notes → thursday
Guest login: guest / guestPlease ask An Mertens for a personalized login or e-mail an at constantvzw.org
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Notes Interface 3 // 9-12h
non public meeting between students of ERG (4/15) and students of IF3 (11/15), with the invitee Spideralex from Calafo, Barcelona
The presentations and discussions were in French
// Le protocol d'une rencontre entre deux groupes et une invitée qui ne se connaissent pas
Wendy Van Wynsberghe qui a fait la connection nous guide par le programme de VJ14 et introduit les étudiants BAC3 de l'Ecole de Recherche Graphique qui suivent le cours Networked Social.
http://networkedsocial.constantvzw.org
Laure Lemaire, directrice d'Interface 3 ( http://www.interface3.be/ ), introduit son organisation. Elles offrent des cours d'informatique non-mixtes, depuis les années 80. Il y a
moins de 20% de femmes sur le marché (est-ce que c'est vrai ou ai-je malcompris (AM)? je ne sais pas, ce matin là je n'étais pas encore arrivée (MA))
et encore moins en ICT.
Les stageaires sont des femmes qui ont travaillé ou qui se lancent sur le marché. Dans IF3 elles font connaissance avec toute sorte d'outils. La plupart choisit l'option de cours de webmaster, mais une grande partie s'ouvrent vers d'autres orientations. Les cours sont très orientés vers le marché du travail. Il s'agit d'un programme de 35h/semaine.
** Etudiant (Arsène Filliatreau) presente l'ERG ( http://www.erg.be/ ), une école supérieure d'art à St-Gilles qui propose des formations en
sculpture, peinture, graphisme et arts numériques, une structure qui permet les études et la pratique pluridisciplinaires.
Le cours en particulier, 'The networked social', parle de l'aspect social du réseau, qui n'est pas quelque chose de neutre, mais un système construit à travers des protocoles http, dns, ... régi par l'économie, la société, la géopolitique.
** Sonia, enseignante à IF3, présente le cours de formation webmaster. Douze stagiaires de tout horizon apprennent du css, php, cms (drupal), photoshop...
Elle montre quelques oeuvres, dont un site fictif pour une compagnie qui chasse les fantômes et offre des services à vendre et un site qui présente le groupe des stagiaires.
// Spideralex nous lance dans ses aventures féministes & technologistes autogérées
Le point de départ: la crise économique en espagne & l'escroc -> des mouvements sont en train de naître qu'elle appelle 'les institutions du pro-commun'. Au-delà de l'état et des banques elles cherchent la souveraineté. Dans son cas, il s'agit de la souveraineté technologique
dans un collectif cyberféministe qui existe depuis 10 ans.
Afin de comprendre le contexte: Vidéo 'Espanistan', Aleix Saló (license CC)
* en espagnol avec des sous-titres en anglais: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWrbAmtZuGc
* en espagnol avec des sous-titres en français: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Our2rVz5b6c
urbanisation de zones, bulle de speculation immobilière depuis '90,
période de gentrification violente, mobbing immobilier (bulling), délogements
La situation a explosé. Le 15 mai 2011, un mouvement de résistance a commencé anonyment par internet.
documentation, stratégies, plus de structures piramidales, mais des nouveaux modèles qui amènent au procommun, une politisation de toute la société
Avant la différence entre la notion de légitime et légal n'était pas connu. Maintenant tout le monde comprend: occuper des espaces vides pour reloger des familles, c'est ok
PAH: Plataforma Afectados por la Hipoteca (http://afectadosporlahipoteca.com/)
200.000 familles qui ne pouvaient plus payer leurs hypothèques, sont chassées de leurs maisons, à ratio de 517/jour (en 2012).
Les clauses d'hypothèques sont abusives : quand tu perds ton hypothèque, tu maintiens la dette!
