https://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/api.php?action=feedcontributions&feedformat=atom&user=OooooAnarchaserver - User contributions [en]2026-04-20T19:21:04ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.36.1https://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Access_server&diff=1487Access server2023-06-13T10:13:03Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
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===›››››››››››››› SSH===<br />
<br />
:: '''SSH keys''' provide '''a more secure way''' of logging into a virtual private server with SSH than using a password alone. While a password can eventually be cracked with a brute force attack, SSH keys are nearly impossible to decipher by brute force alone. Generating a key pair provides you with two long string of characters: a public and a private key. You can place the public key on any server, and then unlock it by connecting to it with a client that already has the private key. When the two match up, the system unlocks without the need for a password. You can increase security even more by protecting the private key with a passphrase. <br />
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===›››››››››››››› Making changes in ssh===<br />
<br />
:: Remember to: <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::'''Tip''': I can check all available services in /etc/init.d <br />
::'''Attention''': if there are problems, grep to see if it actually stops the service Like this: <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh stop</pre> <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ps aux | grep ssh</pre><br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh start</pre><br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ps aux | grep ssh</pre><br />
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===›››››››››››››› Debug===<br />
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::Debug with a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">-v</code> flag. max 3 "v"s<br />
<br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ssh <user>@<server> -vvv </pre><br />
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===›››››››››››››› Create RSA Key Pair===<br />
<br />
::You create your '''RSA key pair''' in the computer from which you want to log to the server. <br />
<br />
::I can use this key pair for several servers, but if I want to enter a same server from different computers, I create different rsa key pairs. <br />
<br />
::Lo voy a crear a nivel local [en mi compu] y esa va a ser la llave rsa ssh que voy a usar para entrar en mis vps. NO genero una para cada vps sino que esa misma me sirve para todas. Si voy a usar varios ordenadores para entrar en un vps, sí necesitaré crear una llave ssh por máquina desde la cual estoy accediendo. <br />
<br />
::So each admin in a server is going to have at least one rsa key pair. <br />
<br />
::Be careful to pay attention from which user you create this in your local machine [computer]. Since the rsa key pairs are saved in a hidden directory in my user home directory [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~/.ssh</code>], if Im trying to login from a different user, it will confuse home directories since each user has a different home directory. <br />
<br />
::So, from the user in my localmachine that I wish to use to access the server, I will create my rsa key pair: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096</pre><br />
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::By default it will generate two keys in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~/.ssh</code>, a public key and a private key. We are going to copy our public key to the server. If we don't have access to this server, we will send it to an admin of Anarcha server so that she can do it. <br />
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::When generating the key, you will need to introduce a '''passphrase'''.<br />
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===›››››››››››››› Copy public key to the server===<br />
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::After generating an SSH key pair, you will want to copy your public key to your new server. <br />
<br />
::To securely copy the public key, we shall enable password authentication on the remote server, by editing the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/ssh/sshd_config</code> file, and disable it after having copied the public key<br />
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::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
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::uncomment and set <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">PasswordAuthentication</code> to <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">yes</code> and then to <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">no</code> after copying is done.<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">PasswordAuthentication yes</pre> <br />
<br />
::To copy your public key, run the following command <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh-copy-id <user>@<server></pre><br />
<br />
::To enable the use of SSH key to authenticate as the new remote user, you must add the public key to a special file in the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory in the user's home directory. Assuming that we are going to create superuser accounts for each new admin we will do the following: <br />
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===›››››››››››››› Creating new sysadmin accounts===<br />
<br />
::Changing to root user <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo su</pre><br />
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::Check the sudo users<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> grep '^sudo:.*$' /etc/group | cut -d: -f4</pre><br />
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::If you are not yet, we create a ''superuser'' ['''note''': it will ask me to introduce a passwd] <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">adduser <superusername></pre><br />
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::Then we will add the ''superuser'' to sudoers: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">usermod -aG sudo <superuser></pre><br />
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::We now change to ''superuser'': <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">su <superuser></pre> <br />
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::When we change user, we will be by default in the user's home directory [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~</code>]. You can do <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">cd ~</code> just in case. <br />
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::It is also possible to create a user [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> for example] and give it a limited privilege [to execute a certain command[s] as ''root'']. To do this, create a new file [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> for instance] in the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/sudoers.d/</code> directory <br />
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::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">touch /etc/sudoers.d/waters</pre><br />
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::and edit it with <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">visudo</code> ['''this is very important''' as it alerts you regarding any syntax errors]<br />
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::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo visudo /etc/sudoers.d/waters</pre><br />
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::and add the following line to allow the user <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> to use a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">chmod</code> command for example<br />
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::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">waters ALL=(ALL) /usr/bin/chmod</pre><br />
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::To allow user <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> to run a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">chmod</code> command without entering a password edit the file this way<br />
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::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">waters ALL= NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/chmod</pre><br />
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===›››››››››››››› .ssh directory and authorized_keys===<br />
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::'''Creating <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory and <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> document in the superuser home directory'''.<br />
<br />
::As the superuser to whom we want to give ssh access to the server, create a new directory called <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> and restrict its permissions with the following commands: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">mkdir .ssh</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chmod 700 .ssh</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown superuser:group</pre><br />
<br />
::Now open a file in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> called <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> with a text editor. We will use nano to edit the file: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">nano .ssh/authorized_keys</pre><br />
<br />
::Now copy-paste the public key [which should be in your clipboard] by pasting it into the editor. Save and close.<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ctrl + s</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ctrl + x</pre><br />
<br />
::Now restrict the permissions of the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> file with this command: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chmod 600 .ssh/authorized_keys</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown superuser:superuser</pre><br />
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::Type this command once to return to the root user: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">exit</pre> <br />
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::As we are creating a new user + authentication as root, we have to change the owner of the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory to the new user [recursively <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">- R</code>]<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown <user>:<user> .ssh -R</pre><br />
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::Now you [the new sysadmin] may SSH login as your new user, using the private key as authentication. <br />
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====. . . . . . › How to login with a Host name ====<br />
::You can more smoothly login by ssh with a Host name [ssh anarchaserver, for example] as opposed to ssh superuser@[ip] you'll need to modify the config file in .ssh directory. Open it:<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo nano ~/.ssh/config</pre><br />
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:: <br />
<br />
Host anarchaserver<br />
User superuser<br />
Hostname [IP]<br />
Port 22<br />
Identityfile /home/superuser/.ssh/[key]<br />
Serveraliveinterval 30<br />
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:: Now you can ssh as Host<br />
<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ssh anarchaserver</pre><br />
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====. . . . . . › After reboot====<br />
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::Access physical mainframe to reboot the encrypted virtual machine. Ask permissions to the syteradmins, by posting on the mailingslist <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">anarchaserver@lists.systerserver.net</code><br />
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====. . . . . . › SSH Reverse DNS Lookup Disable====<br />
<br />
::The invalid logins are normal, since there are bots that try to bruteforce servers. <br />
::As for the "possible break-in attempt" message, The system is trying to do a reverse DNS lookup to match the connecting IP with the ''hostname'' that is trying to connect and fails to do so. <br />
::The setting that controls that is <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">UseDNS</code> in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/ssh/sshd_config</code><br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::y agrega la línea: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">UseDNS no</pre><br />
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::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
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::Force ssh login to server<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
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::and change & uncomment: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ChallengeResponseAuthentication no</pre> <br />
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::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">PasswordAuthentication no</pre> <br />
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::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">UsePAM yes</pre> <br />
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::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
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====. . . . . . › Change ssh port access====<br />
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::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::The first option that you may want to change is the port that SSH runs on. Find the line that looks like this: <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">Port 22</code><br />
<br />
::If we change this number to something in '''between 1025 and 65536''', the SSH service on our server will look for connections on a different port. This is sometimes helpful because unauthorized users sometimes try to break into servers by attacking SSH. If you change the location, they will need to complete the extra step of sniffing it out. <br />
::If you change this value, you will need to keep in mind that your server is running on the new port. <br />
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::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::So now you would have to access to the server like this: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh <superuser>@<server> -p <portnumber></pre><br />
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===›››››››››››››› References===<br />
<br />
::_ [http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1773227 Thread: log full of "POSSIBLE BREAK-IN ATTEMPT!" ]<br />
::_ [https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/restart-service How to start, restart and stop SSH service]<br />
::_ [https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/copy-public-key How to add SSH key to server]<br />
::_ [https://www.golinuxcloud.com/add-user-to-sudoers/ How to add user to sudoers with best practices & examples]<br />
::_ [https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-unix-running-sudo-command-without-a-password/ How to run sudo command without a password on a Linux or Unix]<br />
::_ [https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/User:E.zn/rpi#Login_with_a_Host_name / How to make config file]</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Access_server&diff=1486Access server2023-06-13T10:11:11Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
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===›››››››››››››› SSH===<br />
<br />
:: '''SSH keys''' provide '''a more secure way''' of logging into a virtual private server with SSH than using a password alone. While a password can eventually be cracked with a brute force attack, SSH keys are nearly impossible to decipher by brute force alone. Generating a key pair provides you with two long string of characters: a public and a private key. You can place the public key on any server, and then unlock it by connecting to it with a client that already has the private key. When the two match up, the system unlocks without the need for a password. You can increase security even more by protecting the private key with a passphrase. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Making changes in ssh===<br />
<br />
:: Remember to: <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::'''Tip''': I can check all available services in /etc/init.d <br />
::'''Attention''': if there are problems, grep to see if it actually stops the service Like this: <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh stop</pre> <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ps aux | grep ssh</pre><br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh start</pre><br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ps aux | grep ssh</pre><br />
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===›››››››››››››› Debug===<br />
<br />
::Debug with a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">-v</code> flag. max 3 "v"s<br />
<br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ssh <user>@<server> -vvv </pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Create RSA Key Pair===<br />
<br />
::You create your '''RSA key pair''' in the computer from which you want to log to the server. <br />
<br />
::I can use this key pair for several servers, but if I want to enter a same server from different computers, I create different rsa key pairs. <br />
<br />
::Lo voy a crear a nivel local [en mi compu] y esa va a ser la llave rsa ssh que voy a usar para entrar en mis vps. NO genero una para cada vps sino que esa misma me sirve para todas. Si voy a usar varios ordenadores para entrar en un vps, sí necesitaré crear una llave ssh por máquina desde la cual estoy accediendo. <br />
<br />
::So each admin in a server is going to have at least one rsa key pair. <br />
<br />
::Be careful to pay attention from which user you create this in your local machine [computer]. Since the rsa key pairs are saved in a hidden directory in my user home directory [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~/.ssh</code>], if Im trying to login from a different user, it will confuse home directories since each user has a different home directory. <br />
<br />
::So, from the user in my localmachine that I wish to use to access the server, I will create my rsa key pair: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096</pre><br />
<br />
::By default it will generate two keys in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~/.ssh</code>, a public key and a private key. We are going to copy our public key to the server. If we don't have access to this server, we will send it to an admin of Anarcha server so that she can do it. <br />
<br />
::When generating the key, you will need to introduce a '''passphrase'''.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Copy public key to the server===<br />
<br />
::After generating an SSH key pair, you will want to copy your public key to your new server. <br />
<br />
::To securely copy the public key, we shall enable password authentication on the remote server, by editing the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/ssh/sshd_config</code> file, and disable it after having copied the public key<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::uncomment and set <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">PasswordAuthentication</code> to <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">yes</code> and then to <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">no</code> after copying is done.<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">PasswordAuthentication yes</pre> <br />
<br />
::To copy your public key, run the following command <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh-copy-id <user>@<server></pre><br />
<br />
::To enable the use of SSH key to authenticate as the new remote user, you must add the public key to a special file in the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory in the user's home directory. Assuming that we are going to create superuser accounts for each new admin we will do the following: <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Creating new sysadmin accounts===<br />
<br />
::Changing to root user <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo su</pre><br />
<br />
::Check the sudo users<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> grep '^sudo:.*$' /etc/group | cut -d: -f4</pre><br />
<br />
::If you are not yet, we create a ''superuser'' ['''note''': it will ask me to introduce a passwd] <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">adduser <superusername></pre><br />
<br />
::Then we will add the ''superuser'' to sudoers: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">usermod -aG sudo <superuser></pre><br />
<br />
::We now change to ''superuser'': <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">su <superuser></pre> <br />
<br />
::When we change user, we will be by default in the user's home directory [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~</code>]. You can do <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">cd ~</code> just in case. <br />
<br />
::It is also possible to create a user [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> for example] and give it a limited privilege [to execute a certain command[s] as ''root'']. To do this, create a new file [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> for instance] in the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/sudoers.d/</code> directory <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">touch /etc/sudoers.d/waters</pre><br />
<br />
::and edit it with <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">visudo</code> ['''this is very important''' as it alerts you regarding any syntax errors]<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo visudo /etc/sudoers.d/waters</pre><br />
<br />
::and add the following line to allow the user <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> to use a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">chmod</code> command for example<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">waters ALL=(ALL) /usr/bin/chmod</pre><br />
<br />
::To allow user <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> to run a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">chmod</code> command without entering a password edit the file this way<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">waters ALL= NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/chmod</pre><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› .ssh directory and authorized_keys===<br />
<br />
::'''Creating <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory and <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> document in the superuser home directory'''.<br />
<br />
::As the superuser to whom we want to give ssh access to the server, create a new directory called <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> and restrict its permissions with the following commands: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">mkdir .ssh</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chmod 700 .ssh</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown superuser:group</pre><br />
<br />
::Now open a file in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> called <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> with a text editor. We will use nano to edit the file: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">nano .ssh/authorized_keys</pre><br />
<br />
::Now copy-paste the public key [which should be in your clipboard] by pasting it into the editor. Save and close.<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ctrl + s</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ctrl + x</pre><br />
<br />
::Now restrict the permissions of the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> file with this command: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chmod 600 .ssh/authorized_keys</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown superuser:superuser</pre><br />
<br />
::Type this command once to return to the root user: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">exit</pre> <br />
<br />
::As we are creating a new user + authentication as root, we have to change the owner of the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory to the new user [recursively <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">- R</code>]<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown <user>:<user> .ssh -R</pre><br />
<br />
::Now you [the new sysadmin] may SSH login as your new user, using the private key as authentication. <br />
<br><br />
<br />
====. . . . . . › How to login with a Host name ====<br />
::You can more smoothly login by ssh with a Host name [ssh anarchaserver, for example] as opposed to ssh superuser@[ip] you'll need to modify the config file in .ssh directory. Open it:<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo nano ~/.ssh/config</pre><br />
<br />
:: <br />
<br />
Host anarchaserver<br />
User superuser<br />
Hostname [IP]<br />
Port 22<br />
Identityfile /home/superuser/.ssh/[key]<br />
Serveraliveinterval 30<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br><br />
====. . . . . . › After reboot====<br />
<br />
::Access physical mainframe to reboot the encrypted virtual machine. Ask permissions to the syteradmins, by posting on the mailingslist <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">anarchaserver@lists.systerserver.net</code><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
====. . . . . . › SSH Reverse DNS Lookup Disable====<br />
<br />
::The invalid logins are normal, since there are bots that try to bruteforce servers. <br />
::As for the "possible break-in attempt" message, The system is trying to do a reverse DNS lookup to match the connecting IP with the ''hostname'' that is trying to connect and fails to do so. <br />
::The setting that controls that is <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">UseDNS</code> in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/ssh/sshd_config</code><br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::y agrega la línea: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">UseDNS no</pre><br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::Force ssh login to server<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::and change & uncomment: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ChallengeResponseAuthentication no</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">PasswordAuthentication no</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">UsePAM yes</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
====. . . . . . › Change ssh port access====<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::The first option that you may want to change is the port that SSH runs on. Find the line that looks like this: <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">Port 22</code><br />
<br />
::If we change this number to something in '''between 1025 and 65536''', the SSH service on our server will look for connections on a different port. This is sometimes helpful because unauthorized users sometimes try to break into servers by attacking SSH. If you change the location, they will need to complete the extra step of sniffing it out. <br />
::If you change this value, you will need to keep in mind that your server is running on the new port. <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::So now you would have to access to the server like this: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh <superuser>@<server> -p <portnumber></pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› References===<br />
<br />
::_ [http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1773227 Thread: log full of "POSSIBLE BREAK-IN ATTEMPT!" ]<br />
::_ [https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/restart-service How to start, restart and stop SSH service]<br />
::_ [https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/copy-public-key How to add SSH key to server]<br />
::_ [https://www.golinuxcloud.com/add-user-to-sudoers/ How to add user to sudoers with best practices & examples]<br />
::_ [https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-unix-running-sudo-command-without-a-password/ How to run sudo command without a password on a Linux or Unix]<br />
::_ [https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/User:E.zn/rpi#Login_with_a_Host_name / How to make config file]</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Access_server&diff=1462Access server2022-11-22T16:19:26Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div><div style="font-family:monospace; font-size:14px; background-color:#E9F8A8;"><br />
<br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› SSH===<br />
<br />
:: '''SSH keys''' provide '''a more secure way''' of logging into a virtual private server with SSH than using a password alone. While a password can eventually be cracked with a brute force attack, SSH keys are nearly impossible to decipher by brute force alone. Generating a key pair provides you with two long string of characters: a public and a private key. You can place the public key on any server, and then unlock it by connecting to it with a client that already has the private key. When the two match up, the system unlocks without the need for a password. You can increase security even more by protecting the private key with a passphrase. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Making changes in ssh===<br />
<br />
:: Remember to: <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::'''Tip''': I can check all available services in /etc/init.d <br />
::'''Attention''': if there are problems, grep to see if it actually stops the service Like this: <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh stop</pre> <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ps aux | grep ssh</pre><br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh start</pre><br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ps aux | grep ssh</pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Debug===<br />
<br />
::Debug with a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">-v</code> flag. max 3 "v"s<br />
<br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ssh <user>@<server> -vvv </pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Create RSA Key Pair===<br />
<br />
::You create your '''RSA key pair''' in the computer from which you want to log to the server. <br />
<br />
::I can use this key pair for several servers, but if I want to enter a same server from different computers, I create different rsa key pairs. <br />
<br />
::Lo voy a crear a nivel local [en mi compu] y esa va a ser la llave rsa ssh que voy a usar para entrar en mis vps. NO genero una para cada vps sino que esa misma me sirve para todas. Si voy a usar varios ordenadores para entrar en un vps, sí necesitaré crear una llave ssh por máquina desde la cual estoy accediendo. <br />
<br />
::So each admin in a server is going to have at least one rsa key pair. <br />
<br />
::Be careful to pay attention from which user you create this in your local machine [computer]. Since the rsa key pairs are saved in a hidden directory in my user home directory [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~/.ssh</code>], if Im trying to login from a different user, it will confuse home directories since each user has a different home directory. <br />
<br />
::So, from the user in my localmachine that I wish to use to access the server, I will create my rsa key pair: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096</pre><br />
<br />
::By default it will generate two keys in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~/.ssh</code>, a public key and a private key. We are going to copy our public key to the server. If we don't have access to this server, we will send it to an admin of Anarcha server so that she can do it. <br />
<br />
::When generating the key, you will need to introduce a '''passphrase'''.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Copy public key to the server===<br />
<br />
::After generating an SSH key pair, you will want to copy your public key to your new server. <br />
<br />
::To securely copy the public key, we shall enable password authentication on the remote server, by editing the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/ssh/sshd_config</code> file, and disable it after having copied the public key<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::uncomment and set <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">PasswordAuthentication</code> to <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">yes</code> and then to <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">no</code> after copying is done.<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">PasswordAuthentication yes</pre> <br />
<br />
::To copy your public key, run the following command <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh-copy-id <user>@<server></pre><br />
<br />
::To enable the use of SSH key to authenticate as the new remote user, you must add the public key to a special file in the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory in the user's home directory. Assuming that we are going to create superuser accounts for each new admin we will do the following: <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Creating new sysadmin accounts===<br />
<br />
::Changing to root user <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo su</pre><br />
<br />
::Check the sudo users<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> grep '^sudo:.*$' /etc/group | cut -d: -f4</pre><br />
<br />
::If you are not yet, we create a ''superuser'' ['''note''': it will ask me to introduce a passwd] <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">adduser <superusername></pre><br />
<br />
::Then we will add the ''superuser'' to sudoers: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">usermod -aG sudo <superuser></pre><br />
<br />
::We now change to ''superuser'': <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">su <superuser></pre> <br />
<br />
::When we change user, we will be by default in the user's home directory [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~</code>]. You can do <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">cd ~</code> just in case. <br />
<br />
::It is also possible to create a user [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> for example] and give it a limited privilege [to execute a certain command[s] as ''root'']. To do this, create a new file [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> for instance] in the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/sudoers.d/</code> directory <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">touch /etc/sudoers.d/waters</pre><br />
<br />
::and edit it with <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">visudo</code> ['''this is very important''' as it alerts you regarding any syntax errors]<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo visudo /etc/sudoers.d/waters</pre><br />
<br />
::and add the following line to allow the user <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> to use a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">chmod</code> command for example<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">waters ALL=(ALL) /usr/bin/chmod</pre><br />
<br />
::To allow user <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> to run a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">chmod</code> command without entering a password edit the file this way<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">waters ALL= NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/chmod</pre><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› .ssh directory and authorized_keys===<br />
<br />
::'''Creating <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory and <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> document in the superuser home directory'''.<br />
<br />
::As the superuser to whom we want to give ssh access to the server, create a new directory called <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> and restrict its permissions with the following commands: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">mkdir .ssh</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chmod 700 .ssh</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown superuser:group</pre><br />
<br />
::Now open a file in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> called <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> with a text editor. We will use nano to edit the file: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">nano .ssh/authorized_keys</pre><br />
<br />
::Now copy-paste the public key [which should be in your clipboard] by pasting it into the editor. Save and close.<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ctrl + s</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ctrl + x</pre><br />
<br />
::Now restrict the permissions of the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> file with this command: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chmod 600 .ssh/authorized_keys</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown superuser:group</pre><br />
<br />
::Type this command once to return to the root user: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">exit</pre> <br />
<br />
::As we are creating a new user + authentication as root, we have to change the owner of the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory to the new user [recursively <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">- R</code>]<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown <user>:<user> .ssh -R</pre><br />
<br />
::Now you [the new sysadmin] may SSH login as your new user, using the private key as authentication. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
====. . . . . . › After reboot====<br />
<br />
::Access physical mainframe to reboot the encrypted virtual machine. Ask permissions to the syteradmins, by posting on the mailingslist <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">anarchaserver@lists.systerserver.net</code><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
====. . . . . . › SSH Reverse DNS Lookup Disable====<br />
<br />
::The invalid logins are normal, since there are bots that try to bruteforce servers. <br />
::As for the "possible break-in attempt" message, The system is trying to do a reverse DNS lookup to match the connecting IP with the ''hostname'' that is trying to connect and fails to do so. <br />
::The setting that controls that is <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">UseDNS</code> in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/ssh/sshd_config</code><br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::y agrega la línea: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">UseDNS no</pre><br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::Force ssh login to server<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::and change & uncomment: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ChallengeResponseAuthentication no</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">PasswordAuthentication no</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">UsePAM yes</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
====. . . . . . › Change ssh port access====<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::The first option that you may want to change is the port that SSH runs on. Find the line that looks like this: <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">Port 22</code><br />
<br />
::If we change this number to something in '''between 1025 and 65536''', the SSH service on our server will look for connections on a different port. This is sometimes helpful because unauthorized users sometimes try to break into servers by attacking SSH. If you change the location, they will need to complete the extra step of sniffing it out. <br />
::If you change this value, you will need to keep in mind that your server is running on the new port. <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::So now you would have to access to the server like this: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh <superuser>@<server> -p <portnumber></pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› References===<br />
<br />
::_ [http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1773227 Thread: log full of "POSSIBLE BREAK-IN ATTEMPT!" ]<br />
::_ [https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/restart-service How to start, restart and stop SSH service]<br />
::_ [https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/copy-public-key How to add SSH key to server]<br />
::_ [https://www.golinuxcloud.com/add-user-to-sudoers/ How to add user to sudoers with best practices & examples]<br />
::_ [https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-unix-running-sudo-command-without-a-password/ How to run sudo command without a password on a Linux or Unix]</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Access_server&diff=1460Access server2022-11-16T20:30:34Z<p>Ooooo: /* ›››››››››››››› Interview Meltionary Access Server */</p>
<hr />
<div><div style="font-family:monospace; font-size:14px; background-color:#E9F8A8;"><br />
<br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› SSH===<br />
<br />
:: '''SSH keys''' provide '''a more secure way''' of logging into a virtual private server with SSH than using a password alone. While a password can eventually be cracked with a brute force attack, SSH keys are nearly impossible to decipher by brute force alone. Generating a key pair provides you with two long string of characters: a public and a private key. You can place the public key on any server, and then unlock it by connecting to it with a client that already has the private key. When the two match up, the system unlocks without the need for a password. You can increase security even more by protecting the private key with a passphrase. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Making changes in ssh===<br />
<br />
:: Remember to: <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::'''Tip''': I can check all available services in /etc/init.d <br />
::'''Attention''': if there are problems, grep to see if it actually stops the service Like this: <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh stop</pre> <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ps aux | grep ssh</pre><br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh start</pre><br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ps aux | grep ssh</pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Debug===<br />
<br />
::Debug with a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">-v</code> flag. max 3 "v"s<br />
<br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ssh <user>@<server> -vvv </pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Create RSA Key Pair===<br />
<br />
::You create your '''RSA key pair''' in the computer from which you want to log to the server. <br />
<br />
::I can use this key pair for several servers, but if I want to enter a same server from different computers, I create different rsa key pairs. <br />
<br />
::Lo voy a crear a nivel local [en mi compu] y esa va a ser la llave rsa ssh que voy a usar para entrar en mis vps. NO genero una para cada vps sino que esa misma me sirve para todas. Si voy a usar varios ordenadores para entrar en un vps, sí necesitaré crear una llave ssh por máquina desde la cual estoy accediendo. <br />
<br />
::So each admin in a server is going to have at least one rsa key pair. <br />
<br />
::Be careful to pay attention from which user you create this in your local machine [computer]. Since the rsa key pairs are saved in a hidden directory in my user home directory [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~/.ssh</code>], if Im trying to login from a different user, it will confuse home directories since each user has a different home directory. <br />
<br />
::So, from the user in my localmachine that I wish to use to access the server, I will create my rsa key pair: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096</pre><br />
<br />
::By default it will generate two keys in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~/.ssh</code>, a public key and a private key. We are going to copy our public key to the server. If we don't have access to this server, we will send it to an admin of Anarcha server so that she can do it. <br />
<br />
::When generating the key, you will need to introduce a '''passphrase'''.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Copy public key to the server===<br />
<br />
::After generating an SSH key pair, you will want to copy your public key to your new server. <br />
<br />
::To securely copy the public key, we shall enable password authentication on the remote server, by editing the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/ssh/sshd_config</code> file, and disable it after having copied the public key<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::uncomment and set <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">PasswordAuthentication</code> to <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">yes</code> and then to <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">no</code> after copying is done.<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">PasswordAuthentication yes</pre> <br />
<br />
::To copy your public key, run the following command <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh-copy-id <user>@<server></pre><br />
<br />
::To enable the use of SSH key to authenticate as the new remote user, you must add the public key to a special file in the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory in the user's home directory. Assuming that we are going to create superuser accounts for each new admin we will do the following: <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Creating new sysadmin accounts===<br />
<br />
::Changing to root user <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo su</pre><br />
<br />
::Check the sudo users<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> grep '^sudo:.*$' /etc/group | cut -d: -f4</pre><br />
<br />
::If you are not yet, we create a ''superuser'' ['''note''': it will ask me to introduce a passwd] <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">adduser <superusername></pre><br />
<br />
::Then we will add the ''superuser'' to sudoers: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">usermod -aG sudo <superuser></pre><br />
<br />
::We now change to ''superuser'': <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">su <superuser></pre> <br />
<br />
::When we change user, we will be by default in the user's home directory [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~</code>]. You can do <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">cd ~</code> just in case. <br />
<br />
::It is also possible to create a user [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> for example] and give it a limited privilege [to execute a certain command[s] as ''root'']. To do this, create a new file [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> for instance] in the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/sudoers.d/</code> directory <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">touch /etc/sudoers.d/waters</pre><br />
<br />
::and edit it with <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">visudo</code> ['''this is very important''' as it alerts you regarding any syntax errors]<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo visudo /etc/sudoers.d/waters</pre><br />
<br />
::and add the following line to allow the user <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> to use a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">chmod</code> command for example<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">waters ALL=(ALL) /usr/bin/chmod</pre><br />
<br />
::To allow user <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> to run a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">chmod</code> command without entering a password edit the file this way<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">waters ALL= NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/chmod</pre><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› .ssh directory and authorized_keys===<br />
<br />
::'''Creating <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory and <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> document in the superuser home directory'''.<br />
<br />
::As the superuser to whom we want to give ssh access to the server, create a new directory called <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> and restrict its permissions with the following commands: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">mkdir .ssh</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chmod 700 .ssh</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown superuser:group</pre><br />
<br />
::Now open a file in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> called <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> with a text editor. We will use nano to edit the file: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">nano .ssh/authorized_keys</pre><br />
<br />
::Now copy-paste the public key [which should be in your clipboard] by pasting it into the editor. Save and close.<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ctrl + s</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ctrl + x</pre><br />
<br />
::Now restrict the permissions of the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> file with this command: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chmod 600 .ssh/authorized_keys</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown superuser:group</pre><br />
<br />
::Type this command once to return to the root user: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">exit</pre> <br />
<br />
::As we are creating a new user + authentication as root, we have to change the owner of the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory to the new user [recursively <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">- R</code>]<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown <user>:<user> .ssh -R</pre><br />
<br />
::Now you [the new sysadmin] may SSH login as your new user, using the private key as authentication. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
====. . . . . . › After reboot====<br />
<br />
::Access physical mainframe to reboot the encrypted virtual machine. Ask permissions to the syteradmins, by posting on the mailingslist <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">anarchaserver@lists.systerserver.net</code><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
====. . . . . . › SSH Reverse DNS Lookup Disable====<br />
<br />
::The invalid logins are normal, since there are bots that try to bruteforce servers. <br />
::As for the "possible break-in attempt" message, The system is trying to do a reverse DNS lookup to match the connecting IP with the ''hostname'' that is trying to connect and fails to do so. <br />
::The setting that controls that is <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">UseDNS</code> in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/ssh/sshd_config</code><br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::y agrega la línea: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">UseDNS no</pre><br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::Force ssh login to server<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::and change & uncomment: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ChallengeResponseAuthentication no</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">PasswordAuthentication no</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">UsePAM yes</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
====. . . . . . › Change ssh port access====<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::The first option that you may want to change is the port that SSH runs on. Find the line that looks like this: <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">Port 22</code><br />
<br />
::If we change this number to something in '''between 1025 and 65536''', the SSH service on our server will look for connections on a different port. This is sometimes helpful because unauthorized users sometimes try to break into servers by attacking SSH. If you change the location, they will need to complete the extra step of sniffing it out. <br />
::If you change this value, you will need to keep in mind that your server is running on the new port. <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::So now you would have to access to the server like this: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh <superuser>@<server> -p <portnumber></pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› References===<br />
<br />
::_ [http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1773227 Thread: log full of "POSSIBLE BREAK-IN ATTEMPT!" ]<br />
::_ [https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/restart-service How to start, restart and stop SSH service]<br />
::_ [https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/copy-public-key How to add SSH key to server]<br />
::_ [https://www.golinuxcloud.com/add-user-to-sudoers/ How to add user to sudoers with best practices & examples]<br />
::_ [https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-unix-running-sudo-command-without-a-password/ How to run sudo command without a password on a Linux or Unix]<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Interview Meltionary Access Server ===<br />
<br />
This conversation took place between [https://www.anarchaserver.org Anarchaserver], [https://leverburns.blue/ Lever Burns], [https://systerserver.net/ Systerserver] and the arts-design duo [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] on the 4th of February 2022. It has been shortened and edited for clarity by MELT. <br />
<br />
[https://www.anarchaserver.org Anarchaserver], [https://leverburns.blue/ Lever Burns], [https://systerserver.net/ Systerserver] are a distributed group of people based in Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece, Spain and Italy, working on feminist infrastructures and servers. Their work on setting up a [https://tube.systerserver.net/ peertube] instance to provide an online video based residency to artists, is currently supported by the program [https://afairnewidea.be/en/topics/873/entries/10844 A Fair New Idea?!] (AFNI).<br />
<br />
[https://meltionary.com/ MELT] is an arts-design duo currently working on an email server called ACCESS SERVER that anonymizes, collects and financially compensates access requests that disabled people send to institutions. ACCESS SERVER is currently supported by a fellowship with the Het Nieuwe Instituut.<br />
<br />
The feminist servers invited [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] for a one month residency in order to try out feminist infrastructures for their project. We decided to begin the residency with an interview, focusing on how we have shared language in our projects but the ways they make meaning, are different.[https://meltionary.com/ MELT] found the subpage [https://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Access_server&action=edit ACCESS SERVER] on the website of Anarchaserver – a subpage set up to help people to access this feminist server. [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] wanted to ask about and consider the resonances between ACCESS SERVER as a way of logging into the feminist servers' infrastructure, and ACCESS SERVER as a way of making access for disabled people into cultural institutions. What followed was a conversation around technology, trans*feminism, sysadmin work, access, and disability.<br />
<br />
We met in a hybrid way: some of us were present at [https://vvvvvvaria.org/ Varia] in Rotterdam and enjoyed coffee and fruits together, some joined via the self-hosted Jitsi instance of futuretic, an allied autonomous server.<br />
<br />
Present were: <br />
Estragon, Mika, [https://www.ooooo.be ooooo], spideralex, nate, Mara (Feminist Server Sysadmins) (FSS)<br />
Ren Loren Britton & Iz Paehr (MELT). <br />
<br /><br /><br />
<big>'''Could you walk us through the ways Access Server is used?'''</big><br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
<br />
:''MELT: The first thing that piqued our interest was the sub page Access Server, because it has the same title as our project. Could you walk us through the ways in which that page is used? Who uses it? What are the steps to follow and what happens if something doesn't work? We are also interested in the kinds of conversations you perhaps already had among your group to set up the page.''<br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
FSS: <br />
The page is part of a [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki Mediawiki] that we installed. We have this "history" function under each created page, as it's a collaborative writing tool, it keeps track of the previous edits. So what we actually did yesterday is hit the history button to try to find the history of that specific page because it has a timestamp, and it also sees the user who created the page. So we found that the user was THF and that there was three other users: ooooo, b04 and ezn. All four of them were technically contributing to the appearance of this page. The THF user refers to ‘TransHackFeminism’, which was [[Main_Page#TransHackFeminist_Convergence|a convergence]] organized in [https://www.calafou.org/ Calafou]. So it's not very clear who was that user, but it is made in that convergence: there were people sitting around the table and editing it. Do you want to contextualize the THF user spideralex? Or the TransHackFeminist convergence?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
So the THF user was created around the first [[Main_Page#TransHackFeminist_Convergence|TransHackFeminist convergence]] in 2014. It was a shared user of different people that have been documenting various sessions that were held during one week in [https://www.calafou.org/ Calafou], Spain. We have been sharing <the user>to document basically the different conversations. And then the wiki has remained as a space where different TransHackFeminist events could document their editions. In the wiki, we write also about feminist servers in general and when we document the Anarchaserver's technical and other work.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
More on the technical side – this was the first thing I did when I joined Anarchaserver. As spideralex said, the documentations of different projects kept going on. So there were two similar pages with server set up documentation. The first thing I did was to merge and update them. But also, we had this conversation with ooooo that it would be nice if someone actually tries the different steps and follow the instructions because you, yourself, know what you're doing. later, I also did the styling of the page and also the overall styling of MediaWiki. I wanted it to be a bit more welcoming than a default MediaWiki page. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS:<br />
