Autonomous infrastructures for a free InternetBackbone 409http://localhost/backbone409.calafou.org/index.en.htmlBackbone 409ikiwiki2014-09-06T11:13:30ZReport on the meetinghttp://localhost/backbone409.calafou.org/news/report/index.en.html2014-08-13T08:00:45Z2014-08-09T22:00:00Z
<p><a href="http://backbone409.calafou.org/">Backbone 409</a> happened in <a href="https://calafou.org/">Calafou</a>, near Barcelona in early June 2014.
Started as a small meeting, it finally drew little less than 150 practitioners
for two days of intensive conversations sometimes happening in 4 venues
consecutively. The high response and the good lineup of local and international
<a href="http://localhost/backbone409.calafou.org/./news/participants/index.en.html">initiatives</a> showed the need for hacker spaces where
anti-capitalist politics is the baseline.</p>
<p>The first thing participants highlighted was the good atmosphere. Many came a
week before to help building up for the conference and installed infrastructure
such as toilets, windows, electricity, lighting, and of course Internet. It was
evident that autonomous infrastructures are needed and we have to construct them
from the ground up. This contributed to the feeling of ownership of the venue
and collaboration connected participants.</p>
<p>The meeting was an opportunity to bridge Spanish and English speaking circuits
of techno-activists, enabled by the superb simultaneous interpretation of the
<a href="https://coati.pimienta.org/">Coati</a> collective and their gear. This was not fully exploited but still many
links were established. A highlight was the scene reports on the past and
present from Italy, Netherlands, Hungary, Catalonia, Germany, and Mexico (in
order of appearance).</p>
<p>Developers of privacy-oriented operating systems like <a href="https://www.freepto.mx/en/">Freepto</a>, <a href="https://subgraph.com/sgos/index.en.html">Subgraph OS</a>
and <a href="https://tails.boum.org/">Tails</a> met each other and their (potential) users, discussing features to
be adopted from each others’ codebases. In addition to North European and North
American projects, operators of autonomous servers such as <a href="http://espora.org/">Espora</a> (Mexico) and
<a href="https://espiv.org/">Espiv</a> (Greece) exchanged experiences and best practices. <a href="https://sarava.org/">Sarava</a> (Brazil)
tech collective reported on the <a href="https://www.sarava.org/en/content/sarav%C3%A1s-server-had-its-hard-disks-seized-investigation-representative-federal-public-prosecu">seizure</a> of their server and a 24 hour
“<a href="https://cryptorave.org/">cryptorave</a>” with 2000 attendants organised in São Paolo. The keysigning party
(a.k.a. certification meeting) was surrounded by much debate so that <a href="https://help.riseup.net/en/security/message-security/openpgp/best-practices">best
practices</a> and recommended <a href="https://github.com/ioerror/duraconf/commit/adb7536149263a02f7017b284e5cca07cc4331c1">configuration files</a> received major updates, while
alternatives to OpenPGP like <a href="https://github.com/stef/pbp">PBP</a> were proposed.</p>
<p>The roundtables on the four focus topics (<a href="http://localhost/backbone409.calafou.org/./content/roundtables/resilienthosting/index.en.html">resilient
hosting</a>, <a href="http://localhost/backbone409.calafou.org/./content/roundtables/decentralisation/index.en.html">decentralised
architectures</a>, <a href="http://localhost/backbone409.calafou.org/./content/roundtables/trustedservices/index.en.html">project
sustainability</a>, and <a href="http://localhost/backbone409.calafou.org/./content/roundtables/cryptomasses/index.en.html">usable
cryptography</a>) offered an overview with the
participation of 5-6 representatives of relevant projects and a moderator. These
were good for introducing the major discussions and actors in the problem space
but usually not enough to really push the discussions to a new level. We hope
that once the topics are identified, such discussions will evolve during the
next conferences like <a href="https://interference.io/">Interference</a> and <a href="https://fscons.org/">FSCONS</a>, as well as the various
hackmeetings. Other program points included a look at the relationship between
the tech industry and the human geography of cities (in correspondence with the
controversy about Google buses), an outdoor survivor workshop, a reading of the
<a href="http://libgen.org/book/index.php?md5=8c3d92d6afc907ee2e8fefb6892191a2">Liquid Surveillance</a> book, project presentations and many more. Finally, in
terms of developing the infrastructure of the global network, the idea of
Virtual Internet Exchange Points was proposed as a peering space for VPN
providers.</p>
<p>Since Calafou is in the middle of the forest, accommodation was provided on-site
(campsite and dormitory) and food was prepared with the help of participants.
On the upside, the killer application of the catering was a donation-based
<a href="https://openwrt.org/">OpenWRT</a> cocktail bar which should be replicated in other meetings. On the
downside, we ran out of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club-Mate">Club Mate</a> on the second day because of logistical
problems. Please send us more <a href="https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-reports/2014-June/000568.html">documentation</a>.</p>
Long descriptions of the roundtableshttp://localhost/backbone409.calafou.org/news/longdescriptions/index.en.html2014-08-12T18:36:00Z2014-08-08T22:00:00Z
<p>You can now read the long descriptions of the <a href="http://localhost/backbone409.calafou.org/./content/roundtables/index.en.html">roundtables</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://localhost/backbone409.calafou.org/./content/roundtables/resilienthosting/index.en.html">Resilient hosting: legal, technical, and political geographies</a></li>
<li><a href="http://localhost/backbone409.calafou.org/./content/roundtables/decentralisation/index.en.html">Decentralisation and its discontents</a></li>
<li><a href="http://localhost/backbone409.calafou.org/./content/roundtables/trustedservices/index.en.html">How to offer trusted services for a decade or more?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://localhost/backbone409.calafou.org/./content/roundtables/cryptomasses/index.en.html">User control: Crypto for the masses?!</a></li>
</ul>
Noteshttp://localhost/backbone409.calafou.org/news/notes/index.en.html2014-09-06T11:13:24Z2014-08-07T22:00:00Z
<p>Found some notes on the discussion of <a href="http://localhost/backbone409.calafou.org/./content/workshops/communities/index.en.html">Hacker Communities</a> in different countries.</p>
Schedulehttp://localhost/backbone409.calafou.org/news/schedule/index.en.html2014-09-06T11:13:30Z2014-08-06T22:00:00Z
<p>Some program points of the schedule.</p>
<p><a href="http://localhost/backbone409.calafou.org/./news/schedule/schedule.jpg"><img src="http://localhost/backbone409.calafou.org/./news/schedule/200x-schedule.jpg" width="200" height="267" class="img" /></a></p>