 2011, the order was given to “turn off” the Internet in Egypt, limiting communications and voiding commerce conducted online. Egyptian Internet services resumed on February 2nd. Fastforward just a few weeks later, this time Libya commences its disconnect February 18th, with a blackout occurring March 4th.

Shutting down the Internet in two countries sent shock-waves across the world. We also  heard people like American Senator Liberman asking for access to a similar kill switch. These actions force us all to ask ‘Who owns The Internet?” and what are the implications of the said controls over connectivity and scenarios for their use?

If you believe the Internet is not something that can or should be soley controlled by politicians or people inside the higher echelons of nation states, resulting in situations like Egypt and Libya, we’d love to tell you about what we are building.

The Choke Point Project addresses the events of recent months with the clear aim of mapping nodes of Internet connectivity and who maintains their control and what this may mean. We believe there is the need for a more decentralized Internet beyond the complete control of nation states and corporate influence.

So let me tell you a little bit about us? The Choke Point Project team are members of the Peer to Peer Foundation, and some of our friends, comprised of web researchers, software developers and data visualization experts.

So some of the projects aims are:

to gather data from across the web to show control points,

and clearly explain the complex issues involved including the history of who owns the Internet, the current legal situation, and where are identified choke points, and possible strategies for decentralization, reasons for and against kill switches.

The Choke Point Project site will function as a living record of Internet ownership and control, documenting the key areas from domain name registration to traffic gates

We will use the site to:

– create an interactive data visualization to identify choke points, showing vulnerabilities

– document the related open projects and point to articles with analysis and strategy

– release datasets and tools used to track down Internet choke points.

Cataspanglish, media140, past stuff

media140 Frontiers

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medi140frontiers

[es]

media140 nos invitó a participar en su evento media140 frontiers que se celebrará en Barcelona durante el 13 y 14 de abril para organizar un espacio  + info

[ca]

media140 ens va convidar a participar en el seu esdeveniment media140 frontiers que se celebrarà a Barcelona durant el 13 i 14 d’abril per organitzar un espai + info

[en]

media140 invited us to participate in their media140 frontiers event in Barcelona on April 13/14 by programming & running one of the rooms + info