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Posted on by adnan news

Cyberparty: popular politics in digital times

In recent years – and in particular since the explosion of the financial crisis of 2008 – we have witnessed the rise of an array of new political parties – sometimes described as ‘digital parties’, ‘internet parties’ or ‘network parties’ – that attempt to utilise digital communication technologies as means to construct new forms of political participation and organisation against a background of widespread political disaffection with mainstream politics.

From the 5 Star Movement in Italy, to Podemos in Spain, and the Pirate Party in Iceland, Sweden and Germany, to the municipalist formations that recently won the mayoralties of Barcelona and Madrid, the signs of this surprising revival of the political party in digital times are growing. These new political organisations that are entering the political arena in a number of countries in Europe and beyond make use of the tools and practices that typify the present digital era, from Twitter channels and Facebook pages to Whatsapp groups and decision-making platforms. Furthermore, they embody the new demands that reflect the ways of life, fears and desires of an era of mass digital connectivity: demands for free information, privacy, connectivity and basic income.

What is the meaning and what the implications of these emerging digital parties? How do they reflect and respond to the current phase of economic and political crisis? What are the new issues and policies they bring to the fore? What are their forms of organisation, participation and leadership?

The Cyberparty conference hosted by the newly formed Centre for Digital Culture at King’s College London will explore these issues by bringing together experts and activists from the forefront of political innovation. It will ask what is specific to the emerging ‘digital party-form’ underpinning these formaions, how it compares with the mass parties of the industrial era and the electoral-professional parties of the neoliberal era and to what extent it can become a vehicle for social and political change. Furthermore, it will inquire in which ways more traditional political phenomena such as the Labour party under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders’ campaign in the US are trying to adopt some of the emerging organisational structures and practices coming from digital parties.

Different aspects of digital parties will be examined: their forms of communication and propaganda; their decision-making platforms; their policy platform and social base, with dedicated panels on these issues.

The conference will also host a special panel on digital activism in Eastern Europe.

Posted on by adnan news, Report, reports

Initiatives for open democracy and a decentralised internet

During the past two years, D-CENT (Decentralised Citizens ENgagement Technologies) has been working to transform democracy in a very concrete way: helping movements, cities, and political parties to build technologies, methods and tools that can make the democratic system more in-sync with collective aspirations of the 21st century.

To showcase and celebrate the results of the D-CENT project a week-long programme of activity is taking place from the 23-28 May in Madrid, Spain. Full details can be found at www.dcentproject.eu/dcentmadrid.

As part of the Democracy Lab we are holding an open call for groups and individuals to contribute to a two-day unconference Initiatives for open democracy and a decentralised Internet (25th and 26th May) looking at privacy-aware, open source democracy tools and citizen empowerment through bottom-up participation.

We’re inviting technologists, activists, journalists, policy-makers, civil servants, academics, lawyers, designers and startups to come together to showcase their work, demo products, debate and plan.

The two-day event will be run in an “unconference” format and will include lightning talks, hands on workshops and presentations selected and scheduled by attendees on the day.

Posted on by d.tv mazi, news, regeneration, Report, reports, research

Mudlarking On

Before heading off to this years Battlemesh in Porto, Portugal, YT got together with 20 Deptford locals, Inurian activists and Mazi partners for a low tide walk on Deptford Creek. Our guide for the walk was botanist Nick Bertrand of the Creekside Education Trust, leading river ecology and environmental experts.

We had a splendid experience of the creek and learned a lot about how our impact on the environment, even one already so compromised and contaminated by waste and decades of abuse can have unexpected outcomes on ecology of plants and animals. When 400 shopping trolleys were removed in 1990’s it caused a collapse of fish populations! So now things a mostly left as they are.

Hundreds of school and public groups a year visit the creek and gain a unique experience and insight into the workings of Thames tributaries and an understanding of this most urban of British coastline, it’s place in history and current state of play.

Fresh water from the River Ravensbourne washes into Deptford Creek having soaked up Spring Brook, Pool and Quaggy rivers on its wander from Bromley. Daily tides swell the Thames 7 or 8 meters, yet the creek remains mostly fresh water with very little saline effect to deter plant and animal propagation. The sea wall containment of all these rivers has restricted the opportunities for nature to gain a firm footing, yet many wild flowers and water creatures thrive in the stew of manufactured and organic rubbish the river drags along. We saw leaches, shrimp and crabs and should expect flounder and eels in abundance later in the season. Decaying timber ‘bumpers’ along the length of the creek serve alongside purpose built terraces as home to small fish and plant life, nurturing success of species variety.