And I think also as it is a wiki, it would be nice now that you <MELT> are in residence for the Fair New Idea project, we would welcome your visions on accessibility. It would be an invitation, of course, that you could also become an active intervener or would change and modify and add to the content of that page to maybe broaden up this idea of what access to the server is. Besides from its technical perspective of how to exchange SSH keys (secure shell) and make user modifications.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
'''<big>How do you think about accessibility?</big>''' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It is very interesting to hear from everyone about what kind of accessibility you think with! I hear a lot about collaborations that produce the wiki with you as a way to literally access the server. And I also understand that it is also a kind of accessibility to make the server accessible by documenting how to use it. But I'm curious what it would mean for you to make the server disability accessible? How do you think about accessibility? What does that mean in your project? Do you have some thoughts on that?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Accessibility, it's a concern. At the moment it‘s mostly people who are part of the wider constellation around the feminist servers. The project of [https://www.kunsten.be/calls/digital-atelier-and-residency-on-feminist-video-streaming-platform A Fair New Idea] was for us a way to try to reach out and to see how we could host people besides our internal network. So that's why we did an open call and invited you to do a residency. It was an opportunity to reach out to artists and of course, we'll see how it will go. Since some of us of are also artists and at the same time we have technical knowledge and we would like to share basic cohabitation with artists who can learn to work outside very commercial, centralized online tools. So that's one path of accessibility. So then there's the accessibility of who can join in our networks because sometimes the activism is something that not everybody can afford, because most of the times we volunteer. So having available resources, even if it's minimal, within our servers is a very important accessibility factor. And than of course, accessibility of our user interfaces, who can actually read and learn from the content we host on our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe I can add something: For me, the first part of accessibility was also for myself even, to start being familiar with, how to use a server, how to get there and how to do stuff there and not look at it as a black box that I cannot touch because I'm afraid. So by trying to bring people that are not experts or not technologists into collectives in which people can help each other in educating themselves so they feel more emancipated to use not only commercial tools, but also their own or open source ones. For the future what I'm currently thinking of is that I would like things that we do on the server, like maybe a website or a wiki or whatever to be more inclusive to people with disabilities, for example. What I realise now, is that colours can be too intense for some people to read, or <we could develop tools like> some functions for people who cannot hear and who would really like it to learn more about technology can use. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I am also interested in understanding accessibility as something that too is about how we make our tools and services and contents more accessible to deaf and disabled people. And also to people who don't speak Spanish and English. Then again, in general how contents and services can be made more known and accessible to short term collectivities and individuals. I’m also interested in how you can enable a lower threshold for feminist collectives to engage in and maintain their own technical infrastructures.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Thank you so much for these answers and also these very varied and different considerations of access. In relation to infrastructure, tech and language, and of course, disability. Yeah, I think we are both excited to continue working on that together. The next question is about speculative dreaming: What future perspectives for the feminist server do you wish or dream of?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I dream that our feminist server continues to be a meeting point and space for feminist peers that will help us to evolve and collaborate and work together. And I'm also thinking about local feminist groups here in Rotterdam where I now live, but also back in Athens, where I come from. And I know that there is a need [for feminist servers] there. I hope that they can benefit from the existence of our feminist servers, especially towards supporting to a future of more technological autonomy. Probably that cannot be completed, but at least to try to be less dependent on giant tech corporations for their communication or for publishing our works or our struggles or things that we need to communicate with the world, um, and interconnect with other feminist groups out there. So I hope that our feminist servers can support that perspective.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I totally agree, and I find it so beautiful how we use tools as always a means to an end. I don't think anyone of us glorifies them and it's like: [making a] server is the end game. No, it's about using [a server] to learn together and to hang out and communicate. So I think that's very beautiful. I'm from Georgia and I didn't have anyone to talk about any of those things around me. That's how I actually got here. And this is already my dream scenario come to life. So now I'm trying to reconnect with people who are not so technical, but we are already starting to have something local in Georgia as well. So yeah, it's kind of that's what feminist servers are to me.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I agree and I would like to give a more pragmatic and nuanced [view] on this thing. I would say that the cooperative model here would be one of my dreams for the feminist servers we have. And that it can include a membership fee so we can make our services more sustainable because from the past experience, and we've seen that the only way of giving time, it works well for learning, but then it's very difficult to host services for other artists and feminists that we would like to have. So a more concrete approach to the dream of the future for the life of our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: What I observe right now is that the critique of big tech companies is high but the awareness that there is an alternative way to use technology is very invisible so far. And that's a lot of work to speak up for that and to make it shown. So that would be some vision of mine to not look at faces of complete disbelief when talking about having our own server.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like more people and collectives engaged in setting up feminist servers and in general feminist infrastructure initiatives. I would be interested in more local gynaecological considerations embedded inside the set up of future feminist servers. Dreaming, creating data centers made for and by feminists. And coordination between different feminist servers to avoid reinventing the wheel or to enable supporting each other in knowledge and solidarity processes. To share resources and funding, to share common technical infrastructure or by having people that have specific skills and knowledge that can contribute to different initiatives. And finally, my big dream is one day to have feminist servers that then orientate towards providing services to communities that are facing strong gender based violence online and censorship in digital spaces [such as] pro-choice activists, post porno and sex workers. So that's a long term projection, but I would like that we can manage that together, one day.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: The idea of more sysadmins people who join us in the backend! [People] not just there for the services, who learn with us and try to engage with the technology and the machines which are surrounding us. Sysadmins unite (!) to break the [local] isolation of having a technofeminist praxis and awareness.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Maybe it's nice to continue because our project also works with trans* feminism and Disability Justice, and I love the ways in which the trans* feminist, THF, TransHackFeminism becomes a shared user in the access server page. But also, I think that there's a specific understanding of trans* feminism that you seem to be working with because it comes up again many times on the Anarchaserver page. What does it mean to you to serve trans* feminism in this project? I think it's also related to a lot of the dreams that you just shared. Would you want to say something more about trans* feminism specifically?'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm still a little bit scared about this fact of serving and hosting. I feel like by inhabiting these servers and then also maintaining and configuring the affective infrastructures in which we are moving, that we are trans* hackfeminists. It's not serving. It's, you know, like fluid. It's like good. It's like you are feeling the practices of technology. It's like configuring together. It'smore like an actualization of TransHackFeminism. I like it has a history, also. The TransHackFeminism, was a reaction on the [https://eclectictechcarnival.org/ electictechcarnival] to open specific identity politics and women-only-spaces up, to trans* people.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: I would also be super curious to hear what it means to have come from a cis-woman only space and going through the process of opening that up to trans* people.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I have been in a collective in Spain that is called [https://www.donestech.net/ Donestech] in Catalan that was created in 2007. At that moment, there was no other local collective that was working on the relation between gender and technologies and free software. But I think that the paradigm of inclusion of women in digital tech related spaces was needed, no? But it's very 90s, no? [We became more] trans* feminist in our politics, in our feminist politics. We made an event where we would meet together, [and you had to be] open to trans* feminism. So that's why it was called TransHackFeminism and it was organized not only by me and Sophie Toupin, but also by the people of [https://pechblenda.hotglue.me/ Pechblenda] which was a space in Calafou and Julito who were trans feminist. It appeared in 2008 in Spain, in the feminist conference in Granada.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I would like to elaborate a bit more on what ooooo mentioned. So the eclectictechcarnival takes place not even yearly; sometimes it is 2, 3 years inbetween. Well, I admit I haven't been at that many. I've been in the last one, it was an organized in Greece where I am based. The one before was in Italy, and the one before Italy was called TransHackFeminism in Calafou. And because I organized it, the question of who can join this event came up because every time as time passes as spideralex mentioned feminism itself changes, and it's always this question of who can join our event? And again, for example, the last, let's say, firewall, is cis men. Can cis men join our events? So this is the base of the conversation as we try to provide safe spaces and for those who are marginalized, within technology and its environments. But I would say it's an open question, and it always depends on the locality of the event. And on those organizing it. Of course, we all have our own idea and praxis of feminisms.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: To me it was also new, I was not sure what that trans* referred to, because in the German speaking context [people] were talking maybe of queer feminism. So I was curious to also learn [about trans* feminism as] a part of the struggle against a current of feminism that in some places is stronger than others, and that is about the exclusion of trans* people and non-binary. And so that was one aspect that I find interesting to learn, and I find its good to call it trans* feminism to make it explicit.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, and important because at a certain moment, there was really a confusion for me because I was at the [https://events.ccc.de/ Chaos Computer Congres] and there was a transhack meeting. So I joined into the meeting because it was about the organization of the next gathering. But actually, it was about trans nationality. So it was more like focusing on Spain and Italy. They have like trans hack meetings, but it's actually transnational meetings.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So we have hack meetings. Yeah, when we make it across different countries it becomes a transhack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, sure. But it's interesting that the one refers to like identity politics in relation to gender, it seems. And the other, of course not. It's much wider also about your national identity. But it is confusing, or it is also how the term can be hacked so that that gets certain meanings by actually also using it. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, it was confusing. And then the confusion was pretty interesting. We only had two trans hack meetings in the history of trans hack meetings in Europe. One in Poland and the other one was three years ago, four years ago in Tarnack and there some people thought it was a trans* hack meeting, but it was pretty cool because this way we had more queer people around. Yeah, it wasn't that easy. It was like: No, no, this is not the trans* hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And actually, there was recently a transhack meeting in Bologna that also had a sysadmin of systerserver involved. It was also called like that. That's nice. So yeah, it's a somehow yeah, it's hacked then. But yeah, it's not so nice if you're then there and it's a quite cis-normative environment because that's not that the safer space that you went there for. This is not a trans* hack meeting this is a transhack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: During THF, the question was also: what is now the most important term in it? Is trans*? is it hack? is it feminism? Can feminism be hacked, can feminism be trans*? Can hack be transed? Can you trans* hack? It's like, you know, it is circulating inside of the dependencies within these three denominators.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Here is a link with documentation of 2 sessions we had during the first convergence. [[TransHackFeminist/Que significa?/What it means?]] So maybe you can dig more in. It wasn't so many people that say they're interested, in trans*feminism. But the trans terminology, about transitioning, about transition, about all the links that it could have with immigration with transformation, with even of politics, you know, and so on, so on, so on. So yeah, I think we can put it in different layers and for sure, at least when it was set up in Calafou in 2017 the first layer was about trans*feminist politics.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, just to add, sometimes when you encounter a term for first time, you make a conclusion depending on your background and your identity, etc. So of course, when our services uses terms it feels important and to give a description of them: what does this term contain? It's also very important that when we do things that we are open about it, the terminology we're using what does it refer to and why it is constructed like that? And it is important because it changes very quickly, in all this researches of all that is happening in migration realities to multi species studies and keeping in mind always intersectionality they all add up in the end in the concept of creating safe spaces. So I think this is something to consider when we use terms, how we came up with and why we came up with the terms we use.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And it was really important that people do a bit of research and find their own history in this terminology, you know. It's also by the people inhabiting or by the people embodying that it becomes and not only by a definition. I mean, it's ever changing also.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I agree in the sense I think that Anarchaserver is one of the first pages including the THF and all the documentation, and it feels very complicated to give a straightforward definition. And now we are trying to give access to the documentation that has been created around that concept. We are trying to clarify, to know, a definition of our internet politics and gender and diversity and so on. But for TransHackFeminism convergences, I would find it very difficult to give a straightforward explicit definition.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe we have to create expiration dates on our Wiki pages. If we don't visit them in certain time becomes too old and it becomes a reference without being actual. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: But I've seen these issues coming up when we organize events and you know, we have to do open calls and these things are always reconfiguring. Hacking within TransHackFeminism is to hack patriarchy, capitalism and other systems of oppression. Hacking refers to the act of doing and taking things apart, understanding them in a deeper way. Hacking is action performance. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: So one last question is how do you define in your group the terms server and the relations between service and clients because we also read in your manifesto and that your project is about reconfiguring these relations? So it's a question that maybe speaks to like literally the server, but maybe also metaphorically the serving of values or the working together for the making of space.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: For me, the server is like a space, like a room. It's not only a machine, but we can go into it because usually we meet, especially because we live in other places, we meet on the server. It's our meeting point like instead of going to a cafe, we meet in the terminal. So while we’re in the terminal we try to support each other, educate ourselves and spend time together. So it's a connecting room that we can go in and work together in. And about the ‘server’ ‘client’, I really don't like the word client in general, but I know the technical term. I just don't see it translating in a social way inside the feminist server constellations because it is more of a corporate thing. Other people have said its more like inhabiting the servers instead of serving. So its not only that the server serves, and the other is a transmitter it becomes an interchangeable role that you also receive at the same time instead of only offering the other side. I would like more that we do both.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: We have a lot intense reflections and critical thinking about the terminology, which is used inside of these machines. Common are terms like master/slave. Server/client, fail/success. We try to approach it differently also with humor and read it as poetics. We often deconstruct this language and appropriate it in a way that is closer to our identity and our politics. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm looking at some of the histories of feminist servers. I saw two approaches that I really like one that was from 2013 was when they twisted the language at the feminist server summit that was held on the question of a feminist server into: Are you being served? And I really like that because it fits my my understanding of feminism as talking about the embodied experience of not being served in certain contexts. And the other one is from the fall, the ‘From Skin to Steel Manifesto’(? link ?) that must have come from to Brazil. They start their manifesto by claiming that we are all already and thinking about, body experience as serving. And that's very close to what I would call care practices. So where where are the lines between serving and caring? It's really a very radical political claim to look for things about who is being served and it is close to this question of who has access and who can participate. <br /><br /><br />
FSS: We never say server/client. We use the word allies when we want to talk about the people who would like to collaborate and do things with our servers. This applies both to the look of the websites, but also how we communicate to the people outside our internal group. So we don't refer to the client at all.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: But then as a tiny, technical follow up question, how do you technically reconfigure these relations?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's like another network topology, peer to peer. So technically there are protocols which are allowing that. But for example, with the feminist servers we try to have distributed services that not each server has the same services. A server has etherpads, another has cloud services, video conference instances, gitlab repositories,....<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So its not really changing the server client, but like it's more like making a redistributed model of dependency. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: One of the points that TransHackfeminism articulated is that of autonomy in having a Feminist server: you choose your dependencies.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like to ask MELT something, so you are also working on server access? Access Server? Is it still server access the project you are working on?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It's called Access Server, the project.'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I wondered, maybe its too quick to digest what we said so far. But still, I wondered what you thought about the convergences between the thoughts between your Access Server project and what we have been discussing so far?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Hm, yeah so part of the ACCESS SERVER project is that we're technically trying to understand how it can work so that when people email institutions asking for accessibility, the email will cc the previous email with access requests to the same institution. So we're trying to technically create a collectivity so that disabled people emailing understand see that they're not the only ones that are emailing to any institution. So emailers have the sense that, oh, many other people have emailed as well. So I think that this relates to how you’re talking about technical collectivity and trying to share resources and offer other options for points of connection. This is still a technical question. We're not exactly sure how to do it yet and also to maintain people's privacy at the same time. So there's a few questions there behind that. But I think that this is the desire to understand the technically active collective body that is emailing with access requests. ''<br />
<br /><br />
:''MELT: When listening to you. I think notions of care and trust is where I feel a lot of shared questions and maybe sometimes struggles or figurings out. And also in these relations between how to reach out and work with other people with an infrastructure that we provide. Because the idea is really that other disabled people can use the email server and the website that comes with it. So there are also questions of how to even make the website accessible. There are guidelines around that, we have some knowledge around that. But then also how to reach out, also across other axes of discrimination and oppression. How to build that trust also. And also technically then if someone sends an email through our email server how can we make sure that their name is anonymous, for example, the IP address, etc. So that's a lot of questions that still seem also hard to ensure safety. Then also, we skipped the question on trolling and how to carry the risk of providing, feminist and accessible services. That's also a big one for us still to figure out. How can we, I think we can’t prevent people from abusing our service, but how can we even make sure that it doesn't affect more people? And maybe also it doesn't affect us too much. So all of these questions, I think, are quite related.''<br />
<br /><br />
:MELT: ''Also, when you were speaking, something that also came to mind is that I think that the idea of the access server, constantly reminds us of the world that we live in where ableism is so structural. And this is the kind of reality that we're posited against. I'm also curious to see how how we can get people interested in using it, because also even when people are paid for their labour and even when they write emails to institutions, institutions themselves have so much work to do to change. And so I think that that is also a similar condition that you're working with with the feminist server projects where you're publicizing. We're trying to make more visible, so to speak, that there are alternatives, other ways of doing things that do not conform to ableism and capitalism as discriminatory and oppressive standards. Our project approach institutions and requires them to change. And that's also what you're doing. I think what the feminist server project is like trying to provide an alternative to show that a change is possible.''<br />
<br />
<br />
</div></div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Access_server&diff=1459Access server2022-11-16T20:26:00Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
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===›››››››››››››› SSH===<br />
<br />
:: '''SSH keys''' provide '''a more secure way''' of logging into a virtual private server with SSH than using a password alone. While a password can eventually be cracked with a brute force attack, SSH keys are nearly impossible to decipher by brute force alone. Generating a key pair provides you with two long string of characters: a public and a private key. You can place the public key on any server, and then unlock it by connecting to it with a client that already has the private key. When the two match up, the system unlocks without the need for a password. You can increase security even more by protecting the private key with a passphrase. <br />
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===›››››››››››››› Making changes in ssh===<br />
<br />
:: Remember to: <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::'''Tip''': I can check all available services in /etc/init.d <br />
::'''Attention''': if there are problems, grep to see if it actually stops the service Like this: <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh stop</pre> <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ps aux | grep ssh</pre><br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh start</pre><br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ps aux | grep ssh</pre><br />
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===›››››››››››››› Debug===<br />
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::Debug with a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">-v</code> flag. max 3 "v"s<br />
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:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ssh <user>@<server> -vvv </pre><br />
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===›››››››››››››› Create RSA Key Pair===<br />
<br />
::You create your '''RSA key pair''' in the computer from which you want to log to the server. <br />
<br />
::I can use this key pair for several servers, but if I want to enter a same server from different computers, I create different rsa key pairs. <br />
<br />
::Lo voy a crear a nivel local [en mi compu] y esa va a ser la llave rsa ssh que voy a usar para entrar en mis vps. NO genero una para cada vps sino que esa misma me sirve para todas. Si voy a usar varios ordenadores para entrar en un vps, sí necesitaré crear una llave ssh por máquina desde la cual estoy accediendo. <br />
<br />
::So each admin in a server is going to have at least one rsa key pair. <br />
<br />
::Be careful to pay attention from which user you create this in your local machine [computer]. Since the rsa key pairs are saved in a hidden directory in my user home directory [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~/.ssh</code>], if Im trying to login from a different user, it will confuse home directories since each user has a different home directory. <br />
<br />
::So, from the user in my localmachine that I wish to use to access the server, I will create my rsa key pair: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096</pre><br />
<br />
::By default it will generate two keys in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~/.ssh</code>, a public key and a private key. We are going to copy our public key to the server. If we don't have access to this server, we will send it to an admin of Anarcha server so that she can do it. <br />
<br />
::When generating the key, you will need to introduce a '''passphrase'''.<br />
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===›››››››››››››› Copy public key to the server===<br />
<br />
::After generating an SSH key pair, you will want to copy your public key to your new server. <br />
<br />
::To securely copy the public key, we shall enable password authentication on the remote server, by editing the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/ssh/sshd_config</code> file, and disable it after having copied the public key<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::uncomment and set <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">PasswordAuthentication</code> to <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">yes</code> and then to <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">no</code> after copying is done.<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">PasswordAuthentication yes</pre> <br />
<br />
::To copy your public key, run the following command <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh-copy-id <user>@<server></pre><br />
<br />
::To enable the use of SSH key to authenticate as the new remote user, you must add the public key to a special file in the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory in the user's home directory. Assuming that we are going to create superuser accounts for each new admin we will do the following: <br />
<br><br />
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===›››››››››››››› Creating new sysadmin accounts===<br />
<br />
::Changing to root user <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo su</pre><br />
<br />
::Check the sudo users<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> grep '^sudo:.*$' /etc/group | cut -d: -f4</pre><br />
<br />
::If you are not yet, we create a ''superuser'' ['''note''': it will ask me to introduce a passwd] <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">adduser <superusername></pre><br />
<br />
::Then we will add the ''superuser'' to sudoers: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">usermod -aG sudo <superuser></pre><br />
<br />
::We now change to ''superuser'': <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">su <superuser></pre> <br />
<br />
::When we change user, we will be by default in the user's home directory [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~</code>]. You can do <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">cd ~</code> just in case. <br />
<br />
::It is also possible to create a user [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> for example] and give it a limited privilege [to execute a certain command[s] as ''root'']. To do this, create a new file [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> for instance] in the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/sudoers.d/</code> directory <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">touch /etc/sudoers.d/waters</pre><br />
<br />
::and edit it with <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">visudo</code> ['''this is very important''' as it alerts you regarding any syntax errors]<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo visudo /etc/sudoers.d/waters</pre><br />
<br />
::and add the following line to allow the user <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> to use a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">chmod</code> command for example<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">waters ALL=(ALL) /usr/bin/chmod</pre><br />
<br />
::To allow user <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> to run a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">chmod</code> command without entering a password edit the file this way<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">waters ALL= NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/chmod</pre><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› .ssh directory and authorized_keys===<br />
<br />
::'''Creating <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory and <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> document in the superuser home directory'''.<br />
<br />
::As the superuser to whom we want to give ssh access to the server, create a new directory called <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> and restrict its permissions with the following commands: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">mkdir .ssh</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chmod 700 .ssh</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown superuser:group</pre><br />
<br />
::Now open a file in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> called <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> with a text editor. We will use nano to edit the file: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">nano .ssh/authorized_keys</pre><br />
<br />
::Now copy-paste the public key [which should be in your clipboard] by pasting it into the editor. Save and close.<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ctrl + s</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ctrl + x</pre><br />
<br />
::Now restrict the permissions of the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> file with this command: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chmod 600 .ssh/authorized_keys</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown superuser:group</pre><br />
<br />
::Type this command once to return to the root user: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">exit</pre> <br />
<br />
::As we are creating a new user + authentication as root, we have to change the owner of the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory to the new user [recursively <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">- R</code>]<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown <user>:<user> .ssh -R</pre><br />
<br />
::Now you [the new sysadmin] may SSH login as your new user, using the private key as authentication. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
====. . . . . . › After reboot====<br />
<br />
::Access physical mainframe to reboot the encrypted virtual machine. Ask permissions to the syteradmins, by posting on the mailingslist <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">anarchaserver@lists.systerserver.net</code><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
====. . . . . . › SSH Reverse DNS Lookup Disable====<br />
<br />
::The invalid logins are normal, since there are bots that try to bruteforce servers. <br />
::As for the "possible break-in attempt" message, The system is trying to do a reverse DNS lookup to match the connecting IP with the ''hostname'' that is trying to connect and fails to do so. <br />
::The setting that controls that is <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">UseDNS</code> in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/ssh/sshd_config</code><br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::y agrega la línea: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">UseDNS no</pre><br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::Force ssh login to server<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::and change & uncomment: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ChallengeResponseAuthentication no</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">PasswordAuthentication no</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">UsePAM yes</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
====. . . . . . › Change ssh port access====<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::The first option that you may want to change is the port that SSH runs on. Find the line that looks like this: <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">Port 22</code><br />
<br />
::If we change this number to something in '''between 1025 and 65536''', the SSH service on our server will look for connections on a different port. This is sometimes helpful because unauthorized users sometimes try to break into servers by attacking SSH. If you change the location, they will need to complete the extra step of sniffing it out. <br />
::If you change this value, you will need to keep in mind that your server is running on the new port. <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::So now you would have to access to the server like this: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh <superuser>@<server> -p <portnumber></pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› References===<br />
<br />
::_ [http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1773227 Thread: log full of "POSSIBLE BREAK-IN ATTEMPT!" ]<br />
::_ [https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/restart-service How to start, restart and stop SSH service]<br />
::_ [https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/copy-public-key How to add SSH key to server]<br />
::_ [https://www.golinuxcloud.com/add-user-to-sudoers/ How to add user to sudoers with best practices & examples]<br />
::_ [https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-unix-running-sudo-command-without-a-password/ How to run sudo command without a password on a Linux or Unix]<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Interview Meltionary Access Server ===<br />
<br />
This conversation took place between [https://www.anarchaserver.org Anarchaserver], [https://leverburns.blue/ Lever Burns], [https://systerserver.net/ Systerserver] and the arts-design duo [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] on the 4th of February 2022. It has been shortened and edited for clarity by MELT. <br />
<br />
[https://www.anarchaserver.org Anarchaserver], [https://leverburns.blue/ Lever Burns], [https://systerserver.net/ Systerserver] are a distributed group of people based in Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece, Spain and Italy, working on feminist infrastructures and servers. Their work on setting up a [https://tube.systerserver.net/ peertube] instance to provide an online video based residency to artists, is currently supported by the program [https://afairnewidea.be/en/topics/873/entries/10844 A Fair New Idea?!] (AFNI).<br />
<br />
[https://meltionary.com/ MELT] is an arts-design duo currently working on an email server called ACCESS SERVER that anonymizes, collects and financially compensates access requests that disabled people send to institutions. ACCESS SERVER is currently supported by a fellowship with the Het Nieuwe Instituut.<br />
<br />
The feminist servers invited [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] for a one month residency in order to try out feminist infrastructures for their project. We decided to begin the residency with an interview, focusing on how we have shared language in our projects but the ways they make meaning, are different.[https://meltionary.com/ MELT] found the subpage [https://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Access_server&action=edit ACCESS SERVER] on the website of Anarchaserver – a subpage set up to help people to access this feminist server. [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] wanted to ask about and consider the resonances between ACCESS SERVER as a way of logging into the feminist servers' infrastructure, and ACCESS SERVER as a way of making access for disabled people into cultural institutions. What followed was a conversation around technology, trans*feminism, sysadmin work, access, and disability.<br />
<br />
We met in a hybrid way: some of us were present at [https://vvvvvvaria.org/ Varia] in Rotterdam and enjoyed coffee and fruits together, some joined via the self-hosted Jitsi instance of futuretic, an allied autonomous server.<br />
<br />
Present were: <br />
Estragon, Mika, [https://www.ooooo.be ooooo], spideralex, nate, Mara (Feminist Server Sysadmins) (FSS)<br />
Ren Loren Britton & Iz Paehr (MELT). <br />
<br /><br /><br />
<big>'''Could you walk us through the ways Access Server is used?'''</big><br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
<br />
:''MELT: The first thing that piqued our interest was the sub page Access Server, because it has the same title as our project. Could you walk us through the ways in which that page is used? Who uses it? What are the steps to follow and what happens if something doesn't work? We are also interested in the kinds of conversations you perhaps already had among your group to set up the page.''<br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
FSS: <br />
The page is part of a [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki Mediawiki] that we installed. We have this "history" function under each created page, as it's a collaborative writing tool, it keeps track of the previous edits. So what we actually did yesterday is hit the history button to try to find the history of that specific page because it has a timestamp, and it also sees the user who created the page. So we found that the user was THF and that there was three other users: ooooo, b04 and ezn. All four of them were technically contributing to the appearance of this page. The THF user refers to ‘TransHackFeminism’, which was [[Main_Page#TransHackFeminist_Convergence|a convergence]] organized in [https://www.calafou.org/ Calafou]. So it's not very clear who was that user, but it is made in that convergence: there were people sitting around the table and editing it. Do you want to contextualize the THF user spideralex? Or the TransHackFeminist convergence?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
So the THF user was created around the first [[Main_Page#TransHackFeminist_Convergence|TransHackFeminist convergence]] in 2014. It was a shared user of different people that have been documenting various sessions that were held during one week in [https://www.calafou.org/ Calafou], Spain. We have been sharing <the user>to document basically the different conversations. And then the wiki has remained as a space where different TransHackFeminist events could document their editions. In the wiki, we write also about feminist servers in general and when we document the Anarchaserver's technical and other work.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
More on the technical side – this was the first thing I did when I joined Anarchaserver. As spideralex said, the documentations of different projects kept going on. So there were two similar pages with server set up documentation. The first thing I did was to merge and update them. But also, we had this conversation with ooooo that it would be nice if someone actually tries the different steps and follow the instructions because you, yourself, know what you're doing. later, I also did the styling of the page and also the overall styling of MediaWiki. I wanted it to be a bit more welcoming than a default MediaWiki page. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS:<br />
And I think also as it is a wiki, it would be nice now that you <MELT> are in residence for the Fair New Idea project, we would welcome your visions on accessibility. It would be an invitation, of course, that you could also become an active intervener or would change and modify and add to the content of that page to maybe broaden up this idea of what access to the server is. Besides from its technical perspective of how to exchange SSH keys (secure shell) and make user modifications.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
'''<big>How do you think about accessibility?</big>''' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It is very interesting to hear from everyone about what kind of accessibility you think with! I hear a lot about collaborations that produce the wiki with you as a way to literally access the server. And I also understand that it is also a kind of accessibility to make the server accessible by documenting how to use it. But I'm curious what it would mean for you to make the server disability accessible? How do you think about accessibility? What does that mean in your project? Do you have some thoughts on that?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Accessibility, it's a concern. At the moment it‘s mostly people who are part of the wider constellation around the feminist servers. The project of [https://www.kunsten.be/calls/digital-atelier-and-residency-on-feminist-video-streaming-platform A Fair New Idea] was for us a way to try to reach out and to see how we could host people besides our internal network. So that's why we did an open call and invited you to do a residency. It was an opportunity to reach out to artists and of course, we'll see how it will go. Since some of us of are also artists and at the same time we have technical knowledge and we would like to share basic cohabitation with artists who can learn to work outside very commercial, centralized online tools. So that's one path of accessibility. So then there's the accessibility of who can join in our networks because sometimes the activism is something that not everybody can afford, because most of the times we volunteer. So having available resources, even if it's minimal, within our servers is a very important accessibility factor. And than of course, accessibility of our user interfaces, who can actually read and learn from the content we host on our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe I can add something: For me, the first part of accessibility was also for myself even, to start being familiar with, how to use a server, how to get there and how to do stuff there and not look at it as a black box that I cannot touch because I'm afraid. So by trying to bring people that are not experts or not technologists into collectives in which people can help each other in educating themselves so they feel more emancipated to use not only commercial tools, but also their own or open source ones. For the future what I'm currently thinking of is that I would like things that we do on the server, like maybe a website or a wiki or whatever to be more inclusive to people with disabilities, for example. What I realise now, is that colours can be too intense for some people to read, or <we could develop tools like> some functions for people who cannot hear and who would really like it to learn more about technology can use. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I am also interested in understanding accessibility as something that too is about how we make our tools and services and contents more accessible to deaf and disabled people. And also to people who don't speak Spanish and English. Then again, in general how contents and services can be made more known and accessible to short term collectivities and individuals. I’m also interested in how you can enable a lower threshold for feminist collectives to engage in and maintain their own technical infrastructures.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Thank you so much for these answers and also these very varied and different considerations of access. In relation to infrastructure, tech and language, and of course, disability. Yeah, I think we are both excited to continue working on that together. The next question is about speculative dreaming: What future perspectives for the feminist server do you wish or dream of?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I dream that our feminist server continues to be a meeting point and space for feminist peers that will help us to evolve and collaborate and work together. And I'm also thinking about local feminist groups here in Rotterdam where I now live, but also back in Athens, where I come from. And I know that there is a need [for feminist servers] there. I hope that they can benefit from the existence of our feminist servers, especially towards supporting to a future of more technological autonomy. Probably that cannot be completed, but at least to try to be less dependent on giant tech corporations for their communication or for publishing our works or our struggles or things that we need to communicate with the world, um, and interconnect with other feminist groups out there. So I hope that our feminist servers can support that perspective.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I totally agree, and I find it so beautiful how we use tools as always a means to an end. I don't think anyone of us glorifies them and it's like: [making a] server is the end game. No, it's about using [a server] to learn together and to hang out and communicate. So I think that's very beautiful. I'm from Georgia and I didn't have anyone to talk about any of those things around me. That's how I actually got here. And this is already my dream scenario come to life. So now I'm trying to reconnect with people who are not so technical, but we are already starting to have something local in Georgia as well. So yeah, it's kind of that's what feminist servers are to me.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I agree and I would like to give a more pragmatic and nuanced [view] on this thing. I would say that the cooperative model here would be one of my dreams for the feminist servers we have. And that it can include a membership fee so we can make our services more sustainable because from the past experience, and we've seen that the only way of giving time, it works well for learning, but then it's very difficult to host services for other artists and feminists that we would like to have. So a more concrete approach to the dream of the future for the life of our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: What I observe right now is that the critique of big tech companies is high but the awareness that there is an alternative way to use technology is very invisible so far. And that's a lot of work to speak up for that and to make it shown. So that would be some vision of mine to not look at faces of complete disbelief when talking about having our own server.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like more people and collectives engaged in setting up feminist servers and in general feminist infrastructure initiatives. I would be interested in more local gynaecological considerations embedded inside the set up of future feminist servers. Dreaming, creating data centers made for and by feminists. And coordination between different feminist servers to avoid reinventing the wheel or to enable supporting each other in knowledge and solidarity processes. To share resources and funding, to share common technical infrastructure or by having people that have specific skills and knowledge that can contribute to different initiatives. And finally, my big dream is one day to have feminist servers that then orientate towards providing services to communities that are facing strong gender based violence online and censorship in digital spaces [such as] pro-choice activists, post porno and sex workers. So that's a long term projection, but I would like that we can manage that together, one day.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: The idea of more sysadmins people who join us in the backend! [People] not just there for the services, who learn with us and try to engage with the technology and the machines which are surrounding us. Sysadmins unite (!) to break the [local] isolation of having a technofeminist praxis and awareness.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Maybe it's nice to continue because our project also works with trans* feminism and Disability Justice, and I love the ways in which the trans* feminist, THF, TransHackFeminism becomes a shared user in the access server page. But also, I think that there's a specific understanding of trans* feminism that you seem to be working with because it comes up again many times on the Anarchaserver page. What does it mean to you to serve trans* feminism in this project? I think it's also related to a lot of the dreams that you just shared. Would you want to say something more about trans* feminism specifically?'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm still a little bit scared about this fact of serving and hosting. I feel like by inhabiting these servers and then also maintaining and configuring the affective infrastructures in which we are moving, that we are trans* hackfeminists. It's not serving. It's, you know, like fluid. It's like good. It's like you are feeling the practices of technology. It's like configuring together. It'smore like an actualization of TransHackFeminism. I like it has a history, also. The TransHackFeminism, was a reaction on the [https://eclectictechcarnival.org/ electictechcarnival] to open specific identity politics and women-only-spaces up, to trans* people.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: I would also be super curious to hear what it means to have come from a cis-woman only space and going through the process of opening that up to trans* people.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I have been in a collective in Spain that is called [https://www.donestech.net/ Donestech] in Catalan that was created in 2007. At that moment, there was no other local collective that was working on the relation between gender and technologies and free software. But I think that the paradigm of inclusion of women in digital tech related spaces was needed, no? But it's very 90s, no? [We became more] trans* feminist in our politics, in our feminist politics. We made an event where we would meet together, [and you had to be] open to trans* feminism. So that's why it was called TransHackFeminism and it was organized not only by me and Sophie Toupin, but also by the people of [https://pechblenda.hotglue.me/ Pechblenda] which was a space in Calafou and Julito who were trans feminist. It appeared in 2008 in Spain, in the feminist conference in Granada.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I would like to elaborate a bit more on what ooooo mentioned. So the eclectictechcarnival takes place not even yearly; sometimes it is 2, 3 years inbetween. Well, I admit I haven't been at that many. I've been in the last one, it was an organized in Greece where I am based. The one before was in Italy, and the one before Italy was called TransHackFeminism in Calafou. And because I organized it, the question of who can join this event came up because every time as time passes as spideralex mentioned feminism itself changes, and it's always this question of who can join our event? And again, for example, the last, let's say, firewall, is cis men. Can cis men join our events? So this is the base of the conversation as we try to provide safe spaces and for those who are marginalized, within technology and its environments. But I would say it's an open question, and it always depends on the locality of the event. And on those organizing it. Of course, we all have our own idea and praxis of feminisms.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: To me it was also new, I was not sure what that trans* referred to, because in the German speaking context [people] were talking maybe of queer feminism. So I was curious to also learn [about trans* feminism as] a part of the struggle against a current of feminism that in some places is stronger than others, and that is about the exclusion of trans* people and non-binary. And so that was one aspect that I find interesting to learn, and I find its good to call it trans* feminism to make it explicit.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, and important because at a certain moment, there was really a confusion for me because I was at the [https://events.ccc.de/ Chaos Computer Congres] and there was a transhack meeting. So I joined into the meeting because it was about the organization of the next gathering. But actually, it was about trans nationality. So it was more like focusing on Spain and Italy. They have like trans hack meetings, but it's actually transnational meetings.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So we have hack meetings. Yeah, when we make it across different countries it becomes a transhack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, sure. But it's interesting that the one refers to like identity politics in relation to gender, it seems. And the other, of course not. It's much wider also about your national identity. But it is confusing, or it is also how the term can be hacked so that that gets certain meanings by actually also using it. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, it was confusing. And then the confusion was pretty interesting. We only had two trans hack meetings in the history of trans hack meetings in Europe. One in Poland and the other one was three years ago, four years ago in Tarnack and there some people thought it was a trans* hack meeting, but it was pretty cool because this way we had more queer people around. Yeah, it wasn't that easy. It was like: No, no, this is not the trans* hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And actually, there was recently a transhack meeting in Bologna that also had a sysadmin of systerserver involved. It was also called like that. That's nice. So yeah, it's a somehow yeah, it's hacked then. But yeah, it's not so nice if you're then there and it's a quite cis-normative environment because that's not that the safer space that you went there for. This is not a trans* hack meeting this is a transhack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: During THF, the question was also: what is now the most important term in it? Is trans*? is it hack? is it feminism? Can feminism be hacked, can feminism be trans*? Can hack be transed? Can you trans* hack? It's like, you know, it is circulating inside of the dependencies within these three denominators.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Here is a link with documentation of 2 sessions we had during the first convergence : [[TransHackFeminist/Que_significa/What_it_means]]. So maybe then you can dig more in. It wasn't so many people that say they're interested, in trans*feminism. But the trans terminology, about transitioning, about transition, about all the links that it could have with immigration with transformation, with even of politics, you know, and so on, so on, so on. So yeah, I think we can put it in different layers and for sure, at least when it was set up in Calafou in 2017 the first layer was about trans*feminist politics.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, just to add, sometimes when you encounter a term for first time, you make a conclusion depending on your background and your identity, etc. So of course, when our services uses terms it feels important and to give a description of them: what does this term contain? It's also very important that when we do things that we are open about it, the terminology we're using what does it refer to and why it is constructed like that? And it is important because it changes very quickly, in all this researches of all that is happening in migration realities to multi species studies and keeping in mind always intersectionality they all add up in the end in the concept of creating safe spaces. So I think this is something to consider when we use terms, how we came up with and why we came up with the terms we use.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And it was really important that people do a bit of research and find their own history in this terminology, you know. It's also by the people inhabiting or by the people embodying that it becomes and not only by a definition. I mean, it's ever changing also.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I agree in the sense I think that Anarchaserver is one of the first pages including the THF and all the documentation, and it feels very complicated to give a straightforward definition. And now we are trying to give access to the documentation that has been created around that concept. We are trying to clarify, to know, a definition of our internet politics and gender and diversity and so on. But for TransHackFeminism convergences, I would find it very difficult to give a straightforward explicit definition.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe we have to create expiration dates on our Wiki pages. If we don't visit them in certain time becomes too old and it becomes a reference without being actual. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: But I've seen these issues coming up when we organize events and you know, we have to do open calls and these things are always reconfiguring. Hacking within TransHackFeminism is to hack patriarchy, capitalism and other systems of oppression. Hacking refers to the act of doing and taking things apart, understanding them in a deeper way. Hacking is action performance. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: So one last question is how do you define in your group the terms server and the relations between service and clients because we also read in your manifesto and that your project is about reconfiguring these relations? So it's a question that maybe speaks to like literally the server, but maybe also metaphorically the serving of values or the working together for the making of space.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: For me, the server is like a space, like a room. It's not only a machine, but we can go into it because usually we meet, especially because we live in other places, we meet on the server. It's our meeting point like instead of going to a cafe, we meet in the terminal. So while we’re in the terminal we try to support each other, educate ourselves and spend time together. So it's a connecting room that we can go in and work together in. And about the ‘server’ ‘client’, I really don't like the word client in general, but I know the technical term. I just don't see it translating in a social way inside the feminist server constellations because it is more of a corporate thing. Other people have said its more like inhabiting the servers instead of serving. So its not only that the server serves, and the other is a transmitter it becomes an interchangeable role that you also receive at the same time instead of only offering the other side. I would like more that we do both.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: We have a lot intense reflections and critical thinking about the terminology, which is used inside of these machines. Common are terms like master/slave. Server/client, fail/success. We try to approach it differently also with humor and read it as poetics. We often deconstruct this language and appropriate it in a way that is closer to our identity and our politics. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm looking at some of the histories of feminist servers. I saw two approaches that I really like one that was from 2013 was when they twisted the language at the feminist server summit that was held on the question of a feminist server into: Are you being served? And I really like that because it fits my my understanding of feminism as talking about the embodied experience of not being served in certain contexts. And the other one is from the fall, the ‘From Skin to Steel Manifesto’(? link ?) that must have come from to Brazil. They start their manifesto by claiming that we are all already and thinking about, body experience as serving. And that's very close to what I would call care practices. So where where are the lines between serving and caring? It's really a very radical political claim to look for things about who is being served and it is close to this question of who has access and who can participate. <br /><br /><br />
