Skip to content or view screen version

Support IMC UK!

IMC-UK | 06.02.2009 18:24 | Indymedia Server Seizure | Indymedia | Repression | Technology

You have probably already heard this, but just in case here it is again:
"The Independent Media Center UK is a grassroots network of individuals, groups, and independent and alternative media activists committed to using media production and distribution as a tool for promoting social, economic justice. Unlike the corporate media, Indymedia UK is not owned by anyone, or funded by big commercial conglomorates and advertisers."


You probably also know that in the last few years there have been a series of IMC servers been seized by the police. The first one was in 2004 when police seized a server in London. The following year, 2005, another server was seized in Bristol, and finally, more recently, on the 22nd of January 09 IMC-UK lost another server due to another police operation [Press Release].

The loss of a server represents a serious damage to the infrastructure of the indymedia project as well as the local grassroots social movements. On the other hand, such incidents can raise public attention to issues like civil liberties and free speech, data-retention laws and also to the work of alternative media projects. In any case, it is resource-intensive to replace a server both financially and time-wise, and that means we are in urgent need of your support to sustain our effort.

Please consider helping out with the running costs of IMC-UK by donating some money. A regular standing order can enormously help Indymedia – what it does and what it stands for – no matter how small the donation may be. Enough regular contributions will secure its financial viability and stability.

Our bank is: Triodos Bank NV Brunel House 11 The Promenade Bristol BS8 3NN

If you want to transfer money from within the UK: Account number: 03194700 Sort code: 16-58-10

If using checks, please write them to: The Independent Media Centre (IMC) UK. In the UK, cheques or cash can be paid in over the counter at all branches of the Royal Bank of Scotland at no charge. This is preferable to sending them to Triodos - it otherwise costs us 50p per cheque.

Cheques or Postal order can be sent to: The Independent Media Centre IMC UK c/o LARC. 62 Fieldgate Street, London, E1 1ES.

To transfer money internationally without extra fees (only valid for EU countries):
Account Name: Triodos Bank
Account number: 10000856
Sort code: 16-00-34
Swift Code: RBOSGB2LCBB
IBAN Number: BG11RBOS16003410 0008 56
BIC Number: RBOS BD 21
Reference: 03194700

Thank you for you support!

IMC-UK
- e-mail: imc-uk-contact@lists.indymedia.org
- Homepage: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/

Additions

looking at the thread of comments ...

07.02.2009 13:15

i see everyone has something to say about all sorts of things as long as the avoid the point of this posting. can't people see what this posting is really about? is anyone up for helping indymedia out? can people contribute to the day-to-day running costs of indy? that's the point, and not whether the seized server will be handed back by the cops or not, or the actual tech specs of the seized machine, or whether triodos is an 'ethical' enough bank or not.

the bottom line is this: imc-uk is now in real need for financial help, and avoiding this point by the site users and contributors will not help much indymedia. it is really up to you what you do.



one at imc-uk and imc-london

Comments

Hide 5 hidden comments or hide all comments

Seized servers

06.02.2009 20:11

Do the cops keep them forever?

Dont you get them back............ after they have copied everything?

Bob

Hidden Comment

This posting has been hidden because it breaches the Indymedia UK (IMC UK) Editorial Guidelines.

IMC UK is an interactive site offering inclusive participation. All postings to the open publishing newswire are the responsibility of the individual authors and not of IMC UK. Although IMC UK volunteers attempt to ensure accuracy of the newswire, they take no responsibility legal or otherwise for the contents of the open publishing site. Mention of external web sites or services is for information purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

2 bob & IM

06.02.2009 20:51

In the past the police have effectively stolen stuff, simply by keeping it and requiring it's owners to hire lawyers to get it back. People and groups give up when it is too expensive to buy justice.

I doubt IM really have/had a server worth £2.5k, unless it was gold-plated and jewel encrusted. I've got a perfectly decent spare PC worth about £60 that they could have, but I feel such an offer would be an insult. Instead I'll send £30 when I have it, in a month or so.

For a long time it has been made difficult by most banks even to make a donation here. Maybe now we've nationalised them they will be a bit more helpful

am

Hidden Comment

This posting has been hidden because it breaches the Indymedia UK (IMC UK) Editorial Guidelines.