PAH concentre des nitiatives pour bloquer le délogement + une initiative législative populaire (avec 1.4200.000 signatures), mais le Partido Popular n'a pas voulu la voter
Il y a toujours eu un mouvement squatteur en Espagne, depuis 90, underground, punk -> maintenant nouvelles alliances: familles délogées, activistes 15m, squatteurs
'Coralas de vecina': des femmes sont allées occuper un immeuble inoccupé qui appartient à la banque
-> corala: immeubles des ouvriers, cour à l'intérieur, Madrid ou Andalousie
-> on regarde la vidéo 'Corrala de Vecinas la Utopia (grand-mère/mère qui squattent), processus d'empowerment
Elles ont aidé d'autres familles à occuper aussi, en 2 ans d'1 batiment au 10 , nouvelle coalition -> nouvelle forme d'institution de procomun 'institutions pour le commun par tous'
-> la municipalité a coupé l'eau et l'électricité, des éducateurs sociaux menacent les mères de leur enlever leurs enfants
-> on constate une complète dégradation de services sociaux
---> action de protestations: chants de flamenco à la banque (accuse la banque de les chasser de leurs maisons, xx // créativité énorme, émergence de laboratoires nouveaux sur les questions de santé, d'éducation, de logement...
réforme de la loi du sol, élargie à d'autres domaines
Calafou : Commune écoindustrielle et post coloniale - http://www.calafou.org/ )
en Catalogne le mouvement ouvrier du début du 20e siècle -> on les a sorti, colonies paternalistes en dehors de la ville, 100aine
à 60km de Barcelone, abandonné depuis 40 ans, en vente: acheté de façon coopérative / jamais arriver à trouver travail et acheter maison
depuis 2 ans là-bas, 70 logements
logiciel libre, hardware libre - technologies du jour à jour libres: permaculture, phytodépuration, technologies de genre
1/ casser les imaginaires: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg (homme blanc, 30 ans, sociopathes!)
ils n'utilisent rien de privatif, à chaque fois ils développent qqch eux-mêmes
2/ éthique hacker: non à l'autorité/systèmes centralisés, oui à autogestion/améliorer le monde
besoin de visibilité vs de privacité
contrôle sur nos données et mémoires
transfer de connaissances technologiques (présentations, manuels, workshops, artisanat) et inclusion digitale (obsolescence de programmer: n'apprend surtout pas à recycler, programmer, d'où viennent les parties de vos machines -> comment développer des outils qui durent le plus longtemps possible)
contre fétichisme technologique
[nood aan positief verhaal, cfr FB Congo]
souveraineté alimentaire: consommer slow food, local food, enlever intermédiaires, nourriture produite dans bonnes conditions
-> pense la même chose avec qui produit la technologie que tu utilises
la société civile a tj joué un rôle important: indymedia (réseau social), radio amateur avant le premier satellite, logiciel libre...
-> revendication et continuer à développer
serveurs autonomes, internet libre (guifi/pas payer par view), moteurs de recherche, réseaux décentralisés, bibliothèques publiques digitales (bookscanners/livres qui circulent sur le net), plateformes crowdfunding (goteo - travaillent avec la région andalusia), systèmes d'échanges (spacebank), téléphonie libre, exploration spatiale & satellites
lieux de rencontres: fablabs, biolabs, hacklabs (bcp de femmes peuvent apprendre à leur rythme) -> nécessaire pour tout le reste
--> cfr hackerspace.be (à investir collectivement par des femmes! espace très masculin)
éthique/politique/sécurité -> crée boucles sociales & économie sociale (pas gratuit)
Calafo en pratique
immeuble 27 appartement, chaque appartement 16000 euro, 1er paiement de 500€ et chaque mois 175€, prêt à vie quand on vend, au même prix
chaque dimanche, AG, décisions par consensus: processus long, on va lentement mais on va loin
construisent 'un nouvel ordre mondial'
très contaminé, 3e pollué de l'Europe: au dessus pleins de fabriques qui produisent du papier
ça attire gens qui ont envie de réhabiliter, permaculture...
pas d'argent: tout à base de recyclage de matériaux, temps libre,...
transféministes: gens qui viennent des mouvements performance, ...
atelier de dragqueen, dynamique sur question de privilèges... (photos d'escalier en fonction de comment tu te sens privilégié: sexe, voiture, travail à partir de la colonie, études, intelligence, amitié, santé...)