Many human lives also rely on the ebb and flow of the river not least the boating community here, many of which we continue to talk to and engage with, as our MAZI pilot develops. Minesweeper Collective operate an art lab aboard the wooden triple hull 2nd world war minesweeper in the creek. A screen printing workshop and image creation lab occupy the below deck areas whilst on deck the space suits symposium and performance both of which are well used by local and visiting artists. The collective seeks energy autonomy and uses 12v throughout, currently relying on large batteries, charged by diesel generator but intent on harvesting solar and wind before long. Slow repairs to the boat following a fire in 2008 are in progress but a crowd funding campaign and or public funding is needed to complete the majors works still required.

Yesterday, Greenwich Maritime Museum hosted a public consultation for those interested in artist and community collaboration projects seeking funding. The presentations from GAVS, ACE and Royal Borough of Greenwich, each explained how funding and support was available to nurture project development of public arts. Greenwich operate a Community Arts Fund which would particularly suit existing minesweeper project work and may offer a pathway to greater development funding in the future. In particular with a view to participating at the tall ships event in 2017 where a season of community arts and creative interaction events a planned to celebrate the return of the Tall Ships regatta to Greenwich . The theme for this year’ is ‘Voyaging, Discovery and Adventure’ perfect.

Posted on by d.tv mazi, news, Report, reports, research

Meanwhile zone

We have begun hosting Mazi Mondays meet-ups aboard the WWII Minesweeper boat on Deptford Creek where local people can come along to meet with members of the Minesweeper Collective as they collect ideas and prepare resources to extend the Mazi Zone into their space. Join us there from 1-5pm each week – entrance on Norman Road..

Boats now clustered at this mooring point already share energy and information resources but seek to extend their range with a set of low powered sensors to collect and publish environmental data, sound recordings and a visual record of their day to day existence in and about Deptford Creek. [images]

The Minesweeper Collective lead on refurbishment of the boat and operate the creative program on the boat with regular screen printing workshops as well as monthly Undercurrents exhibition in the nearby Birdsnest public house. This month they present ‘a doll a day’ collection of tattooed and undressed fabric doll sculptures.

Don’t miss images by Artist and musician Karen Barnes, seen here with legs out of her portable pinhole camera, preparing to capture Saturday drinkers gathered outside on Deptford Church Street. Something like this! (will swap out once we have a copy)

Refurbishment of OWN infrastructure continues with update of the antenna installation at APT on Creekside, linking back to Minesweeper and within easy range of Birdsnest.

This view from APT roof of this spring 2016 shows the remnants of Faircharm Estate, all part of the rapid changes sweeping Deptford and so much of South East London

Posted on by adnan Events, news, presentations, projects

Nervous Systems

!Mediengruppe Bitnik exhibits the Assange Room at HKW.

Can our inner thoughts be transmitted by our eye movements? Can our future actions be predicted by our current behavior? Julien Prévieux’s film Patterns of Life enacts more than a century of evolving technologies in tracking human behavior, from reorganizing the factory floor to today’s “activity-based intelligence” in the “war on terror.” This is but one example from over 30 works tracing the inversions that mark the relationship between man and machine. Co-curated by Stephanie Hankey and Marek Tuszynski from the Tactical Technology Collective and Anselm Franke the exhibition showcases a range of reflections on our quantified society and the processes of self-quantification. Historical artworks call for a reinterpretation of early conceptual art’s concern with quantification, its “aesthetics of bureaucracy,” and the deconstruction of the self in light of current data- collection. The exhibition includes contributions by media historians and writers, reconstructing the history and the present rise of data-technologies and portraying the world they bring about. A live installation—conceived by Tactical Tech—offers an active space in which visitors can explore their own digital traces. This White Room combines selected artworks, digital products, investigations, and activist projects with discussions, consultations, and demos exploring the devices we use every day, and how we can regain some control over our data.