IMC UK is an interactive site offering inclusive participation. All postings to the open publishing newswire are the responsibility of the individual authors and not of IMC UK. Although IMC UK volunteers attempt to ensure accuracy of the newswire, they take no responsibility legal or otherwise for the contents of the open publishing site. Mention of external web sites or services is for information purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

No I won't

06.02.2009 22:02

I don't think I will be supporting you after you supported the firebombing of a cafe because it somehow "supports Zionism". You're right down there with the animal rights nutters and the BNP after that little stunt. I hope you all go to jail, that is where you belong for inciting racial hatred.

Ex-friend of indymedia

gold-plated and jewel encrusted?

06.02.2009 22:16

Er, no.

It's a Tyan 1U quad processor (dual dual 64bit opterons) machine with 32Gb of RAM and 4 hot-swapable 500Gb SATA disks...

Techie

NV ?

06.02.2009 23:26

I see your bank is an NV Naamloze (nameless) which means that it is not possible to find the names of the shareholders at the Chamber of Commerce. For some one who spends quite a bit of time "researching"
mafia money laundering between the oh so clean city of London, Amsterdam and the Dutch Antilles
I find it rather strange that a so called Ethical Bank has to hide behind an NV.
Their cohorts in Switzerland and Luxembourg hide behind SA 's .. Société anonyme and Società Anonima in Italian speaking Switzerland, as the mafia runs Italy Italians just do it in broad day light no one goes to prison.

Naamloze vennootschap
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Naamloze Vennootschap)

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naamloze_Vennootschap

Naamloze vennootschap (usually abbreviated NV) is the Dutch term for a public limited liability corporation. The company is owned by shareholders, and the company's shares are not registered to certain owners, so that they may be traded on the public stock market.

The phrase literally means "innominate partnership" and comes from the fact that the partners (the shareholders) are not directly known. This is in contrast to the term for a private limited company, which is called Besloten Vennootschap (a "closely held", literally a "closed" partnership, one in which stock is not for sale on open markets).

The Naamloze Vennootschap is a legal entity in The Netherlands, Belgium, Aruba, Suriname, The Netherlands Antilles, and Indonesia, although in Indonesia the Indonesian translation Perseroan Terbatas (PT) is more commonly used.

Name Less (Naamloze Vennootschap)

Hidden Comment

This posting has been hidden because it breaches the Indymedia UK (IMC UK) Editorial Guidelines.

IMC UK is an interactive site offering inclusive participation. All postings to the open publishing newswire are the responsibility of the individual authors and not of IMC UK. Although IMC UK volunteers attempt to ensure accuracy of the newswire, they take no responsibility legal or otherwise for the contents of the open publishing site. Mention of external web sites or services is for information purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

£30 and some cheek

07.02.2009 00:11

"It's a Tyan 1U quad processor (dual dual 64bit opterons) machine"

I take it it is up-to-date then since I don't even know what that means, it almost sounds ridiculous like a wind up. Do people really say 'dual dual' today? Does no one feel self-conscious saying that? It sounds 'mega'.

" with 32Gb of RAM and 4 hot-swapable 500Gb SATA disks"

I also take it you are short of RAM since that doesn't seem enough for that Dyson processor. I am tempted to send RAM instead of money but RAM probably has a new currency too so I'll send you £30 next month or so, and I will be borrowing that from people who can't afford it so don't drink it all.

On one condition, someone teaches me how to pronounce Tyan correctly. Tee-anne? Tie-Anne? TeeYan? I can google the 'opterons' and am confident how to pronounce that.

I realise you didn't give this PC away, but at worst you should've only lost the HDs, and even those you should have back by now. Would you like me to write a letter to my local authorities about this police sabotage?

am

Hidden Comment

This posting has been hidden because it breaches the Indymedia UK (IMC UK) Editorial Guidelines.