-> documenter le processus
ex. travail de bioconstruction avec argile & sable
ex. technologies de jour à jour, ex. cheminée, panneaux solaires, arduino
Ils refont tout
*** réseau sociaux: fb, twitter: non-fédéral
courrier électronique est fédéral: on peut s'écrire entre nous, échanger partout
groupes de travail
3000€/mois -> organisent des événements, le bar maintient tout
coopérative intégrale de Cataluna - fédération de conaissances / stimuler économie d'échange & production
nouvelle économie postcapitaliste
*** internet
guifi: 12.000 noeuds, depuis 2000, entreprises ne voulaient pas investir dans régions isolées
réseau d'antennes/fibres optiques, Fournisseur d'accès internet
pas de filtrage de contenu, rapide... on n'a pas besoin de dépendre de France Telecom
-> à Bruxelles: neutrinet
-> nécessité moins grande, mais le stress/irritation...
*** électricité
4 mois sans électricité
centrale hydraulique dans le site, mais propriétaire ne veut pas vendre
maintenant connection verte, mais potentiel de combiner énergie solaire/hydraulique...
*** nourriture
10€/semaine pour résidents - 2€/invité - 8€/invité (agrobiologique)
nourriture recyclée (contacts)
cfr Poissonnerie: recyclent légumes/fruits du marché matinal
Femmes & Computing
Spideralex étudie depuis 2006: très peu de femmes dans réseau technologiques
utiliser parcours/trajectoires de femmes qui sont déjà là: donestech.net
multiplier façons de présenter les données (vidéo, texte, visualisation des données)
ex. femmes immigrées, femmes à l'époque de Franco, femmes dans le libre...
depuis 3 ans: femmes dans la culture hacker, logiciels libres
Margarita... xxx Dapne (femmes & logiciels libres, Madrid)
-> video with extracts of interviews with women hackers
-> easy as frying an egg, know what technology to use for which objective
cfr Lela Coders 'insulte utilisé pour dire 'aujourd'hui tu n'es pas très agile'
tout est dans n-1.cc (2009, Alex a fondé & administre), comme lorea
créer un groupe -> accès à bcp d'outils (courrier, pad, wiki, bookmarks...), root & pass partagés
tout est visible, si tu veux partager -> créer compte
-> 27 entretiens en ligne (video)
-> license to learn
% femmes dans le monde pas égal: en Asie bcp plus de femmes en ICT (50%)
bcp de témoignages anonymes (problème de harcèlement),on ne drague pas à la première visite
manque de pédagogie, ex Chaos Computer Club (depuis '84, Berlin)
-> c'est quoi 1ere rencontre technologie? jouer avec le frère à 4 ans
-> quoi la 1ere pratique avec technologie? lapse de 10 ans
-> technologie est partout
IF3: on reprend tout à 0 vs autres types de formation (demandent des prérequis, il n'y a que des hommes), formations non mixtes
ex. programmation
formation web plus facile, femmes sont plus attirées
cfr étude 'Women out of the loop' University of Carnegie Melon (US) - LIVRE
entretiens avec étudiants & profs, propositions nouvelles
-> experience gap, changer système d'accès (oui/non expérience, 2 niveaux la 1ère année), apprentissage contextualisé (pourquoi j'apprends le code?), facteur culturel
-> en 3 ans: changer le taux de femmes de 13 à 60%
Questions:
- intéressant, mais impuissant
-> processing (développé pour faire apprendre le code aux gens qui ne sont pas vraiement intéressé au code)
intéressant qui se mettent en place autour, auto-entre-aide, montrer le processus de travail
-> view source: qqchose qui t'intéresse, voir recette & refaire
site en ligne / autres modèles d'éducation: coursera(?)
- technologie & informatique - comment y arriver / Spideralex?
pas développeuse, faire interface entre développeurs & utilisateurs
sociologie urbaine: squatteurs, mouvement de lutte contre gentrification à Barcelone (lutte perdue, Barcelone est un musée)
-> espaces tangibles réels vers nouvelles technologies (où on peut faire autrement)
après 5 ans de cyberactivisme, envie de qqch plus tangible (Calafo!), en train de devenir bricoleuse (avant rien faire avec les mains) -> important d'avoir un équilibre!!!
- 'Rentrer dans gnome mais qui va nettoyer la maison?' Qu'est-ce que le nettoyage dans espace virtuel?