FSS: We never say server/client. We use the word allies when we want to talk about the people who would like to collaborate and do things with our servers. This applies both to the look of the websites, but also how we communicate to the people outside our internal group. So we don't refer to the client at all.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: But then as a tiny, technical follow up question, how do you technically reconfigure these relations?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's like another network topology, peer to peer. So technically there are protocols which are allowing that. But for example, with the feminist servers we try to have distributed services that not each server has the same services. A server has etherpads, another has cloud services, video conference instances, gitlab repositories,....<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So its not really changing the server client, but like it's more like making a redistributed model of dependency. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: One of the points that TransHackfeminism articulated is that of autonomy in having a Feminist server: you choose your dependencies.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like to ask MELT something, so you are also working on server access? Access Server? Is it still server access the project you are working on?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It's called Access Server, the project.'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I wondered, maybe its too quick to digest what we said so far. But still, I wondered what you thought about the convergences between the thoughts between your Access Server project and what we have been discussing so far?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Hm, yeah so part of the ACCESS SERVER project is that we're technically trying to understand how it can work so that when people email institutions asking for accessibility, the email will cc the previous email with access requests to the same institution. So we're trying to technically create a collectivity so that disabled people emailing understand see that they're not the only ones that are emailing to any institution. So emailers have the sense that, oh, many other people have emailed as well. So I think that this relates to how you’re talking about technical collectivity and trying to share resources and offer other options for points of connection. This is still a technical question. We're not exactly sure how to do it yet and also to maintain people's privacy at the same time. So there's a few questions there behind that. But I think that this is the desire to understand the technically active collective body that is emailing with access requests. ''<br />
<br /><br />
:''MELT: When listening to you. I think notions of care and trust is where I feel a lot of shared questions and maybe sometimes struggles or figurings out. And also in these relations between how to reach out and work with other people with an infrastructure that we provide. Because the idea is really that other disabled people can use the email server and the website that comes with it. So there are also questions of how to even make the website accessible. There are guidelines around that, we have some knowledge around that. But then also how to reach out, also across other axes of discrimination and oppression. How to build that trust also. And also technically then if someone sends an email through our email server how can we make sure that their name is anonymous, for example, the IP address, etc. So that's a lot of questions that still seem also hard to ensure safety. Then also, we skipped the question on trolling and how to carry the risk of providing, feminist and accessible services. That's also a big one for us still to figure out. How can we, I think we can’t prevent people from abusing our service, but how can we even make sure that it doesn't affect more people? And maybe also it doesn't affect us too much. So all of these questions, I think, are quite related.''<br />
<br /><br />
:MELT: ''Also, when you were speaking, something that also came to mind is that I think that the idea of the access server, constantly reminds us of the world that we live in where ableism is so structural. And this is the kind of reality that we're posited against. I'm also curious to see how how we can get people interested in using it, because also even when people are paid for their labour and even when they write emails to institutions, institutions themselves have so much work to do to change. And so I think that that is also a similar condition that you're working with with the feminist server projects where you're publicizing. We're trying to make more visible, so to speak, that there are alternatives, other ways of doing things that do not conform to ableism and capitalism as discriminatory and oppressive standards. Our project approach institutions and requires them to change. And that's also what you're doing. I think what the feminist server project is like trying to provide an alternative to show that a change is possible.''<br />
<br />
<br />
</div></div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Access_server&diff=1458Access server2022-11-16T20:23:04Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div><div style="font-family:monospace; font-size:14px; background-color:#E9F8A8;"><br />
<br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› SSH===<br />
<br />
:: '''SSH keys''' provide '''a more secure way''' of logging into a virtual private server with SSH than using a password alone. While a password can eventually be cracked with a brute force attack, SSH keys are nearly impossible to decipher by brute force alone. Generating a key pair provides you with two long string of characters: a public and a private key. You can place the public key on any server, and then unlock it by connecting to it with a client that already has the private key. When the two match up, the system unlocks without the need for a password. You can increase security even more by protecting the private key with a passphrase. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Making changes in ssh===<br />
<br />
:: Remember to: <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::'''Tip''': I can check all available services in /etc/init.d <br />
::'''Attention''': if there are problems, grep to see if it actually stops the service Like this: <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh stop</pre> <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ps aux | grep ssh</pre><br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh start</pre><br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ps aux | grep ssh</pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Debug===<br />
<br />
::Debug with a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">-v</code> flag. max 3 "v"s<br />
<br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ssh <user>@<server> -vvv </pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Create RSA Key Pair===<br />
<br />
::You create your '''RSA key pair''' in the computer from which you want to log to the server. <br />
<br />
::I can use this key pair for several servers, but if I want to enter a same server from different computers, I create different rsa key pairs. <br />
<br />
::Lo voy a crear a nivel local [en mi compu] y esa va a ser la llave rsa ssh que voy a usar para entrar en mis vps. NO genero una para cada vps sino que esa misma me sirve para todas. Si voy a usar varios ordenadores para entrar en un vps, sí necesitaré crear una llave ssh por máquina desde la cual estoy accediendo. <br />
<br />
::So each admin in a server is going to have at least one rsa key pair. <br />
<br />
::Be careful to pay attention from which user you create this in your local machine [computer]. Since the rsa key pairs are saved in a hidden directory in my user home directory [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~/.ssh</code>], if Im trying to login from a different user, it will confuse home directories since each user has a different home directory. <br />
<br />
::So, from the user in my localmachine that I wish to use to access the server, I will create my rsa key pair: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096</pre><br />
<br />
::By default it will generate two keys in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~/.ssh</code>, a public key and a private key. We are going to copy our public key to the server. If we don't have access to this server, we will send it to an admin of Anarcha server so that she can do it. <br />
<br />
::When generating the key, you will need to introduce a '''passphrase'''.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Copy public key to the server===<br />
<br />
::After generating an SSH key pair, you will want to copy your public key to your new server. <br />
<br />
::To securely copy the public key, we shall enable password authentication on the remote server, by editing the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/ssh/sshd_config</code> file, and disable it after having copied the public key<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::uncomment and set <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">PasswordAuthentication</code> to <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">yes</code> and then to <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">no</code> after copying is done.<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">PasswordAuthentication yes</pre> <br />
<br />
::To copy your public key, run the following command <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh-copy-id <user>@<server></pre><br />
<br />
::To enable the use of SSH key to authenticate as the new remote user, you must add the public key to a special file in the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory in the user's home directory. Assuming that we are going to create superuser accounts for each new admin we will do the following: <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Creating new sysadmin accounts===<br />
<br />
::Changing to root user <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo su</pre><br />
<br />
::Check the sudo users<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> grep '^sudo:.*$' /etc/group | cut -d: -f4</pre><br />
<br />
::If you are not yet, we create a ''superuser'' ['''note''': it will ask me to introduce a passwd] <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">adduser <superusername></pre><br />
<br />
::Then we will add the ''superuser'' to sudoers: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">usermod -aG sudo <superuser></pre><br />
<br />
::We now change to ''superuser'': <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">su <superuser></pre> <br />
<br />
::When we change user, we will be by default in the user's home directory [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~</code>]. You can do <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">cd ~</code> just in case. <br />
<br />
::It is also possible to create a user [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> for example] and give it a limited privilege [to execute a certain command[s] as ''root'']. To do this, create a new file [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> for instance] in the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/sudoers.d/</code> directory <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">touch /etc/sudoers.d/waters</pre><br />
<br />
::and edit it with <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">visudo</code> ['''this is very important''' as it alerts you regarding any syntax errors]<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo visudo /etc/sudoers.d/waters</pre><br />
<br />
::and add the following line to allow the user <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> to use a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">chmod</code> command for example<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">waters ALL=(ALL) /usr/bin/chmod</pre><br />
<br />
::To allow user <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> to run a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">chmod</code> command without entering a password edit the file this way<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">waters ALL= NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/chmod</pre><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› .ssh directory and authorized_keys===<br />
<br />
::'''Creating <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory and <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> document in the superuser home directory'''.<br />
<br />
::As the superuser to whom we want to give ssh access to the server, create a new directory called <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> and restrict its permissions with the following commands: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">mkdir .ssh</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chmod 700 .ssh</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown superuser:group</pre><br />
<br />
::Now open a file in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> called <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> with a text editor. We will use nano to edit the file: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">nano .ssh/authorized_keys</pre><br />
<br />
::Now copy-paste the public key [which should be in your clipboard] by pasting it into the editor. Save and close.<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ctrl + s</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ctrl + x</pre><br />
<br />
::Now restrict the permissions of the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> file with this command: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chmod 600 .ssh/authorized_keys</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown superuser:group</pre><br />
<br />
::Type this command once to return to the root user: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">exit</pre> <br />
<br />
::As we are creating a new user + authentication as root, we have to change the owner of the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory to the new user [recursively <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">- R</code>]<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown <user>:<user> .ssh -R</pre><br />
<br />
::Now you [the new sysadmin] may SSH login as your new user, using the private key as authentication. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
====. . . . . . › After reboot====<br />
<br />
::Access physical mainframe to reboot the encrypted virtual machine. Ask permissions to the syteradmins, by posting on the mailingslist <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">anarchaserver@lists.systerserver.net</code><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
====. . . . . . › SSH Reverse DNS Lookup Disable====<br />
<br />
::The invalid logins are normal, since there are bots that try to bruteforce servers. <br />
::As for the "possible break-in attempt" message, The system is trying to do a reverse DNS lookup to match the connecting IP with the ''hostname'' that is trying to connect and fails to do so. <br />
::The setting that controls that is <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">UseDNS</code> in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/ssh/sshd_config</code><br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::y agrega la línea: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">UseDNS no</pre><br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::Force ssh login to server<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::and change & uncomment: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ChallengeResponseAuthentication no</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">PasswordAuthentication no</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">UsePAM yes</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
====. . . . . . › Change ssh port access====<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::The first option that you may want to change is the port that SSH runs on. Find the line that looks like this: <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">Port 22</code><br />
<br />
::If we change this number to something in '''between 1025 and 65536''', the SSH service on our server will look for connections on a different port. This is sometimes helpful because unauthorized users sometimes try to break into servers by attacking SSH. If you change the location, they will need to complete the extra step of sniffing it out. <br />
::If you change this value, you will need to keep in mind that your server is running on the new port. <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::So now you would have to access to the server like this: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh <superuser>@<server> -p <portnumber></pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› References===<br />
<br />
::_ [http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1773227 Thread: log full of "POSSIBLE BREAK-IN ATTEMPT!" ]<br />
::_ [https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/restart-service How to start, restart and stop SSH service]<br />
::_ [https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/copy-public-key How to add SSH key to server]<br />
::_ [https://www.golinuxcloud.com/add-user-to-sudoers/ How to add user to sudoers with best practices & examples]<br />
::_ [https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-unix-running-sudo-command-without-a-password/ How to run sudo command without a password on a Linux or Unix]<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Interview Meltionary Access Server ===<br />
<br />
This conversation took place between [https://www.anarchaserver.org Anarchaserver], [https://leverburns.blue/ Lever Burns], [https://systerserver.net/ Systerserver] and the arts-design duo [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] on the 4th of February 2022. It has been shortened and edited for clarity by MELT. <br />
<br />
[https://www.anarchaserver.org Anarchaserver], [https://leverburns.blue/ Lever Burns], [https://systerserver.net/ Systerserver] are a distributed group of people based in Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece, Spain and Italy, working on feminist infrastructures and servers. Their work on setting up a [https://tube.systerserver.net/ peertube] instance to provide an online video based residency to artists, is currently supported by the program [https://afairnewidea.be/en/topics/873/entries/10844 A Fair New Idea?!] (AFNI).<br />
<br />
[https://meltionary.com/ MELT] is an arts-design duo currently working on an email server called ACCESS SERVER that anonymizes, collects and financially compensates access requests that disabled people send to institutions. ACCESS SERVER is currently supported by a fellowship with the Het Nieuwe Instituut.<br />
<br />
The feminist servers invited [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] for a one month residency in order to try out feminist infrastructures for their project. We decided to begin the residency with an interview, focusing on how we have shared language in our projects but the ways they make meaning, are different.[https://meltionary.com/ MELT] found the subpage [https://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Access_server&action=edit ACCESS SERVER] on the website of Anarchaserver – a subpage set up to help people to access this feminist server. [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] wanted to ask about and consider the resonances between ACCESS SERVER as a way of logging into the feminist servers' infrastructure, and ACCESS SERVER as a way of making access for disabled people into cultural institutions. What followed was a conversation around technology, trans*feminism, sysadmin work, access, and disability.<br />
<br />
We met in a hybrid way: some of us were present at [https://vvvvvvaria.org/ Varia] in Rotterdam and enjoyed coffee and fruits together, some joined via the self-hosted Jitsi instance of futuretic, an allied autonomous server.<br />
<br />
Present were: <br />
Estragon, Mika, [https://www.ooooo.be ooooo], spideralex, nate, Mara (Feminist Server Sysadmins) (FSS)<br />
Ren Loren Britton & Iz Paehr (MELT). <br />
<br /><br /><br />
<big>'''Could you walk us through the ways Access Server is used?'''</big><br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
<br />
:''MELT: The first thing that piqued our interest was the sub page Access Server, because it has the same title as our project. Could you walk us through the ways in which that page is used? Who uses it? What are the steps to follow and what happens if something doesn't work? We are also interested in the kinds of conversations you perhaps already had among your group to set up the page.''<br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
FSS: <br />
The page is part of a [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki Mediawiki] that we installed. We have this "history" function under each created page, as it's a collaborative writing tool, it keeps track of the previous edits. So what we actually did yesterday is hit the history button to try to find the history of that specific page because it has a timestamp, and it also sees the user who created the page. So we found that the user was THF and that there was three other users: ooooo, b04 and ezn. All four of them were technically contributing to the appearance of this page. The THF user refers to ‘TransHackFeminism’, which was [[Main_Page#TransHackFeminist_Convergence|a convergence]] organized in [https://www.calafou.org/ Calafou]. So it's not very clear who was that user, but it is made in that convergence: there were people sitting around the table and editing it. Do you want to contextualize the THF user spideralex? Or the TransHackFeminist convergence?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
So the THF user was created around the first [[Main_Page#TransHackFeminist_Convergence|TransHackFeminist convergence]] in 2014. It was a shared user of different people that have been documenting various sessions that were held during one week in [https://www.calafou.org/ Calafou], Spain. We have been sharing <the user>to document basically the different conversations. And then the wiki has remained as a space where different TransHackFeminist events could document their editions. In the wiki, we write also about feminist servers in general and when we document the Anarchaserver's technical and other work.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
More on the technical side – this was the first thing I did when I joined Anarchaserver. As spideralex said, the documentations of different projects kept going on. So there were two similar pages with server set up documentation. The first thing I did was to merge and update them. But also, we had this conversation with ooooo that it would be nice if someone actually tries the different steps and follow the instructions because you, yourself, know what you're doing. later, I also did the styling of the page and also the overall styling of MediaWiki. I wanted it to be a bit more welcoming than a default MediaWiki page. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS:<br />
And I think also as it is a wiki, it would be nice now that you <MELT> are in residence for the Fair New Idea project, we would welcome your visions on accessibility. It would be an invitation, of course, that you could also become an active intervener or would change and modify and add to the content of that page to maybe broaden up this idea of what access to the server is. Besides from its technical perspective of how to exchange SSH keys (secure shell) and make user modifications.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
'''<big>How do you think about accessibility?</big>''' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It is very interesting to hear from everyone about what kind of accessibility you think with! I hear a lot about collaborations that produce the wiki with you as a way to literally access the server. And I also understand that it is also a kind of accessibility to make the server accessible by documenting how to use it. But I'm curious what it would mean for you to make the server disability accessible? How do you think about accessibility? What does that mean in your project? Do you have some thoughts on that?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Accessibility, it's a concern. At the moment it‘s mostly people who are part of the wider constellation around the feminist servers. The project of [https://www.kunsten.be/calls/digital-atelier-and-residency-on-feminist-video-streaming-platform A Fair New Idea] was for us a way to try to reach out and to see how we could host people besides our internal network. So that's why we did an open call and invited you to do a residency. It was an opportunity to reach out to artists and of course, we'll see how it will go. Since some of us of are also artists and at the same time we have technical knowledge and we would like to share basic cohabitation with artists who can learn to work outside very commercial, centralized online tools. So that's one path of accessibility. So then there's the accessibility of who can join in our networks because sometimes the activism is something that not everybody can afford, because most of the times we volunteer. So having available resources, even if it's minimal, within our servers is a very important accessibility factor. And than of course, accessibility of our user interfaces, who can actually read and learn from the content we host on our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe I can add something: For me, the first part of accessibility was also for myself even, to start being familiar with, how to use a server, how to get there and how to do stuff there and not look at it as a black box that I cannot touch because I'm afraid. So by trying to bring people that are not experts or not technologists into collectives in which people can help each other in educating themselves so they feel more emancipated to use not only commercial tools, but also their own or open source ones. For the future what I'm currently thinking of is that I would like things that we do on the server, like maybe a website or a wiki or whatever to be more inclusive to people with disabilities, for example. What I realise now, is that colours can be too intense for some people to read, or <we could develop tools like> some functions for people who cannot hear and who would really like it to learn more about technology can use. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I am also interested in understanding accessibility as something that too is about how we make our tools and services and contents more accessible to deaf and disabled people. And also to people who don't speak Spanish and English. Then again, in general how contents and services can be made more known and accessible to short term collectivities and individuals. I’m also interested in how you can enable a lower threshold for feminist collectives to engage in and maintain their own technical infrastructures.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Thank you so much for these answers and also these very varied and different considerations of access. In relation to infrastructure, tech and language, and of course, disability. Yeah, I think we are both excited to continue working on that together. The next question is about speculative dreaming: What future perspectives for the feminist server do you wish or dream of?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I dream that our feminist server continues to be a meeting point and space for feminist peers that will help us to evolve and collaborate and work together. And I'm also thinking about local feminist groups here in Rotterdam where I now live, but also back in Athens, where I come from. And I know that there is a need [for feminist servers] there. I hope that they can benefit from the existence of our feminist servers, especially towards supporting to a future of more technological autonomy. Probably that cannot be completed, but at least to try to be less dependent on giant tech corporations for their communication or for publishing our works or our struggles or things that we need to communicate with the world, um, and interconnect with other feminist groups out there. So I hope that our feminist servers can support that perspective.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I totally agree, and I find it so beautiful how we use tools as always a means to an end. I don't think anyone of us glorifies them and it's like: [making a] server is the end game. No, it's about using [a server] to learn together and to hang out and communicate. So I think that's very beautiful. I'm from Georgia and I didn't have anyone to talk about any of those things around me. That's how I actually got here. And this is already my dream scenario come to life. So now I'm trying to reconnect with people who are not so technical, but we are already starting to have something local in Georgia as well. So yeah, it's kind of that's what feminist servers are to me.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I agree and I would like to give a more pragmatic and nuanced [view] on this thing. I would say that the cooperative model here would be one of my dreams for the feminist servers we have. And that it can include a membership fee so we can make our services more sustainable because from the past experience, and we've seen that the only way of giving time, it works well for learning, but then it's very difficult to host services for other artists and feminists that we would like to have. So a more concrete approach to the dream of the future for the life of our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: What I observe right now is that the critique of big tech companies is high but the awareness that there is an alternative way to use technology is very invisible so far. And that's a lot of work to speak up for that and to make it shown. So that would be some vision of mine to not look at faces of complete disbelief when talking about having our own server.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like more people and collectives engaged in setting up feminist servers and in general feminist infrastructure initiatives. I would be interested in more local gynaecological considerations embedded inside the set up of future feminist servers. Dreaming, creating data centers made for and by feminists. And coordination between different feminist servers to avoid reinventing the wheel or to enable supporting each other in knowledge and solidarity processes. To share resources and funding, to share common technical infrastructure or by having people that have specific skills and knowledge that can contribute to different initiatives. And finally, my big dream is one day to have feminist servers that then orientate towards providing services to communities that are facing strong gender based violence online and censorship in digital spaces [such as] pro-choice activists, post porno and sex workers. So that's a long term projection, but I would like that we can manage that together, one day.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: The idea of more sysadmins people who join us in the backend! [People] not just there for the services, who learn with us and try to engage with the technology and the machines which are surrounding us. Sysadmins unite (!) to break the [local] isolation of having a technofeminist praxis and awareness.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Maybe it's nice to continue because our project also works with trans* feminism and Disability Justice, and I love the ways in which the trans* feminist, THF, TransHackFeminism becomes a shared user in the access server page. But also, I think that there's a specific understanding of trans* feminism that you seem to be working with because it comes up again many times on the Anarchaserver page. What does it mean to you to serve trans* feminism in this project? I think it's also related to a lot of the dreams that you just shared. Would you want to say something more about trans* feminism specifically?'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm still a little bit scared about this fact of serving and hosting. I feel like by inhabiting these servers and then also maintaining and configuring the affective infrastructures in which we are moving, that we are trans* hackfeminists. It's not serving. It's, you know, like fluid. It's like good. It's like you are feeling the practices of technology. It's like configuring together. It'smore like an actualization of TransHackFeminism. I like it has a history, also. The TransHackFeminism, was a reaction on the [https://eclectictechcarnival.org/ electictechcarnival] to open specific identity politics and women-only-spaces up, to trans* people.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: I would also be super curious to hear what it means to have come from a cis-woman only space and going through the process of opening that up to trans* people.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I have been in a collective in Spain that is called [https://www.donestech.net/ Donestech] in Catalan that was created in 2007. At that moment, there was no other local collective that was working on the relation between gender and technologies and free software. But I think that the paradigm of inclusion of women in digital tech related spaces was needed, no? But it's very 90s, no? [We became more] trans* feminist in our politics, in our feminist politics. We made an event where we would meet together, [and you had to be] open to trans* feminism. So that's why it was called TransHackFeminism and it was organized not only by me and Sophie Toupin, but also by the people of [https://pechblenda.hotglue.me/ Pechblenda] which was a space in Calafou and Julito who were trans feminist. It appeared in 2008 in Spain, in the feminist conference in Granada.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I would like to elaborate a bit more on what ooooo mentioned. So the eclectictechcarnival takes place not even yearly; sometimes it is 2, 3 years inbetween. Well, I admit I haven't been at that many. I've been in the last one, it was an organized in Greece where I am based. The one before was in Italy, and the one before Italy was called TransHackFeminism in Calafou. And because I organized it, the question of who can join this event came up because every time as time passes as spideralex mentioned feminism itself changes, and it's always this question of who can join our event? And again, for example, the last, let's say, firewall, is cis men. Can cis men join our events? So this is the base of the conversation as we try to provide safe spaces and for those who are marginalized, within technology and its environments. But I would say it's an open question, and it always depends on the locality of the event. And on those organizing it. Of course, we all have our own idea and praxis of feminisms.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: To me it was also new, I was not sure what that trans* referred to, because in the German speaking context [people] were talking maybe of queer feminism. So I was curious to also learn [about trans* feminism as] a part of the struggle against a current of feminism that in some places is stronger than others, and that is about the exclusion of trans* people and non-binary. And so that was one aspect that I find interesting to learn, and I find its good to call it trans* feminism to make it explicit.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, and important because at a certain moment, there was really a confusion for me because I was at the [https://events.ccc.de/ Chaos Computer Congres] and there was a transhack meeting. So I joined into the meeting because it was about the organization of the next gathering. But actually, it was about trans nationality. So it was more like focusing on Spain and Italy. They have like trans hack meetings, but it's actually transnational meetings.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So we have hack meetings. Yeah, when we make it across different countries it becomes a transhack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, sure. But it's interesting that the one refers to like identity politics in relation to gender, it seems. And the other, of course not. It's much wider also about your national identity. But it is confusing, or it is also how the term can be hacked so that that gets certain meanings by actually also using it. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, it was confusing. And then the confusion was pretty interesting. We only had two trans hack meetings in the history of trans hack meetings in Europe. One in Poland and the other one was three years ago, four years ago in Tarnack and there some people thought it was a trans* hack meeting, but it was pretty cool because this way we had more queer people around. Yeah, it wasn't that easy. It was like: No, no, this is not the trans* hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And actually, there was recently a transhack meeting in Bologna that also had a sysadmin of systerserver involved. It was also called like that. That's nice. So yeah, it's a somehow yeah, it's hacked then. But yeah, it's not so nice if you're then there and it's a quite cis-normative environment because that's not that the safer space that you went there for. This is not a trans* hack meeting this is a transhack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: During THF, the question was also: what is now the most important term in it? Is trans*? is it hack? is it feminism? Can feminism be hacked, can feminism be trans*? Can hack be transed? Can you trans* hack? It's like, you know, it is circulating inside of the dependencies within these three denominators.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Here is a link with documentation of 2 sessions we had during the first convergence : [TransHackFeminist/Que_significa%3F/What_it_means%3F]. So maybe then you can dig more in. It wasn't so many people that say they're interested, in trans*feminism. But the trans terminology, about transitioning, about transition, about all the links that it could have with immigration with transformation, with even of politics, you know, and so on, so on, so on. So yeah, I think we can put it in different layers and for sure, at least when it was set up in Calafou in 2017 the first layer was about trans*feminist politics.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, just to add, sometimes when you encounter a term for first time, you make a conclusion depending on your background and your identity, etc. So of course, when our services uses terms it feels important and to give a description of them: what does this term contain? It's also very important that when we do things that we are open about it, the terminology we're using what does it refer to and why it is constructed like that? And it is important because it changes very quickly, in all this researches of all that is happening in migration realities to multi species studies and keeping in mind always intersectionality they all add up in the end in the concept of creating safe spaces. So I think this is something to consider when we use terms, how we came up with and why we came up with the terms we use.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And it was really important that people do a bit of research and find their own history in this terminology, you know. It's also by the people inhabiting or by the people embodying that it becomes and not only by a definition. I mean, it's ever changing also.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I agree in the sense I think that Anarchaserver is one of the first pages including the THF and all the documentation, and it feels very complicated to give a straightforward definition. And now we are trying to give access to the documentation that has been created around that concept. We are trying to clarify, to know, a definition of our internet politics and gender and diversity and so on. But for TransHackFeminism convergences, I would find it very difficult to give a straightforward explicit definition.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe we have to create expiration dates on our Wiki pages. If we don't visit them in certain time becomes too old and it becomes a reference without being actual. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: But I've seen these issues coming up when we organize events and you know, we have to do open calls and these things are always reconfiguring. Hacking within TransHackFeminism is to hack patriarchy, capitalism and other systems of oppression. Hacking refers to the act of doing and taking things apart, understanding them in a deeper way. Hacking is action performance. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: So one last question is how do you define in your group the terms server and the relations between service and clients because we also read in your manifesto and that your project is about reconfiguring these relations? So it's a question that maybe speaks to like literally the server, but maybe also metaphorically the serving of values or the working together for the making of space.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: For me, the server is like a space, like a room. It's not only a machine, but we can go into it because usually we meet, especially because we live in other places, we meet on the server. It's our meeting point like instead of going to a cafe, we meet in the terminal. So while we’re in the terminal we try to support each other, educate ourselves and spend time together. So it's a connecting room that we can go in and work together in. And about the ‘server’ ‘client’, I really don't like the word client in general, but I know the technical term. I just don't see it translating in a social way inside the feminist server constellations because it is more of a corporate thing. Other people have said its more like inhabiting the servers instead of serving. So its not only that the server serves, and the other is a transmitter it becomes an interchangeable role that you also receive at the same time instead of only offering the other side. I would like more that we do both.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: We have a lot intense reflections and critical thinking about the terminology, which is used inside of these machines. Common are terms like master/slave. Server/client, fail/success. We try to approach it differently also with humor and read it as poetics. We often deconstruct this language and appropriate it in a way that is closer to our identity and our politics. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm looking at some of the histories of feminist servers. I saw two approaches that I really like one that was from 2013 was when they twisted the language at the feminist server summit that was held on the question of a feminist server into: Are you being served? And I really like that because it fits my my understanding of feminism as talking about the embodied experience of not being served in certain contexts. And the other one is from the fall, the ‘From Skin to Steel Manifesto’(? link ?) that must have come from to Brazil. They start their manifesto by claiming that we are all already and thinking about, body experience as serving. And that's very close to what I would call care practices. So where where are the lines between serving and caring? It's really a very radical political claim to look for things about who is being served and it is close to this question of who has access and who can participate. <br /><br /><br />
FSS: We never say server/client. We use the word allies when we want to talk about the people who would like to collaborate and do things with our servers. This applies both to the look of the websites, but also how we communicate to the people outside our internal group. So we don't refer to the client at all.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: But then as a tiny, technical follow up question, how do you technically reconfigure these relations?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's like another network topology, peer to peer. So technically there are protocols which are allowing that. But for example, with the feminist servers we try to have distributed services that not each server has the same services. A server has etherpads, another has cloud services, video conference instances, gitlab repositories,....<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So its not really changing the server client, but like it's more like making a redistributed model of dependency. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: One of the points that TransHackfeminism articulated is that of autonomy in having a Feminist server: you choose your dependencies.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like to ask MELT something, so you are also working on server access? Access Server? Is it still server access the project you are working on?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It's called Access Server, the project.'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I wondered, maybe its too quick to digest what we said so far. But still, I wondered what you thought about the convergences between the thoughts between your Access Server project and what we have been discussing so far?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Hm, yeah so part of the ACCESS SERVER project is that we're technically trying to understand how it can work so that when people email institutions asking for accessibility, the email will cc the previous email with access requests to the same institution. So we're trying to technically create a collectivity so that disabled people emailing understand see that they're not the only ones that are emailing to any institution. So emailers have the sense that, oh, many other people have emailed as well. So I think that this relates to how you’re talking about technical collectivity and trying to share resources and offer other options for points of connection. This is still a technical question. We're not exactly sure how to do it yet and also to maintain people's privacy at the same time. So there's a few questions there behind that. But I think that this is the desire to understand the technically active collective body that is emailing with access requests. ''<br />
<br /><br />
:''MELT: When listening to you. I think notions of care and trust is where I feel a lot of shared questions and maybe sometimes struggles or figurings out. And also in these relations between how to reach out and work with other people with an infrastructure that we provide. Because the idea is really that other disabled people can use the email server and the website that comes with it. So there are also questions of how to even make the website accessible. There are guidelines around that, we have some knowledge around that. But then also how to reach out, also across other axes of discrimination and oppression. How to build that trust also. And also technically then if someone sends an email through our email server how can we make sure that their name is anonymous, for example, the IP address, etc. So that's a lot of questions that still seem also hard to ensure safety. Then also, we skipped the question on trolling and how to carry the risk of providing, feminist and accessible services. That's also a big one for us still to figure out. How can we, I think we can’t prevent people from abusing our service, but how can we even make sure that it doesn't affect more people? And maybe also it doesn't affect us too much. So all of these questions, I think, are quite related.''<br />
<br /><br />
:MELT: ''Also, when you were speaking, something that also came to mind is that I think that the idea of the access server, constantly reminds us of the world that we live in where ableism is so structural. And this is the kind of reality that we're posited against. I'm also curious to see how how we can get people interested in using it, because also even when people are paid for their labour and even when they write emails to institutions, institutions themselves have so much work to do to change. And so I think that that is also a similar condition that you're working with with the feminist server projects where you're publicizing. We're trying to make more visible, so to speak, that there are alternatives, other ways of doing things that do not conform to ableism and capitalism as discriminatory and oppressive standards. Our project approach institutions and requires them to change. And that's also what you're doing. I think what the feminist server project is like trying to provide an alternative to show that a change is possible.''<br />
<br />
<br />
</div></div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Access_server&diff=1457Access server2022-11-16T20:19:17Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
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===›››››››››››››› SSH===<br />
<br />
:: '''SSH keys''' provide '''a more secure way''' of logging into a virtual private server with SSH than using a password alone. While a password can eventually be cracked with a brute force attack, SSH keys are nearly impossible to decipher by brute force alone. Generating a key pair provides you with two long string of characters: a public and a private key. You can place the public key on any server, and then unlock it by connecting to it with a client that already has the private key. When the two match up, the system unlocks without the need for a password. You can increase security even more by protecting the private key with a passphrase. <br />
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===›››››››››››››› Making changes in ssh===<br />
<br />
:: Remember to: <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::'''Tip''': I can check all available services in /etc/init.d <br />
::'''Attention''': if there are problems, grep to see if it actually stops the service Like this: <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh stop</pre> <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ps aux | grep ssh</pre><br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh start</pre><br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ps aux | grep ssh</pre><br />
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===›››››››››››››› Debug===<br />
<br />
::Debug with a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">-v</code> flag. max 3 "v"s<br />
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:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ssh <user>@<server> -vvv </pre><br />
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===›››››››››››››› Create RSA Key Pair===<br />
<br />
::You create your '''RSA key pair''' in the computer from which you want to log to the server. <br />
<br />
::I can use this key pair for several servers, but if I want to enter a same server from different computers, I create different rsa key pairs. <br />
<br />
::Lo voy a crear a nivel local [en mi compu] y esa va a ser la llave rsa ssh que voy a usar para entrar en mis vps. NO genero una para cada vps sino que esa misma me sirve para todas. Si voy a usar varios ordenadores para entrar en un vps, sí necesitaré crear una llave ssh por máquina desde la cual estoy accediendo. <br />
<br />
::So each admin in a server is going to have at least one rsa key pair. <br />
<br />
::Be careful to pay attention from which user you create this in your local machine [computer]. Since the rsa key pairs are saved in a hidden directory in my user home directory [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~/.ssh</code>], if Im trying to login from a different user, it will confuse home directories since each user has a different home directory. <br />
<br />
::So, from the user in my localmachine that I wish to use to access the server, I will create my rsa key pair: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096</pre><br />
<br />
::By default it will generate two keys in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~/.ssh</code>, a public key and a private key. We are going to copy our public key to the server. If we don't have access to this server, we will send it to an admin of Anarcha server so that she can do it. <br />
<br />
::When generating the key, you will need to introduce a '''passphrase'''.<br />
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===›››››››››››››› Copy public key to the server===<br />
<br />
::After generating an SSH key pair, you will want to copy your public key to your new server. <br />
<br />
::To securely copy the public key, we shall enable password authentication on the remote server, by editing the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/ssh/sshd_config</code> file, and disable it after having copied the public key<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::uncomment and set <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">PasswordAuthentication</code> to <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">yes</code> and then to <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">no</code> after copying is done.<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">PasswordAuthentication yes</pre> <br />
<br />
::To copy your public key, run the following command <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh-copy-id <user>@<server></pre><br />
<br />
::To enable the use of SSH key to authenticate as the new remote user, you must add the public key to a special file in the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory in the user's home directory. Assuming that we are going to create superuser accounts for each new admin we will do the following: <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Creating new sysadmin accounts===<br />
<br />
::Changing to root user <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo su</pre><br />
<br />
::Check the sudo users<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> grep '^sudo:.*$' /etc/group | cut -d: -f4</pre><br />
<br />
::If you are not yet, we create a ''superuser'' ['''note''': it will ask me to introduce a passwd] <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">adduser <superusername></pre><br />
<br />
::Then we will add the ''superuser'' to sudoers: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">usermod -aG sudo <superuser></pre><br />
<br />
::We now change to ''superuser'': <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">su <superuser></pre> <br />
<br />
::When we change user, we will be by default in the user's home directory [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~</code>]. You can do <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">cd ~</code> just in case. <br />