Posted on by d.tv mazi, news, Report, reports, research

Swept overboard

Yesterday a few of us from the Wireless Wednesday workshop visited the Minesweeper on Deptford Creek to meet with collective members and take a few photographs in advance of their fundraiser this weekend and Mazi workshops on the boat in Spring. T his coincided with a visit from three representatives of Thames Tideway to meet up with concerned residents of boats moored in the area, all seeking more information. There was a tentative yet friendly exchange and a good deal of information about the timetable and nature of work surfaced as a result.

Thames Tideway is a private company working with Thames Water to build the London super sewer network. Tideway is owned by a consortium of investors that comprises Allianz, Amber Infrastructure, Dalmore Capital and DIF. The construction site in the east end will be delivered by a joint venture of Costain Ltd., Vinci Construction Grands Projets and Bachy Soletanche. This contract is known as Tideway East, with work taking place from Bermondsey to Stratford. Here is a short film showing each of the construction sites

Groundwork for the main shaft at Greenwich Pumping station opposite Creekside Education Centre has already begun. The plan is to dig an 18m diameter shaft down to a depth of 65m for the tunnel. The ha’penny hatch pathway on the Greenwich side to Norman Road will be rerouted and then possibly closed during the work, despite appearances at the moment. Mined materials will be pumped across or under the existing pathway and railway line, into the Jewsons site for processing.

Material from related shafts and tunneling construction between here and Chambers Wharf, will also be extracted here to be loaded onto 100 trucks a day or more likely, river barges for removal. By August 2016, the sea wall at Jewsons requires reinforcement to enable installation of a mooring cradle, to support the 500 GT barges, leaving little space for existing moorings!

Sometime before early 2017 a channel 0.5m (from lowest riverbed level) and 8m wide will be dredged at low tide to enable large barges access at high tide. Such huge earthworks could well destabilise the riverbed for any boats normally in contact with it most of the time. Once the dredged channel is ready, the ‘cradle’ is in place and processing plant for the mined materials is operational, then there will be at least two barges per day for further five years!

So, “are you all ready?”

A ‘Greenwich Pumping Station Community Liaison Working Group’ meeting was held in September 2015 at Creekside Education Trust but unfortunately no public were invited nor attended due to communication error! Further meetings are being planned so all are advised to attend and find out more about the scale and duration of the plans already underway. In the meantime neighborhood bloggers are busy tracking the situation, improving awareness of the complexity and compromise at the scale of such intensive civil engineering. Perhaps this is a good moment to invoke DNA the recently acknowledged Deptford Neighborhood Action group!

Posted on by d.tv mazi, news, regeneration, Report, reports, research

Olympia aspirated

YT just returned from a round trip around Greece for MAZI-kickoff meetings. Starting out in Thessaloníki for a couple of days to acclimatise and explore the city on foot, caught the bus with Mark Gaved (Open University) south to Volos.

On the eve of the sessions we joined the other consortium partners for first of many lovely feasts in the re-animated service quarter adjacent the port and marina, where we all enjoyed first principals of Volos catering; drink tsipouro and eventually great food arrives at the table, keep drinking and the selection and frequency increases! Great social exchange and a wealth of information and insight on these new relationships was gathered and a sense of fun and inquisitiveness established.

Our meetings at University of Thessaloníki set out to unpack the many layered project package of the successful bid to EU. Ahead are three years research, application and monitoring of MAZI toolkit development, which begin in earnest now. Their Nitos lab offers a grand facility for prototyping and testing a wide range of sensor components, wireless options and engineering of suitable interfaces we will need for the successful establishment of the MAZI toolkit at the pilot sites in Berlin, Deptford, Zurich and in the wild from Athens to Edinburgh.

Partners introduced their respective organisations, listened to each others proposals and considered the scope of collaboration together. We examined how to begin the processes of examination and annotation to best serve the needs of wider public communication and consultation with one another throughout the project. This intensive and somewhat testing experience, articulated some gaps in our assumptions and reinforced the sense of confidence and enthusiasm in one another for the tasks set.

Those left standing continued on to a trip up the Olympian mountains in central Greece, a unique opportunity to visit community wireless project Sarantaporo.gr. We met it’s key protagonists and heard first hand, from locals about their hopes and fears for the future. Improvements in the interlinking of settlements has already animated relations and revealed more ancient rivalries of village life. The children and more specifically grandchildren of longest lived residents are the most enthusiastic adopters of the new services in place, now much more willing to visit from nearby towns and cities than ever. Further promotion of mountain existence and wider expansion of the impressively well distributed quality broadband is underway. . Quality broadband access has been granted by regional university in Larissa and the project has already delivered to eleven of the many dislocated villages. Population depletion of recent decades now shows strong signs of reversal as a consequence of economic turmoil and these homegrown successes. The sense of goodwill and courage demonstrated was an inspiration and energis for the MAZI we now embark on together.