-> envie d'avoir un serveur féministe
dernières années aggressions: 'denial of service' & orchestrer des campagnes de contenus 'inappropriés' sur FB
anarchaserver.org
12 cyberfémnistes, en 1 an pas encore réussie à le mettre en place
pourquoi: implication dans d'autres réseaux sociaux libres, occupées de tâches de soins (connaissances/transfer): pas appris à administrer le serveur
-> 1 personne parmi pleins d'admins pour tuer le spam
cfr Wikipedia: Women & Computing -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_computing#Statistics_in_Education
cfr Her-story & Pure Data
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Ada Lovelace
- Laure aux étudiantes: Formations produisent sentiment de puissance? Ca vous apporte qqch en terme de maîtrise de technologie
-> comprendre comment sites/choses sont faits
-> envie de tout comprendre, tout faire, c'est énorme
dispersion vs efficacité (impuissance - tout réapprendre)
comprendre qui tire les ficelles et conscientiser
-> travail collectif change l'impuissant en puissant
-> humour / s'amuser 'Alors on danse!'
www.calafou.org
spideralex@riseup.net
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13:00-18:30 Recyclart
Workshop Free your phone
Gijs de Heij & Wendy Wynberghe
Explore the possibilities of reinstalling your mobile telephone. Can it be completely free of 'gratis' accounts that track your behaviour and your contacts? Can you really become root and change anything you want? What are the boundaries of mods and app-stores? Think of it as an Install party for mobile devices, version 0.001. Bring your G**gle powered phone if you have one. Back-up obligatory, no warranties given.
http://pad.constantvzw.org/phone phone ID cards made during the workshop and some necessary software to download from the Internet.
Disclaimer: this is not a class, this workshop is about discovering together.
"RISKY RISKY RISKY RISKY RISKY RISKY RISKY RISKY RISKY RISKY RISKY RISKY"
Step 1: BACK UP!!! Superbackup is an app you can use for this.
Step 2 : install ADB (Android Debug Bridge) https://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html#download
Sidenote on ADB: The 2nd of November 2013 CyanogenMod introduced a 1-click installer in the Google Play store, guiding users through the steps of enabling the ADB tool, and navigating them to the desktop installer that would perform the installation of CyanogenMod on their Android device. Only two weeks after the introduction of the installer in the Play store, it was pulled after The Google Play Support Team asked the developers to voluntarily remove the app or they would be forced to remove it as it was in violation of Google Play's developers terms. Until the app also has a "reverse" option, putting back the original OS, it will only be available via CyanogenMod's own channels.
Step 3: charge your phone
Step 4: root your phone....
Wendy: Android comes free of charge, is advertising-supported, cloud based, and highly customizable. Google says it logs your "phone number, calling party number, forwarding numbers, time and date of calls, duration of calls, SMS routing information and types of calls" in their privacy policy. It aslo logs your IP Address...
Sidenote on Android and privacy: Android is an open source OS for mobile devices based on the Linux kernel. It is developed by Google and is released under the Apache License. Google has developed from tiny search engine into gigantic data mining corporation, which should make it clear that your data is and will always be very precious to them. If you are interested in their wording of your privacy, visit http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/
Installing software on your android phone is per default done via Google Play store, linked to your Google account. There is an alternative with FOSS Apps for Android: F-Droid. Free Software Foundation Europe recommends its use as it is a very nice showcase of all FOSS projects for Android out there.
Sidenote: F-droid rebuilds applications from source wherever possible. On their site they mention: "source code is checked for potential security or privacy issues. This checking is far from exhaustive though, and there are no guarantees." When you install software using the F-droid repository, you can see warnings such as: "This app tracks your activity", or "This app promotes non-free add-ons" when it was impossible to remove or replace parts of the app. https://f-droid.org In a similar way, Android has a service you can enable, in the Security menu, called "Verify apps", that warns you when installing apps that may cause you harm. This feature also can't possibly give any real guarantee, it only induces a false sense of security.
The Guardian project is a collection of apps that help encrypt and obscure, to protect from intrusion and monitoring, like for instance Orbot: Anonymous Web Browsing With Tor On Android.
In Linux systems there is always a root user, but in Android root access is not a default. You have to do some work to get it. Why root? You can't modify much except the wallpaper, for instance a simple thing like removing apps that are installed by default is not possible unless you have root.
There are many mods available. Mods are forks of the Android OS that have been modified. Examples of mods are Replicant and CyanogenMod. Most mods are proprietary because they contain proprietary drivers. It is very unclear how 'free' most of these mods are. Replicant however, gives clear information on what they stripped and what they included but is only available for very few phones.