<br />
::It is also possible to create a user [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> for example] and give it a limited privilege [to execute a certain command[s] as ''root'']. To do this, create a new file [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> for instance] in the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/sudoers.d/</code> directory <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">touch /etc/sudoers.d/waters</pre><br />
<br />
::and edit it with <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">visudo</code> ['''this is very important''' as it alerts you regarding any syntax errors]<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo visudo /etc/sudoers.d/waters</pre><br />
<br />
::and add the following line to allow the user <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> to use a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">chmod</code> command for example<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">waters ALL=(ALL) /usr/bin/chmod</pre><br />
<br />
::To allow user <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> to run a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">chmod</code> command without entering a password edit the file this way<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">waters ALL= NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/chmod</pre><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› .ssh directory and authorized_keys===<br />
<br />
::'''Creating <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory and <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> document in the superuser home directory'''.<br />
<br />
::As the superuser to whom we want to give ssh access to the server, create a new directory called <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> and restrict its permissions with the following commands: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">mkdir .ssh</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chmod 700 .ssh</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown superuser:group</pre><br />
<br />
::Now open a file in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> called <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> with a text editor. We will use nano to edit the file: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">nano .ssh/authorized_keys</pre><br />
<br />
::Now copy-paste the public key [which should be in your clipboard] by pasting it into the editor. Save and close.<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ctrl + s</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ctrl + x</pre><br />
<br />
::Now restrict the permissions of the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> file with this command: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chmod 600 .ssh/authorized_keys</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown superuser:group</pre><br />
<br />
::Type this command once to return to the root user: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">exit</pre> <br />
<br />
::As we are creating a new user + authentication as root, we have to change the owner of the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory to the new user [recursively <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">- R</code>]<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown <user>:<user> .ssh -R</pre><br />
<br />
::Now you [the new sysadmin] may SSH login as your new user, using the private key as authentication. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
====. . . . . . › After reboot====<br />
<br />
::Access physical mainframe to reboot the encrypted virtual machine. Ask permissions to the syteradmins, by posting on the mailingslist <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">anarchaserver@lists.systerserver.net</code><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
====. . . . . . › SSH Reverse DNS Lookup Disable====<br />
<br />
::The invalid logins are normal, since there are bots that try to bruteforce servers. <br />
::As for the "possible break-in attempt" message, The system is trying to do a reverse DNS lookup to match the connecting IP with the ''hostname'' that is trying to connect and fails to do so. <br />
::The setting that controls that is <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">UseDNS</code> in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/ssh/sshd_config</code><br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::y agrega la línea: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">UseDNS no</pre><br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::Force ssh login to server<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::and change & uncomment: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ChallengeResponseAuthentication no</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">PasswordAuthentication no</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">UsePAM yes</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
====. . . . . . › Change ssh port access====<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::The first option that you may want to change is the port that SSH runs on. Find the line that looks like this: <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">Port 22</code><br />
<br />
::If we change this number to something in '''between 1025 and 65536''', the SSH service on our server will look for connections on a different port. This is sometimes helpful because unauthorized users sometimes try to break into servers by attacking SSH. If you change the location, they will need to complete the extra step of sniffing it out. <br />
::If you change this value, you will need to keep in mind that your server is running on the new port. <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::So now you would have to access to the server like this: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh <superuser>@<server> -p <portnumber></pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› References===<br />
<br />
::_ [http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1773227 Thread: log full of "POSSIBLE BREAK-IN ATTEMPT!" ]<br />
::_ [https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/restart-service How to start, restart and stop SSH service]<br />
::_ [https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/copy-public-key How to add SSH key to server]<br />
::_ [https://www.golinuxcloud.com/add-user-to-sudoers/ How to add user to sudoers with best practices & examples]<br />
::_ [https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-unix-running-sudo-command-without-a-password/ How to run sudo command without a password on a Linux or Unix]<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Interview Meltionary Access Server ===<br />
<br />
This conversation took place between [https://www.anarchaserver.org Anarchaserver], [https://leverburns.blue/ Lever Burns], [https://systerserver.net/ Systerserver] and the arts-design duo [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] on the 4th of February 2022. It has been shortened and edited for clarity by MELT. <br />
<br />
[https://www.anarchaserver.org Anarchaserver], [https://leverburns.blue/ Lever Burns], [https://systerserver.net/ Systerserver] are a distributed group of people based in Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece, Spain and Italy, working on feminist infrastructures and servers. Their work on setting up a [https://tube.systerserver.net/ peertube] instance to provide an online video based residency to artists, is currently supported by the program [https://afairnewidea.be/en/topics/873/entries/10844 A Fair New Idea?!] (AFNI).<br />
<br />
[https://meltionary.com/ MELT] is an arts-design duo currently working on an email server called ACCESS SERVER that anonymizes, collects and financially compensates access requests that disabled people send to institutions. ACCESS SERVER is currently supported by a fellowship with the Het Nieuwe Instituut.<br />
<br />
The feminist servers invited [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] for a one month residency in order to try out feminist infrastructures for their project. We decided to begin the residency with an interview, focusing on how we have shared language in our projects but the ways they make meaning, are different.[https://meltionary.com/ MELT] found the subpage [https://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Access_server&action=edit ACCESS SERVER] on the website of Anarchaserver – a subpage set up to help people to access this feminist server. [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] wanted to ask about and consider the resonances between ACCESS SERVER as a way of logging into the feminist servers' infrastructure, and ACCESS SERVER as a way of making access for disabled people into cultural institutions. What followed was a conversation around technology, trans*feminism, sysadmin work, access, and disability.<br />
<br />
We met in a hybrid way: some of us were present at [https://vvvvvvaria.org/ Varia] in Rotterdam and enjoyed coffee and fruits together, some joined via the self-hosted Jitsi instance of futuretic, an allied autonomous server.<br />
<br />
Present were: <br />
Estragon, Mika, [https://www.ooooo.be ooooo], spideralex, nate, Mara (Feminist Server Sysadmins) (FSS)<br />
Ren Loren Britton & Iz Paehr (MELT). <br />
<br /><br /><br />
<big>'''Could you walk us through the ways Access Server is used?'''</big><br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
<br />
:''MELT: The first thing that piqued our interest was the sub page Access Server, because it has the same title as our project. Could you walk us through the ways in which that page is used? Who uses it? What are the steps to follow and what happens if something doesn't work? We are also interested in the kinds of conversations you perhaps already had among your group to set up the page.''<br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
FSS: <br />
The page is part of a [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki Mediawiki] that we installed. We have this "history" function under each created page, as it's a collaborative writing tool, it keeps track of the previous edits. So what we actually did yesterday is hit the history button to try to find the history of that specific page because it has a timestamp, and it also sees the user who created the page. So we found that the user was THF and that there was three other users: ooooo, b04 and ezn. All four of them were technically contributing to the appearance of this page. The THF user refers to ‘TransHackFeminism’, which was [[Main_Page#TransHackFeminist_Convergence|a convergence]] organized in [https://www.calafou.org/ Calafou]. So it's not very clear who was that user, but it is made in that convergence: there were people sitting around the table and editing it. Do you want to contextualize the THF user spideralex? Or the TransHackFeminist convergence?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
So the THF user was created around the first TransHackFeminist convergence in 2014. It was a shared user of different people that have been documenting various sessions that were held during one week in [https://www.calafou.org/ Calafou], Spain. We have been sharing <the user>to document basically the different conversations. And then the wiki has remained as a space where different TransHackFeminist events could document their editions. In the wiki, we write also about feminist servers in general and when we document the Anarchaserver's technical and other work.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
More on the technical side – this was the first thing I did when I joined Anarchaserver. As spideralex said, the documentations of different projects kept going on. So there were two similar pages with server set up documentation. The first thing I did was to merge and update them. But also, we had this conversation with ooooo that it would be nice if someone actually tries the different steps and follow the instructions because you, yourself, know what you're doing. later, I also did the styling of the page and also the overall styling of MediaWiki. I wanted it to be a bit more welcoming than a default MediaWiki page. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS:<br />
And I think also as it is a wiki, it would be nice now that you <MELT> are in residence for the Fair New Idea project, we would welcome your visions on accessibility. It would be an invitation, of course, that you could also become an active intervener or would change and modify and add to the content of that page to maybe broaden up this idea of what access to the server is. Besides from its technical perspective of how to exchange SSH keys (secure shell) and make user modifications.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
'''<big>How do you think about accessibility?</big>''' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It is very interesting to hear from everyone about what kind of accessibility you think with! I hear a lot about collaborations that produce the wiki with you as a way to literally access the server. And I also understand that it is also a kind of accessibility to make the server accessible by documenting how to use it. But I'm curious what it would mean for you to make the server disability accessible? How do you think about accessibility? What does that mean in your project? Do you have some thoughts on that?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Accessibility, it's a concern. At the moment it‘s mostly people who are part of the wider constellation around the feminist servers. The project of [https://www.kunsten.be/calls/digital-atelier-and-residency-on-feminist-video-streaming-platform A Fair New Idea] was for us a way to try to reach out and to see how we could host people besides our internal network. So that's why we did an open call and invited you to do a residency. It was an opportunity to reach out to artists and of course, we'll see how it will go. Since some of us of are also artists and at the same time we have technical knowledge and we would like to share basic cohabitation with artists who can learn to work outside very commercial, centralized online tools. So that's one path of accessibility. So then there's the accessibility of who can join in our networks because sometimes the activism is something that not everybody can afford, because most of the times we volunteer. So having available resources, even if it's minimal, within our servers is a very important accessibility factor. And than of course, accessibility of our user interfaces, who can actually read and learn from the content we host on our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe I can add something: For me, the first part of accessibility was also for myself even, to start being familiar with, how to use a server, how to get there and how to do stuff there and not look at it as a black box that I cannot touch because I'm afraid. So by trying to bring people that are not experts or not technologists into collectives in which people can help each other in educating themselves so they feel more emancipated to use not only commercial tools, but also their own or open source ones. For the future what I'm currently thinking of is that I would like things that we do on the server, like maybe a website or a wiki or whatever to be more inclusive to people with disabilities, for example. What I realise now, is that colours can be too intense for some people to read, or <we could develop tools like> some functions for people who cannot hear and who would really like it to learn more about technology can use. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I am also interested in understanding accessibility as something that too is about how we make our tools and services and contents more accessible to deaf and disabled people. And also to people who don't speak Spanish and English. Then again, in general how contents and services can be made more known and accessible to short term collectivities and individuals. I’m also interested in how you can enable a lower threshold for feminist collectives to engage in and maintain their own technical infrastructures.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Thank you so much for these answers and also these very varied and different considerations of access. In relation to infrastructure, tech and language, and of course, disability. Yeah, I think we are both excited to continue working on that together. The next question is about speculative dreaming: What future perspectives for the feminist server do you wish or dream of?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I dream that our feminist server continues to be a meeting point and space for feminist peers that will help us to evolve and collaborate and work together. And I'm also thinking about local feminist groups here in Rotterdam where I now live, but also back in Athens, where I come from. And I know that there is a need [for feminist servers] there. I hope that they can benefit from the existence of our feminist servers, especially towards supporting to a future of more technological autonomy. Probably that cannot be completed, but at least to try to be less dependent on giant tech corporations for their communication or for publishing our works or our struggles or things that we need to communicate with the world, um, and interconnect with other feminist groups out there. So I hope that our feminist servers can support that perspective.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I totally agree, and I find it so beautiful how we use tools as always a means to an end. I don't think anyone of us glorifies them and it's like: [making a] server is the end game. No, it's about using [a server] to learn together and to hang out and communicate. So I think that's very beautiful. I'm from Georgia and I didn't have anyone to talk about any of those things around me. That's how I actually got here. And this is already my dream scenario come to life. So now I'm trying to reconnect with people who are not so technical, but we are already starting to have something local in Georgia as well. So yeah, it's kind of that's what feminist servers are to me.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I agree and I would like to give a more pragmatic and nuanced [view] on this thing. I would say that the cooperative model here would be one of my dreams for the feminist servers we have. And that it can include a membership fee so we can make our services more sustainable because from the past experience, and we've seen that the only way of giving time, it works well for learning, but then it's very difficult to host services for other artists and feminists that we would like to have. So a more concrete approach to the dream of the future for the life of our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: What I observe right now is that the critique of big tech companies is high but the awareness that there is an alternative way to use technology is very invisible so far. And that's a lot of work to speak up for that and to make it shown. So that would be some vision of mine to not look at faces of complete disbelief when talking about having our own server.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like more people and collectives engaged in setting up feminist servers and in general feminist infrastructure initiatives. I would be interested in more local gynaecological considerations embedded inside the set up of future feminist servers. Dreaming, creating data centers made for and by feminists. And coordination between different feminist servers to avoid reinventing the wheel or to enable supporting each other in knowledge and solidarity processes. To share resources and funding, to share common technical infrastructure or by having people that have specific skills and knowledge that can contribute to different initiatives. And finally, my big dream is one day to have feminist servers that then orientate towards providing services to communities that are facing strong gender based violence online and censorship in digital spaces [such as] pro-choice activists, post porno and sex workers. So that's a long term projection, but I would like that we can manage that together, one day.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: The idea of more sysadmins people who join us in the backend! [People] not just there for the services, who learn with us and try to engage with the technology and the machines which are surrounding us. Sysadmins unite (!) to break the [local] isolation of having a technofeminist praxis and awareness.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Maybe it's nice to continue because our project also works with trans* feminism and Disability Justice, and I love the ways in which the trans* feminist, THF, TransHackFeminism becomes a shared user in the access server page. But also, I think that there's a specific understanding of trans* feminism that you seem to be working with because it comes up again many times on the Anarchaserver page. What does it mean to you to serve trans* feminism in this project? I think it's also related to a lot of the dreams that you just shared. Would you want to say something more about trans* feminism specifically?'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm still a little bit scared about this fact of serving and hosting. I feel like by inhabiting these servers and then also maintaining and configuring the affective infrastructures in which we are moving, that we are trans* hackfeminists. It's not serving. It's, you know, like fluid. It's like good. It's like you are feeling the practices of technology. It's like configuring together. It'smore like an actualization of TransHackFeminism. I like it has a history, also. The TransHackFeminism, was a reaction on the [https://eclectictechcarnival.org/ electictechcarnival] to open specific identity politics and women-only-spaces up, to trans* people.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: I would also be super curious to hear what it means to have come from a cis-woman only space and going through the process of opening that up to trans* people.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I have been in a collective in Spain that is called [https://www.donestech.net/ Donestech] in Catalan that was created in 2007. At that moment, there was no other local collective that was working on the relation between gender and technologies and free software. But I think that the paradigm of inclusion of women in digital tech related spaces was needed, no? But it's very 90s, no? [We became more] trans* feminist in our politics, in our feminist politics. We made an event where we would meet together, [and you had to be] open to trans* feminism. So that's why it was called TransHackFeminism and it was organized not only by me and Sophie Toupin, but also by the people of [https://pechblenda.hotglue.me/ Pechblenda] which was a space in Calafou and Julito who were trans feminist. It appeared in 2008 in Spain, in the feminist conference in Granada.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I would like to elaborate a bit more on what ooooo mentioned. So the eclectictechcarnival takes place not even yearly; sometimes it is 2, 3 years inbetween. Well, I admit I haven't been at that many. I've been in the last one, it was an organized in Greece where I am based. The one before was in Italy, and the one before Italy was called TransHackFeminism in Calafou. And because I organized it, the question of who can join this event came up because every time as time passes as spideralex mentioned feminism itself changes, and it's always this question of who can join our event? And again, for example, the last, let's say, firewall, is cis men. Can cis men join our events? So this is the base of the conversation as we try to provide safe spaces and for those who are marginalized, within technology and its environments. But I would say it's an open question, and it always depends on the locality of the event. And on those organizing it. Of course, we all have our own idea and praxis of feminisms.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: To me it was also new, I was not sure what that trans* referred to, because in the German speaking context [people] were talking maybe of queer feminism. So I was curious to also learn [about trans* feminism as] a part of the struggle against a current of feminism that in some places is stronger than others, and that is about the exclusion of trans* people and non-binary. And so that was one aspect that I find interesting to learn, and I find its good to call it trans* feminism to make it explicit.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, and important because at a certain moment, there was really a confusion for me because I was at the [https://events.ccc.de/ Chaos Computer Congres] and there was a transhack meeting. So I joined into the meeting because it was about the organization of the next gathering. But actually, it was about trans nationality. So it was more like focusing on Spain and Italy. They have like trans hack meetings, but it's actually transnational meetings.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So we have hack meetings. Yeah, when we make it across different countries it becomes a transhack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, sure. But it's interesting that the one refers to like identity politics in relation to gender, it seems. And the other, of course not. It's much wider also about your national identity. But it is confusing, or it is also how the term can be hacked so that that gets certain meanings by actually also using it. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, it was confusing. And then the confusion was pretty interesting. We only had two trans hack meetings in the history of trans hack meetings in Europe. One in Poland and the other one was three years ago, four years ago in Tarnack and there some people thought it was a trans* hack meeting, but it was pretty cool because this way we had more queer people around. Yeah, it wasn't that easy. It was like: No, no, this is not the trans* hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And actually, there was recently a transhack meeting in Bologna that also had a sysadmin of systerserver involved. It was also called like that. That's nice. So yeah, it's a somehow yeah, it's hacked then. But yeah, it's not so nice if you're then there and it's a quite cis-normative environment because that's not that the safer space that you went there for. This is not a trans* hack meeting this is a transhack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: During THF, the question was also: what is now the most important term in it? Is trans*? is it hack? is it feminism? Can feminism be hacked, can feminism be trans*? Can hack be transed? Can you trans* hack? It's like, you know, it is circulating inside of the dependencies within these three denominators.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Here is a link with documentation of 2 sessions we had during the first convergence : [TransHackFeminist/Que_significa%3F/What_it_means%3F]. So maybe then you can dig more in. It wasn't so many people that say they're interested, in trans*feminism. But the trans terminology, about transitioning, about transition, about all the links that it could have with immigration with transformation, with even of politics, you know, and so on, so on, so on. So yeah, I think we can put it in different layers and for sure, at least when it was set up in Calafou in 2017 the first layer was about trans*feminist politics.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, just to add, sometimes when you encounter a term for first time, you make a conclusion depending on your background and your identity, etc. So of course, when our services uses terms it feels important and to give a description of them: what does this term contain? It's also very important that when we do things that we are open about it, the terminology we're using what does it refer to and why it is constructed like that? And it is important because it changes very quickly, in all this researches of all that is happening in migration realities to multi species studies and keeping in mind always intersectionality they all add up in the end in the concept of creating safe spaces. So I think this is something to consider when we use terms, how we came up with and why we came up with the terms we use.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And it was really important that people do a bit of research and find their own history in this terminology, you know. It's also by the people inhabiting or by the people embodying that it becomes and not only by a definition. I mean, it's ever changing also.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I agree in the sense I think that Anarchaserver is one of the first pages including the THF and all the documentation, and it feels very complicated to give a straightforward definition. And now we are trying to give access to the documentation that has been created around that concept. We are trying to clarify, to know, a definition of our internet politics and gender and diversity and so on. But for TransHackFeminism convergences, I would find it very difficult to give a straightforward explicit definition.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe we have to create expiration dates on our Wiki pages. If we don't visit them in certain time becomes too old and it becomes a reference without being actual. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: But I've seen these issues coming up when we organize events and you know, we have to do open calls and these things are always reconfiguring. Hacking within TransHackFeminism is to hack patriarchy, capitalism and other systems of oppression. Hacking refers to the act of doing and taking things apart, understanding them in a deeper way. Hacking is action performance. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: So one last question is how do you define in your group the terms server and the relations between service and clients because we also read in your manifesto and that your project is about reconfiguring these relations? So it's a question that maybe speaks to like literally the server, but maybe also metaphorically the serving of values or the working together for the making of space.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: For me, the server is like a space, like a room. It's not only a machine, but we can go into it because usually we meet, especially because we live in other places, we meet on the server. It's our meeting point like instead of going to a cafe, we meet in the terminal. So while we’re in the terminal we try to support each other, educate ourselves and spend time together. So it's a connecting room that we can go in and work together in. And about the ‘server’ ‘client’, I really don't like the word client in general, but I know the technical term. I just don't see it translating in a social way inside the feminist server constellations because it is more of a corporate thing. Other people have said its more like inhabiting the servers instead of serving. So its not only that the server serves, and the other is a transmitter it becomes an interchangeable role that you also receive at the same time instead of only offering the other side. I would like more that we do both.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: We have a lot intense reflections and critical thinking about the terminology, which is used inside of these machines. Common are terms like master/slave. Server/client, fail/success. We try to approach it differently also with humor and read it as poetics. We often deconstruct this language and appropriate it in a way that is closer to our identity and our politics. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm looking at some of the histories of feminist servers. I saw two approaches that I really like one that was from 2013 was when they twisted the language at the feminist server summit that was held on the question of a feminist server into: Are you being served? And I really like that because it fits my my understanding of feminism as talking about the embodied experience of not being served in certain contexts. And the other one is from the fall, the ‘From Skin to Steel Manifesto’(? link ?) that must have come from to Brazil. They start their manifesto by claiming that we are all already and thinking about, body experience as serving. And that's very close to what I would call care practices. So where where are the lines between serving and caring? It's really a very radical political claim to look for things about who is being served and it is close to this question of who has access and who can participate. <br /><br /><br />
FSS: We never say server/client. We use the word allies when we want to talk about the people who would like to collaborate and do things with our servers. This applies both to the look of the websites, but also how we communicate to the people outside our internal group. So we don't refer to the client at all.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: But then as a tiny, technical follow up question, how do you technically reconfigure these relations?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's like another network topology, peer to peer. So technically there are protocols which are allowing that. But for example, with the feminist servers we try to have distributed services that not each server has the same services. A server has etherpads, another has cloud services, video conference instances, gitlab repositories,....<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So its not really changing the server client, but like it's more like making a redistributed model of dependency. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: One of the points that TransHackfeminism articulated is that of autonomy in having a Feminist server: you choose your dependencies.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like to ask MELT something, so you are also working on server access? Access Server? Is it still server access the project you are working on?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It's called Access Server, the project.'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I wondered, maybe its too quick to digest what we said so far. But still, I wondered what you thought about the convergences between the thoughts between your Access Server project and what we have been discussing so far?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Hm, yeah so part of the ACCESS SERVER project is that we're technically trying to understand how it can work so that when people email institutions asking for accessibility, the email will cc the previous email with access requests to the same institution. So we're trying to technically create a collectivity so that disabled people emailing understand see that they're not the only ones that are emailing to any institution. So emailers have the sense that, oh, many other people have emailed as well. So I think that this relates to how you’re talking about technical collectivity and trying to share resources and offer other options for points of connection. This is still a technical question. We're not exactly sure how to do it yet and also to maintain people's privacy at the same time. So there's a few questions there behind that. But I think that this is the desire to understand the technically active collective body that is emailing with access requests. ''<br />
<br /><br />
:''MELT: When listening to you. I think notions of care and trust is where I feel a lot of shared questions and maybe sometimes struggles or figurings out. And also in these relations between how to reach out and work with other people with an infrastructure that we provide. Because the idea is really that other disabled people can use the email server and the website that comes with it. So there are also questions of how to even make the website accessible. There are guidelines around that, we have some knowledge around that. But then also how to reach out, also across other axes of discrimination and oppression. How to build that trust also. And also technically then if someone sends an email through our email server how can we make sure that their name is anonymous, for example, the IP address, etc. So that's a lot of questions that still seem also hard to ensure safety. Then also, we skipped the question on trolling and how to carry the risk of providing, feminist and accessible services. That's also a big one for us still to figure out. How can we, I think we can’t prevent people from abusing our service, but how can we even make sure that it doesn't affect more people? And maybe also it doesn't affect us too much. So all of these questions, I think, are quite related.''<br />
<br /><br />
:MELT: ''Also, when you were speaking, something that also came to mind is that I think that the idea of the access server, constantly reminds us of the world that we live in where ableism is so structural. And this is the kind of reality that we're posited against. I'm also curious to see how how we can get people interested in using it, because also even when people are paid for their labour and even when they write emails to institutions, institutions themselves have so much work to do to change. And so I think that that is also a similar condition that you're working with with the feminist server projects where you're publicizing. We're trying to make more visible, so to speak, that there are alternatives, other ways of doing things that do not conform to ableism and capitalism as discriminatory and oppressive standards. Our project approach institutions and requires them to change. And that's also what you're doing. I think what the feminist server project is like trying to provide an alternative to show that a change is possible.''<br />
<br />
<br />
</div></div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Access_server&diff=1456Access server2022-11-16T20:15:08Z<p>Ooooo: /* ›››››››››››››› Interview Meltionary Access Server */</p>
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<div><div style="font-family:monospace; font-size:14px; background-color:#E9F8A8;"><br />
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<br />
===›››››››››››››› SSH===<br />
<br />
:: '''SSH keys''' provide '''a more secure way''' of logging into a virtual private server with SSH than using a password alone. While a password can eventually be cracked with a brute force attack, SSH keys are nearly impossible to decipher by brute force alone. Generating a key pair provides you with two long string of characters: a public and a private key. You can place the public key on any server, and then unlock it by connecting to it with a client that already has the private key. When the two match up, the system unlocks without the need for a password. You can increase security even more by protecting the private key with a passphrase. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Making changes in ssh===<br />
<br />
:: Remember to: <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::'''Tip''': I can check all available services in /etc/init.d <br />
::'''Attention''': if there are problems, grep to see if it actually stops the service Like this: <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh stop</pre> <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ps aux | grep ssh</pre><br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh start</pre><br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ps aux | grep ssh</pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Debug===<br />
<br />
::Debug with a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">-v</code> flag. max 3 "v"s<br />
<br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ssh <user>@<server> -vvv </pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Create RSA Key Pair===<br />
<br />
::You create your '''RSA key pair''' in the computer from which you want to log to the server. <br />
<br />
::I can use this key pair for several servers, but if I want to enter a same server from different computers, I create different rsa key pairs. <br />
<br />
::Lo voy a crear a nivel local [en mi compu] y esa va a ser la llave rsa ssh que voy a usar para entrar en mis vps. NO genero una para cada vps sino que esa misma me sirve para todas. Si voy a usar varios ordenadores para entrar en un vps, sí necesitaré crear una llave ssh por máquina desde la cual estoy accediendo. <br />
<br />
::So each admin in a server is going to have at least one rsa key pair. <br />
<br />
::Be careful to pay attention from which user you create this in your local machine [computer]. Since the rsa key pairs are saved in a hidden directory in my user home directory [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~/.ssh</code>], if Im trying to login from a different user, it will confuse home directories since each user has a different home directory. <br />
<br />
::So, from the user in my localmachine that I wish to use to access the server, I will create my rsa key pair: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096</pre><br />
<br />
::By default it will generate two keys in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~/.ssh</code>, a public key and a private key. We are going to copy our public key to the server. If we don't have access to this server, we will send it to an admin of Anarcha server so that she can do it. <br />
<br />
::When generating the key, you will need to introduce a '''passphrase'''.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Copy public key to the server===<br />
<br />
::After generating an SSH key pair, you will want to copy your public key to your new server. <br />
<br />
::To securely copy the public key, we shall enable password authentication on the remote server, by editing the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/ssh/sshd_config</code> file, and disable it after having copied the public key<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::uncomment and set <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">PasswordAuthentication</code> to <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">yes</code> and then to <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">no</code> after copying is done.<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">PasswordAuthentication yes</pre> <br />
<br />
::To copy your public key, run the following command <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh-copy-id <user>@<server></pre><br />
<br />
::To enable the use of SSH key to authenticate as the new remote user, you must add the public key to a special file in the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory in the user's home directory. Assuming that we are going to create superuser accounts for each new admin we will do the following: <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Creating new sysadmin accounts===<br />
<br />
::Changing to root user <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo su</pre><br />
<br />
::Check the sudo users<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> grep '^sudo:.*$' /etc/group | cut -d: -f4</pre><br />
<br />
::If you are not yet, we create a ''superuser'' ['''note''': it will ask me to introduce a passwd] <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">adduser <superusername></pre><br />
<br />
::Then we will add the ''superuser'' to sudoers: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">usermod -aG sudo <superuser></pre><br />
<br />
::We now change to ''superuser'': <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">su <superuser></pre> <br />
<br />
::When we change user, we will be by default in the user's home directory [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~</code>]. You can do <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">cd ~</code> just in case. <br />
<br />
::It is also possible to create a user [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> for example] and give it a limited privilege [to execute a certain command[s] as ''root'']. To do this, create a new file [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> for instance] in the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/sudoers.d/</code> directory <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">touch /etc/sudoers.d/waters</pre><br />
<br />
::and edit it with <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">visudo</code> ['''this is very important''' as it alerts you regarding any syntax errors]<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo visudo /etc/sudoers.d/waters</pre><br />
<br />
::and add the following line to allow the user <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> to use a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">chmod</code> command for example<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">waters ALL=(ALL) /usr/bin/chmod</pre><br />
<br />
::To allow user <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> to run a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">chmod</code> command without entering a password edit the file this way<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">waters ALL= NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/chmod</pre><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› .ssh directory and authorized_keys===<br />
<br />
::'''Creating <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory and <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> document in the superuser home directory'''.<br />
<br />
::As the superuser to whom we want to give ssh access to the server, create a new directory called <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> and restrict its permissions with the following commands: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">mkdir .ssh</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chmod 700 .ssh</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown superuser:group</pre><br />
<br />
::Now open a file in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> called <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> with a text editor. We will use nano to edit the file: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">nano .ssh/authorized_keys</pre><br />
<br />
::Now copy-paste the public key [which should be in your clipboard] by pasting it into the editor. Save and close.<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ctrl + s</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ctrl + x</pre><br />
<br />
::Now restrict the permissions of the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> file with this command: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chmod 600 .ssh/authorized_keys</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown superuser:group</pre><br />
<br />
::Type this command once to return to the root user: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">exit</pre> <br />
<br />
::As we are creating a new user + authentication as root, we have to change the owner of the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory to the new user [recursively <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">- R</code>]<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown <user>:<user> .ssh -R</pre><br />
<br />
::Now you [the new sysadmin] may SSH login as your new user, using the private key as authentication. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
====. . . . . . › After reboot====<br />
<br />
::Access physical mainframe to reboot the encrypted virtual machine. Ask permissions to the syteradmins, by posting on the mailingslist <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">anarchaserver@lists.systerserver.net</code><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
====. . . . . . › SSH Reverse DNS Lookup Disable====<br />
<br />
::The invalid logins are normal, since there are bots that try to bruteforce servers. <br />
::As for the "possible break-in attempt" message, The system is trying to do a reverse DNS lookup to match the connecting IP with the ''hostname'' that is trying to connect and fails to do so. <br />
::The setting that controls that is <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">UseDNS</code> in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/ssh/sshd_config</code><br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::y agrega la línea: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">UseDNS no</pre><br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::Force ssh login to server<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::and change & uncomment: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ChallengeResponseAuthentication no</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">PasswordAuthentication no</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">UsePAM yes</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
====. . . . . . › Change ssh port access====<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::The first option that you may want to change is the port that SSH runs on. Find the line that looks like this: <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">Port 22</code><br />
<br />
::If we change this number to something in '''between 1025 and 65536''', the SSH service on our server will look for connections on a different port. This is sometimes helpful because unauthorized users sometimes try to break into servers by attacking SSH. If you change the location, they will need to complete the extra step of sniffing it out. <br />
::If you change this value, you will need to keep in mind that your server is running on the new port. <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::So now you would have to access to the server like this: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh <superuser>@<server> -p <portnumber></pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› References===<br />
<br />
::_ [http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1773227 Thread: log full of "POSSIBLE BREAK-IN ATTEMPT!" ]<br />
::_ [https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/restart-service How to start, restart and stop SSH service]<br />
::_ [https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/copy-public-key How to add SSH key to server]<br />
::_ [https://www.golinuxcloud.com/add-user-to-sudoers/ How to add user to sudoers with best practices & examples]<br />
::_ [https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-unix-running-sudo-command-without-a-password/ How to run sudo command without a password on a Linux or Unix]<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Interview Meltionary Access Server ===<br />
<br />
This conversation took place between [https://www.anarchaserver.org Anarchaserver], [https://leverburns.blue/ Lever Burns], [https://systerserver.net/ Systerserver] and the arts-design duo [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] on the 4th of February 2022. It has been shortened and edited for clarity by MELT. <br />
<br />
[https://www.anarchaserver.org Anarchaserver], [https://leverburns.blue/ Lever Burns], [https://systerserver.net/ Systerserver] are a distributed group of people based in Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece, Spain and Italy, working on feminist infrastructures and servers. Their work on setting up a [https://tube.systerserver.net/ peertube] instance to provide an online video based residency to artists, is currently supported by the program [https://afairnewidea.be/en/topics/873/entries/10844 A Fair New Idea?!] (AFNI).<br />
<br />
[https://meltionary.com/ MELT] is an arts-design duo currently working on an email server called ACCESS SERVER that anonymizes, collects and financially compensates access requests that disabled people send to institutions. ACCESS SERVER is currently supported by a fellowship with the Het Nieuwe Instituut.<br />
<br />
The feminist servers invited [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] for a one month residency in order to try out feminist infrastructures for their project. We decided to begin the residency with an interview, focusing on how we have shared language in our projects but the ways they make meaning, are different.[https://meltionary.com/ MELT] found the subpage [https://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Access_server&action=edit ACCESS SERVER] on the website of Anarchaserver – a subpage set up to help people to access this feminist server. [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] wanted to ask about and consider the resonances between ACCESS SERVER as a way of logging into the feminist servers' infrastructure, and ACCESS SERVER as a way of making access for disabled people into cultural institutions. What followed was a conversation around technology, trans*feminism, sysadmin work, access, and disability.<br />
<br />
We met in a hybrid way: some of us were present at [https://vvvvvvaria.org/ Varia] in Rotterdam and enjoyed coffee and fruits together, some joined via the self-hosted Jitsi instance of futuretic, an allied autonomous server.<br />
<br />
Present were: <br />
Estragon, Mika, [https://www.ooooo.be ooooo], spideralex, nate, Mara (Feminist Server Sysadmins) (FSS)<br />
Ren Loren Britton & Iz Paehr (MELT). <br />
<br /><br /><br />
<big>'''Could you walk us through the ways Access Server is used?'''</big><br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
<br />
:''MELT: The first thing that piqued our interest was the sub page Access Server, because it has the same title as our project. Could you walk us through the ways in which that page is used? Who uses it? What are the steps to follow and what happens if something doesn't work? We are also interested in the kinds of conversations you perhaps already had among your group to set up the page.''<br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
FSS: <br />
The page is part of a [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki Mediawiki] that we installed. We have this "history" function under each created page, as it's a collaborative writing tool, it keeps track of the previous edits. So what we actually did yesterday is hit the history button to try to find the history of that specific page because it has a timestamp, and it also sees the user who created the page. So we found that the user was THF and that there was three other users: ooooo, b04 and ezn. All four of them were technically contributing to the appearance of this page. The THF user refers to ‘TransHackFeminism’, which was [[Main_Page#TransHackFeminist_Convergence|a convergence]] organized in [https://www.calafou.org/ Calafou]. So it's not very clear who was that user, but it is made in that convergence: there were people sitting around the table and editing it. Do you want to contextualize the THF user spideralex? Or the TransHackFeminist convergence?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
So the THF user was created around the first TransHackFeminist convergence in 2014. It was a shared user of different people that have been documenting various sessions that were held during one week in [https://www.calafou.org/ Calafou], Spain. We have been sharing <the user>to document basically the different conversations. And then the wiki has remained as a space where different TransHackFeminist events could document their editions. In the wiki, we write also about feminist servers in general and when we document the Anarchaserver's technical and other work.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
More on the technical side – this was the first thing I did when I joined Anarchaserver. As spideralex said, the documentations of different projects kept going on. So there were two similar pages with server set up documentation. The first thing I did was to merge and update them. But also, we had this conversation with ooooo that it would be nice if someone actually tries the different steps and follow the instructions because you, yourself, know what you're doing. later, I also did the styling of the page and also the overall styling of MediaWiki. I wanted it to be a bit more welcoming than a default MediaWiki page. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS:<br />
And I think also as it is a wiki, it would be nice now that you <MELT> are in residence for the Fair New Idea project, we would welcome your visions on accessibility. It would be an invitation, of course, that you could also become an active intervener or would change and modify and add to the content of that page to maybe broaden up this idea of what access to the server is. Besides from its technical perspective of how to exchange SSH keys (secure shell) and make user modifications.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