IMC UK is an interactive site offering inclusive participation. All postings to the open publishing newswire are the responsibility of the individual authors and not of IMC UK. Although IMC UK volunteers attempt to ensure accuracy of the newswire, they take no responsibility legal or otherwise for the contents of the open publishing site. Mention of external web sites or services is for information purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

full spec of siezed machine

07.02.2009 10:58

 http://docs.indymedia.org/bin/view/Local/UkServerSpec#Server_Specification


£2.5K is not much at all for machine to provide infrastructure for 1000's of users accessing it per day

reader

NV

07.02.2009 11:28

Tridos actually made a point of the fact they aren't publicly listed in their recent nieuwsbrief, so they say they are less forced by the vagaries of the market. It's also more than an NV, I think that's the holding company, parts of it are BV, Stichting and so. It's a fucking bank anyway, they're all pretty bad. But as banks go this one is good - and is actually more public about where its money goes, and who it goes to, and why, than a lot of others that just meet the capitalist legislation and their funders requirements.

nl

NV WTF?

07.02.2009 11:33

Clearly if the mafia use one type of legal arrangement (say a PLC) to launder money, then *all* PLCs are suspicious and we should insinuate that (for example) RBS, NatWest, Tesco, whatever are all actually mafia front groups.

You are a very silly person. Do you know the first thing about how Triodos bank operates?

CH

Why not host the server outside the UK?

07.02.2009 13:14

What I do not understand is why after two police seizures (the last one without even having to show a court order), Indymedia insists on hosting in the UK, surely the police job would be made much more difficult if they had to travel abroad to seize the server.

I highly doubt an offshore data center will give up a server to the British police based on a British court order, the British police will have to request an international warrant and then have it shipped, which can be done, but it is not as easy as walking into a London or Brighton datacenter show a badge and walk out with it, on top of that you will have a few days time of warning before the server even gets to the UK police laboratories to start dissecting it.

Regarding the server specs, according to the page on the page given on this thread. that is a 8GB RAM (expandable upto 32GB)

Johan

RBS

07.02.2009 14:21

'RBS, NatWest, Tesco, whatever are all actually mafia front groups. '

I've no idea about mafia but I do know RBS are the bank that the British security services have traditionally used. In a previous job I have met security agents who work both for RBS and the security agencies. There isn't such a thing as a decent bank without state contacts, but RBS is certainly the worst British bank. If people here do give money to Indymedia via RBS then do so anonymously. I would recommend not even giving a regular pseudonymn.

Being paranoid, I also have no proof that when I donate via a bank the money actually gets to Indymedia, or what it is used for. Do you publish a list of received donations or should you start doing so? Not names, just amounts and locations that people can check their donation arrived.

am

Hidden Comment

This posting has been hidden because it breaches the Indymedia UK (IMC UK) Editorial Guidelines.

IMC UK is an interactive site offering inclusive participation. All postings to the open publishing newswire are the responsibility of the individual authors and not of IMC UK. Although IMC UK volunteers attempt to ensure accuracy of the newswire, they take no responsibility legal or otherwise for the contents of the open publishing site. Mention of external web sites or services is for information purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

Actual spec and UK colocation

07.02.2009 20:35

The publishing server isn't in the UK -- this machine was intended as a production server for non-UK sites. It ended up running a *mirror* of the UK site but was never the production server so no article or comment was ever or could ever have been posted to it and the Police knew this.

But, yes, it's clear that the UK isn't suitable for UK Indymedia mirrors -- it's simply not safe from the Police taking out key bit's of infrastructure when ever they feel like it and without regard to the law.

The wiki page was never updated with the details of the machine that was actually brought -- it does have 32Gb of RAM:

1 x Transport GT24 (B2932)
2 x AMD Socket F (1207) 2210, Dual Core 1.8GHz
4 x 4 x 500 Gb Western Digital WD5000YS RE2 SATA300
8 x 4GB kit (2GBx2), 240-pin DIMM, DDR2 PC2-5300 ECC

Techie

NV INNIT

07.02.2009 21:41

The fact that Triodos is an NV means it is impossible to find out who controls it, who owns it.
I will be back in Holland next week I'll have a good look at it. The Royal Bank of Scotland is very much involved in the Anglo-Dutch royal families money laundering service from Caribbean casino's and off shore banking, they are all at it and it's not just the Italian mafia.
I'm a bit skint at the moment but might be able to spare a deep sea diver when the weather breaks ..

Very Silly person

Hide 5 hidden comments or hide all comments