Posted on by adnan news, Report, reports

32C3: 30th Chaos Communication Congress

This year our friends Anton & Karsten from the Goto10 collective visited the 30th CCC congress.

Five lectures I made a note of:

1) Internet Lanscapes

In Internet Landscapes, Evan Roth with discuss his work as it relates to visualizing, archiving and understanding the Internet and its effects on culture with a focus on the misuse of communication technologies. Roth will trace his personal and creative history within an Internet landscape that has changed significantly in the last 16 years. The presentation will include a range of work culminating in his more recent pilgrimages to the beaches of the UK, New Zealand and Sweden, where submarine Internet fiber optic cables reach the land. Armed with an array of paranormal technologies, Roth will recount his personal quest to visualize and reconnect with a changing Internet landscape.

2) Datahavens

Datahavens have long been discussed as a solution to user security and privacy needs. Instinctively, the idea of physical locations where servers for communications, financial privacy, and other services can work is easily understood and seems appealing. As a founder of the HavenCo datahaven on Sealand in 2000, I saw firsthand the potential and the pitfalls of this approach.

Datahavens have long been discussed as a solution to user security and privacy needs. Instinctively, the idea of physical locations where servers for communications, financial privacy, and other services can work is easily understood and seems appealing. As a founder of the HavenCo datahaven on Sealand in 2000, I saw firsthand the potential and the pitfalls of this approach.

We will discuss the concept behind datahavens, some specific examples, the legal and technical challenges they face, and how specifically HavenCo failed. While projects to date have largely failed, there is hope for the future, both in the physical datahaven approach and in technical measures, so there is good reason to be optimistic.

3) Netzpolitik in der Schweiz

2015 und 2016 sind wichtige Jahre für die Netzpolitik in der Schweiz, denn die Parlamente entscheiden sowohl die Revision des BÜPF (Bundesgesetz betreffend die Überwachung des Post- und Fernmeldeverkehrs) als auch das NDG (Nachrichtendienstgesetz).

Die beiden Gesetze würden den entsprechenden Bundesbehörden deutlich mehr Handlungsfreiheiten einräumen, wenn es um das Sammeln von Daten auf Vorrat und das Überwachen der Telekommunikation geht. Im Vortrag geben wir eine Übersicht über die beiden Gesetze und sprechen darüber, welche Auswirkungen sie unserer Meinung nach haben werden und was wir dagegen unternehmen und bereits unternommen haben.

Einige der am stärksten kritisierten Punkte der Gesetze sind:

    • Dem Nachrichtendienst wird der Einsatz von Staatstrojanern gestattet,
    • Dem Nachrichtendienst wird exzessiver Zugriff auf den Internetverkehr in der Schweiz gestattet (Kabelaufklärung),
    • Die Vorratsdatenspeicherung in der Schweiz wird weiter ausgebaut.

Wir gehören zum CCC-CH und zur Digitalen Gesellschaft (Schweiz). In der Schweiz haben die Stimmberechtigten die Möglichkeit, das Referendum zu ergreifen. Gelingt es, innerhalb von einhundert Tagen nach in Kraft treten der Referendumsfrist 50’000 Unterschriften zu sammeln, so kommt der Gesetzesentwurf vor das Stimmvolk, welches das letzte Wort hat. Doch 50’000 Unterschriften wollen erst mal gesammelt werden… Leider werden die Gesetze zeitlich versetzt verabschiedet, so dass die Referendumsfristen nicht, wie ursprünglich erhofft, zusammenfallen. Es ist durchaus denkbar, dass es sich dabei um ein politisches Manöver handelt, da das BÜPF doch deutlich mehr Gegner hat als das NDG.