Other OS's include a.o. Firefox OS (originally boot 2 gecko), a Linux based open source operating system developed by Mozilla, Ubuntu Touch (announced to be released in April 2014), and Sailfish OS, an open source project developed by Jolla in collaboration with Mer and Sailfish Alliance (available for Android devices since September 2013).
Fairphone pushes manufacturers to publish drivers under free licenses. The company is using fair and conflict-free resources, fair wages for workers along the supply chain and improving the handing of electronic waste, being transparent about the cost of each part of the device. Replicant has stated it will probably be able to run on the phone, it's very happy with all the efforts the company makes to create a "fair" phone and creating as much (potentially a bit too much) transparency. Replicant is unhappy with the security of the phone though. The modem is embedded in the system on a chip which could mean it is poorly isolated from the rest of the platform, potentially accessing storage, RAM, GPS and the microphone.
Workshop progress: everyone is asked to make an "ID card" for their phone, with the brand, model and Android version. Slowly the information starts coming in on etherpad: http://pad.constantvzw.org/phone
There is a Google Nexus phone here, that can run Replicant. Replicant clearly states the "freedom issues" in the step by step guide, mentionning all the proprietary firmware it relies on. It is the most "open" mod out there at the moment.
We are going to install it step by step together to see the whole process. First a look at the installation guide http://redmine.replicant.us/projects/replicant/wiki/GalaxyNexus The first thing you read is a warning, and for good reasons... if you load the wrong firmware onto your phone, it is "bricked"... this is the RISKY part. Hence the "know what you're doing" disclaimer. This install is supposedly one of the more straightforward ones, but boom... we run into a wall... the usb connection in the laptop, running Ubuntu, is not working correctly, making it impossible to connect to the phone. Wendy: "it is difficult". 10+ different phones, 10+ different laptops with different OS's and an unstable wifi connection make it hard enough, and then there are the many steps of the installation process.
Why is there so little open source firmware? Gijs & Wendy: "Firmware is not glamorous". If developers have to choose to create a smooth running OS quickly or to spend their time lobbying with hardware manufacturers... they choose option 1.
Step 5: start searching for your phone model and "mod" and see what you can find.
CyanogenMod supports a lot of models. http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/
A Samsung galaxy mini user is eager to install a mod because her phone is extremely slow with a lot of applications running automatically in the background without her being able to uninstall or disable them. Also it bothers her that she doesn't know what a lot of these applications do exactly. Replicant is not available for her phone so she started looking into creating her own mod. We bumped into the CyanogenMod wiki's Learning Center http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Development#Learning_To_Build_CM Considering the steep learning curve she opts for a ready-made CyanogenMod and after 2 hours of trying to get a usb connection, she flashes her phone and in 5 minutes she has a working mod running. Ten minutes later a Galaxy 3 is running Replicant succesfully, although the wifi is not working due to a proprietary driver that Replicant is not including.
Rooting the phones proves difficult. For some ADB is not listing their device, other phones don't connect via USB on laptops running Linux. The next bump is the bootloader. The bootloader is a part of the firmware administrating the loading of the boot image, but also other tasks such as reflashing it over USB. Some bootloaders are closed, you can only install an image cryptographically signed by the manufacturer and you have to crack the phone to install a custom image. There are also conditionally open bootloaders, that allow opening but this process will void the warantee and remove all DRM data.
A short retrospective with Gijs
M: What was most striking to you during the workshop?
G: Part of the attraction of Open Source Software is that it's about sharing knowledge, but you need quite some pre-existing knowledge to understand what is being shared and how to use it productively. And that was what happened in the end. There are no copy-paste solutions. We had to look at, and solve each case individually. It was confronting. It became a real transfer of knowledge. You have to get your hands dirty to start understanding what it's about. Maybe people have too much respect for technology. You need to be quite brutal, decide to just do it. You do need the time and freedom to do that. It can be time or means. If your phone is bricked, it's bricked. You need to be able to afford that, not everybody can.
G: But to use that as a critique on Open Source Software... it is a problem though. Knowledge transfer, learning, teaching... Solving things together is faster than alone. The Readme is a protocol. You also need to learn to read it. A lot of tutorials consist of terminal commands. Often people simply copy paste those. By making it easier, with these step-by-step tutorials or even one-click installers, it also becomes more obscure. The process requires less knowledge but at the same time also hides many aspects of the process from you. You follow the steps in the tutorial but you don't understand what is happening. When something doesn't work, you have no idea how to solve the problem by yourself. You need to understand the "language".