'''<big>How do you think about accessibility?</big>''' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It is very interesting to hear from everyone about what kind of accessibility you think with! I hear a lot about collaborations that produce the wiki with you as a way to literally access the server. And I also understand that it is also a kind of accessibility to make the server accessible by documenting how to use it. But I'm curious what it would mean for you to make the server disability accessible? How do you think about accessibility? What does that mean in your project? Do you have some thoughts on that?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Accessibility, it's a concern. At the moment it‘s mostly people who are part of the wider constellation around the feminist servers. The project of [https://www.kunsten.be/calls/digital-atelier-and-residency-on-feminist-video-streaming-platform A Fair New Idea] was for us a way to try to reach out and to see how we could host people besides our internal network. So that's why we did an open call and invited you to do a residency. It was an opportunity to reach out to artists and of course, we'll see how it will go. Since some of us of are also artists and at the same time we have technical knowledge and we would like to share basic cohabitation with artists who can learn to work outside very commercial, centralized online tools. So that's one path of accessibility. So then there's the accessibility of who can join in our networks because sometimes the activism is something that not everybody can afford, because most of the times we volunteer. So having available resources, even if it's minimal, within our servers is a very important accessibility factor. And than of course, accessibility of our user interfaces, who can actually read and learn from the content we host on our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe I can add something: For me, the first part of accessibility was also for myself even, to start being familiar with, how to use a server, how to get there and how to do stuff there and not look at it as a black box that I cannot touch because I'm afraid. So by trying to bring people that are not experts or not technologists into collectives in which people can help each other in educating themselves so they feel more emancipated to use not only commercial tools, but also their own or open source ones. For the future what I'm currently thinking of is that I would like things that we do on the server, like maybe a website or a wiki or whatever to be more inclusive to people with disabilities, for example. What I realise now, is that colours can be too intense for some people to read, or <we could develop tools like> some functions for people who cannot hear and who would really like it to learn more about technology can use. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I am also interested in understanding accessibility as something that too is about how we make our tools and services and contents more accessible to deaf and disabled people. And also to people who don't speak Spanish and English. Then again, in general how contents and services can be made more known and accessible to short term collectivities and individuals. I’m also interested in how you can enable a lower threshold for feminist collectives to engage in and maintain their own technical infrastructures.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Thank you so much for these answers and also these very varied and different considerations of access. In relation to infrastructure, tech and language, and of course, disability. Yeah, I think we are both excited to continue working on that together. The next question is about speculative dreaming: What future perspectives for the feminist server do you wish or dream of?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I dream that our feminist server continues to be a meeting point and space for feminist peers that will help us to evolve and collaborate and work together. And I'm also thinking about local feminist groups here in Rotterdam where I now live, but also back in Athens, where I come from. And I know that there is a need [for feminist servers] there. I hope that they can benefit from the existence of our feminist servers, especially towards supporting to a future of more technological autonomy. Probably that cannot be completed, but at least to try to be less dependent on giant tech corporations for their communication or for publishing our works or our struggles or things that we need to communicate with the world, um, and interconnect with other feminist groups out there. So I hope that our feminist servers can support that perspective.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I totally agree, and I find it so beautiful how we use tools as always a means to an end. I don't think anyone of us glorifies them and it's like: [making a] server is the end game. No, it's about using [a server] to learn together and to hang out and communicate. So I think that's very beautiful. I'm from Georgia and I didn't have anyone to talk about any of those things around me. That's how I actually got here. And this is already my dream scenario come to life. So now I'm trying to reconnect with people who are not so technical, but we are already starting to have something local in Georgia as well. So yeah, it's kind of that's what feminist servers are to me.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I agree and I would like to give a more pragmatic and nuanced [view] on this thing. I would say that the cooperative model here would be one of my dreams for the feminist servers we have. And that it can include a membership fee so we can make our services more sustainable because from the past experience, and we've seen that the only way of giving time, it works well for learning, but then it's very difficult to host services for other artists and feminists that we would like to have. So a more concrete approach to the dream of the future for the life of our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: What I observe right now is that the critique of big tech companies is high but the awareness that there is an alternative way to use technology is very invisible so far. And that's a lot of work to speak up for that and to make it shown. So that would be some vision of mine to not look at faces of complete disbelief when talking about having our own server.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like more people and collectives engaged in setting up feminist servers and in general feminist infrastructure initiatives. I would be interested in more local gynaecological considerations embedded inside the set up of future feminist servers. Dreaming, creating data centers made for and by feminists. And coordination between different feminist servers to avoid reinventing the wheel or to enable supporting each other in knowledge and solidarity processes. To share resources and funding, to share common technical infrastructure or by having people that have specific skills and knowledge that can contribute to different initiatives. And finally, my big dream is one day to have feminist servers that then orientate towards providing services to communities that are facing strong gender based violence online and censorship in digital spaces [such as] pro-choice activists, post porno and sex workers. So that's a long term projection, but I would like that we can manage that together, one day.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: The idea of more sysadmins people who join us in the backend! [People] not just there for the services, who learn with us and try to engage with the technology and the machines which are surrounding us. Sysadmins unite (!) to break the [local] isolation of having a technofeminist praxis and awareness.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Maybe it's nice to continue because our project also works with trans* feminism and Disability Justice, and I love the ways in which the trans* feminist, THF, TransHackFeminism becomes a shared user in the access server page. But also, I think that there's a specific understanding of trans* feminism that you seem to be working with because it comes up again many times on the Anarchaserver page. What does it mean to you to serve trans* feminism in this project? I think it's also related to a lot of the dreams that you just shared. Would you want to say something more about trans* feminism specifically?'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm still a little bit scared about this fact of serving and hosting. I feel like by inhabiting these servers and then also maintaining and configuring the affective infrastructures in which we are moving, that we are trans* hackfeminists. It's not serving. It's, you know, like fluid. It's like good. It's like you are feeling the practices of technology. It's like configuring together. It'smore like an actualization of TransHackFeminism. I like it has a history, also. The TransHackFeminism, was a reaction on the electictechcarnival (https://eclectictechcarnival.org/) to open specific identity politics and women-only-spaces up, to trans* people.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: I would also be super curious to hear what it means to have come from a cis-woman only space and going through the process of opening that up to trans* people.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I have been in a collective in Spain that is called Donestech (https://www.donestech.net/) in Catalan that was created in 2007. At that moment, there was no other local collective that was working on the relation between gender and technologies and free software. But I think that the paradigm of inclusion of women in digital tech related spaces was needed, no? But it's very 90s, no? [We became more] trans* feminist in our politics, in our feminist politics. We made an event where we would meet together, [and you had to be] open to trans* feminism. So that's why it was called TransHackFeminism and it was organized not only by me and Sophie Toupin, but also by the people of [https://pechblenda.hotglue.me/ Pechblenda] which was a space in Calafou and Julito who were trans feminist. It appeared in 2008 in Spain, in the feminist conference in Granada.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I would like to elaborate a bit more on what ooooo mentioned. So the eclectictechcarnival takes place not even yearly; sometimes it is 2, 3 years inbetween. Well, I admit I haven't been at that many. I've been in the last one, it was an organized in Greece where I am based. The one before was in Italy, and the one before Italy was called TransHackFeminism in Calafou. And because I organized it, the question of who can join this event came up because every time as time passes as spideralex mentioned feminism itself changes, and it's always this question of who can join our event? And again, for example, the last, let's say, firewall, is cis men. Can cis men join our events? So this is the base of the conversation as we try to provide safe spaces and for those who are marginalized, within technology and its environments. But I would say it's an open question, and it always depends on the locality of the event. And on those organizing it. Of course, we all have our own idea and praxis of feminisms.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: To me it was also new, I was not sure what that trans* referred to, because in the German speaking context [people] were talking maybe of queer feminism. So I was curious to also learn [about trans* feminism as] a part of the struggle against a current of feminism that in some places is stronger than others, and that is about the exclusion of trans* people and non-binary. And so that was one aspect that I find interesting to learn, and I find its good to call it trans* feminism to make it explicit.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, and important because at a certain moment, there was really a confusion for me because I was at the CCC ([https://events.ccc.de/ Chaos Computer Congres)] and there was a transhack meeting. So I joined into the meeting because it was about the organization of the next gathering. But actually, it was about trans nationality. So it was more like focusing on Spain and Italy. They have like trans hack meetings, but it's actually transnational meetings.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So we have hack meetings. Yeah, when we make it across different countries it becomes a transhack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, sure. But it's interesting that the one refers to like identity politics in relation to gender, it seems. And the other, of course not. It's much wider also about your national identity. But it is confusing, or it is also how the term can be hacked so that that gets certain meanings by actually also using it. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, it was confusing. And then the confusion was pretty interesting. We only had two trans hack meetings in the history of trans hack meetings in Europe. One in Poland and the other one was three years ago, four years ago in Tarnack and there some people thought it was a trans* hack meeting, but it was pretty cool because this way we had more queer people around. Yeah, it wasn't that easy. It was like: No, no, this is not the trans* hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And actually, there was recently a transhack meeting in Bologna that also had a sysadmin of systerserver involved. It was also called like that. That's nice. So yeah, it's a somehow yeah, it's hacked then. But yeah, it's not so nice if you're then there and it's a quite cis-normative environment because that's not that the safer space that you went there for. This is not a trans* hack meeting this is a transhack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: During THF, the question was also: what is now the most important term in it? Is trans*? is it hack? is it feminism? Can feminism be hacked, can feminism be trans*? Can hack be transed? Can you trans* hack? It's like, you know, it is circulating inside of the dependencies within these three denominators.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Here is a link with documentation of 2 sessions we had during the first convergence : [TransHackFeminist/Que_significa%3F/What_it_means%3F]. So maybe then you can dig more in. It wasn't so many people that say they're interested, in trans*feminism. But the trans terminology, about transitioning, about transition, about all the links that it could have with immigration with transformation, with even of politics, you know, and so on, so on, so on. So yeah, I think we can put it in different layers and for sure, at least when it was set up in Calafou in 2017 the first layer was about trans*feminist politics.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, just to add, sometimes when you encounter a term for first time, you make a conclusion depending on your background and your identity, etc. So of course, when our services uses terms it feels important and to give a description of them: what does this term contain? It's also very important that when we do things that we are open about it, the terminology we're using what does it refer to and why it is constructed like that? And it is important because it changes very quickly, in all this researches of all that is happening in migration realities to multi species studies and keeping in mind always intersectionality they all add up in the end in the concept of creating safe spaces. So I think this is something to consider when we use terms, how we came up with and why we came up with the terms we use.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And it was really important that people do a bit of research and find their own history in this terminology, you know. It's also by the people inhabiting or by the people embodying that it becomes and not only by a definition. I mean, it's ever changing also.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I agree in the sense I think that Anarchaserver is one of the first pages including the THF and all the documentation, and it feels very complicated to give a straightforward definition. And now we are trying to give access to the documentation that has been created around that concept. We are trying to clarify, to know, a definition of our internet politics and gender and diversity and so on. But for Trans Hack Feminism convergences, I would find it very difficult to give a straightforward explicit definition.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe we have to create expiration dates on our Wiki pages. If we don't visit them in certain time becomes too old and it becomes a reference without being actual. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: But I've seen these issues coming up when we organize events and you know, we have to do open calls and these things are always reconfiguring. Hacking within TransHackFeminism is to hack patriarchy, capitalism and other systems of oppression. Hacking refers to the act of doing and taking things apart, understanding them in a deeper way. Hacking is action performance. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: So one last question is how do you define in your group the terms server and the relations between service and clients because we also read in your manifesto and that your project is about reconfiguring these relations? So it's a question that maybe speaks to like literally the server, but maybe also metaphorically the serving of values or the working together for the making of space.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: For me, the server is like a space, like a room. It's not only a machine, but we can go into it because usually we meet, especially because we live in other places, we meet on the server. It's our meeting point like instead of going to a cafe, we meet in the terminal. So while we’re in the terminal we try to support each other, educate ourselves and spend time together. So it's a connecting room that we can go in and work together in. And about the ‘server’ ‘client’, I really don't like the word client in general, but I know the technical term. I just don't see it translating in a social way inside the feminist server constellations because it is more of a corporate thing. Other people have said its more like inhabiting the servers instead of serving. So its not only that the server serves, and the other is a transmitter it becomes an interchangeable role that you also receive at the same time instead of only offering the other side. I would like more that we do both.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: We have a lot intense reflections and critical thinking about the terminology, which is used inside of these machines. Common are terms like master/slave. Server/client, fail/success. We try to approach it differently also with humor and read it as poetics. We often deconstruct this language and appropriate it in a way that is closer to our identity and our politics. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm looking at some of the histories of feminist servers. I saw two approaches that I really like one that was from 2013 was when they twisted the language at the feminist server summit that was held on the question of a feminist server into: Are you being served? And I really like that because it fits my my understanding of feminism as talking about the embodied experience of not being served in certain contexts. And the other one is from the fall, the ‘From Skin to Steel Manifesto’(? link ?) that must have come from to Brazil. They start their manifesto by claiming that we are all already and thinking about, body experience as serving. And that's very close to what I would call care practices. So where where are the lines between serving and caring? It's really a very radical political claim to look for things about who is being served and it is close to this question of who has access and who can participate. <br /><br /><br />
FSS: We never say server/client. We use the word allies when we want to talk about the people who would like to collaborate and do things with our servers. This applies both to the look of the websites, but also how we communicate to the people outside our internal group. So we don't refer to the client at all.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: But then as a tiny, technical follow up question, how do you technically reconfigure these relations?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's like another network topology, peer to peer. So technically there are protocols which are allowing that. But for example, with the feminist servers we try to have distributed services that not each server has the same services. A server has etherpads, another has cloud services, video conference instances, gitlab repositories,....<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So its not really changing the server client, but like it's more like making a redistributed model of dependency. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: One of the points that TransHackfeminism articulated is that of autonomy in having a Feminist server: you choose your dependencies.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like to ask MELT something, so you are also working on server access? Access Server? Is it still server access the project you are working on?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It's called Access Server, the project.'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I wondered, maybe its too quick to digest what we said so far. But still, I wondered what you thought about the convergences between the thoughts between your Access Server project and what we have been discussing so far?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Hm, yeah so part of the ACCESS SERVER project is that we're technically trying to understand how it can work so that when people email institutions asking for accessibility, the email will cc the previous email with access requests to the same institution. So we're trying to technically create a collectivity so that disabled people emailing understand see that they're not the only ones that are emailing to any institution. So emailers have the sense that, oh, many other people have emailed as well. So I think that this relates to how you’re talking about technical collectivity and trying to share resources and offer other options for points of connection. This is still a technical question. We're not exactly sure how to do it yet and also to maintain people's privacy at the same time. So there's a few questions there behind that. But I think that this is the desire to understand the technically active collective body that is emailing with access requests. ''<br />
<br /><br />
:''MELT: When listening to you. I think notions of care and trust is where I feel a lot of shared questions and maybe sometimes struggles or figurings out. And also in these relations between how to reach out and work with other people with an infrastructure that we provide. Because the idea is really that other disabled people can use the email server and the website that comes with it. So there are also questions of how to even make the website accessible. There are guidelines around that, we have some knowledge around that. But then also how to reach out, also across other axes of discrimination and oppression. How to build that trust also. And also technically then if someone sends an email through our email server how can we make sure that their name is anonymous, for example, the IP address, etc. So that's a lot of questions that still seem also hard to ensure safety. Then also, we skipped the question on trolling and how to carry the risk of providing, feminist and accessible services. That's also a big one for us still to figure out. How can we, I think we can’t prevent people from abusing our service, but how can we even make sure that it doesn't affect more people? And maybe also it doesn't affect us too much. So all of these questions, I think, are quite related.''<br />
<br /><br />
:MELT: ''Also, when you were speaking, something that also came to mind is that I think that the idea of the access server, constantly reminds us of the world that we live in where ableism is so structural. And this is the kind of reality that we're posited against. I'm also curious to see how how we can get people interested in using it, because also even when people are paid for their labour and even when they write emails to institutions, institutions themselves have so much work to do to change. And so I think that that is also a similar condition that you're working with with the feminist server projects where you're publicizing. We're trying to make more visible, so to speak, that there are alternatives, other ways of doing things that do not conform to ableism and capitalism as discriminatory and oppressive standards. Our project approach institutions and requires them to change. And that's also what you're doing. I think what the feminist server project is like trying to provide an alternative to show that a change is possible.''<br />
<br />
<br />
</div></div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Access_server&diff=1455Access server2022-11-16T19:57:57Z<p>Ooooo: /* ›››››››››››››› Interview Meltionary Access Server */</p>
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===›››››››››››››› SSH===<br />
<br />
:: '''SSH keys''' provide '''a more secure way''' of logging into a virtual private server with SSH than using a password alone. While a password can eventually be cracked with a brute force attack, SSH keys are nearly impossible to decipher by brute force alone. Generating a key pair provides you with two long string of characters: a public and a private key. You can place the public key on any server, and then unlock it by connecting to it with a client that already has the private key. When the two match up, the system unlocks without the need for a password. You can increase security even more by protecting the private key with a passphrase. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Making changes in ssh===<br />
<br />
:: Remember to: <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::'''Tip''': I can check all available services in /etc/init.d <br />
::'''Attention''': if there are problems, grep to see if it actually stops the service Like this: <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh stop</pre> <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ps aux | grep ssh</pre><br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh start</pre><br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ps aux | grep ssh</pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Debug===<br />
<br />
::Debug with a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">-v</code> flag. max 3 "v"s<br />
<br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ssh <user>@<server> -vvv </pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Create RSA Key Pair===<br />
<br />
::You create your '''RSA key pair''' in the computer from which you want to log to the server. <br />
<br />
::I can use this key pair for several servers, but if I want to enter a same server from different computers, I create different rsa key pairs. <br />
<br />
::Lo voy a crear a nivel local [en mi compu] y esa va a ser la llave rsa ssh que voy a usar para entrar en mis vps. NO genero una para cada vps sino que esa misma me sirve para todas. Si voy a usar varios ordenadores para entrar en un vps, sí necesitaré crear una llave ssh por máquina desde la cual estoy accediendo. <br />
<br />
::So each admin in a server is going to have at least one rsa key pair. <br />
<br />
::Be careful to pay attention from which user you create this in your local machine [computer]. Since the rsa key pairs are saved in a hidden directory in my user home directory [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~/.ssh</code>], if Im trying to login from a different user, it will confuse home directories since each user has a different home directory. <br />
<br />
::So, from the user in my localmachine that I wish to use to access the server, I will create my rsa key pair: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096</pre><br />
<br />
::By default it will generate two keys in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~/.ssh</code>, a public key and a private key. We are going to copy our public key to the server. If we don't have access to this server, we will send it to an admin of Anarcha server so that she can do it. <br />
<br />
::When generating the key, you will need to introduce a '''passphrase'''.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Copy public key to the server===<br />
<br />
::After generating an SSH key pair, you will want to copy your public key to your new server. <br />
<br />
::To securely copy the public key, we shall enable password authentication on the remote server, by editing the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/ssh/sshd_config</code> file, and disable it after having copied the public key<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::uncomment and set <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">PasswordAuthentication</code> to <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">yes</code> and then to <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">no</code> after copying is done.<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">PasswordAuthentication yes</pre> <br />
<br />
::To copy your public key, run the following command <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh-copy-id <user>@<server></pre><br />
<br />
::To enable the use of SSH key to authenticate as the new remote user, you must add the public key to a special file in the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory in the user's home directory. Assuming that we are going to create superuser accounts for each new admin we will do the following: <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Creating new sysadmin accounts===<br />
<br />
::Changing to root user <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo su</pre><br />
<br />
::Check the sudo users<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> grep '^sudo:.*$' /etc/group | cut -d: -f4</pre><br />
<br />
::If you are not yet, we create a ''superuser'' ['''note''': it will ask me to introduce a passwd] <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">adduser <superusername></pre><br />
<br />
::Then we will add the ''superuser'' to sudoers: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">usermod -aG sudo <superuser></pre><br />
<br />
::We now change to ''superuser'': <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">su <superuser></pre> <br />
<br />
::When we change user, we will be by default in the user's home directory [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~</code>]. You can do <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">cd ~</code> just in case. <br />
<br />
::It is also possible to create a user [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> for example] and give it a limited privilege [to execute a certain command[s] as ''root'']. To do this, create a new file [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> for instance] in the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/sudoers.d/</code> directory <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">touch /etc/sudoers.d/waters</pre><br />
<br />
::and edit it with <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">visudo</code> ['''this is very important''' as it alerts you regarding any syntax errors]<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo visudo /etc/sudoers.d/waters</pre><br />
<br />
::and add the following line to allow the user <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> to use a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">chmod</code> command for example<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">waters ALL=(ALL) /usr/bin/chmod</pre><br />
<br />
::To allow user <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> to run a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">chmod</code> command without entering a password edit the file this way<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">waters ALL= NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/chmod</pre><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› .ssh directory and authorized_keys===<br />
<br />
::'''Creating <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory and <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> document in the superuser home directory'''.<br />
<br />
::As the superuser to whom we want to give ssh access to the server, create a new directory called <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> and restrict its permissions with the following commands: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">mkdir .ssh</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chmod 700 .ssh</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown superuser:group</pre><br />
<br />
::Now open a file in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> called <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> with a text editor. We will use nano to edit the file: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">nano .ssh/authorized_keys</pre><br />
<br />
::Now copy-paste the public key [which should be in your clipboard] by pasting it into the editor. Save and close.<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ctrl + s</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ctrl + x</pre><br />
<br />
::Now restrict the permissions of the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> file with this command: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chmod 600 .ssh/authorized_keys</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown superuser:group</pre><br />
<br />
::Type this command once to return to the root user: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">exit</pre> <br />
<br />
::As we are creating a new user + authentication as root, we have to change the owner of the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory to the new user [recursively <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">- R</code>]<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown <user>:<user> .ssh -R</pre><br />
<br />
::Now you [the new sysadmin] may SSH login as your new user, using the private key as authentication. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
====. . . . . . › After reboot====<br />
<br />
::Access physical mainframe to reboot the encrypted virtual machine. Ask permissions to the syteradmins, by posting on the mailingslist <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">anarchaserver@lists.systerserver.net</code><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
====. . . . . . › SSH Reverse DNS Lookup Disable====<br />
<br />
::The invalid logins are normal, since there are bots that try to bruteforce servers. <br />
::As for the "possible break-in attempt" message, The system is trying to do a reverse DNS lookup to match the connecting IP with the ''hostname'' that is trying to connect and fails to do so. <br />
::The setting that controls that is <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">UseDNS</code> in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/ssh/sshd_config</code><br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::y agrega la línea: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">UseDNS no</pre><br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::Force ssh login to server<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::and change & uncomment: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ChallengeResponseAuthentication no</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">PasswordAuthentication no</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">UsePAM yes</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
====. . . . . . › Change ssh port access====<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::The first option that you may want to change is the port that SSH runs on. Find the line that looks like this: <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">Port 22</code><br />
<br />
::If we change this number to something in '''between 1025 and 65536''', the SSH service on our server will look for connections on a different port. This is sometimes helpful because unauthorized users sometimes try to break into servers by attacking SSH. If you change the location, they will need to complete the extra step of sniffing it out. <br />
::If you change this value, you will need to keep in mind that your server is running on the new port. <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::So now you would have to access to the server like this: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh <superuser>@<server> -p <portnumber></pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› References===<br />
<br />
::_ [http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1773227 Thread: log full of "POSSIBLE BREAK-IN ATTEMPT!" ]<br />
::_ [https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/restart-service How to start, restart and stop SSH service]<br />
::_ [https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/copy-public-key How to add SSH key to server]<br />
::_ [https://www.golinuxcloud.com/add-user-to-sudoers/ How to add user to sudoers with best practices & examples]<br />
::_ [https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-unix-running-sudo-command-without-a-password/ How to run sudo command without a password on a Linux or Unix]<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Interview Meltionary Access Server ===<br />
<br />
This conversation took place between [https://www.anarchaserver.org Anarchaserver], [https://leverburns.blue/ Lever Burns], [https://systerserver.net/ Systerserver] and the arts-design duo [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] on the 4th of February 2022. It has been shortened and edited for clarity by MELT. <br />
<br />
[https://www.anarchaserver.org Anarchaserver], [https://leverburns.blue/ Lever Burns], [https://systerserver.net/ Systerserver] are a distributed group of people based in Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece, Spain and Italy, working on feminist infrastructures and servers. Their work on setting up a [https://tube.systerserver.net/ peertube] instance to provide an online video based residency to artists, is currently supported by the program [https://afairnewidea.be/en/topics/873/entries/10844 A Fair New Idea?!] (AFNI).<br />
<br />
[https://meltionary.com/ MELT] is an arts-design duo currently working on an email server called ACCESS SERVER that anonymizes, collects and financially compensates access requests that disabled people send to institutions. ACCESS SERVER is currently supported by a fellowship with the Het Nieuwe Instituut.<br />
<br />
The feminist servers invited [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] for a one month residency in order to try out feminist infrastructures for their project. We decided to begin the residency with an interview, focusing on how we have shared language in our projects but the ways they make meaning, are different.[https://meltionary.com/ MELT] found the subpage [https://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Access_server&action=edit ACCESS SERVER] on the website of Anarchaserver – a subpage set up to help people to access this feminist server. [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] wanted to ask about and consider the resonances between ACCESS SERVER as a way of logging into the feminist servers' infrastructure, and ACCESS SERVER as a way of making access for disabled people into cultural institutions. What followed was a conversation around technology, trans*feminism, sysadmin work, access, and disability.<br />
<br />
We met in a hybrid way: some of us were present at [https://vvvvvvaria.org/ Varia] in Rotterdam and enjoyed coffee and fruits together, some joined via the self-hosted Jitsi instance of futuretic, an allied autonomous server.<br />
<br />
Present were: <br />
Estragon, Mika, [https://www.ooooo.be ooooo], spideralex, nate, Mara (Feminist Server Sysadmins) (FSS)<br />
Ren Loren Britton & Iz Paehr (MELT). <br />
<br /><br /><br />
<big>'''Could you walk us through the ways Access Server is used?'''</big><br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
<br />
:''MELT: The first thing that piqued our interest was the sub page Access Server, because it has the same title as our project. Could you walk us through the ways in which that page is used? Who uses it? What are the steps to follow and what happens if something doesn't work? We are also interested in the kinds of conversations you perhaps already had among your group to set up the page.''<br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
FSS: <br />
The page is part of a [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki Mediawiki] that we installed. We have this "history" function under each created page, as it's a collaborative writing tool, it keeps track of the previous edits. So what we actually did yesterday is hit the history button to try to find the history of that specific page because it has a timestamp, and it also sees the user who created the page. So we found that the user was THF and that there was three other users: ooooo, b04 and ezn. All four of them were technically contributing to the appearance of this page. The THF user refers to ‘TransHackFeminism’, which was [[Main_Page#TransHackFeminist_Convergence|a convergence]] organized in [https://www.calafou.org/ Calafou]. So it's not very clear who was that user, but it is made in that convergence: there were people sitting around the table and editing it. Do you want to contextualize the THF user spideralex? Or the TransHackFeminist convergence?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
So the THF user was created around the first TransHackFeminist convergence in 2014. It was a shared user of different people that have been documenting various sessions that were held during one week in [https://www.calafou.org/ Calafou], Spain. We have been sharing <the user>to document basically the different conversations. And then the wiki has remained as a space where different TransHackFeminist events could document their editions. In the wiki, we write also about feminist servers in general and when we document the Anarchaserver's technical and other work.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
More on the technical side – this was the first thing I did when I joined Anarchaserver. As spideralex said, the documentations of different projects kept going on. So there were two similar pages with server set up documentation. The first thing I did was to merge and update them. But also, we had this conversation with ooooo that it would be nice if someone actually tries the different steps and follow the instructions because you, yourself, know what you're doing. later, I also did the styling of the page and also the overall styling of MediaWiki. I wanted it to be a bit more welcoming than a default MediaWiki page. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS:<br />
And I think also as it is a wiki, it would be nice now that you <MELT> are in residence for the Fair New Idea project, we would welcome your visions on accessibility. It would be an invitation, of course, that you could also become an active intervener or would change and modify and add to the content of that page to maybe broaden up this idea of what access to the server is. Besides from its technical perspective of how to exchange SSH keys (secure shell) and make user modifications.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
'''<big>How do you think about accessibility?</big>''' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It is very interesting to hear from everyone about what kind of accessibility you think with! I hear a lot about collaborations that produce the wiki with you as a way to literally access the server. And I also understand that it is also a kind of accessibility to make the server accessible by documenting how to use it. But I'm curious what it would mean for you to make the server disability accessible? How do you think about accessibility? What does that mean in your project? Do you have some thoughts on that?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Accessibility, it's a concern. At the moment it‘s mostly people who are part of the wider constellation around the feminist servers. The project of [https://www.kunsten.be/calls/digital-atelier-and-residency-on-feminist-video-streaming-platform A Fair New Idea] was for us a way to try to reach out and to see how we could host people besides our internal network. So that's why we did an open call and invited you to do a residency. It was an opportunity to reach out to artists and of course, we'll see how it will go. Since some of us of are also artists and at the same time we have technical knowledge and we would like to share basic cohabitation with artists who can learn to work outside very commercial, centralized online tools. So that's one path of accessibility. So then there's the accessibility of who can join in our networks because sometimes the activism is something that not everybody can afford, because most of the times we volunteer. So having available resources, even if it's minimal, within our servers is a very important accessibility factor. And than of course, accessibility of our user interfaces, who can actually read and learn from the content we host on our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe I can add something: For me, the first part of accessibility was also for myself even, to start being familiar with, how to use a server, how to get there and how to do stuff there and not look at it as a black box that I cannot touch because I'm afraid. So by trying to bring people that are not experts or not technologists into collectives in which people can help each other in educating themselves so they feel more emancipated to use not only commercial tools, but also their own or open source ones. For the future what I'm currently thinking of is that I would like things that we do on the server, like maybe a website or a wiki or whatever to be more inclusive to people with disabilities, for example. What I realise now, is that colours can be too intense for some people to read, or <we could develop tools like> some functions for people who cannot hear and who would really like it to learn more about technology can use. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I am also interested in understanding accessibility as something that too is about how we make our tools and services and contents more accessible to deaf and disabled people. And also to people who don't speak Spanish and English. Then again, in general how contents and services can be made more known and accessible to short term collectivities and individuals. I’m also interested in how you can enable a lower threshold for feminist collectives to engage in and maintain their own technical infrastructures.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Thank you so much for these answers and also these very varied and different considerations of access. In relation to infrastructure, tech and language, and of course, disability. Yeah, I think we are both excited to continue working on that together. The next question is about speculative dreaming: What future perspectives for the feminist server do you wish or dream of?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I dream that our feminist server continues to be a meeting point and space for feminist peers that will help us to evolve and collaborate and work together. And I'm also thinking about local feminist groups here in Rotterdam where I now live, but also back in Athens, where I come from. And I know that there is a need [for feminist servers] there. I hope that they can benefit from the existence of our feminist servers, especially towards helping to a future of more technological autonomy. Probably that cannot be completed, but at least to try to be less dependent on giant tech corporations for their communication or for publishing our works or our struggles or things that we need to communicate with the world, um, and interconnect with other feminist groups out there. So I hope that our feminist servers can help that perspective.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I totally agree, and I find it so beautiful how we use tools as always a means to an end. I don't think anyone of us glorifies them and it's like: [making a] server is the end game. No, it's about using [a server] to learn together and to hang out and communicate. So I think that's very beautiful. I'm from Georgia and I didn't have anyone to talk about any of those things around me. That's how I actually got here. And this is already my dream scenario come to life. So now I'm trying to reconnect with people who are not so technical, but we are already starting to have something local in Georgia as well. So yeah, it's kind of that's what feminist servers are to me.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I agree and I would like to give a more pragmatic and nuanced [view] on this thing. I would say that the cooperative model here would be one of my dreams for the feminist servers we have. And that it can include a membership fee so we can make our services more sustainable because from the past experience, and we've seen that the only way of giving time, it works well for learning, but then it's very difficult to host services for other artists and feminists that we would like to have. So a more concrete approach to the dream of the future for the life of our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: What I observe right now is that the critique of big tech companies is high but the awareness that there is an alternative way to use technology is very invisible so far. And that's a lot of work to speak up for that and to make it shown. So that would be some vision of mine to not look at faces of complete disbelief when talking about having our own server.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like more people and collectives engaged in setting up feminist servers and in general feminist infrastructure initiatives. I would be interested in more local gynaecological considerations embedded inside the set up of future feminist servers. Dreaming, creating data centers made for and by feminist servers. And coordination between different feminist servers to avoid reinventing the wheel or to enable supporting each other in knowledge and solidarity processes. To share resources and funding, to share common technical infrastructure or by having people that have specific skills and knowledge that can contribute to different initiatives. And finally, my big dream is one day to have feminist servers that then orientate towards providing services to communities that are facing strong gender based violence online and censorship in digital spaces [such as] pro-choice activists, post porno and sex workers. So that's a long term projection, but I would like that we can manage to go there one day.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: The idea of more sysadmins people who join us in the backend! [People] not just there for the services, who learn with us and try to engage with the technology and the machines which are surrounding us. Sysadmins unite (!) to break the [local] isolation of having that technofeminist praxis and awareness.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Maybe it's nice to continue because our project also works with trans* feminism and Disability Justice, and I love the ways in which the trans* feminist, THF, TransHackFeminism becomes a shared user in the access server page. But also, I think that there's a specific understanding of trans* feminism that you seem to be working with because it comes up again many times on the Anarchaserver page. What does it mean to you to serve trans* feminism in this project? I think it's also related to a lot of the dreams that you just shared. Would you want to say something more about trans* feminism specifically?'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm still a little bit like scared about this fact of serving and hosting. And it's like, I feel like by inhabiting these servers and then also maintaining and configuring the affective infrastructures in which we are moving, that we are trans* hack feminists. And it's [about] these kinds of spaces. It's not serving. It's, you know, like fluid. It's like good. It's like you are feeling the practices of technology. It's like configuring together. It's yeah, it's more like an actualization of trans* hack feminism. I like it has a history, also. The TransHackFeminism, was a reaction on the electictechcarnival (https://eclectictechcarnival.org/) to open specific identity politics and women-only-spaces up, to trans* people. And then the reaction came.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: I would also be super curious to hear what it means to have come from a cis-woman only space and going through the process of opening that up to trans* people.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So I try to put here just a little definition that we created for the feminist museum about TransHackFeminism. Hmm ... ?? .... So we have to define it like: The Mummy is a museum of the future taking place in the 22nd century. It's a museum about sexism that has disappeared: it is curated with Anamhoo, a sysadmin of Anarchaserver that organised the trans* hack feminist convergence in Mexico. We try to collect seven different artistic pieces..... I have been in a collective in Spain that is called Donestech (https://www.donestech.net/) in Catalan that was created in 2007. At that moment, there was no other collective that was working on the relation between gender and technologies and free software. But I think that the paradigm of inclusion of women in digital tech related spaces was needed, no? But it's very 90s, no? [We became more] trans* feminist in our politics, in our feminist politics. We made an event where we would meet together, [and you had to be] open to trans* feminism. So that's why it was called TransHackFeminism and because it was organized not only by me and Sophie Toupin, but also by the people of Pechblenda which was a space in Calafou and Julito who were trans feminist. It appeared in 2008 in Spain, in the feminist conference in Granada.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I would like to elaborate a bit more on what ooooo mentioned a little bit of the story of events because we are based in different locations within Europe. So the eclectictechcarnival takes place not even yearly.; sometimes it is 2, 3 years inbetween. Well, I admit I haven't been at that many. I've been in the last one, it was an organized in Greece where I am based. The one before was in Italy, and the one before Italy was called TransHack Feminism in Calafou. And because I organized it, the question of who can join this event came up because every time as time passes as spideralex mentioned feminism itself changes, and it's always this question of who can join our event? And again, for example, the last, let's say a firewall, is cis men. Can cis men join our events? So this is the base of the conversation as we try to provide safe spaces and for those who are marginalized, within technology and its environments. But I would say it's an open question, and it always depends on the locality of the event. And on those organizing it. Of course, we all have our own idea and praxis of feminism.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: To me it was also new, I was not sure what that trans* referred to, because in the German speaking context [people] were talking maybe of queer feminism. So I was curious to also learn [about trans* feminism as] a part of the struggle against a current of feminism that in some places is stronger than others, and that is about the exclusion of trans* people and non-binary. And so that was one aspect that I find interesting to learn, and I find its good to call it trans* feminism to make it explicit.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, and important because at a certain moment, there was really a confusion for me because I was at the CCC (Chaos Computer Congres) and there was a transhack meeting. So I joined into the meeting because it was about the organization of the next gathering. But actually, it was about trans nationality. So it was more like focusing on Spain and Italy. They have like trans hack meetings, but it's actually transnational meetings.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So we have hack meetings. Yeah, when we make it across different countries it becomes a trans hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, sure. But it's interesting that the one refers to like identity politics in relation to gender, it seems. And the other, of course not. It's much wider also about your national identity. But it is confusing, or it is also how the term can be hacked so that that gets certain meanings by actually also using it. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, it was confusing. And then the confusion was pretty interesting. We only had two trans hack meetings in the history of trans hack meetings in Europe. One in Poland and the other one was three years ago, four years ago in Tarnack and there some people thought it was a trans* hack meeting, but it was pretty cool because this way we had more queer people around. Yeah, it wasn't that easy. It was like: No, no, this is not the trans* hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And actually, there was recently a transhack meeting in Bologna that also had a sysadmin of systerserver involved. It was also called like that. That's nice. So yeah, it's a somehow yeah, it's hacked then. But yeah, it's not so nice if you're then there and it's a quite cis-normative environment because that's not that the safer space that you went there for. This is not a trans* hack meeting this is a transhack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: During THF, the question was also: what is now the most important term in it? Is trans*? is it hack? is it feminism? Can feminism be hacked, can feminism be trans*? Can hack be transed? Can you trans* hack? It's like, you know, it is circulating inside of the dependencies within these three denominators.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Here is a link with documentation of 2 sessions we had during the first convergence : [TransHackFeminist/Que_significa%3F/What_it_means%3F]. So maybe then you can dig more in. It wasn't so many people that say they're interested, in trans*feminism. But the trans terminology, about transitioning, about transition, about all the links that it could have with immigration with transformation, with even of politics, you know, and so on, so on, so on. So yeah, I think we can put it in different layers and for sure, at least when it was set up in Calafou in 2017 the first layer was about trans*feminist politics.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, just to add, sometimes when you encounter a term for first time, you make a conclusion depending on your background and your identity, etc. So of course, when our services uses terms it feels important and to give a description of them: what does this term contain? It's also very important that when we do things that we are open about it, the terminology we're using what does it refer to and why it is constructed like that? And it is important because it changes very quickly, in all this researches of all that is happening in migration realities to multi species studies and keeping in mind always intersectionality they all add up in the end in the concept of creating safe spaces. So I think this is something to consider when we use terms, how we came up with and why we came up with the terms we use.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And it was really important that people do a bit of research and find their own history in this terminology, you know. It's also by the people inhabiting or by the people embodying that it becomes and not only by a definition. I mean, it's ever changing also.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I agree in the sense I think that Anarchaserver is one of the first pages including the THF and all the documentation, and it feels very complicated to give a straightforward definition. And now we are trying to give access to the documentation that has been created around that concept. We are trying to clarify, to know, a definition of our internet politics and gender and diversity and so on. But for Trans Hack Feminism convergences, I would find it very difficult to give a straightforward explicit definition.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe we have to create expiration dates on our Wiki pages. If we don't visit them in certain time becomes too old and it becomes a reference without being actual. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: But I've seen these issues coming up when we organize events and you know, we have to do open calls and these things are always reconfiguring. Hacking within TransHackFeminism is to hack patriarchy, capitalism and other systems of oppression. Hacking refers to the act of doing and taking things apart, understanding them in a deeper way. Hacking is action performance. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: So one last question is how do you define in your group the terms server and the relations between service and clients because we also read in your manifesto and that your project is about reconfiguring these relations? So it's a question that maybe speaks to like literally the server, but maybe also metaphorically the serving of values or the working together for the making of space.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: For me, the server is like a space, like a room. It's not only a machine, but we can go into it because usually we meet, especially because we live in other places, we meet on the server. It's our meeting point like instead of going to a cafe, we meet in the terminal. So while we’re in the terminal we try to support each other, educate ourselves and spend time together. So it's a connecting room that we can go in and work together in. And about the ‘server’ ‘client’, I really don't like the word client in general, but I know the technical term. I just don't see it translating in a social way inside the feminist server constellations because it is more of a corporate thing. Other people have said its more like inhabiting the servers instead of serving. So its not only that the server serves, and the other is a transmitter it becomes an interchangeable role that you also receive at the same time instead of only offering the other side. I would like more that we do both.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: We have a lot intense reflections and critical thinking about the terminology, which is used inside of these machines. Common are terms like master/slave. Server/client, fail/success. We try to approach it differently also with humor and read it as poetics. We often deconstruct this language and appropriate it in a way that is closer to our identity and our politics. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm looking at some of the histories of feminist servers. I saw two approaches that I really like one that was from 2013 was when they twisted the language at the feminist server summit that was held on the question of a feminist server into: Are you being served? And I really like that because it fits my my understanding of feminism as talking about the embodied experience of not being served in certain contexts. And the other one is from the fall, the ‘From Skin to Steel Manifesto’(? link ?) that must have come from to Brazil. They start their manifesto by claiming that we are all already and thinking about, body experience as serving. And that's very close to what I would call care practices. So where where are the lines between serving and caring? It's really a very radical political claim to look for things about who is being served and it is close to this question of who has access and who can participate. <br /><br /><br />