Im Falle des NDG hat die Digitale Gesellschaft, zusammen mit der Piratenpartei Schweiz, grundrechte.ch und dem CCC-CH, unter nachrichtendienstgesetz.ch eine Plattform erstellt, um die Unterschriftensammlung zu koordinieren. Zum Zeitpunkt des 32C3 wird die Referendumsfrist wohl schon beinahe vorbei sein. Wir berichten, wie das Unterschriftensammeln verlaufen ist, was das jetzt zur Folge hat und was wir daraus lernen können – auch in Hinsicht auf das BÜPF, dessen Referendumsfrist wohl kurz nach dem 32c3 beginnen wird. Glücklicherweise hat das BÜPF deutlich mehr Gegner als das NDG, weshalb sich die Initianten von stopbuepf.ch gute Chancen erhoffen.

Im Anschluss an den Talk gibt es eine ausgedehnte Diskussions- und Fragesession zu den behandelten Themen im Raum A.2: Siehe hier

4) Totalitarianism & Cyberspace

n my talk I am 1) discussing philosophical concepts of privacy, especially Hannah Arendt’s philosophy. I am 2) explaining why in a liberal-democratic system we need to protect our privacy and 3) what we can morally do to prevent catastrophes such as a totalitarian system from happening again. With Hannah Arendt’s arguments and her analysis of totalitarian systems in mind, I am referring to three examples from today’s privacy discussions: cybermobbing, Behavioral Advertising and secret services.

5) The State of Internet Censorship

The techniques to control access to the Internet, and the ability to bring transparency to those processes are both continuing to evolve. We’ll give an update on the landscape of online information controls, and our ability to measure them.

The talk will give an update on current country-level practices, the techniques in use to measure them, and an overview of major tools in use.

Over the past couple years, restrictions on Internet access have grown even more ubiquitous. Many take the form of URL or Domain blacklists implemented by western countries, along with increased levels of self censorship on social platforms with user generated content.

The measurement community continues to play a catch-up game. Through a mixture of watching legislature, an increased understanding of what we need to build to keep track of internet controls, and discoveries of side channels that let us externally measure connectivity, we’re making progress!

Posted on by adnan news, tools

Firefox OS died

It looks like the promising Firefox OS phone alternative just died.

Firefox OS was publicly demonstrated in February 2012, on Android-compatible smartphones. By December 16, 2014, Firefox OS phones were offered from 14 operators in 28 countries throughout the world.

On December 8, 2015, Mozilla announced that it would stop sales of Firefox OS smartphones through carriers. Mozilla later announced that Firefox OS smartphones would be discontinued by May 2016, as the development of “Firefox OS for smartphones” would cease after the release of version 2.6.

Posted on by adnan Announcement, ideas, news, tools

D-Cent @ Nesta

Our friend Jaromil will come to London to present D-Cent @ the Nesta showcase conference.

D-CENT is a Europe-wide project bringing together citizen-led organisations that have transformed democracy in the past years, and helping them in developing the next generation of open source, distributed, and privacy-aware tools for direct democracy and economic empowerment.

There will be presentations from the D-CENT team demonstrating the technology and highlighting key insights learnt from direct democracy activity in Barcelona, Reykjavik, Helsinki and Madrid.

The Internet Society in Netherlands (isoc.nl) has nominated ten innovative and interesting initiatives to receive the Internet Innovation Award 2016. Were very happy to announce that D-CENT Freecoin is among the nominees. The winner will be selected and rewarded on the 14th of January at the Internet New Years event in Amsterdam.

The ISOC Internet Award is handed out to an important new internet initiative. It is a sign of high social recognition of achievements to improve the Internet and its use.

IMG_8752_ed_webAll our team is honored by the nomination. We are happy that our work on digital social currencies is being recognised already in such an early stage of development,” smiles Denis Roio, better known as Jaromil of Dyne.org, the D-CENT partner who has been designing and developing Freecoin.

D-CENT Freecoin is a set of tools to let people run reward schemes that are transparent and auditable to other organisations.

Freecoin is made for participatory and democratic organisations who want to incentivise participation, unlike centralised banking databases. It aims to leverage the use of social digital currencies in a reliable, simple and resilient way.

Freecoin_1000x609

Read more about the Freecoin from D-CENT blog: http://dcentproject.eu/category/freecoin

The winner of the ISOC Internet Award 2016 will be selected and rewarded on the 14th of January at the Internet New Years event in Amsterdam.

The decision will be made by a professional jury consisting of Erik Huizer (SURF), Valerie Frissen (SIDN funds), Astrid Oosenburg (PvdA), Marjolijn Bonthuis (ECP) and Teun Gautier (Publeaks).

Entropical

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