M: And then back to the questions raised in the workshop description... Can your phone be completely free of 'gratis' accounts that track your behaviour and your contacts?
G: It's about wanting controll over your phone. In reality, this is impossible. You can't read the source code of everything that is on your phone. It remains a question of trust. A paradox.
M (notes): Even if you'd read all the source code, a code audit doesn't guarantee anything. There are obvious ways to hide harmfull code by obfuscation and then there are more elaborate ways as described by Ken Thompson in his paper "Reflections on Trusting Trust" http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html Where he describes how you can use a compiler to insert bugs into binaries with no trace in the source code. "The moral is obvious. You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself. (Especially code from companies that employ people like me.) No amount of source-level verification or scrutiny will protect you from using untrusted code. In demonstrating the possibility of this kind of attack, I picked on the C compiler. I could have picked on any program-handling program such as an assembler, a loader, or even hardware microcode. As the level of program gets lower, these bugs will be harder and harder to detect. A well installed microcode bug will be almost impossible to detect."
To put the privacy concerns on mobile devices in a broader context, recent developments in governmental violations of privacy are perhaps by far the most stunning at the moment. On December 20 2013, Reuters reports on the NSA's secret 10 million dollar contract with RSA, as part of a campaign to embed encryption software that it could crack into widely used computer products, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/20/nsa-internet-security-rsa-secret-10m-encryption And on January 2 2014 the Washington Post reports on the NSA's investment of $79.7 million into a research project called “Penetrating Hard Targets,” meant to build a quantum computer, a computer that could break nearly every kind of encryption used to protect banking, medical, business and government records around the world.http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-seeks-to-build-quantum-computer-that-could-crack-most-types-of-encryption/2014/01/02/8fff297e-7195-11e3-8def-a33011492df2_story.html These developments could easily lead to a feeling of hopelessness when it comes to privacy and control over technology. But accepting corporate spying because of governmental spying is not a very productive choice...
M: Can you really become root and change anything you want?
G: Not having root on a device is a matter of self-protection in many cases. Just because you aren't supposed to doesn't mean it is not possible, but these possibilities do have consequences. This is a call for realism. Root away, but know what you're doing or accept the risk of breaking things.
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20.00 Recyclart
Introduction: Are You Being Served?
Femke Snelting and Wendy Wynberghe
Femke and Wendy introduce the evening program. Femke looks back on how this festival started in 1997 because a group of women wanted to run their own server.
Wendy recaps the afternoon workshop. She talks about the limits of liberty on Android devices. How can you make the device more your own? How to "master" your machine. What it boils down to is that you can hack your device only if hackers like your device and do a lot of development for it. If your phone is unpopular with developers, there is little hope on finding a good model (?), and with the massive amount of different phone manufacturers and models out there at the moment it's not unlikely that you ran into a phone that hasn't made it in the popularity contest...
Presentation: A Delivery for Mr. Assange
!mediengruppe BITNIK
Carmen Weisskopf & Domagoj Smoljo
!mediengruppe BITNIK is an arts collective from Zurich, Switzerland. Carmen and Domagoj talk about the project "Delivery for Mr. Assange". Hacking is their main artistic practice, going deeper into a system than a "normal" user would. "Hacking is to find clever solutions to an interesting problem". The project was developed during a residency. They were interested into intervening into processes and into radical realtime. They looked into the situation Julian Assange was in at the time. He was in London, staying at the Equadorian embassy, where he fled in June 2012. The British government sent police to surround the embassy, after it announced a pressconference that would clarify if Assange would be accepted as a refugee in Equador. How could we connect to Assange? What tools do we have? They visited the surroundings of the embassy many times and found this huge contrast between the tourists flocking around giant warehouses and the Embassy surrounded by police. They decided to send Assange a package and to track it. They put a camera in the package taking pictures every couple of seconds, and uploading it to their server. They took images they liked from the stream and commented on them via Twitter and their site. The project ran for two days. On Januari 16th the package was posted in East London at a postal office.
