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postal police vs autistici

democracy? | 22.06.2005 10:13 | Free Spaces | Birmingham

THIS IS NOT A PRIVATE MATTER, EVEN IF IT'S A PRIVACY MATTER.

When we started the autistici project, we thought in our cosmic
>pessimism that the worst thing could have happened could have been
>the seizing of our server, a idiot-sniffing of our data traffic and that
>cryptography should have been enough to keep relatively sure communications
>of our users.We were wrong.There are no conditions in italy to let you talk
>about privacy protecting.
>On 15th june 2004 officers from postal police, under an order coming from
>Bologna attorney, reached the Aruba provider where one of our association's
>server is hosted. Aruba switched off our machine, without telling us
>anything, and let and let them copy what they wanted to.
>we contacted the provider by telephone to ask what was going on and they told
>us it was an electricity failure to the plug.
>From that moment on, as we can see from the legal acts available since some
>days ago, they eavesdropped continously the webmail account named
>
> croceneraanarchica@inventati.org
>
>Pontentially, they had the chance to eavesdrop and get back to
>unencrypted connection all the other communications passing by our machine,
>and they still can.
>For these reasons, as soon as possible, we're going to switch off our machine,
>retire it from that provider and think about our next steps.
>By now we invite everyone who houses a server or hosts a website in Aruba
>webfarm and who values his/her privacy, to find another place and leave
>Aruba rotting in its meagerness.
>Privacy conditions in italy were dire themselves: we have just tested on our
>skin that we can unplug the machine and declare the clinical death of the patient.
>We cannot know how many other commercial providers give help to police without
>giving any communications to their costumers; we cannot know how many and
>which are the informations that police can get from your and our servers or
>websites. we cannot know what kind of use they will do of those data; we
>cannot know if the provider let others do this special treatment after being
>well paid from competitors or personal informations traffickers.
>
The scene is worthy of the best negative utopias: to organize a potential mass-eavesdropping for about
6000 mail users and 500 mailing lists, excusing it for the need to read one single mailbox, it's by itself
the farest point from the meaning of 'freedom of speech'.
THIS IS NOT A PRIVATE MATTER, it's not something regarding only us, we guess we are a good guinea-pig
on whom to experiment new kind of controls and eavesdropping, like all the people involved into file sharing inquieries or other
repression episodes.

THIS IS NOT A MATTER ABOUT JUST AN ASSOCIATION OR AN INDIPENDENT SERVER.

We're talking about the same inquery in which the FBI misused a federal decree excusing it for acquiring one log file and
seized the entire indymedia italy server, on the october, 7th 2004.

Into the next and more technical press releases, we'll try to explain better the sort of the attack and our contermeasures, and also
the political events we're going to bring up, as we are sure to be not alone in this struggle.

As we can't grant anymore a reliable service, we're going to retire the server for some days, during which we're going to
clean it up and put it back on line.

We don't plan to give to police and to servant providers any satisfaction about giving up: the downtime will be shorter than possible,
few days and no more, and we'll use this bad fact to rise again like a wounded phoenix from the ashes.

THIS IS NOT A PRIVATE MATTER, EVEN IF IT'S A PRIVACY MATTER.

democracy?


Comments

Hide the following 3 comments

Source of the autistici statement

22.06.2005 11:46

The original version of this statement is here:
 http://autistici.org/ai/comunicato.en.html

The sentence about the fbi seizing "the entire indymedia italy server, on the october, 7th 2004" refers to the seizure of ahimsa 1 and 2 in London. These servers hosted about 20 imc websites and other projects. More about the story in the article: "Ahimsa Gone and Returned: Responses to the Seizure of Indymedia Harddrives", from November 7, 2004:
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/11/300886.html

transmitter


6italyindymedia

22.06.2005 17:46

you'll find all the story tranlated in

www.italy.indymedia.org

solidarity
with everybody
pushed down
by coppers

webpage


communicate from supporto legale

23.06.2005 12:23

In this case we are talking about the same investigation process that, with the excuse of the aquistion of a log file, allowed the the FBI to abuse of a federal mandate and to bring away the entire server where indymedia.italia ( and the indymedia home pages of 20 other countries, the server was located in the UK ,
see also  http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Indymedia/ ,
the request for investigations started also that time from Bologna attorney - Italia NDT ) was hosted , it was october 7, 2004. This is not a private controversial, neither something that regards unically an association or an independent server.This is once again about our and your freedom of expression.
The same freedom of expression that acts like the request of seizure of the site italy.indymedia.org , from the public accuse lawyer Vitiello in may 2005 for "vilipendium of the catholic religion and of the Pope figure", put drastically in jeopardy.

This unacceptable act also goes to touch the instruments the the Genova Legal Forum ( the group of lawyers that works on the trials actually in progress about the riots and abuses from the police forces in Genoa G8 2001) , the mailboxes of the lawyers and the technical consultants, and the same mailing list of coordination between lawyers and consultants, are actually involved in this operation of mass cataloguing.
For the second time, after the seizure of two laptops of two technical consultants in march, all the defense strategy of the Genova Legal Forum is at disposition of the accusatory side: documents, analyses, acts and evidence still not shown in the court.

communication from supporto legale (supportolegale.org)

contacts :  info@supportolegale.org
+39 348 4954290

Supportolegale is a network of people that follows the trials of Genova: those to people who were there to demonstrate, those to the public officers accused of violence, tortures, abuse of power. Supporto reports the the udiences, transforms it in comprehensible syntesises, and publishes and spreads them; invents projiects, campaigns and initiatives of information and fund raising.
Supportolegale, born by initiative of some mediactivists that participates to the indymedia network, performs a job of information and communication, of technical support and financing with fund raising initiatives, and devolving all the income to the Genova Legal Forum for the trial expenses.
Memory is a collective gear.

sub


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