FSS: We never say server/client. We use the word allies when we want to talk about the people who would like to collaborate and do things with our servers. This applies both to the look of the websites, but also how we communicate to the people outside our internal group. So we don't refer to the client at all.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: But then as a tiny, technical follow up question, how do you technically reconfigure these relations?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's like another network topology, peer to peer. So technically there are protocols which are allowing that. But for example, with the feminist servers we try to have distributed services that not each server has the same services. A server has etherpads, another has cloud services, video conference instances, gitlab repositories,....<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So its not really changing the server client, but like it's more like making a redistributed model of dependency. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: One of the points that TransHackfeminism articulated is that of autonomy in having a Feminist server: you choose your dependencies.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like to ask MELT something, so you are also working on server access? Access Server? Is it still server access the project you are working on?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It's called Access Server, the project.'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I wondered, maybe its too quick to digest what we said so far. But still, I wondered what you thought about the convergences between the thoughts between your Access Server project and what we have been discussing so far?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Hm, yeah so part of the ACCESS SERVER project is that we're technically trying to understand how it can work so that when people email institutions asking for accessibility, the email will cc the previous email with access requests to the same institution. So we're trying to technically create a collectivity so that disabled people emailing understand see that they're not the only ones that are emailing to any institution. So emailers have the sense that, oh, many other people have emailed as well. So I think that this relates to how you’re talking about technical collectivity and trying to share resources and offer other options for points of connection. This is still a technical question. We're not exactly sure how to do it yet and also to maintain people's privacy at the same time. So there's a few questions there behind that. But I think that this is the desire to understand the technically active collective body that is emailing with access requests. ''<br />
<br /><br />
:''MELT: When listening to you. I think notions of care and trust is where I feel a lot of shared questions and maybe sometimes struggles or figurings out. And also in these relations between how to reach out and work with other people with an infrastructure that we provide. Because the idea is really that other disabled people can use the email server and the website that comes with it. So there are also questions of how to even make the website accessible. There are guidelines around that, we have some knowledge around that. But then also how to reach out, also across other axes of discrimination and oppression. How to build that trust also. And also technically then if someone sends an email through our email server how can we make sure that their name is anonymous, for example, the IP address, etc. So that's a lot of questions that still seem also hard to ensure safety. Then also, we skipped the question on trolling and how to carry the risk of providing, feminist and accessible services. That's also a big one for us still to figure out. How can we, I think we can’t prevent people from abusing our service, but how can we even make sure that it doesn't affect more people? And maybe also it doesn't affect us too much. So all of these questions, I think, are quite related.''<br />
<br /><br />
:MELT: ''Also, when you were speaking, something that also came to mind is that I think that the idea of the access server, constantly reminds us of the world that we live in where ableism is so structural. And this is the kind of reality that we're posited against. I'm also curious to see how how we can get people interested in using it, because also even when people are paid for their labour and even when they write emails to institutions, institutions themselves have so much work to do to change. And so I think that that is also a similar condition that you're working with with the feminist server projects where you're publicizing. We're trying to make more visible, so to speak, that there are alternatives, other ways of doing things that do not conform to ableism and capitalism as discriminatory and oppressive standards. Our project approach institutions and requires them to change. And that's also what you're doing. I think what the feminist server project is like trying to provide an alternative to show that a change is possible.''<br />
<br />
<br />
</div></div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Access_server&diff=1454Access server2022-11-16T19:14:50Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
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===›››››››››››››› SSH===<br />
<br />
:: '''SSH keys''' provide '''a more secure way''' of logging into a virtual private server with SSH than using a password alone. While a password can eventually be cracked with a brute force attack, SSH keys are nearly impossible to decipher by brute force alone. Generating a key pair provides you with two long string of characters: a public and a private key. You can place the public key on any server, and then unlock it by connecting to it with a client that already has the private key. When the two match up, the system unlocks without the need for a password. You can increase security even more by protecting the private key with a passphrase. <br />
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===›››››››››››››› Making changes in ssh===<br />
<br />
:: Remember to: <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::'''Tip''': I can check all available services in /etc/init.d <br />
::'''Attention''': if there are problems, grep to see if it actually stops the service Like this: <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh stop</pre> <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ps aux | grep ssh</pre><br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh start</pre><br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ps aux | grep ssh</pre><br />
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===›››››››››››››› Debug===<br />
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::Debug with a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">-v</code> flag. max 3 "v"s<br />
<br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ssh <user>@<server> -vvv </pre><br />
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===›››››››››››››› Create RSA Key Pair===<br />
<br />
::You create your '''RSA key pair''' in the computer from which you want to log to the server. <br />
<br />
::I can use this key pair for several servers, but if I want to enter a same server from different computers, I create different rsa key pairs. <br />
<br />
::Lo voy a crear a nivel local [en mi compu] y esa va a ser la llave rsa ssh que voy a usar para entrar en mis vps. NO genero una para cada vps sino que esa misma me sirve para todas. Si voy a usar varios ordenadores para entrar en un vps, sí necesitaré crear una llave ssh por máquina desde la cual estoy accediendo. <br />
<br />
::So each admin in a server is going to have at least one rsa key pair. <br />
<br />
::Be careful to pay attention from which user you create this in your local machine [computer]. Since the rsa key pairs are saved in a hidden directory in my user home directory [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~/.ssh</code>], if Im trying to login from a different user, it will confuse home directories since each user has a different home directory. <br />
<br />
::So, from the user in my localmachine that I wish to use to access the server, I will create my rsa key pair: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096</pre><br />
<br />
::By default it will generate two keys in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~/.ssh</code>, a public key and a private key. We are going to copy our public key to the server. If we don't have access to this server, we will send it to an admin of Anarcha server so that she can do it. <br />
<br />
::When generating the key, you will need to introduce a '''passphrase'''.<br />
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<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Copy public key to the server===<br />
<br />
::After generating an SSH key pair, you will want to copy your public key to your new server. <br />
<br />
::To securely copy the public key, we shall enable password authentication on the remote server, by editing the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/ssh/sshd_config</code> file, and disable it after having copied the public key<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::uncomment and set <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">PasswordAuthentication</code> to <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">yes</code> and then to <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">no</code> after copying is done.<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">PasswordAuthentication yes</pre> <br />
<br />
::To copy your public key, run the following command <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh-copy-id <user>@<server></pre><br />
<br />
::To enable the use of SSH key to authenticate as the new remote user, you must add the public key to a special file in the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory in the user's home directory. Assuming that we are going to create superuser accounts for each new admin we will do the following: <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Creating new sysadmin accounts===<br />
<br />
::Changing to root user <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo su</pre><br />
<br />
::Check the sudo users<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> grep '^sudo:.*$' /etc/group | cut -d: -f4</pre><br />
<br />
::If you are not yet, we create a ''superuser'' ['''note''': it will ask me to introduce a passwd] <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">adduser <superusername></pre><br />
<br />
::Then we will add the ''superuser'' to sudoers: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">usermod -aG sudo <superuser></pre><br />
<br />
::We now change to ''superuser'': <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">su <superuser></pre> <br />
<br />
::When we change user, we will be by default in the user's home directory [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~</code>]. You can do <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">cd ~</code> just in case. <br />
<br />
::It is also possible to create a user [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> for example] and give it a limited privilege [to execute a certain command[s] as ''root'']. To do this, create a new file [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> for instance] in the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/sudoers.d/</code> directory <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">touch /etc/sudoers.d/waters</pre><br />
<br />
::and edit it with <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">visudo</code> ['''this is very important''' as it alerts you regarding any syntax errors]<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo visudo /etc/sudoers.d/waters</pre><br />
<br />
::and add the following line to allow the user <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> to use a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">chmod</code> command for example<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">waters ALL=(ALL) /usr/bin/chmod</pre><br />
<br />
::To allow user <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> to run a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">chmod</code> command without entering a password edit the file this way<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">waters ALL= NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/chmod</pre><br />
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<br><br />
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===›››››››››››››› .ssh directory and authorized_keys===<br />
<br />
::'''Creating <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory and <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> document in the superuser home directory'''.<br />
<br />
::As the superuser to whom we want to give ssh access to the server, create a new directory called <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> and restrict its permissions with the following commands: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">mkdir .ssh</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chmod 700 .ssh</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown superuser:group</pre><br />
<br />
::Now open a file in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> called <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> with a text editor. We will use nano to edit the file: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">nano .ssh/authorized_keys</pre><br />
<br />
::Now copy-paste the public key [which should be in your clipboard] by pasting it into the editor. Save and close.<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ctrl + s</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ctrl + x</pre><br />
<br />
::Now restrict the permissions of the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> file with this command: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chmod 600 .ssh/authorized_keys</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown superuser:group</pre><br />
<br />
::Type this command once to return to the root user: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">exit</pre> <br />
<br />
::As we are creating a new user + authentication as root, we have to change the owner of the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory to the new user [recursively <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">- R</code>]<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown <user>:<user> .ssh -R</pre><br />
<br />
::Now you [the new sysadmin] may SSH login as your new user, using the private key as authentication. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
====. . . . . . › After reboot====<br />
<br />
::Access physical mainframe to reboot the encrypted virtual machine. Ask permissions to the syteradmins, by posting on the mailingslist <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">anarchaserver@lists.systerserver.net</code><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
====. . . . . . › SSH Reverse DNS Lookup Disable====<br />
<br />
::The invalid logins are normal, since there are bots that try to bruteforce servers. <br />
::As for the "possible break-in attempt" message, The system is trying to do a reverse DNS lookup to match the connecting IP with the ''hostname'' that is trying to connect and fails to do so. <br />
::The setting that controls that is <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">UseDNS</code> in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/ssh/sshd_config</code><br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::y agrega la línea: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">UseDNS no</pre><br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::Force ssh login to server<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::and change & uncomment: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ChallengeResponseAuthentication no</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">PasswordAuthentication no</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">UsePAM yes</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
====. . . . . . › Change ssh port access====<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::The first option that you may want to change is the port that SSH runs on. Find the line that looks like this: <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">Port 22</code><br />
<br />
::If we change this number to something in '''between 1025 and 65536''', the SSH service on our server will look for connections on a different port. This is sometimes helpful because unauthorized users sometimes try to break into servers by attacking SSH. If you change the location, they will need to complete the extra step of sniffing it out. <br />
::If you change this value, you will need to keep in mind that your server is running on the new port. <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::So now you would have to access to the server like this: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh <superuser>@<server> -p <portnumber></pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› References===<br />
<br />
::_ [http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1773227 Thread: log full of "POSSIBLE BREAK-IN ATTEMPT!" ]<br />
::_ [https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/restart-service How to start, restart and stop SSH service]<br />
::_ [https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/copy-public-key How to add SSH key to server]<br />
::_ [https://www.golinuxcloud.com/add-user-to-sudoers/ How to add user to sudoers with best practices & examples]<br />
::_ [https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-unix-running-sudo-command-without-a-password/ How to run sudo command without a password on a Linux or Unix]<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Interview Meltionary Access Server ===<br />
<br />
This conversation took place between [https://www.anarchaserver.org Anarchaserver], [https://leverburns.blue/ Lever Burns], [https://systerserver.net/ Systerserver] and the arts-design duo [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] on the 4th of February 2022. It has been shortened and edited for clarity by MELT. Present were: Estragon, Mika, [https:/www.ooooo.be/ ooooo], spideralex, nate, Mara (Feminist Server Sysadmins) (FSS), Ren Loren and Isabel (MELT). <br />
<br />
[https://www.anarchaserver.org Anarchaserver], [https://leverburns.blue/ Lever Burns], [https://systerserver.net/ Systerserver] are a distributed group of people based in Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece, Spain and Italy, working on feminist infrastructures and servers. Their work on setting up a [https://tube.systerserver.net/ peertube] instance to provide an online video based residency to artists, is currently supported by the program [https://afairnewidea.be/en/topics/873/entries/10844 A Fair New Idea?!] (AFNI).<br />
<br />
[https://meltionary.com/ MELT] is an arts-design duo currently working on an email server called ACCESS SERVER that anonymizes, collects and financially compensates access requests that disabled people send to institutions. ACCESS SERVER is currently supported by a fellowship with the Het Nieuwe Instituut.<br />
<br />
The feminist servers invited [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] for a one month residency in order to try out feminist infrastructures for their project. We decided to begin the residency with an interview, focusing on how we have shared language in our projects but the ways they make meaning, are different.[https://meltionary.com/ MELT] found the subpage [https://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Access_server&action=edit ACCESS SERVER] on the website of Anarchaserver – a subpage set up to help people to access this feminist server. [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] wanted to ask about and consider the resonances between ACCESS SERVER as a way of logging into the feminist servers' infrastructure, and ACCESS SERVER as a way of making access for disabled people into cultural institutions. What followed was a conversation around technology, trans*feminism, sysadmin work, access, and disability.<br />
<br />
We met in a hybrid way: some of us were present at Varia in Rotterdam and enjoyed coffee and fruits together, some joined via the self-hosted Jitsi instance of futuretic, an allied autonomous server.<br />
<br />
FSS - Feminst server Sysadmins <br /><br />
MELT - Meltionary<br />
<br /><br /><br />
<big>'''Could you walk us through the ways Access Server is used?'''</big><br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
<br />
:''MELT: The first thing that piqued our interest was the sub page Access Server, because it has the same title as our project. Could you walk us through the ways in which that page is used? Who uses it? What are the steps to follow and what happens if something doesn't work? We are also interested in the kinds of conversations you perhaps already had among your group to set up the page.''<br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
FSS: <br />
When searching for an answer to this question, we had a very technical way of looking at it. The page is from a [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki Mediawiki] that we installed. We have this helpful "history" function under each created page, as it's a collaborative writing tool, it keeps track of the previous edits. So what we actually did yesterday is hit the history button to try to find the history of that specific page because it also has a timestamp, and it also sees the user who was actually creating this page. So we found that the user was THF and that there was three other users: ooooo, b04 and ezn. They were also contributing to the the technical appearance of this page. The THF user refers to ‘trans hack feminism’, which was [[Main_Page#TransHackFeminist_Convergence|a convergence]] organized in Calafou. . So it's not very clear who made that page, but it is made in that convergence, so there were people sitting around the table and making it. Do you want to contextualize the THF user spideralex? Or the trans hack feminist convergence?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
So the THF user was created around the first TransHackFeminist convergence in 2013. It was a shared user of the different people that have been documenting the different sessions that were held at this first event of one week. We have been sharing <the user> to document basically the different conversations. And then the wiki has remained as a space where different TransHackFeminist events could document what they did. In the wiki, we write about feminist servers in general and when we document the Anarchaserver's technical and other work.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
More on the technical side – this was the first thing I did when I joined Anarchaserver. As spideralex said, the documentations of different projects kept going on. So there were two similar pages with server set up documentation. The first thing I did was to merge and update them. But also, we had this conversation with ooooo that it would be nice if someone actually tries it. Yeah, sometimes it's nice if someone else tries to follow the instructions because you, yourself, know what you're doing. And I also did the styling of the page and then I did the overall styling of MediaWiki, and I wanted for it to be a bit more welcoming than a default page. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS:<br />
And I think also as it is a wiki, it would be nice now that you <MELT> are in residence for the Fair New Idea project, we would welcome your visions on accessibility. It would be an invitation, of course, that you could also become an active intervener or would change and modify and add to the content of that page to maybe broaden up this idea of what access to the server is. Besides from its technical perspective of how to exchange SSH keys (secure shell) and make user modifications.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
'''<big>How do you think about accessibility?</big>''' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It is very interesting to hear from everyone about what kind of accessibility you think with! I hear a lot about collaborations that produce the wiki with you as a way to literally access the server. And I also understand that it is also a kind of accessibility to make the server accessible by documenting how to use it. But I'm curious what it would mean for you to make the server disability accessible? How do you think about accessibility? What does that mean in your project? Do you have some thoughts on that?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I can start with this question. So. Accessibility, yeah, it's a concern. Accessibility in terms of who can work and make use of our services that we host. And at the moment it‘s mostly people who are part of the collective and with this project. A Fair New Idea was also for us a way to try to reach out and to try to see how we could host people besides our internal network. So that's why we invited you for a residency. So anyway, it was an opportunity to reach out to first artists and of course, we'll see how it will go. But since most of are artists and at the same time we have technical knowledge and we would like to share basic cohabitation with artists who can learn to work outside very commercial, centralized online tools. So that's one path of accessibility. So then there's the accessibility of who can join in our networks because sometimes the activism is something that not everybody can afford, because most of the times that we volunteer on a project. So having available resources, even if it's minimal for people to do things, with our servers is a very important accessibility factor. And then it comes, of course, accessibility of our user interfaces who can actually read and learn and from the content we host on our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe I can add something: For me, the first part of accessibility was also for myself even, to start being familiar with, how to use a server, how to get there and how to do stuff there and not look at it as a black box that I cannot touch because I'm afraid. So by trying to bring people that are not experts or not technologists into collectives in which people can help each other in educating themselves so they feel more emancipated to use not only commercial tools, but also their own or open source ones. For the future what I'm currently thinking of is that I would like things that we do on the server, like maybe a website or a wiki or whatever to be more inclusive to people with disabilities, for example. What I see now when it comes to that is that colours could be too much for some people to read, or <we could develop tools like> some functions for people who cannot hear and who would really like it to learn more about technology can use. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I am interested in understanding accessibility as something that too is about how we make our tools and services and contents more accessible to deaf and disabled people. And also to people who don't speak Spanish and English. Then again, in general how contents and services can be made more known and accessible to short term collectivities and individuals. I’m also interested in how you can enable a lower threshold for feminist collectives to engage in and maintain their own technical infrastructures.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Thank you so much for these answers and also these very varied and different considerations of access. In relation to infrastructure, tech and language, and of course, disability. Yeah, I think we are both excited to continue working on that together. The next question is about speculative dreaming: What future perspectives for the feminist server do you wish or dream of?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I dream that our feminist server continues to be a meeting point and space for feminist peers that will help us to evolve and collaborate and work together. And I'm also thinking about local feminist groups here in Rotterdam where I now live, but also back in Athens, where I come from. And I know that there is a need [for feminist servers] there. I hope that they can benefit from the existence of our feminist servers, especially towards helping to a future of more technological autonomy. Probably that cannot be completed, but at least to try to be less dependent on giant tech corporations for their communication or for publishing our works or our struggles or things that we need to communicate with the world, um, and interconnect with other feminist groups out there. So I hope that our feminist servers can help that perspective.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I totally agree, and I find it so beautiful how we use tools as always a means to an end. I don't think anyone of us glorifies them and it's like: [making a] server is the end game. No, it's about using [a server] to learn together and to hang out and communicate. So I think that's very beautiful. I'm from Georgia and I didn't have anyone to talk about any of those things around me. That's how I actually got here. And this is already my dream scenario come to life. So now I'm trying to reconnect with people who are not so technical, but we are already starting to have something local in Georgia as well. So yeah, it's kind of that's what feminist servers are to me.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I agree and I would like to give a more pragmatic and nuanced [view] on this thing. I would say that the cooperative model here would be one of my dreams for the feminist servers we have. And that it can include a membership fee so we can make our services more sustainable because from the past experience, and we've seen that the only way of giving time, it works well for learning, but then it's very difficult to host services for other artists and feminists that we would like to have. So a more concrete approach to the dream of the future for the life of our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: What I observe right now is that the critique of big tech companies is high but the awareness that there is an alternative way to use technology is very invisible so far. And that's a lot of work to speak up for that and to make it shown. So that would be some vision of mine to not look at faces of complete disbelief when talking about having our own server.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like more people and collectives engaged in setting up feminist servers and in general feminist infrastructure initiatives. I would be interested in more local gynaecological considerations embedded inside the set up of future feminist servers. Dreaming, creating data centers made for and by feminist servers. And coordination between different feminist servers to avoid reinventing the wheel or to enable supporting each other in knowledge and solidarity processes. To share resources and funding, to share common technical infrastructure or by having people that have specific skills and knowledge that can contribute to different initiatives. And finally, my big dream is one day to have feminist servers that then orientate towards providing services to communities that are facing strong gender based violence online and censorship in digital spaces [such as] pro-choice activists, post porno and sex workers. So that's a long term projection, but I would like that we can manage to go there one day.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: The idea of more sysadmins people who join us in the backend! [People] not just there for the services, who learn with us and try to engage with the technology and the machines which are surrounding us. Sysadmins unite (!) to break the [local] isolation of having that technofeminist praxis and awareness.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Maybe it's nice to continue because our project also works with trans* feminism and Disability Justice, and I love the ways in which the trans* feminist, THF, TransHackFeminism becomes a shared user in the access server page. But also, I think that there's a specific understanding of trans* feminism that you seem to be working with because it comes up again many times on the Anarchaserver page. What does it mean to you to serve trans* feminism in this project? I think it's also related to a lot of the dreams that you just shared. Would you want to say something more about trans* feminism specifically?'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm still a little bit like scared about this fact of serving and hosting. And it's like, I feel like by inhabiting these servers and then also maintaining and configuring the affective infrastructures in which we are moving, that we are trans* hack feminists. And it's [about] these kinds of spaces. It's not serving. It's, you know, like fluid. It's like good. It's like you are feeling the practices of technology. It's like configuring together. It's yeah, it's more like an actualization of trans* hack feminism. I like it has a history, also. The TransHackFeminism, was a reaction on the electictechcarnival (https://eclectictechcarnival.org/) to open specific identity politics and women-only-spaces up, to trans* people. And then the reaction came.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: I would also be super curious to hear what it means to have come from a cis-woman only space and going through the process of opening that up to trans* people.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So I try to put here just a little definition that we created for the feminist museum about TransHackFeminism. Hmm ... ?? .... So we have to define it like: The Mummy is a museum of the future taking place in the 22nd century. It's a museum about sexism that has disappeared: it is curated with Anamhoo, a sysadmin of Anarchaserver that organised the trans* hack feminist convergence in Mexico. We try to collect seven different artistic pieces..... I have been in a collective in Spain that is called Donestech (https://www.donestech.net/) in Catalan that was created in 2007. At that moment, there was no other collective that was working on the relation between gender and technologies and free software. But I think that the paradigm of inclusion of women in digital tech related spaces was needed, no? But it's very 90s, no? [We became more] trans* feminist in our politics, in our feminist politics. We made an event where we would meet together, [and you had to be] open to trans* feminism. So that's why it was called TransHackFeminism and because it was organized not only by me and Sophie Toupin, but also by the people of Pechblenda which was a space in Calafou and Julito who were trans feminist. It appeared in 2008 in Spain, in the feminist conference in Granada.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I would like to elaborate a bit more on what ooooo mentioned a little bit of the story of events because we are based in different locations within Europe. So the eclectictechcarnival takes place not even yearly.; sometimes it is 2, 3 years inbetween. Well, I admit I haven't been at that many. I've been in the last one, it was an organized in Greece where I am based. The one before was in Italy, and the one before Italy was called TransHack Feminism in Calafou. And because I organized it, the question of who can join this event came up because every time as time passes as spideralex mentioned feminism itself changes, and it's always this question of who can join our event? And again, for example, the last, let's say a firewall, is cis men. Can cis men join our events? So this is the base of the conversation as we try to provide safe spaces and for those who are marginalized, within technology and its environments. But I would say it's an open question, and it always depends on the locality of the event. And on those organizing it. Of course, we all have our own idea and praxis of feminism.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: To me it was also new, I was not sure what that trans* referred to, because in the German speaking context [people] were talking maybe of queer feminism. So I was curious to also learn [about trans* feminism as] a part of the struggle against a current of feminism that in some places is stronger than others, and that is about the exclusion of trans* people and non-binary. And so that was one aspect that I find interesting to learn, and I find its good to call it trans* feminism to make it explicit.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, and important because at a certain moment, there was really a confusion for me because I was at the CCC (Chaos Computer Congres) and there was a transhack meeting. So I joined into the meeting because it was about the organization of the next gathering. But actually, it was about trans nationality. So it was more like focusing on Spain and Italy. They have like trans hack meetings, but it's actually transnational meetings.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So we have hack meetings. Yeah, when we make it across different countries it becomes a trans hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, sure. But it's interesting that the one refers to like identity politics in relation to gender, it seems. And the other, of course not. It's much wider also about your national identity. But it is confusing, or it is also how the term can be hacked so that that gets certain meanings by actually also using it. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, it was confusing. And then the confusion was pretty interesting. We only had two trans hack meetings in the history of trans hack meetings in Europe. One in Poland and the other one was three years ago, four years ago in Tarnack and there some people thought it was a trans* hack meeting, but it was pretty cool because this way we had more queer people around. Yeah, it wasn't that easy. It was like: No, no, this is not the trans* hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And actually, there was recently a transhack meeting in Bologna that also had a sysadmin of systerserver involved. It was also called like that. That's nice. So yeah, it's a somehow yeah, it's hacked then. But yeah, it's not so nice if you're then there and it's a quite cis-normative environment because that's not that the safer space that you went there for. This is not a trans* hack meeting this is a transhack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: During THF, the question was also: what is now the most important term in it? Is trans*? is it hack? is it feminism? Can feminism be hacked, can feminism be trans*? Can hack be transed? Can you trans* hack? It's like, you know, it is circulating inside of the dependencies within these three denominators.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Here is a link with documentation of 2 sessions we had during the first convergence : [TransHackFeminist/Que_significa%3F/What_it_means%3F]. So maybe then you can dig more in. It wasn't so many people that say they're interested, in trans*feminism. But the trans terminology, about transitioning, about transition, about all the links that it could have with immigration with transformation, with even of politics, you know, and so on, so on, so on. So yeah, I think we can put it in different layers and for sure, at least when it was set up in Calafou in 2017 the first layer was about trans*feminist politics.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, just to add, sometimes when you encounter a term for first time, you make a conclusion depending on your background and your identity, etc. So of course, when our services uses terms it feels important and to give a description of them: what does this term contain? It's also very important that when we do things that we are open about it, the terminology we're using what does it refer to and why it is constructed like that? And it is important because it changes very quickly, in all this researches of all that is happening in migration realities to multi species studies and keeping in mind always intersectionality they all add up in the end in the concept of creating safe spaces. So I think this is something to consider when we use terms, how we came up with and why we came up with the terms we use.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And it was really important that people do a bit of research and find their own history in this terminology, you know. It's also by the people inhabiting or by the people embodying that it becomes and not only by a definition. I mean, it's ever changing also.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I agree in the sense I think that Anarchaserver is one of the first pages including the THF and all the documentation, and it feels very complicated to give a straightforward definition. And now we are trying to give access to the documentation that has been created around that concept. We are trying to clarify, to know, a definition of our internet politics and gender and diversity and so on. But for Trans Hack Feminism convergences, I would find it very difficult to give a straightforward explicit definition.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe we have to create expiration dates on our Wiki pages. If we don't visit them in certain time becomes too old and it becomes a reference without being actual. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: But I've seen these issues coming up when we organize events and you know, we have to do open calls and these things are always reconfiguring. Hacking within TransHackFeminism is to hack patriarchy, capitalism and other systems of oppression. Hacking refers to the act of doing and taking things apart, understanding them in a deeper way. Hacking is action performance. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: So one last question is how do you define in your group the terms server and the relations between service and clients because we also read in your manifesto and that your project is about reconfiguring these relations? So it's a question that maybe speaks to like literally the server, but maybe also metaphorically the serving of values or the working together for the making of space.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: For me, the server is like a space, like a room. It's not only a machine, but we can go into it because usually we meet, especially because we live in other places, we meet on the server. It's our meeting point like instead of going to a cafe, we meet in the terminal. So while we’re in the terminal we try to support each other, educate ourselves and spend time together. So it's a connecting room that we can go in and work together in. And about the ‘server’ ‘client’, I really don't like the word client in general, but I know the technical term. I just don't see it translating in a social way inside the feminist server constellations because it is more of a corporate thing. Other people have said its more like inhabiting the servers instead of serving. So its not only that the server serves, and the other is a transmitter it becomes an interchangeable role that you also receive at the same time instead of only offering the other side. I would like more that we do both.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: We have a lot intense reflections and critical thinking about the terminology, which is used inside of these machines. Common are terms like master/slave. Server/client, fail/success. We try to approach it differently also with humor and read it as poetics. We often deconstruct this language and appropriate it in a way that is closer to our identity and our politics. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm looking at some of the histories of feminist servers. I saw two approaches that I really like one that was from 2013 was when they twisted the language at the feminist server summit that was held on the question of a feminist server into: Are you being served? And I really like that because it fits my my understanding of feminism as talking about the embodied experience of not being served in certain contexts. And the other one is from the fall, the ‘From Skin to Steel Manifesto’(? link ?) that must have come from to Brazil. They start their manifesto by claiming that we are all already and thinking about, body experience as serving. And that's very close to what I would call care practices. So where where are the lines between serving and caring? It's really a very radical political claim to look for things about who is being served and it is close to this question of who has access and who can participate. <br /><br /><br />
FSS: We never say server/client. We use the word allies when we want to talk about the people who would like to collaborate and do things with our servers. This applies both to the look of the websites, but also how we communicate to the people outside our internal group. So we don't refer to the client at all.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: But then as a tiny, technical follow up question, how do you technically reconfigure these relations?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's like another network topology, peer to peer. So technically there are protocols which are allowing that. But for example, with the feminist servers we try to have distributed services that not each server has the same services. A server has etherpads, another has cloud services, video conference instances, gitlab repositories,....<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So its not really changing the server client, but like it's more like making a redistributed model of dependency. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: One of the points that TransHackfeminism articulated is that of autonomy in having a Feminist server: you choose your dependencies.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like to ask MELT something, so you are also working on server access? Access Server? Is it still server access the project you are working on?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It's called Access Server, the project.'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I wondered, maybe its too quick to digest what we said so far. But still, I wondered what you thought about the convergences between the thoughts between your Access Server project and what we have been discussing so far?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Hm, yeah so part of the ACCESS SERVER project is that we're technically trying to understand how it can work so that when people email institutions asking for accessibility, the email will cc the previous email with access requests to the same institution. So we're trying to technically create a collectivity so that disabled people emailing understand see that they're not the only ones that are emailing to any institution. So emailers have the sense that, oh, many other people have emailed as well. So I think that this relates to how you’re talking about technical collectivity and trying to share resources and offer other options for points of connection. This is still a technical question. We're not exactly sure how to do it yet and also to maintain people's privacy at the same time. So there's a few questions there behind that. But I think that this is the desire to understand the technically active collective body that is emailing with access requests. ''<br />
<br /><br />
:''MELT: When listening to you. I think notions of care and trust is where I feel a lot of shared questions and maybe sometimes struggles or figurings out. And also in these relations between how to reach out and work with other people with an infrastructure that we provide. Because the idea is really that other disabled people can use the email server and the website that comes with it. So there are also questions of how to even make the website accessible. There are guidelines around that, we have some knowledge around that. But then also how to reach out, also across other axes of discrimination and oppression. How to build that trust also. And also technically then if someone sends an email through our email server how can we make sure that their name is anonymous, for example, the IP address, etc. So that's a lot of questions that still seem also hard to ensure safety. Then also, we skipped the question on trolling and how to carry the risk of providing, feminist and accessible services. That's also a big one for us still to figure out. How can we, I think we can’t prevent people from abusing our service, but how can we even make sure that it doesn't affect more people? And maybe also it doesn't affect us too much. So all of these questions, I think, are quite related.''<br />
<br /><br />
:MELT: ''Also, when you were speaking, something that also came to mind is that I think that the idea of the access server, constantly reminds us of the world that we live in where ableism is so structural. And this is the kind of reality that we're posited against. I'm also curious to see how how we can get people interested in using it, because also even when people are paid for their labour and even when they write emails to institutions, institutions themselves have so much work to do to change. And so I think that that is also a similar condition that you're working with with the feminist server projects where you're publicizing. We're trying to make more visible, so to speak, that there are alternatives, other ways of doing things that do not conform to ableism and capitalism as discriminatory and oppressive standards. Our project approach institutions and requires them to change. And that's also what you're doing. I think what the feminist server project is like trying to provide an alternative to show that a change is possible.''<br />
<br />
<br />
</div></div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Interview_Meltionary&diff=1453Interview Meltionary2022-11-16T19:10:34Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div>FSS - Feminst server Sysadmins <br /><br />
MELT - Meltionary<br />
<br /><br /><br />
<big>'''Could you walk us through the ways Access Server is used?'''</big><br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
<br />
:''MELT: The first thing that piqued our interest was the sub page Access Server, because it has the same title as our project. Could you walk us through the ways in which that page is used? Who uses it? What are the steps to follow and what happens if something doesn't work? We are also interested in the kinds of conversations you perhaps already had among your group to set up the page.''<br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
FSS: <br />
When searching for an answer to this question, we had a very technical way of looking at it. The page is from a [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki Mediawiki] that we installed. We have this helpful "history" function under each created page, as it's a collaborative writing tool, it keeps track of the previous edits. So what we actually did yesterday is hit the history button to try to find the history of that specific page because it also has a timestamp, and it also sees the user who was actually creating this page. So we found that the user was THF and that there was three other users: ooooo, b04 and ezn. They were also contributing to the the technical appearance of this page. The THF user refers to ‘trans hack feminism’, which was [[Main_Page#TransHackFeminist_Convergence|a convergence]] organized in Calafou. . So it's not very clear who made that page, but it is made in that convergence, so there were people sitting around the table and making it. Do you want to contextualize the THF user spideralex? Or the trans hack feminist convergence?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
So the THF user was created around the first TransHackFeminist convergence in 2013. It was a shared user of the different people that have been documenting the different sessions that were held at this first event of one week. We have been sharing <the user> to document basically the different conversations. And then the wiki has remained as a space where different TransHackFeminist events could document what they did. In the wiki, we write about feminist servers in general and when we document the Anarchaserver's technical and other work.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
More on the technical side – this was the first thing I did when I joined Anarchaserver. As spideralex said, the documentations of different projects kept going on. So there were two similar pages with server set up documentation. The first thing I did was to merge and update them. But also, we had this conversation with ooooo that it would be nice if someone actually tries it. Yeah, sometimes it's nice if someone else tries to follow the instructions because you, yourself, know what you're doing. And I also did the styling of the page and then I did the overall styling of MediaWiki, and I wanted for it to be a bit more welcoming than a default page. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS:<br />
And I think also as it is a wiki, it would be nice now that you <MELT> are in residence for the Fair New Idea project, we would welcome your visions on accessibility. It would be an invitation, of course, that you could also become an active intervener or would change and modify and add to the content of that page to maybe broaden up this idea of what access to the server is. Besides from its technical perspective of how to exchange SSH keys (secure shell) and make user modifications.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