It passed its first "barrier", it was accepted by the postoffice employee and placed in a red post bag. Darkness. The gps data showed the package moving and suddenly they had light again and images of another package handling facility came through. Unmanned photography created really interesting images, they spread very fast on the internet. After 2 or 3 hours they had 10.000 people visiting their site, crashing their server. People started sending messages about where they thought the package was, they started mirroring the server to spread the load. After a while they realised the package had moved out of the city, to a delivery center outside of Heathrow. Another post center. Back to black. 70% of the images were black.i
The parcel moved back into the city and moved to the South London mail center, after that it moved only very slowly, so perhaps in a delivery van. It's 10 o'clock in the morning, the delivery had to happen shortly. The stream was followed by Julian's mother and almost for sure also by the Equadorian embassy. The parcel arrived in the area of the embassy, getting really close. Followers were getting a bit impatient, wondering about what type of delivery they had chosen ... BBC was writing about it, journalists from the US were calling, it was intense. First view of outside, you could see the other parcels and mail, the hand of a delivery person. An image of an empty van... they started wondering if they might be taken back to the post office. A view of the street of the embassy... a finger covering the hole... Twitter feed: "is the delivery guy on a lunch break?"... image of a floor, looks like the package is inside... Tweet from Wikileaks: "package has arrived and parcel is in embassy security". Still 6 hours of battery life left. Some images of a sofa and battery life getting critical. Then suddenly a view of a room with a sofa and a fire extinguisher. Someone on Twitter said it is the waiting room of the embassy. Stripes. Something fluffy like a cloud. A dog or ... ah! A cat. A paper with the message: "Is this thing on?". So yes, the package was in the hands of Assange. "Hello world!" is the first thing he writes. "Postal art is contageous", Assange started this live performance with messages written on notes reading things like: "free Bradly Manning", "Free Nabeel Rajab", "Free Anakata". Anakata responded later with a photo of him holding a note saying "Free Assange". "Free Rudolf Elmer", etc. ... until Assange was out of cards.
The project provoked a lot of reactions on Twitter. BITNIK sent a message to Assange via Pastebin, as there was no other way to contact him, to invite him to send the parcel on. He send it to Nabeel Rajab. They improved battery life and asked other people with access to servers to borrow their servers temporarily to avoid crashing. They call it the "art delivery network", consisting of 10 mirrors. This time they attempt a two day international delivery to a Bahrein prison. The parcel was sent around 4 pm, it went to the first delivery center and got handed over to FedEx, that repackaged it and blocked all further images... so now they only received gps data, it became a map performance. The parcel stayed in London for 4 days and was meant to be on a Fedex Plane but went back and forth from the airport to the London delivery center. After 4 nights it went on a plane and reappeared in Charles de Gaule, then to Dubai on the 5th day. After that it dissappeared at the airport. 2 weeks ago the Equador embassy received a message that the parcel was seized by customs.
Another attempt. They travelled to Dubai and posted another package to the prison there. It went to Dubai airport and also dissappeared. Dubai is one of the biggest cargo airports in the world but also functions as a gigantic firewall.
Questions from the audience
Q: Why Assange?
A: His situation shows an international political crisis in the center of a Western city. It shows how absurd it has become, this fight against the people who try to keep the internet and digital systems open.
The first person Assange chose to send the parcel to is Chelsea Manning. But at that time Wikileaks had to get Snowden out of Hong Kong and had to focus their energy on that. So he then chose Nabeel because he's in prison because of a tweet. For BITNIK it was interesting because they had no knowledge of this territory.
Q: Technological layer, interaction layer, political layer, how do you see these three layers interact?
A: The parcel connects all these 3 things. It is a bit strange that your physical mail has better laws protecting it from being opened by the state than your email.
Q: Why didn't you put a microphone in the parcel?
A: We had to technically produce it really fast. We didn't know how long Assange would stay at the embassy. The contents of the parcel shouldn't take too much battery. We had to deal with bandwidth, battery, photos per minute. There were more possibilities but not enough time to realize them.
Recyclart
20h-23h
Bitnik
Assange in ecuadorian embassy, after olympics diplomatic negociations
tensions -> plenty of police in front of embassy, that is right behind Harrods
you come out of tube, bunch of tourst and then police force
Is there a way to pass police?
Out of the tube, mass tourists, then police , how to get normality in this situation? What if the postman comes
-- experiment
Have a tool to track:hole and camera
Live webcam on site
Dirk gets extra chairs! Full house
People still eating rice and desert
Battery runs for 2 days
Jan 16 post in east London
Train! North! Right sound
Train north!
Train south! left sound
Images of post office, then bag and tweet comments
Light, dark
Also had gps data
After 2,5h still at post office, black images
Bag, light and view of central post office
Is this thing alive? Camera broken? Worries
Totally out of our control
Very long train going north
Again in a bag, 9pm, central post office
Images spread quickly online
After 2hs, ten thousand people online - hard to follow, contrast!
People set up mirrors of website
Train passes north
Train goes south (long one!), 20.37
Around midnight, delivery center Heathrow
Train south, really goes over our heads
70 procent of all images black
Train goes north, long one!
South London post, slowly 9.50
Hall with chair
Very few people on images
Train south!
Train north!
All have peep
Mara receives sms
They were in contact with assange, his mother also followed on twitter
They looked at black images, see it moving from one house to another
11h still on the way
Bitnik, is this still taking long? Really tired, what service Did you pay for
Parcels spend a lot of time in the dark!
Train north!
Our body was information processing machine
BBC on the phone, radio, newspapers
Train south!
See the house!
13.27 people ask each other to go round, have a look in the van
44 Hans crescent
Finger!
Folder list
Somewhere inside
Train goes south, long one
2pm, still nothing happening
Wooden floor and black
Were inside
3 Hans crescent
Since 2hs in front of embassy
14.49 Wikileaks @ Bitnik, package has arrived, waiting with security
Over 9000 images
You lier!
Only 5000 images are black (someone is analysing pictures o.line)
Train north
16h
Excited every timer image was not black
Couch, chair
'we would be moved again' we!
Sofa colonial English, fire extinguisher
Latin American journalist tweets this is the waiting room!
Train goes north
Stripes, stairs?
Something fluffy
Dog! Cat!
Train north
People laughing again
Has assange taken over?
18.25 is this thing on?
Website overloadeed
Tiger
Hello world!
Cow in newspaper wrapper
Pic
Live performance
Aron swartz, Bradley manning, nabeel rajab, anakata (pirate bay), ontroerend
Jeremy hammond, anonymous hacker
Rudolf elmer, swiss
Transparency for the state, privacy for all of us
Keep fighting
I missed all the trains for last ten minutes
Reactions on twitter! Boring and exciting
Train north
He could send it to someone else
Train south
he decides to send it to Nabeel rajab
Might be free next year (trial? Why? Where? Info filtering, check internet, concentration is going, they asked,,shell we go on)
Train
Ushi OS involved, how? Ushi tell again, please
Tether mirror sites
Wikileaks 2 million followers
Large train north
Live broadcast to ten servers
End oct
Send 2nd parcel from embassy to Bahrain, prison, 2 day delivery service
Cross borders! Costums we have to pass
Anti'theft device
Train north
4pm
Battery goes low
It sat in front of driver who was drinking root beer
1st deliver center
Handed over to fedex, repackages the parcel
Train south
Went dark very fast
Train north
People whispering
stansted airport, back to central London
Call it is on the plane, passing back and forth
Did not leave for 4 days
Gpsmap produces glitches
Train north, long one
Train south
Parcel in Charles de gaulle, went straight to Dubai
After a day in Dubai, disappears for 5 days
Train south
3 weeks ago: parcel has taken by Dubai costums, destroyed
They went to Dubai postoffice, posted another one
Scanned
Went to Dubai airport, also disappeared
2 parcels at Dubai costums, one of biggest turnovers, firewall in the world
Still waiting for a status
Applause
Why assange
Showed political crisis in europe, absurd fight against people who try to keep internet, digital systems open
Chelsea manning, first choice, by the time they got it ready,
Snowdon out of Hongkong
We can't do 2, said Wikileaks
Bahrain coverage not big, brutal
1st time to prison was after he visited assange
Shouting from far in microphone
3 layers: political, social interaction people follow, diplomatic intervention
Train north
Hoe do you see these 3 layers?
Parcel is thing that connects
Your physical mail has better laws preventing the state to open it than email
Mail privatized in England, touches us personally all
Train south
Why no microphone?
Train north
Things go fast, not too much battery, technically easy solution
Vraag nadien: wat nu? Plan #
so I start writing sth here with this strange green i'm wearing today.
i continue to write
and write
are you in the pad ?