'''<big>How do you think about accessibility?</big>''' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It is very interesting to hear from everyone about what kind of accessibility you think with! I hear a lot about collaborations that produce the wiki with you as a way to literally access the server. And I also understand that it is also a kind of accessibility to make the server accessible by documenting how to use it. But I'm curious what it would mean for you to make the server disability accessible? How do you think about accessibility? What does that mean in your project? Do you have some thoughts on that?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I can start with this question. So. Accessibility, yeah, it's a concern. Accessibility in terms of who can work and make use of our services that we host. And at the moment it‘s mostly people who are part of the collective and with this project. A Fair New Idea was also for us a way to try to reach out and to try to see how we could host people besides our internal network. So that's why we invited you for a residency. So anyway, it was an opportunity to reach out to first artists and of course, we'll see how it will go. But since most of are artists and at the same time we have technical knowledge and we would like to share basic cohabitation with artists who can learn to work outside very commercial, centralized online tools. So that's one path of accessibility. So then there's the accessibility of who can join in our networks because sometimes the activism is something that not everybody can afford, because most of the times that we volunteer on a project. So having available resources, even if it's minimal for people to do things, with our servers is a very important accessibility factor. And then it comes, of course, accessibility of our user interfaces who can actually read and learn and from the content we host on our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe I can add something: For me, the first part of accessibility was also for myself even, to start being familiar with, how to use a server, how to get there and how to do stuff there and not look at it as a black box that I cannot touch because I'm afraid. So by trying to bring people that are not experts or not technologists into collectives in which people can help each other in educating themselves so they feel more emancipated to use not only commercial tools, but also their own or open source ones. For the future what I'm currently thinking of is that I would like things that we do on the server, like maybe a website or a wiki or whatever to be more inclusive to people with disabilities, for example. What I see now when it comes to that is that colours could be too much for some people to read, or <we could develop tools like> some functions for people who cannot hear and who would really like it to learn more about technology can use. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I am interested in understanding accessibility as something that too is about how we make our tools and services and contents more accessible to deaf and disabled people. And also to people who don't speak Spanish and English. Then again, in general how contents and services can be made more known and accessible to short term collectivities and individuals. I’m also interested in how you can enable a lower threshold for feminist collectives to engage in and maintain their own technical infrastructures.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Thank you so much for these answers and also these very varied and different considerations of access. In relation to infrastructure, tech and language, and of course, disability. Yeah, I think we are both excited to continue working on that together. The next question is about speculative dreaming: What future perspectives for the feminist server do you wish or dream of?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I dream that our feminist server continues to be a meeting point and space for feminist peers that will help us to evolve and collaborate and work together. And I'm also thinking about local feminist groups here in Rotterdam where I now live, but also back in Athens, where I come from. And I know that there is a need [for feminist servers] there. I hope that they can benefit from the existence of our feminist servers, especially towards helping to a future of more technological autonomy. Probably that cannot be completed, but at least to try to be less dependent on giant tech corporations for their communication or for publishing our works or our struggles or things that we need to communicate with the world, um, and interconnect with other feminist groups out there. So I hope that our feminist servers can help that perspective.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I totally agree, and I find it so beautiful how we use tools as always a means to an end. I don't think anyone of us glorifies them and it's like: [making a] server is the end game. No, it's about using [a server] to learn together and to hang out and communicate. So I think that's very beautiful. I'm from Georgia and I didn't have anyone to talk about any of those things around me. That's how I actually got here. And this is already my dream scenario come to life. So now I'm trying to reconnect with people who are not so technical, but we are already starting to have something local in Georgia as well. So yeah, it's kind of that's what feminist servers are to me.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I agree and I would like to give a more pragmatic and nuanced [view] on this thing. I would say that the cooperative model here would be one of my dreams for the feminist servers we have. And that it can include a membership fee so we can make our services more sustainable because from the past experience, and we've seen that the only way of giving time, it works well for learning, but then it's very difficult to host services for other artists and feminists that we would like to have. So a more concrete approach to the dream of the future for the life of our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: What I observe right now is that the critique of big tech companies is high but the awareness that there is an alternative way to use technology is very invisible so far. And that's a lot of work to speak up for that and to make it shown. So that would be some vision of mine to not look at faces of complete disbelief when talking about having our own server.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like more people and collectives engaged in setting up feminist servers and in general feminist infrastructure initiatives. I would be interested in more local gynaecological considerations embedded inside the set up of future feminist servers. Dreaming, creating data centers made for and by feminist servers. And coordination between different feminist servers to avoid reinventing the wheel or to enable supporting each other in knowledge and solidarity processes. To share resources and funding, to share common technical infrastructure or by having people that have specific skills and knowledge that can contribute to different initiatives. And finally, my big dream is one day to have feminist servers that then orientate towards providing services to communities that are facing strong gender based violence online and censorship in digital spaces [such as] pro-choice activists, post porno and sex workers. So that's a long term projection, but I would like that we can manage to go there one day.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: The idea of more sysadmins people who join us in the backend! [People] not just there for the services, who learn with us and try to engage with the technology and the machines which are surrounding us. Sysadmins unite (!) to break the [local] isolation of having that technofeminist praxis and awareness.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Maybe it's nice to continue because our project also works with trans* feminism and Disability Justice, and I love the ways in which the trans* feminist, THF, TransHackFeminism becomes a shared user in the access server page. But also, I think that there's a specific understanding of trans* feminism that you seem to be working with because it comes up again many times on the Anarchaserver page. What does it mean to you to serve trans* feminism in this project? I think it's also related to a lot of the dreams that you just shared. Would you want to say something more about trans* feminism specifically?'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm still a little bit like scared about this fact of serving and hosting. And it's like, I feel like by inhabiting these servers and then also maintaining and configuring the affective infrastructures in which we are moving, that we are trans* hack feminists. And it's [about] these kinds of spaces. It's not serving. It's, you know, like fluid. It's like good. It's like you are feeling the practices of technology. It's like configuring together. It's yeah, it's more like an actualization of trans* hack feminism. I like it has a history, also. The TransHackFeminism, was a reaction on the electictechcarnival (https://eclectictechcarnival.org/) to open specific identity politics and women-only-spaces up, to trans* people. And then the reaction came.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: I would also be super curious to hear what it means to have come from a cis-woman only space and going through the process of opening that up to trans* people.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So I try to put here just a little definition that we created for the feminist museum about TransHackFeminism. Hmm ... ?? .... So we have to define it like: The Mummy is a museum of the future taking place in the 22nd century. It's a museum about sexism that has disappeared: it is curated with Anamhoo, a sysadmin of Anarchaserver that organised the trans* hack feminist convergence in Mexico. We try to collect seven different artistic pieces..... I have been in a collective in Spain that is called Donestech (https://www.donestech.net/) in Catalan that was created in 2007. At that moment, there was no other collective that was working on the relation between gender and technologies and free software. But I think that the paradigm of inclusion of women in digital tech related spaces was needed, no? But it's very 90s, no? [We became more] trans* feminist in our politics, in our feminist politics. We made an event where we would meet together, [and you had to be] open to trans* feminism. So that's why it was called TransHackFeminism and because it was organized not only by me and Sophie Toupin, but also by the people of Pechblenda which was a space in Calafou and Julito who were trans feminist. It appeared in 2008 in Spain, in the feminist conference in Granada.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I would like to elaborate a bit more on what ooooo mentioned a little bit of the story of events because we are based in different locations within Europe. So the eclectictechcarnival takes place not even yearly.; sometimes it is 2, 3 years inbetween. Well, I admit I haven't been at that many. I've been in the last one, it was an organized in Greece where I am based. The one before was in Italy, and the one before Italy was called TransHack Feminism in Calafou. And because I organized it, the question of who can join this event came up because every time as time passes as spideralex mentioned feminism itself changes, and it's always this question of who can join our event? And again, for example, the last, let's say a firewall, is cis men. Can cis men join our events? So this is the base of the conversation as we try to provide safe spaces and for those who are marginalized, within technology and its environments. But I would say it's an open question, and it always depends on the locality of the event. And on those organizing it. Of course, we all have our own idea and praxis of feminism.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: To me it was also new, I was not sure what that trans* referred to, because in the German speaking context [people] were talking maybe of queer feminism. So I was curious to also learn [about trans* feminism as] a part of the struggle against a current of feminism that in some places is stronger than others, and that is about the exclusion of trans* people and non-binary. And so that was one aspect that I find interesting to learn, and I find its good to call it trans* feminism to make it explicit.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, and important because at a certain moment, there was really a confusion for me because I was at the CCC (Chaos Computer Congres) and there was a transhack meeting. So I joined into the meeting because it was about the organization of the next gathering. But actually, it was about trans nationality. So it was more like focusing on Spain and Italy. They have like trans hack meetings, but it's actually transnational meetings.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So we have hack meetings. Yeah, when we make it across different countries it becomes a trans hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, sure. But it's interesting that the one refers to like identity politics in relation to gender, it seems. And the other, of course not. It's much wider also about your national identity. But it is confusing, or it is also how the term can be hacked so that that gets certain meanings by actually also using it. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, it was confusing. And then the confusion was pretty interesting. We only had two trans hack meetings in the history of trans hack meetings in Europe. One in Poland and the other one was three years ago, four years ago in Tarnack and there some people thought it was a trans* hack meeting, but it was pretty cool because this way we had more queer people around. Yeah, it wasn't that easy. It was like: No, no, this is not the trans* hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And actually, there was recently a transhack meeting in Bologna that also had a sysadmin of systerserver involved. It was also called like that. That's nice. So yeah, it's a somehow yeah, it's hacked then. But yeah, it's not so nice if you're then there and it's a quite cis-normative environment because that's not that the safer space that you went there for. This is not a trans* hack meeting this is a transhack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: During THF, the question was also: what is now the most important term in it? Is trans*? is it hack? is it feminism? Can feminism be hacked, can feminism be trans*? Can hack be transed? Can you trans* hack? It's like, you know, it is circulating inside of the dependencies within these three denominators.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Here is a link with documentation of 2 sessions we had during the first convergence : [TransHackFeminist/Que_significa%3F/What_it_means%3F]. So maybe then you can dig more in. It wasn't so many people that say they're interested, in trans*feminism. But the trans terminology, about transitioning, about transition, about all the links that it could have with immigration with transformation, with even of politics, you know, and so on, so on, so on. So yeah, I think we can put it in different layers and for sure, at least when it was set up in Calafou in 2017 the first layer was about trans*feminist politics.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, just to add, sometimes when you encounter a term for first time, you make a conclusion depending on your background and your identity, etc. So of course, when our services uses terms it feels important and to give a description of them: what does this term contain? It's also very important that when we do things that we are open about it, the terminology we're using what does it refer to and why it is constructed like that? And it is important because it changes very quickly, in all this researches of all that is happening in migration realities to multi species studies and keeping in mind always intersectionality they all add up in the end in the concept of creating safe spaces. So I think this is something to consider when we use terms, how we came up with and why we came up with the terms we use.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And it was really important that people do a bit of research and find their own history in this terminology, you know. It's also by the people inhabiting or by the people embodying that it becomes and not only by a definition. I mean, it's ever changing also.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I agree in the sense I think that Anarchaserver is one of the first pages including the THF and all the documentation, and it feels very complicated to give a straightforward definition. And now we are trying to give access to the documentation that has been created around that concept. We are trying to clarify, to know, a definition of our internet politics and gender and diversity and so on. But for Trans Hack Feminism convergences, I would find it very difficult to give a straightforward explicit definition.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe we have to create expiration dates on our Wiki pages. If we don't visit them in certain time becomes too old and it becomes a reference without being actual. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: But I've seen these issues coming up when we organize events and you know, we have to do open calls and these things are always reconfiguring. Hacking within TransHackFeminism is to hack patriarchy, capitalism and other systems of oppression. Hacking refers to the act of doing and taking things apart, understanding them in a deeper way. Hacking is action performance. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: So one last question is how do you define in your group the terms server and the relations between service and clients because we also read in your manifesto and that your project is about reconfiguring these relations? So it's a question that maybe speaks to like literally the server, but maybe also metaphorically the serving of values or the working together for the making of space.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: For me, the server is like a space, like a room. It's not only a machine, but we can go into it because usually we meet, especially because we live in other places, we meet on the server. It's our meeting point like instead of going to a cafe, we meet in the terminal. So while we’re in the terminal we try to support each other, educate ourselves and spend time together. So it's a connecting room that we can go in and work together in. And about the ‘server’ ‘client’, I really don't like the word client in general, but I know the technical term. I just don't see it translating in a social way inside the feminist server constellations because it is more of a corporate thing. Other people have said its more like inhabiting the servers instead of serving. So its not only that the server serves, and the other is a transmitter it becomes an interchangeable role that you also receive at the same time instead of only offering the other side. I would like more that we do both.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: We have a lot intense reflections and critical thinking about the terminology, which is used inside of these machines. Common are terms like master/slave. Server/client, fail/success. We try to approach it differently also with humor and read it as poetics. We often deconstruct this language and appropriate it in a way that is closer to our identity and our politics. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm looking at some of the histories of feminist servers. I saw two approaches that I really like one that was from 2013 was when they twisted the language at the feminist server summit that was held on the question of a feminist server into: Are you being served? And I really like that because it fits my my understanding of feminism as talking about the embodied experience of not being served in certain contexts. And the other one is from the fall, the ‘From Skin to Steel Manifesto’(? link ?) that must have come from to Brazil. They start their manifesto by claiming that we are all already and thinking about, body experience as serving. And that's very close to what I would call care practices. So where where are the lines between serving and caring? It's really a very radical political claim to look for things about who is being served and it is close to this question of who has access and who can participate. <br /><br /><br />
FSS: We never say server/client. We use the word allies when we want to talk about the people who would like to collaborate and do things with our servers. This applies both to the look of the websites, but also how we communicate to the people outside our internal group. So we don't refer to the client at all.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: But then as a tiny, technical follow up question, how do you technically reconfigure these relations?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's like another network topology, peer to peer. So technically there are protocols which are allowing that. But for example, with the feminist servers we try to have distributed services that not each server has the same services. A server has etherpads, another has cloud services, video conference instances, gitlab repositories,....<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So its not really changing the server client, but like it's more like making a redistributed model of dependency. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: One of the points that TransHackfeminism articulated is that of autonomy in having a Feminist server: you choose your dependencies.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like to ask MELT something, so you are also working on server access? Access Server? Is it still server access the project you are working on?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It's called Access Server, the project.'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I wondered, maybe its too quick to digest what we said so far. But still, I wondered what you thought about the convergences between the thoughts between your Access Server project and what we have been discussing so far?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Hm, yeah so part of the ACCESS SERVER project is that we're technically trying to understand how it can work so that when people email institutions asking for accessibility, the email will cc the previous email with access requests to the same institution. So we're trying to technically create a collectivity so that disabled people emailing understand see that they're not the only ones that are emailing to any institution. So emailers have the sense that, oh, many other people have emailed as well. So I think that this relates to how you’re talking about technical collectivity and trying to share resources and offer other options for points of connection. This is still a technical question. We're not exactly sure how to do it yet and also to maintain people's privacy at the same time. So there's a few questions there behind that. But I think that this is the desire to understand the technically active collective body that is emailing with access requests. ''<br />
<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: When listening to you. I think notions of care and trust is where I feel a lot of shared questions and maybe sometimes struggles or figurings out. And also in these relations between how to reach out and work with other people with an infrastructure that we provide. Because the idea is really that other disabled people can use the email server and the website that comes with it. So there are also questions of how to even make the website accessible. There are guidelines around that, we have some knowledge around that. But then also how to reach out, also across other axes of discrimination and oppression. How to build that trust also. And also technically then if someone sends an email through our email server how can we make sure that their name is anonymous, for example, the IP address, etc. So that's a lot of questions that still seem also hard to ensure safety. Then also, we skipped the question on trolling and how to carry the risk of providing, feminist and accessible services. That's also a big one for us still to figure out. How can we, I think we can’t prevent people from abusing our service, but how can we even make sure that it doesn't affect more people? And maybe also it doesn't affect us too much. So all of these questions, I think, are quite related.''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:MELT: ''Also, when you were speaking, something that also came to mind is that I think that the idea of the access server, constantly reminds us of the world that we live in where ableism is so structural. And this is the kind of reality that we're posited against. I'm also curious to see how how we can get people interested in using it, because also even when people are paid for their labour and even when they write emails to institutions, institutions themselves have so much work to do to change. And so I think that that is also a similar condition that you're working with with the feminist server projects where you're publicizing. We're trying to make more visible, so to speak, that there are alternatives, other ways of doing things that do not conform to ableism and capitalism as discriminatory and oppressive standards. Our project approach institutions and requires them to change. And that's also what you're doing. I think what the feminist server project is like trying to provide an alternative to show that a change is possible.''</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Interview_Meltionary&diff=1452Interview Meltionary2022-11-16T19:01:39Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div>FSS - Feminst server Sysadmins <br /><br />
MELT - Meltionary<br />
<br /><br /><br />
<big>'''Could you walk us through the ways Access Server is used?'''</big><br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
<br />
:''MELT: The first thing that piqued our interest was the sub page Access Server, because it has the same title as our project. Could you walk us through the ways in which that page is used? Who uses it? What are the steps to follow and what happens if something doesn't work? We are also interested in the kinds of conversations you perhaps already had among your group to set up the page.''<br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
FSS: <br />
When searching for an answer to this question, we had a very technical way of looking at it. The page is from a [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki Mediawiki] that we installed. We have this helpful "history" function under each created page, as it's a collaborative writing tool, it keeps track of the previous edits. So what we actually did yesterday is hit the history button to try to find the history of that specific page because it also has a timestamp, and it also sees the user who was actually creating this page. So we found that the user was THF and that there was three other users: ooooo, b04 and ezn. They were also contributing to the the technical appearance of this page. The THF user refers to ‘trans hack feminism’, which was [[Main_Page#TransHackFeminist_Convergence|a convergence]] organized in Calafou. . So it's not very clear who made that page, but it is made in that convergence, so there were people sitting around the table and making it. Do you want to contextualize the THF user spideralex? Or the trans hack feminist convergence?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
So the THF user was created around the first TransHackFeminist convergence in 2013. It was a shared user of the different people that have been documenting the different sessions that were held at this first event of one week. We have been sharing <the user> to document basically the different conversations. And then the wiki has remained as a space where different TransHackFeminist events could document what they did. In the wiki, we write about feminist servers in general and when we document the Anarchaserver's technical and other work.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
More on the technical side – this was the first thing I did when I joined Anarchaserver. As spideralex said, the documentations of different projects kept going on. So there were two similar pages with server set up documentation. The first thing I did was to merge and update them. But also, we had this conversation with ooooo that it would be nice if someone actually tries it. Yeah, sometimes it's nice if someone else tries to follow the instructions because you, yourself, know what you're doing. And I also did the styling of the page and then I did the overall styling of MediaWiki, and I wanted for it to be a bit more welcoming than a default page. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS:<br />
And I think also as it is a wiki, it would be nice now that you <MELT> are in residence for the Fair New Idea project, we would welcome your visions on accessibility. It would be an invitation, of course, that you could also become an active intervener or would change and modify and add to the content of that page to maybe broaden up this idea of what access to the server is. Besides from its technical perspective of how to exchange SSH keys (secure shell) and make user modifications.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
'''<big>How do you think about accessibility?</big>''' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It is very interesting to hear from everyone about what kind of accessibility you think with! I hear a lot about collaborations that produce the wiki with you as a way to literally access the server. And I also understand that it is also a kind of accessibility to make the server accessible by documenting how to use it. But I'm curious what it would mean for you to make the server disability accessible? How do you think about accessibility? What does that mean in your project? Do you have some thoughts on that?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I can start with this question. So. Accessibility, yeah, it's a concern. Accessibility in terms of who can work and make use of our services that we host. And at the moment it‘s mostly people who are part of the collective and with this project. A Fair New Idea was also for us a way to try to reach out and to try to see how we could host people besides our internal network. So that's why we invited you for a residency. So anyway, it was an opportunity to reach out to first artists and of course, we'll see how it will go. But since most of are artists and at the same time we have technical knowledge and we would like to share basic cohabitation with artists who can learn to work outside very commercial, centralized online tools. So that's one path of accessibility. So then there's the accessibility of who can join in our networks because sometimes the activism is something that not everybody can afford, because most of the times that we volunteer on a project. So having available resources, even if it's minimal for people to do things, with our servers is a very important accessibility factor. And then it comes, of course, accessibility of our user interfaces who can actually read and learn and from the content we host on our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe I can add something: For me, the first part of accessibility was also for myself even, to start being familiar with, how to use a server, how to get there and how to do stuff there and not look at it as a black box that I cannot touch because I'm afraid. So by trying to bring people that are not experts or not technologists into collectives in which people can help each other in educating themselves so they feel more emancipated to use not only commercial tools, but also their own or open source ones. For the future what I'm currently thinking of is that I would like things that we do on the server, like maybe a website or a wiki or whatever to be more inclusive to people with disabilities, for example. What I see now when it comes to that is that colours could be too much for some people to read, or <we could develop tools like> some functions for people who cannot hear and who would really like it to learn more about technology can use. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I am interested in understanding accessibility as something that too is about how we make our tools and services and contents more accessible to deaf and disabled people. And also to people who don't speak Spanish and English. Then again, in general how contents and services can be made more known and accessible to short term collectivities and individuals. I’m also interested in how you can enable a lower threshold for feminist collectives to engage in and maintain their own technical infrastructures.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Thank you so much for these answers and also these very varied and different considerations of access. In relation to infrastructure, tech and language, and of course, disability. Yeah, I think we are both excited to continue working on that together. The next question is about speculative dreaming: What future perspectives for the feminist server do you wish or dream of?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I dream that our feminist server continues to be a meeting point and space for feminist peers that will help us to evolve and collaborate and work together. And I'm also thinking about local feminist groups here in Rotterdam where I now live, but also back in Athens, where I come from. And I know that there is a need [for feminist servers] there. I hope that they can benefit from the existence of our feminist servers, especially towards helping to a future of more technological autonomy. Probably that cannot be completed, but at least to try to be less dependent on giant tech corporations for their communication or for publishing our works or our struggles or things that we need to communicate with the world, um, and interconnect with other feminist groups out there. So I hope that our feminist servers can help that perspective.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I totally agree, and I find it so beautiful how we use tools as always a means to an end. I don't think anyone of us glorifies them and it's like: [making a] server is the end game. No, it's about using [a server] to learn together and to hang out and communicate. So I think that's very beautiful. I'm from Georgia and I didn't have anyone to talk about any of those things around me. That's how I actually got here. And this is already my dream scenario come to life. So now I'm trying to reconnect with people who are not so technical, but we are already starting to have something local in Georgia as well. So yeah, it's kind of that's what feminist servers are to me.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I agree and I would like to give a more pragmatic and nuanced [view] on this thing. I would say that the cooperative model here would be one of my dreams for the feminist servers we have. And that it can include a membership fee so we can make our services more sustainable because from the past experience, and we've seen that the only way of giving time, it works well for learning, but then it's very difficult to host services for other artists and feminists that we would like to have. So a more concrete approach to the dream of the future for the life of our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: What I observe right now is that the critique of big tech companies is high but the awareness that there is an alternative way to use technology is very invisible so far. And that's a lot of work to speak up for that and to make it shown. So that would be some vision of mine to not look at faces of complete disbelief when talking about having our own server.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like more people and collectives engaged in setting up feminist servers and in general feminist infrastructure initiatives. I would be interested in more local gynaecological considerations embedded inside the set up of future feminist servers. Dreaming, creating data centers made for and by feminist servers. And coordination between different feminist servers to avoid reinventing the wheel or to enable supporting each other in knowledge and solidarity processes. To share resources and funding, to share common technical infrastructure or by having people that have specific skills and knowledge that can contribute to different initiatives. And finally, my big dream is one day to have feminist servers that then orientate towards providing services to communities that are facing strong gender based violence online and censorship in digital spaces [such as] pro-choice activists, post porno and sex workers. So that's a long term projection, but I would like that we can manage to go there one day.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: The idea of more sysadmins people who join us in the backend! [People] not just there for the services, who learn with us and try to engage with the technology and the machines which are surrounding us. Sysadmins unite (!) to break the [local] isolation of having that technofeminist praxis and awareness.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Maybe it's nice to continue because our project also works with trans* feminism and Disability Justice, and I love the ways in which the trans* feminist, THF, TransHackFeminism becomes a shared user in the access server page. But also, I think that there's a specific understanding of trans* feminism that you seem to be working with because it comes up again many times on the Anarchaserver page. What does it mean to you to serve trans* feminism in this project? I think it's also related to a lot of the dreams that you just shared. Would you want to say something more about trans* feminism specifically?'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm still a little bit like scared about this fact of serving and hosting. And it's like, I feel like by inhabiting these servers and then also maintaining and configuring the affective infrastructures in which we are moving, that we are trans* hack feminists. And it's [about] these kinds of spaces. It's not serving. It's, you know, like fluid. It's like good. It's like you are feeling the practices of technology. It's like configuring together. It's yeah, it's more like an actualization of trans* hack feminism. I like it has a history, also. The TransHackFeminism, was a reaction on the electictechcarnival (https://eclectictechcarnival.org/) to open specific identity politics and women-only-spaces up, to trans* people. And then the reaction came.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: I would also be super curious to hear what it means to have come from a cis-woman only space and going through the process of opening that up to trans* people.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So I try to put here just a little definition that we created for the feminist museum about TransHackFeminism. Hmm ... ?? .... So we have to define it like: The Mummy is a museum of the future taking place in the 22nd century. It's a museum about sexism that has disappeared: it is curated with Anamhoo, a sysadmin of Anarchaserver that organised the trans* hack feminist convergence in Mexico. We try to collect seven different artistic pieces..... I have been in a collective in Spain that is called Donestech (https://www.donestech.net/) in Catalan that was created in 2007. At that moment, there was no other collective that was working on the relation between gender and technologies and free software. But I think that the paradigm of inclusion of women in digital tech related spaces was needed, no? But it's very 90s, no? [We became more] trans* feminist in our politics, in our feminist politics. We made an event where we would meet together, [and you had to be] open to trans* feminism. So that's why it was called TransHackFeminism and because it was organized not only by me and Sophie Toupin, but also by the people of Pechblenda which was a space in Calafou and Julito who were trans feminist. It appeared in 2008 in Spain, in the feminist conference in Granada.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I would like to elaborate a bit more on what ooooo mentioned a little bit of the story of events because we are based in different locations within Europe. So the eclectictechcarnival takes place not even yearly.; sometimes it is 2, 3 years inbetween. Well, I admit I haven't been at that many. I've been in the last one, it was an organized in Greece where I am based. The one before was in Italy, and the one before Italy was called TransHack Feminism in Calafou. And because I organized it, the question of who can join this event came up because every time as time passes as spideralex mentioned feminism itself changes, and it's always this question of who can join our event? And again, for example, the last, let's say a firewall, is cis men. Can cis men join our events? So this is the base of the conversation as we try to provide safe spaces and for those who are marginalized, within technology and its environments. But I would say it's an open question, and it always depends on the locality of the event. And on those organizing it. Of course, we all have our own idea and praxis of feminism.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: To me it was also new, I was not sure what that trans* referred to, because in the German speaking context [people] were talking maybe of queer feminism. So I was curious to also learn [about trans* feminism as] a part of the struggle against a current of feminism that in some places is stronger than others, and that is about the exclusion of trans* people and non-binary. And so that was one aspect that I find interesting to learn, and I find its good to call it trans* feminism to make it explicit.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, and important because at a certain moment, there was really a confusion for me because I was at the CCC (Chaos Computer Congres) and there was a transhack meeting. So I joined into the meeting because it was about the organization of the next gathering. But actually, it was about trans nationality. So it was more like focusing on Spain and Italy. They have like trans hack meetings, but it's actually transnational meetings.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So we have hack meetings. Yeah, when we make it across different countries it becomes a trans hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, sure. But it's interesting that the one refers to like identity politics in relation to gender, it seems. And the other, of course not. It's much wider also about your national identity. But it is confusing, or it is also how the term can be hacked so that that gets certain meanings by actually also using it. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, it was confusing. And then the confusion was pretty interesting. We only had two trans hack meetings in the history of trans hack meetings in Europe. One in Poland and the other one was three years ago, four years ago in Tarnack and there some people thought it was a trans* hack meeting, but it was pretty cool because this way we had more queer people around. Yeah, it wasn't that easy. It was like: No, no, this is not the trans* hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And actually, there was recently a transhack meeting in Bologna that also had a sysadmin of systerserver involved. It was also called like that. That's nice. So yeah, it's a somehow yeah, it's hacked then. But yeah, it's not so nice if you're then there and it's a quite cis-normative environment because that's not that the safer space that you went there for. This is not a trans* hack meeting this is a transhack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: During THF, the question was also: what is now the most important term in it? Is trans*? is it hack? is it feminism? Can feminism be hacked, can feminism be trans*? Can hack be transed? Can you trans* hack? It's like, you know, it is circulating inside of the dependencies within these three denominators.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Here is a link with documentation of 2 sessions we had during the first convergence : [TransHackFeminist/Que_significa%3F/What_it_means%3F]. So maybe then you can dig more in. It wasn't so many people that say they're interested, in trans*feminism. But the trans terminology, about transitioning, about transition, about all the links that it could have with immigration with transformation, with even of politics, you know, and so on, so on, so on. So yeah, I think we can put it in different layers and for sure, at least when it was set up in Calafou in 2017 the first layer was about trans*feminist politics.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, just to add, sometimes when you encounter a term for first time, you make a conclusion depending on your background and your identity, etc. So of course, when our services uses terms it feels important and to give a description of them: what does this term contain? It's also very important that when we do things that we are open about it, the terminology we're using what does it refer to and why it is constructed like that? And it is important because it changes very quickly, in all this researches of all that is happening in migration realities to multi species studies and keeping in mind always intersectionality they all add up in the end in the concept of creating safe spaces. So I think this is something to consider when we use terms, how we came up with and why we came up with the terms we use.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And it was really important that people do a bit of research and find their own history in this terminology, you know. It's also by the people inhabiting or by the people embodying that it becomes and not only by a definition. I mean, it's ever changing also.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I agree in the sense I think that Anarchaserver is one of the first pages including the THF and all the documentation, and it feels very complicated to give a straightforward definition. And now we are trying to give access to the documentation that has been created around that concept. We are trying to clarify, to know, a definition of our internet politics and gender and diversity and so on. But for Trans Hack Feminism convergences, I would find it very difficult to give a straightforward explicit definition.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe we have to create expiration dates on our Wiki pages. If we don't visit them in certain time becomes too old and it becomes a reference without being actual. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: But I've seen these issues coming up when we organize events and you know, we have to do open calls and these things are always reconfiguring. Hacking within TransHackFeminism is to hack patriarchy, capitalism and other systems of oppression. Hacking refers to the act of doing and taking things apart, understanding them in a deeper way. Hacking is action performance. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: So one last question is how do you define in your group the terms server and the relations between service and clients because we also read in your manifesto and that your project is about reconfiguring these relations? So it's a question that maybe speaks to like literally the server, but maybe also metaphorically the serving of values or the working together for the making of space.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: For me, the server is like a space, like a room. It's not only a machine, but we can go into it because usually we meet, especially because we live in other places, we meet on the server. It's our meeting point like instead of going to a cafe, we meet in the terminal. So while we’re in the terminal we try to support each other, educate ourselves and spend time together. So it's a connecting room that we can go in and work together in. And about the ‘server’ ‘client’, I really don't like the word client in general, but I know the technical term. I just don't see it translating in a social way inside the feminist server constellations because it is more of a corporate thing. Other people have said its more like inhabiting the servers instead of serving. So its not only that the server serves, and the other is a transmitter it becomes an interchangeable role that you also receive at the same time instead of only offering the other side. I would like more that we do both.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: We have a lot intense reflections and critical thinking about the terminology, which is used inside of these machines. Common are terms like master/slave. Server/client, fail/success. We try to approach it differently also with humor and read it as poetics. We often deconstruct this language and appropriate it in a way that is closer to our identity and our politics. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm looking at some of the histories of feminist servers. I saw two approaches that I really like one that was from 2013 was when they twisted the language at the feminist server summit that was held on the question of a feminist server into: Are you being served? And I really like that because it fits my my understanding of feminism as talking about the embodied experience of not being served in certain contexts. And the other one is from the fall, the ‘From Skin to Steel Manifesto’(? link ?) that must have come from to Brazil. They start their manifesto by claiming that we are all already and thinking about, body experience as serving. And that's very close to what I would call care practices. So where where are the lines between serving and caring? It's really a very radical political claim to look for things about who is being served and it is close to this question of who has access and who can participate.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: We never say server/client. We use the word allies when we want to talk about the people who would like to collaborate and do things with our servers. This applies both to the look of the websites, but also how we communicate to the people outside our internal group. So we don't refer to the client at all.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: But then as a tiny, technical follow up question, how do you technically reconfigure these relations?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's like another network topology, peer to peer. So technically there are protocols which are allowing that, but we're not there yet. But for example, what we also tried to do with the feminist server is to have distributed services that not each server has the same, services that we are using. One has the ether pads, another has other things.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So its not really changing the server client, but like it's more like making a redistributed model of dependency. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: One of the points that THF articulated is that of autonomy where with having a Feminist server: you choose your dependencies.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like to ask MELT something, so you are also working on server access? Access Server? Is it still server access the project you are working on?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It's called Access Server, the project.'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I wondered, maybe its too quick to digest what we said so far. But still, I wondered what you thought about the convergences between the thoughts between your Access Server project and what we have been discussing so far?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Hm, yeah so part of the ACCESS SERVER project is that we're technically trying to understand how it can work so that when people email institutions asking for accessibility, the email will cc the previous email with access requests to the same institution. So we're trying to technically create a collectivity so that disabled people emailing understand see that they're not the only ones that are emailing to any institution. So emailers have the sense that, oh, many other people have emailed as well. So I think that this relates to how you’re talking about technical collectivity and trying to share resources and offer other options for points of connection. This is still a technical question. We're not exactly sure how to do it yet and also to maintain people's privacy at the same time. So there's a few questions there behind that. But I think that this is the desire to understand the technically active collective body that is emailing with access requests. ''<br />
<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: When listening to you. I think notions of care and trust is where I feel a lot of shared questions and maybe sometimes struggles or figurings out. And also in these relations between how to reach out and work with other people with an infrastructure that we provide. Because the idea is really that other disabled people can use the email server and the website that comes with it. So there are also questions of how to even make the website accessible. There are guidelines around that, we have some knowledge around that. But then also how to reach out, also across other axes of discrimination and oppression. How to build that trust also. And also technically then if someone sends an email through our email server how can we make sure that their name is anonymous, for example, the IP address, etc. So that's a lot of questions that still seem also hard to ensure safety. Then also, we skipped the question on trolling and how to carry the risk of providing, feminist and accessible services. That's also a big one for us still to figure out. How can we, I think we can’t prevent people from abusing our service, but how can we even make sure that it doesn't affect more people? And maybe also it doesn't affect us too much. So all of these questions, I think, are quite related.''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:MELT: ''Also, when you were speaking, something that also came to mind is that I think that the idea of the access server, constantly reminds us of the world that we live in where ableism is so structural. And this is the kind of reality that we're posited against. I'm also curious to see how how we can get people interested in using it, because also even when people are paid for their labour and even when they write emails to institutions, institutions themselves have so much work to do to change. And so I think that that is also a similar condition that you're working with with the feminist server projects where you're publicizing. We're trying to make more visible, so to speak, that there are alternatives, other ways of doing things that do not conform to ableism and capitalism as discriminatory and oppressive standards. Our project approach institutions and requires them to change. And that's also what you're doing. I think what the feminist server project is like trying to provide an alternative to show that a change is possible.''</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Interview_Meltionary&diff=1451Interview Meltionary2022-11-16T18:43:01Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div>FSS - Feminst server Sysadmins <br /><br />
MELT - Meltionary<br />
<br /><br /><br />
<big>'''Could you walk us through the ways Access Server is used?'''</big><br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
<br />
:''MELT: The first thing that piqued our interest was the sub page Access Server, because it has the same title as our project. Could you walk us through the ways in which that page is used? Who uses it? What are the steps to follow and what happens if something doesn't work? We are also interested in the kinds of conversations you perhaps already had among your group to set up the page.''<br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
FSS: <br />
When searching for an answer to this question, we had a very technical way of looking at it. The page is from a [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki Mediawiki] that we installed. We have this helpful "history" function under each created page, as it's a collaborative writing tool, it keeps track of the previous edits. So what we actually did yesterday is hit the history button to try to find the history of that specific page because it also has a timestamp, and it also sees the user who was actually creating this page. So we found that the user was THF and that there was three other users: ooooo, b04 and ezn. They were also contributing to the the technical appearance of this page. The THF user refers to ‘trans hack feminism’, which was [[Main_Page#TransHackFeminist_Convergence|a convergence]] organized in Calafou. . So it's not very clear who made that page, but it is made in that convergence, so there were people sitting around the table and making it. Do you want to contextualize the THF user spideralex? Or the trans hack feminist convergence?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
So the THF user was created around the first TransHackFeminist convergence in 2013. It was a shared user of the different people that have been documenting the different sessions that were held at this first event of one week. We have been sharing <the user> to document basically the different conversations. And then the wiki has remained as a space where different TransHackFeminist events could document what they did. In the wiki, we write about feminist servers in general and when we document the Anarchaserver's technical and other work.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
More on the technical side – this was the first thing I did when I joined Anarchaserver. As spideralex said, the documentations of different projects kept going on. So there were two similar pages with server set up documentation. The first thing I did was to merge and update them. But also, we had this conversation with ooooo that it would be nice if someone actually tries it. Yeah, sometimes it's nice if someone else tries to follow the instructions because you, yourself, know what you're doing. And I also did the styling of the page and then I did the overall styling of MediaWiki, and I wanted for it to be a bit more welcoming than a default page. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS:<br />
And I think also as it is a wiki, it would be nice now that you <MELT> are in residence for the Fair New Idea project, we would welcome your visions on accessibility. It would be an invitation, of course, that you could also become an active intervener or would change and modify and add to the content of that page to maybe broaden up this idea of what access to the server is. Besides from its technical perspective of how to exchange SSH keys (secure shell) and make user modifications.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
'''<big>How do you think about accessibility?</big>''' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It is very interesting to hear from everyone about what kind of accessibility you think with! I hear a lot about collaborations that produce the wiki with you as a way to literally access the server. And I also understand that it is also a kind of accessibility to make the server accessible by documenting how to use it. But I'm curious what it would mean for you to make the server disability accessible? How do you think about accessibility? What does that mean in your project? Do you have some thoughts on that?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I can start with this question. So. Accessibility, yeah, it's a concern. Accessibility in terms of who can work and make use of our services that we host. And at the moment it‘s mostly people who are part of the collective and with this project. A Fair New Idea was also for us a way to try to reach out and to try to see how we could host people besides our internal network. So that's why we invited you for a residency. So anyway, it was an opportunity to reach out to first artists and of course, we'll see how it will go. But since most of are artists and at the same time we have technical knowledge and we would like to share basic cohabitation with artists who can learn to work outside very commercial, centralized online tools. So that's one path of accessibility. So then there's the accessibility of who can join in our networks because sometimes the activism is something that not everybody can afford, because most of the times that we volunteer on a project. So having available resources, even if it's minimal for people to do things, with our servers is a very important accessibility factor. And then it comes, of course, accessibility of our user interfaces who can actually read and learn and from the content we host on our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe I can add something: For me, the first part of accessibility was also for myself even, to start being familiar with, how to use a server, how to get there and how to do stuff there and not look at it as a black box that I cannot touch because I'm afraid. So by trying to bring people that are not experts or not technologists into collectives in which people can help each other in educating themselves so they feel more emancipated to use not only commercial tools, but also their own or open source ones. For the future what I'm currently thinking of is that I would like things that we do on the server, like maybe a website or a wiki or whatever to be more inclusive to people with disabilities, for example. What I see now when it comes to that is that colours could be too much for some people to read, or <we could develop tools like> some functions for people who cannot hear and who would really like it to learn more about technology can use. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I am interested in understanding accessibility as something that too is about how we make our tools and services and contents more accessible to deaf and disabled people. And also to people who don't speak Spanish and English. Then again, in general how contents and services can be made more known and accessible to short term collectivities and individuals. I’m also interested in how you can enable a lower threshold for feminist collectives to engage in and maintain their own technical infrastructures.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Thank you so much for these answers and also these very varied and different considerations of access. In relation to infrastructure, tech and language, and of course, disability. Yeah, I think we are both excited to continue working on that together. The next question is about speculative dreaming: What future perspectives for the feminist server do you wish or dream of?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I dream that our feminist server continues to be a meeting point and space for feminist peers that will help us to evolve and collaborate and work together. And I'm also thinking about local feminist groups here in Rotterdam where I now live, but also back in Athens, where I come from. And I know that there is a need [for feminist servers] there. I hope that they can benefit from the existence of our feminist servers, especially towards helping to a future of more technological autonomy. Probably that cannot be completed, but at least to try to be less dependent on giant tech corporations for their communication or for publishing our works or our struggles or things that we need to communicate with the world, um, and interconnect with other feminist groups out there. So I hope that our feminist servers can help that perspective.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I totally agree, and I find it so beautiful how we use tools as always a means to an end. I don't think anyone of us glorifies them and it's like: [making a] server is the end game. No, it's about using [a server] to learn together and to hang out and communicate. So I think that's very beautiful. I'm from Georgia and I didn't have anyone to talk about any of those things around me. That's how I actually got here. And this is already my dream scenario come to life. So now I'm trying to reconnect with people who are not so technical, but we are already starting to have something local in Georgia as well. So yeah, it's kind of that's what feminist servers are to me.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I agree and I would like to give a more pragmatic and nuanced [view] on this thing. I would say that the cooperative model here would be one of my dreams for the feminist servers we have. And that it can include a membership fee so we can make our services more sustainable because from the past experience, and we've seen that the only way of giving time, it works well for learning, but then it's very difficult to host services for other artists and feminists that we would like to have. So a more concrete approach to the dream of the future for the life of our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: What I observe right now is that the critique of big tech companies is high but the awareness that there is an alternative way to use technology is very invisible so far. And that's a lot of work to speak up for that and to make it shown. So that would be some vision of mine to not look at faces of complete disbelief when talking about having our own server.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like more people and collectives engaged in setting up feminist servers and in general feminist infrastructure initiatives. I would be interested in more local gynaecological considerations embedded inside the set up of future feminist servers. Dreaming, creating data centers made for and by feminist servers. And coordination between different feminist servers to avoid reinventing the wheel or to enable supporting each other in knowledge and solidarity processes. To share resources and funding, to share common technical infrastructure or by having people that have specific skills and knowledge that can contribute to different initiatives. And finally, my big dream is one day to have feminist servers that then orientate towards providing services to communities that are facing strong gender based violence online and censorship in digital spaces [such as] pro-choice activists, post porno and sex workers. So that's a long term projection, but I would like that we can manage to go there one day.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: The idea of more sysadmins people who join us in the backend! [People] not just there for the services, who learn with us and try to engage with the technology and the machines which are surrounding us. Sysadmins unite (!) to break the [local] isolation of having that technofeminist praxis and awareness.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Maybe it's nice to continue because our project also works with trans* feminism and Disability Justice, and I love the ways in which the trans* feminist, THF, TransHackFeminism becomes a shared user in the access server page. But also, I think that there's a specific understanding of trans* feminism that you seem to be working with because it comes up again many times on the Anarchaserver page. What does it mean to you to serve trans* feminism in this project? I think it's also related to a lot of the dreams that you just shared. Would you want to say something more about trans* feminism specifically?'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm still a little bit like scared about this fact of serving and hosting. And it's like, I feel like by inhabiting these servers and then also maintaining and configuring the affective infrastructures in which we are moving, that we are trans* hack feminists. And it's [about] these kinds of spaces. It's not serving. It's, you know, like fluid. It's like good. It's like you are feeling the practices of technology. It's like configuring together. It's yeah, it's more like an actualization of trans* hack feminism. I like it has a history, also. The TransHackFeminism, was a reaction on the electictechcarnival (https://eclectictechcarnival.org/) to open specific identity politics and women-only-spaces up, to trans* people. And then the reaction came.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: I would also be super curious to hear what it means to have come from a cis-woman only space and going through the process of opening that up to trans* people.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So I try to put here just a little definition that we created for the feminist museum about TransHackFeminism. Hmm ... ?? .... So we have to define it like: The Mummy is a museum of the future taking place in the 22nd century. It's a museum about sexism that has disappeared: it is curated with Anamhoo, a sysadmin of Anarchaserver that organised the trans* hack feminist convergence in Mexico. We try to collect seven different artistic pieces..... I have been in a collective in Spain that is called Donestech (https://www.donestech.net/) in Catalan that was created in 2007. At that moment, there was no other collective that was working on the relation between gender and technologies and free software. But I think that the paradigm of inclusion of women in digital tech related spaces was needed, no? But it's very 90s, no? [We became more] trans* feminist in our politics, in our feminist politics. We made an event where we would meet together, [and you had to be] open to trans* feminism. So that's why it was called TransHackFeminism and because it was organized not only by me and Sophie Toupin, but also by the people of Pechblenda which was a space in Calafou and Julito who were trans feminist. It appeared in 2008 in Spain, in the feminist conference in Granada.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I would like to elaborate a bit more on what ooooo mentioned a little bit of the story of events because we are based in different locations within Europe. So the eclectictechcarnival takes place not even yearly.; sometimes it is 2, 3 years inbetween. Well, I admit I haven't been at that many. I've been in the last one, it was an organized in Greece where I am based. The one before was in Italy, and the one before Italy was called TransHack Feminism in Calafou. And because I organized it, the question of who can join this event came up because every time as time passes as spideralex mentioned feminism itself changes, and it's always this question of who can join our event? And again, for example, the last, let's say a firewall, is cis men. Can cis men join our events? So this is the base of the conversation as we try to provide safe spaces and for those who are marginalized, within technology and its environments. But I would say it's an open question, and it always depends on the locality of the event. And on those organizing it. Of course, we all have our own idea and praxis of feminism.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: To me it was also new, I was not sure what that trans* referred to, because in the German speaking context [people] were talking maybe of queer feminism. So I was curious to also learn [about trans* feminism as] a part of the struggle against a current of feminism that in some places is stronger than others, and that is about the exclusion of trans* people and non-binary. And so that was one aspect that I find interesting to learn, and I find its good to call it trans* feminism to make it explicit.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, and important because at a certain moment, there was really a confusion for me because I was at the CCC (Chaos Computer Congres) and there was a transhack meeting. So I joined into the meeting because it was about the organization of the next gathering. But actually, it was about trans nationality. So it was more like focusing on Spain and Italy. They have like trans hack meetings, but it's actually transnational meetings.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So we have hack meetings. Yeah, when we make it across different countries it becomes a trans hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, sure. But it's interesting that the one refers to like identity politics in relation to gender, it seems. And the other, of course not. It's much wider also about your national identity. But it is confusing, or it is also how the term can be hacked so that that gets certain meanings by actually also using it. <br />
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FSS: Yeah, it was confusing. And then the confusion was pretty interesting. We only had two trans hack meetings in the history of trans hack meetings in Europe. One in Poland and the other one was three years ago, four years ago in Tarnack and there some people thought it was a trans* hack meeting, but it was pretty cool because this way we had more queer people around. Yeah, it wasn't that easy. It was like: No, no, this is not the trans* hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And actually, there was recently a transhack meeting in Bologna that also had a sysadmin of systerserver involved. It was also called like that. That's nice. So yeah, it's a somehow yeah, it's hacked then. But yeah, it's not so nice if you're then there and it's a quite cis-normative environment because that's not that the safer space that you went there for. This is not a trans* hack meeting this is a transhack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: During THF, the question was also: what is now the most important term in it? Is trans*? is it hack? is it feminism? Can feminism be hacked, can feminism be trans*? Can hack be transed? Can you trans* hack? It's like, you know, it is circulating inside of the dependencies within these three denominators.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Here is a link with documentation of 2 sessions we had during the first convergence : [TransHackFeminist/Que_significa%3F/What_it_means%3F]. So maybe then you can dig more in. It wasn't so many people that say they're interested, in trans*feminism. But the trans terminology, about transitioning, about transition, about all the links that it could have with immigration with transformation, with even of politics, you know, and so on, so on, so on. So yeah, I think we can put it in different layers and for sure, at least when it was set up in Calafou in 2017 the first layer was about trans*feminist politics.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, just to add, sometimes when you encounter a term for first time, you make a conclusion depending on your background and your identity, etc. So of course, when our services uses terms it feels important and to give a description of them: what does this term contain? It's also very important that when we do things that we are open about it, the terminology we're using what does it refer to and why it is constructed like that? And it is important because it changes very quickly, in all this researches of all that is happening in migration realities to multi species studies and keeping in mind always intersectionality they all add up in the end in the concept of creating safe spaces. So I think this is something to consider when we use terms, how we came up with and why we came up with the terms we use.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And it was really important that people do a bit of research and find their own history in this terminology, you know. It's also by the people inhabiting or by the people embodying that it becomes and not only by a definition. I mean, it's ever changing also.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I agree in the sense I think that Anarchaserver is one of the first pages including the THF and all the documentation, and it feels very complicated to give a straightforward definition. And now we are trying to give access to the documentation that has been created around that concept. We are trying to clarify, to know, a definition of our internet politics and gender and diversity and so on. But for Trans Hack Feminism convergences, I would find it very difficult to give a straightforward explicit definition.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe we have to create expiration dates on our Wiki pages. If we don't visit them in certain time becomes too old and it becomes a reference without being actual. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: But I've seen these issues coming up when we organize events and you know, we have to do open calls and these things are always reconfiguring. Hacking within TransHackFeminism is to hack patriarchy, capitalism and other systems of oppression. Hacking refers to the act of doing and taking things apart, understanding them in a deeper way. Hacking is action performance. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: So one last question is how do you define in your group the terms server and the relations between service and clients because we also read in your manifesto and that your project is about re configuring these relations? So it's a question that maybe speaks to like literally the server, but maybe also metaphorically the serving of values or the working together for the making of space.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: For me, the server is like a space, like a room. It's not only a machine, but we can go into it because usually we meet, especially if we live in other places, we meet on the server. It's our meeting point like instead of going to a cafe, we meet in the terminal. So while we’re in the terminal we try to help each other, educate ourselves and spend time together. So it's a connecting room that we can go in and work together in. And about the ‘server’ ‘client’, I really don't like the word client in general, but I know the technical term. I just don't see it translating in a social way for us inside the feminist server constellations because it is more of a corporate thing. Other people have said its more like inhabiting the servers instead of serving. So its not only that the server serves, and the other is a transmitter it becomes an interchangeable role that you also receive at the same time instead of only offering the other side. I would like more that we do both.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: We have a lot of humor in the poetics, and really intense reflections and critical thinking about the terminology, which is used inside of these machines. Common are terms like master/slave. Server/client. So there is really critical thinking about it and also to approach it differently, fail/success. And you can say, OK, yeah, we have failed but try to say, oh, we have some data somewhere, we can reconstruct this. So we often deconstruct this language and appropriate it in a way that is closer to our identity and our politics. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm looking at some of the histories of feminist servers. I saw two approaches that I really like one that was from 2013 was when they twisted the language at the feminist server summit that was held on the question of a feminist server into: Are you being served? And I really like that because it fits my my understanding of feminism as talking about the embodied experience of not being served in certain contexts. And the other one is from the fall, the ‘From Skin to Steel Manifesto’ that must have come from to Brazil. They start their manifesto by claiming that we are all already and thinking about, body experience as serving. And that's very close to what I would call care practices. So where where are the lines between serving and caring? It's really a very radical political claim to look for things about who is being served and it is close to this question of who has access and who can participate.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Even though we do things all the time we never say server/client. If we want to be fair to what convention you need for the client, even the commercial thinking, we use the word interface and allies with the collaboration when we want to talk about the people who would like to do things with our servers and interfaces can apply. Apply both to the look of the of the websites, but also how we communicate to the people outside our internal group. So we don't refer to the client almost at all.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: But then as a tiny, technical follow up question, how do you technically reconfigure these relations?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's like another network topology, peer to peer. So technically there are protocols which are allowing that, but we're not there yet. But for example, what we also tried to do with the feminist server is to have distributed services that not each server has the same, services that we are using. One has the ether pads, another has other things.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So its not really changing the server client, but like it's more like making a redistributed model of dependency. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: One of the points that THF articulated is that of autonomy where with having a Feminist server: you choose your dependencies.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like to ask MELT something, so you are also working on server access? Access Server? Is it still server access the project you are working on?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It's called Access Server, the project.'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I wondered, maybe its too quick to digest what we said so far. But still, I wondered what you thought about the convergences between the thoughts between your Access Server project and what we have been discussing so far?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Hm, yeah so part of the ACCESS SERVER project is that we're technically trying to understand how it can work so that when people email institutions asking for accessibility, the email will cc the previous email with access requests to the same institution. So we're trying to technically create a collectivity so that disabled people emailing understand see that they're not the only ones that are emailing to any institution. So emailers have the sense that, oh, many other people have emailed as well. So I think that this relates to how you’re talking about technical collectivity and trying to share resources and offer other options for points of connection. This is still a technical question. We're not exactly sure how to do it yet and also to maintain people's privacy at the same time. So there's a few questions there behind that. But I think that this is the desire to understand the technically active collective body that is emailing with access requests. ''<br />
<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: When listening to you. I think notions of care and trust is where I feel a lot of shared questions and maybe sometimes struggles or figurings out. And also in these relations between how to reach out and work with other people with an infrastructure that we provide. Because the idea is really that other disabled people can use the email server and the website that comes with it. So there are also questions of how to even make the website accessible. There are guidelines around that, we have some knowledge around that. But then also how to reach out, also across other axes of discrimination and oppression. How to build that trust also. And also technically then if someone sends an email through our email server how can we make sure that their name is anonymous, for example, the IP address, etc. So that's a lot of questions that still seem also hard to ensure safety. Then also, we skipped the question on trolling and how to carry the risk of providing, feminist and accessible services. That's also a big one for us still to figure out. How can we, I think we can’t prevent people from abusing our service, but how can we even make sure that it doesn't affect more people? And maybe also it doesn't affect us too much. So all of these questions, I think, are quite related.''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:MELT: ''Also, when you were speaking, something that also came to mind is that I think that the idea of the access server, constantly reminds us of the world that we live in where ableism is so structural. And this is the kind of reality that we're posited against. I'm also curious to see how how we can get people interested in using it, because also even when people are paid for their labour and even when they write emails to institutions, institutions themselves have so much work to do to change. And so I think that that is also a similar condition that you're working with with the feminist server projects where you're publicizing. We're trying to make more visible, so to speak, that there are alternatives, other ways of doing things that do not conform to ableism and capitalism as discriminatory and oppressive standards. Our project approach institutions and requires them to change. And that's also what you're doing. I think what the feminist server project is like trying to provide an alternative to show that a change is possible.''</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Interview_Meltionary&diff=1450Interview Meltionary2022-11-16T18:29:07Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div>FSS - Feminst server Sysadmins <br /><br />
MELT - Meltionary<br />
<br /><br /><br />
<big>'''Could you walk us through the ways Access Server is used?'''</big><br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
<br />
:''MELT: The first thing that piqued our interest was the sub page Access Server, because it has the same title as our project. Could you walk us through the ways in which that page is used? Who uses it? What are the steps to follow and what happens if something doesn't work? We are also interested in the kinds of conversations you perhaps already had among your group to set up the page.''<br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
FSS: <br />
When searching for an answer to this question, we had a very technical way of looking at it. The page is from a [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki Mediawiki] that we installed. We have this helpful "history" function under each created page, as it's a collaborative writing tool, it keeps track of the previous edits. So what we actually did yesterday is hit the history button to try to find the history of that specific page because it also has a timestamp, and it also sees the user who was actually creating this page. So we found that the user was THF and that there was three other users: ooooo, b04 and ezn. They were also contributing to the the technical appearance of this page. The THF user refers to ‘trans hack feminism’, which was [[Main_Page#TransHackFeminist_Convergence|a convergence]] organized in Calafou. . So it's not very clear who made that page, but it is made in that convergence, so there were people sitting around the table and making it. Do you want to contextualize the THF user spideralex? Or the trans hack feminist convergence?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
So the THF user was created around the first TransHackFeminist convergence in 2013. It was a shared user of the different people that have been documenting the different sessions that were held at this first event of one week. We have been sharing <the user> to document basically the different conversations. And then the wiki has remained as a space where different TransHackFeminist events could document what they did. In the wiki, we write about feminist servers in general and when we document the Anarchaserver's technical and other work.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
More on the technical side – this was the first thing I did when I joined Anarchaserver. As spideralex said, the documentations of different projects kept going on. So there were two similar pages with server set up documentation. The first thing I did was to merge and update them. But also, we had this conversation with ooooo that it would be nice if someone actually tries it. Yeah, sometimes it's nice if someone else tries to follow the instructions because you, yourself, know what you're doing. And I also did the styling of the page and then I did the overall styling of MediaWiki, and I wanted for it to be a bit more welcoming than a default page. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS:<br />
And I think also as it is a wiki, it would be nice now that you <MELT> are in residence for the Fair New Idea project, we would welcome your visions on accessibility. It would be an invitation, of course, that you could also become an active intervener or would change and modify and add to the content of that page to maybe broaden up this idea of what access to the server is. Besides from its technical perspective of how to exchange SSH keys (secure shell) and make user modifications.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
'''<big>How do you think about accessibility?</big>''' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It is very interesting to hear from everyone about what kind of accessibility you think with! I hear a lot about collaborations that produce the wiki with you as a way to literally access the server. And I also understand that it is also a kind of accessibility to make the server accessible by documenting how to use it. But I'm curious what it would mean for you to make the server disability accessible? How do you think about accessibility? What does that mean in your project? Do you have some thoughts on that?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I can start with this question. So. Accessibility, yeah, it's a concern. Accessibility in terms of who can work and make use of our services that we host. And at the moment it‘s mostly people who are part of the collective and with this project. A Fair New Idea was also for us a way to try to reach out and to try to see how we could host people besides our internal network. So that's why we invited you for a residency. So anyway, it was an opportunity to reach out to first artists and of course, we'll see how it will go. But since most of are artists and at the same time we have technical knowledge and we would like to share basic cohabitation with artists who can learn to work outside very commercial, centralized online tools. So that's one path of accessibility. So then there's the accessibility of who can join in our networks because sometimes the activism is something that not everybody can afford, because most of the times that we volunteer on a project. So having available resources, even if it's minimal for people to do things, with our servers is a very important accessibility factor. And then it comes, of course, accessibility of our user interfaces who can actually read and learn and from the content we host on our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe I can add something: For me, the first part of accessibility was also for myself even, to start being familiar with, how to use a server, how to get there and how to do stuff there and not look at it as a black box that I cannot touch because I'm afraid. So by trying to bring people that are not experts or not technologists into collectives in which people can help each other in educating themselves so they feel more emancipated to use not only commercial tools, but also their own or open source ones. For the future what I'm currently thinking of is that I would like things that we do on the server, like maybe a website or a wiki or whatever to be more inclusive to people with disabilities, for example. What I see now when it comes to that is that colours could be too much for some people to read, or <we could develop tools like> some functions for people who cannot hear and who would really like it to learn more about technology can use. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I am interested in understanding accessibility as something that too is about how we make our tools and services and contents more accessible to deaf and disabled people. And also to people who don't speak Spanish and English. Then again, in general how contents and services can be made more known and accessible to short term collectivities and individuals. I’m also interested in how you can enable a lower threshold for feminist collectives to engage in and maintain their own technical infrastructures.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Thank you so much for these answers and also these very varied and different considerations of access. In relation to infrastructure, tech and language, and of course, disability. Yeah, I think we are both excited to continue working on that together. The next question is about speculative dreaming: What future perspectives for the feminist server do you wish or dream of?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I dream that our feminist server continues to be a meeting point and space for feminist peers that will help us to evolve and collaborate and work together. And I'm also thinking about local feminist groups here in Rotterdam where I now live, but also back in Athens, where I come from. And I know that there is a need [for feminist servers] there. I hope that they can benefit from the existence of our feminist servers, especially towards helping to a future of more technological autonomy. Probably that cannot be completed, but at least to try to be less dependent on giant tech corporations for their communication or for publishing our works or our struggles or things that we need to communicate with the world, um, and interconnect with other feminist groups out there. So I hope that our feminist servers can help that perspective.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I totally agree, and I find it so beautiful how we use tools as always a means to an end. I don't think anyone of us glorifies them and it's like: [making a] server is the end game. No, it's about using [a server] to learn together and to hang out and communicate. So I think that's very beautiful. I'm from Georgia and I didn't have anyone to talk about any of those things around me. That's how I actually got here. And this is already my dream scenario come to life. So now I'm trying to reconnect with people who are not so technical, but we are already starting to have something local in Georgia as well. So yeah, it's kind of that's what feminist servers are to me.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I agree and I would like to give a more pragmatic and nuanced [view] on this thing. I would say that the cooperative model here would be one of my dreams for the feminist servers we have. And that it can include a membership fee so we can make our services more sustainable because from the past experience, and we've seen that the only way of giving time, it works well for learning, but then it's very difficult to host services for other artists and feminists that we would like to have. So a more concrete approach to the dream of the future for the life of our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: What I observe right now is that the critique of big tech companies is high but the awareness that there is an alternative way to use technology is very invisible so far. And that's a lot of work to speak up for that and to make it shown. So that would be some vision of mine to not look at faces of complete disbelief when talking about having our own server.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like more people and collectives engaged in setting up feminist servers and in general feminist infrastructure initiatives. I would be interested in more local gynaecological considerations embedded inside the set up of future feminist servers. Dreaming, creating data centers made for and by feminist servers. And coordination between different feminist servers to avoid reinventing the wheel or to enable supporting each other in knowledge and solidarity processes. To share resources and funding, to share common technical infrastructure or by having people that have specific skills and knowledge that can contribute to different initiatives. And finally, my big dream is one day to have feminist servers that then orientate towards providing services to communities that are facing strong gender based violence online and censorship in digital spaces [such as] pro-choice activists, post porno and sex workers. So that's a long term projection, but I would like that we can manage to go there one day.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: The idea of more sysadmins people who join us in the backend! [People] not just there for the services, who learn with us and try to engage with the technology and the machines which are surrounding us. Sysadmins unite (!) to break the [local] isolation of having that technofeminist praxis and awareness.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Maybe it's nice to continue because our project also works with trans* feminism and Disability Justice, and I love the ways in which the trans* feminist, THF, TransHackFeminism becomes a shared user in the access server page. But also, I think that there's a specific understanding of trans* feminism that you seem to be working with because it comes up again many times on the Anarchaserver page. What does it mean to you to serve trans* feminism in this project? I think it's also related to a lot of the dreams that you just shared. Would you want to say something more about trans* feminism specifically?'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm still a little bit like scared about this fact of serving and hosting. And it's like, I feel like by inhabiting these servers and then also maintaining and configuring the affective infrastructures in which we are moving, that we are trans* hack feminists. And it's [about] these kinds of spaces. It's not serving. It's, you know, like fluid. It's like good. It's like you are feeling the practices of technology. It's like configuring together. It's yeah, it's more like an actualization of trans* hack feminism. I like it has a history, also. The TransHackFeminism, was a reaction on the electictechcarnival (https://eclectictechcarnival.org/) to open specific identity politics and women-only-spaces up, to trans* people. And then the reaction came.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: I would also be super curious to hear what it means to have come from a cis-woman only space and going through the process of opening that up to trans* people.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So I try to put here just a little definition that we created for the feminist museum about TransHackFeminism. Hmm ... ?? .... So we have to define it like: The Mummy is a museum of the future taking place in the 22nd century. It's a museum about sexism that has disappeared: it is curated with Anamhoo, a sys adnim of Anarchaserver that organised the trans* hack feminist convergence in Mexico. We try to collect seven different artistic pieces..... I have been in a collective in Spain that is called Donestech (https://www.donestech.net/) in Catalan that was created in 2007. At that moment, there was no other collective that was working on the relation between gender and technologies and free software. But I think that the paradigm of inclusion of women in digital tech related spaces was needed, no? But it's very 90s, no? [We became more] trans* feminist in our politics, in our feminist politics. We made an event where we would meet together, [and you had to be] open to trans* feminism. So that's why it was called TransHackFeminism and because it was organized not only by me and Sophie Toupin, but also by the people of Pechblenda which was a space in Calafou and Julito who were trans feminist. It appeared in 2008 in Spain, in the feminist conference in Granada.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I would like to elaborate a bit more on what ooooo mentioned a little bit of the story of events because we are based in different locations within Europe. So the eclectictechcarnival takes place not even yearly.; sometimes it is 2, 3 years inbetween. Well, I admit I haven't been at that many. I've been in the last one, it was an organized in Greece where I am based. The one before was in Italy, and the one before Italy was called TransHack Feminism in Calafou. And because I organized it, the question of who can join this event came up because every time as time passes as spideralex mentioned feminism itself changes, and it's always this question of who can join our event? And again, for example, the last, let's say a firewall, is cis men. Can cis men join our events? So this is the base of the conversation as we try to provide safe spaces and for those who are marginalized, within technology and its environments. But I would say it's an open question, and it always depends on the locality of the event. And on those organizing it. Of course, we all have our own idea and praxis of feminism.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: To me it was also new, I was not sure what that trans* referred to, because in the German speaking context [people] were talking maybe of queer feminism. So I was curious to also learn [about trans* feminism as] a part of the struggle against a current of feminism that in some places is stronger than others, and that is about the exclusion of trans* people and non-binary. And so that was one aspect that I find interesting to learn, and I find its good to call it trans* feminism to make it explicit.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, and important because at a certain moment, there was really a confusion for me because I was at the CCC (Chaos Computer Congres) and there was a transhack meeting. So I joined into the meeting because it was about the organization of the next gathering. But actually, it was about trans nationality. So it was more like focusing on Spain and Italy. They have like trans hack meetings, but it's actually transnational meetings.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So we have hack meetings. Yeah, when we make it across different countries it becomes a trans hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, sure. But it's interesting that the one refers to like identity politics in relation to gender, it seems. And the other, of course not. It's much wider also about your national identity. But it is confusing, or it is also how the term can be hacked so that that gets certain meanings by actually also using it. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, it was confusing. And then the confusion was pretty interesting. We only had two trans hack meetings in the history of trans hack meetings in Europe. One in Poland and the other one was three years ago, four years ago in Tarnack and there some people thought it was a trans* hack meeting, but it was pretty cool because this way we had more queer people around. Yeah, it wasn't that easy. It was like: No, no, this is not the trans* hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And actually, there was recently a transhack meeting in Bologna that also had a sysadmin of systerserver involved. It was also called like that. That's nice. So yeah, it's a somehow yeah, it's hacked then. But yeah, it's not so nice if you're then there and it's a quite cis-normative environment because that's not that the safer space that you went there for. This is not a trans* hack meeting this is a transhack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: During THF, the question was also: what is now the most important term in it? Is trans*? is it hack? is it feminism? Can feminism be hacked, can feminism be trans*? Can hack be transed? Can you trans* hack? It's like, you know, it is circulating inside of the dependencies within these three denominators.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Here is a link with documentation of 2 sessions we had during the first convergence : [TransHackFeminist/Que_significa%3F/What_it_means%3F]. So maybe then you can dig more in. It wasn't so many people that say they're interested, in trans*feminism. But the trans terminology, about transitioning, about transition, about all the links that it could have with immigration with transformation, with even of politics, you know, and so on, so on, so on. So yeah, I think we can put it in different layers and for sure, at least when it was set up in Calafou in 2017 the first layer was about trans*feminist politics.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, just to add, sometimes when you encounter a term for first time, you make a conclusion depending on your background and your identity, etc. So of course, when our services uses terms it feels important and to give a description of them: what does this term contain? It's also very important that when we do things that we are open about it, the terminology we're using what does refer to and why it is constructed like that? And it is important because it changes very quickly, in all this researches of all that is happening in migration realities to multi species studies and keeping in mind always intersectionality they all add up in the end in the concept of creating safe spaces. So I think this is something to consider when we use terms, how we came up with and why we came up with the terms we use.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And it was really important that people do a bit of research and find their own history in this terminology, you know. It's also by the people inhabiting or by the people embodying that it becomes and not only by a definition. I mean, it's ever changing also.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I agree in the sense I think that Anarchaserver is one of the first pages including the THF and all the documentation, and I feel very complicated to give a straightforward definition. And now we are trying to make access to the documentation that has been created around that concept. Now we are trying to clarify, to know, a definition of our internet politics and gender and diversity and so on, which is the text that we are trying to set up about Anarchaserver. But for Trans Hack Feminism convergences, I would find it very difficult to give a straightforward definition and an explicit one.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's not about giving you straightforward definition. They can be, as you said, you link to a document that as you said gives a story of how this happened.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Mm-Hmm. Yeah, that's all there.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe we have to create expiration dates on our Wiki pages. If we don't visit them in certain time becomes too old and it becomes a reference without being actual. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: But I've seen this, coming up when we organize events and you know, we have to do open calls and these things are always reconfiguring. Hacking with THF helps to hack patriarchy, capitalism and other systems of oppression. Hacking refers to the act of doing and taking things apart, understanding them in a deeper way. Hacking is action performance. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: So one last question is how do you define in your group the terms server and the relations between service and clients because we also read in your manifesto and that your project is about re configuring these relations? So it's a question that maybe speaks to like literally the server, but maybe also metaphorically the serving of values or the working together for the making of space.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: For me, the server is like a space, like a room. It's not only a machine, but we can go into it because usually we meet, especially if we live in other places, we meet on the server. It's our meeting point like instead of going to a cafe, we meet in the terminal. So while we’re in the terminal we try to help each other, educate ourselves and spend time together. So it's a connecting room that we can go in and work together in. And about the ‘server’ ‘client’, I really don't like the word client in general, but I know the technical term. I just don't see it translating in a social way for us inside the feminist server constellations because it is more of a corporate thing. Other people have said its more like inhabiting the servers instead of serving. So its not only that the server serves, and the other is a transmitter it becomes an interchangeable role that you also receive at the same time instead of only offering the other side. I would like more that we do both.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: We have a lot of humor in the poetics, and really intense reflections and critical thinking about the terminology, which is used inside of these machines. Common are terms like master/slave. Server/client. So there is really critical thinking about it and also to approach it differently, fail/success. And you can say, OK, yeah, we have failed but try to say, oh, we have some data somewhere, we can reconstruct this. So we often deconstruct this language and appropriate it in a way that is closer to our identity and our politics. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm looking at some of the histories of feminist servers. I saw two approaches that I really like one that was from 2013 was when they twisted the language at the feminist server summit that was held on the question of a feminist server into: Are you being served? And I really like that because it fits my my understanding of feminism as talking about the embodied experience of not being served in certain contexts. And the other one is from the fall, the ‘From Skin to Steel Manifesto’ that must have come from to Brazil. They start their manifesto by claiming that we are all already and thinking about, body experience as serving. And that's very close to what I would call care practices. So where where are the lines between serving and caring? It's really a very radical political claim to look for things about who is being served and it is close to this question of who has access and who can participate.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Even though we do things all the time we never say server/client. If we want to be fair to what convention you need for the client, even the commercial thinking, we use the word interface and allies with the collaboration when we want to talk about the people who would like to do things with our servers and interfaces can apply. Apply both to the look of the of the websites, but also how we communicate to the people outside our internal group. So we don't refer to the client almost at all.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: But then as a tiny, technical follow up question, how do you technically reconfigure these relations?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's like another network topology, peer to peer. So technically there are protocols which are allowing that, but we're not there yet. But for example, what we also tried to do with the feminist server is to have distributed services that not each server has the same, services that we are using. One has the ether pads, another has other things.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So its not really changing the server client, but like it's more like making a redistributed model of dependency. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: One of the points that THF articulated is that of autonomy where with having a Feminist server: you choose your dependencies.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like to ask MELT something, so you are also working on server access? Access Server? Is it still server access the project you are working on?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It's called Access Server, the project.'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I wondered, maybe its too quick to digest what we said so far. But still, I wondered what you thought about the convergences between the thoughts between your Access Server project and what we have been discussing so far?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Hm, yeah so part of the ACCESS SERVER project is that we're technically trying to understand how it can work so that when people email institutions asking for accessibility, the email will cc the previous email with access requests to the same institution. So we're trying to technically create a collectivity so that disabled people emailing understand see that they're not the only ones that are emailing to any institution. So emailers have the sense that, oh, many other people have emailed as well. So I think that this relates to how you’re talking about technical collectivity and trying to share resources and offer other options for points of connection. This is still a technical question. We're not exactly sure how to do it yet and also to maintain people's privacy at the same time. So there's a few questions there behind that. But I think that this is the desire to understand the technically active collective body that is emailing with access requests. ''<br />
<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: When listening to you. I think notions of care and trust is where I feel a lot of shared questions and maybe sometimes struggles or figurings out. And also in these relations between how to reach out and work with other people with an infrastructure that we provide. Because the idea is really that other disabled people can use the email server and the website that comes with it. So there are also questions of how to even make the website accessible. There are guidelines around that, we have some knowledge around that. But then also how to reach out, also across other axes of discrimination and oppression. How to build that trust also. And also technically then if someone sends an email through our email server how can we make sure that their name is anonymous, for example, the IP address, etc. So that's a lot of questions that still seem also hard to ensure safety. Then also, we skipped the question on trolling and how to carry the risk of providing, feminist and accessible services. That's also a big one for us still to figure out. How can we, I think we can’t prevent people from abusing our service, but how can we even make sure that it doesn't affect more people? And maybe also it doesn't affect us too much. So all of these questions, I think, are quite related.''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:MELT: ''Also, when you were speaking, something that also came to mind is that I think that the idea of the access server, constantly reminds us of the world that we live in where ableism is so structural. And this is the kind of reality that we're posited against. I'm also curious to see how how we can get people interested in using it, because also even when people are paid for their labour and even when they write emails to institutions, institutions themselves have so much work to do to change. And so I think that that is also a similar condition that you're working with with the feminist server projects where you're publicizing. We're trying to make more visible, so to speak, that there are alternatives, other ways of doing things that do not conform to ableism and capitalism as discriminatory and oppressive standards. Our project approach institutions and requires them to change. And that's also what you're doing. I think what the feminist server project is like trying to provide an alternative to show that a change is possible.''</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Interview_Meltionary&diff=1449Interview Meltionary2022-11-16T17:23:14Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div>FSS - Feminst server Sysadmins <br /><br />
MELT - Meltionary<br />
<br /><br /><br />
<big>'''Could you walk us through the ways Access Server is used?'''</big><br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
<br />
:''MELT: The first thing that piqued our interest was the sub page Access Server, because it has the same title as our project. Could you walk us through the ways in which that page is used? Who uses it? What are the steps to follow and what happens if something doesn't work? We are also interested in the kinds of conversations you perhaps already had among your group to set up the page.''<br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
FSS: <br />
When searching for an answer to this question, we had a very technical way of looking at it. The page is from a [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki Mediawiki] that we installed. We have this helpful "history" function under each created page, as it's a collaborative writing tool, it keeps track of the previous edits. So what we actually did yesterday is hit the history button to try to find the history of that specific page because it also has a timestamp, and it also sees the user who was actually creating this page. So we found that the user was THF and that there was three other users: ooooo, b04 and ezn. They were also contributing to the the technical appearance of this page. The THF user refers to ‘trans hack feminism’, which was [[Main_Page#TransHackFeminist_Convergence|a convergence]] organized in Calafou. . So it's not very clear who made that page, but it is made in that convergence, so there were people sitting around the table and making it. Do you want to contextualize the THF user spideralex? Or the trans hack feminist convergence?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
So the THF user was created around the first TransHackFeminist convergence in 2013. It was a shared user of the different people that have been documenting the different sessions that were held at this first event of one week. We have been sharing <the user> to document basically the different conversations. And then the wiki has remained as a space where different TransHackFeminist events could document what they did. In the wiki, we write about feminist servers in general and when we document the Anarchaserver's technical and other work.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
More on the technical side – this was the first thing I did when I joined Anarchaserver. As spideralex said, the documentations of different projects kept going on. So there were two similar pages with server set up documentation. The first thing I did was to merge and update them. But also, we had this conversation with ooooo that it would be nice if someone actually tries it. Yeah, sometimes it's nice if someone else tries to follow the instructions because you, yourself, know what you're doing. And I also did the styling of the page and then I did the overall styling of MediaWiki, and I wanted for it to be a bit more welcoming than a default page. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS:<br />
And I think also as it is a wiki, it would be nice now that you <MELT> are in residence for the Fair New Idea project, we would welcome your visions on accessibility. It would be an invitation, of course, that you could also become an active intervener or would change and modify and add to the content of that page to maybe broaden up this idea of what access to the server is. Besides from its technical perspective of how to exchange SSH keys (secure shell) and make user modifications.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
'''<big>How do you think about accessibility?</big>''' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It is very interesting to hear from everyone about what kind of accessibility you think with! I hear a lot about collaborations that produce the wiki with you as a way to literally access the server. And I also understand that it is also a kind of accessibility to make the server accessible by documenting how to use it. But I'm curious what it would mean for you to make the server disability accessible? How do you think about accessibility? What does that mean in your project? Do you have some thoughts on that?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I can start with this question. So. Accessibility, yeah, it's a concern. Accessibility in terms of who can work and make use of our services that we host. And at the moment it‘s mostly people who are part of the collective and with this project. A Fair New Idea was also for us a way to try to reach out and to try to see how we could host people besides our internal network. So that's why we invited you for a residency. So anyway, it was an opportunity to reach out to first artists and of course, we'll see how it will go. But since most of are artists and at the same time we have technical knowledge and we would like to share basic cohabitation with artists who can learn to work outside very commercial, centralized online tools. So that's one path of accessibility. So then there's the accessibility of who can join in our networks because sometimes the activism is something that not everybody can afford, because most of the times that we volunteer on a project. So having available resources, even if it's minimal for people to do things, with our servers is a very important accessibility factor. And then it comes, of course, accessibility of our user interfaces who can actually read and learn and from the content we host on our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe I can add something: For me, the first part of accessibility was also for myself even, to start being familiar with, how to use a server, how to get there and how to do stuff there and not look at it as a black box that I cannot touch because I'm afraid. So by trying to bring people that are not experts or not technologists into collectives in which people can help each other in educating themselves so they feel more emancipated to use not only commercial tools, but also their own or open source ones. For the future what I'm currently thinking of is that I would like things that we do on the server, like maybe a website or a wiki or whatever to be more inclusive to people with disabilities, for example. What I see now when it comes to that is that colours could be too much for some people to read, or <we could develop tools like> some functions for people who cannot hear and who would really like it to learn more about technology can use. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I am interested in understanding accessibility as something that too is about how we make our tools and services and contents more accessible to deaf and disabled people. And also to people who don't speak Spanish and English. Then again, in general how contents and services can be made more known and accessible to short term collectivities and individuals. I’m also interested in how you can enable a lower threshold for feminist collectives to engage in and maintain their own technical infrastructures.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Thank you so much for these answers and also these very varied and different considerations of access. In relation to infrastructure, tech and language, and of course, disability. Yeah, I think we are both excited to continue working on that together. The next question is about speculative dreaming: What future perspectives for the feminist server do you wish or dream of?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I dream that our feminist server continues to be a meeting point and space for feminist peers that will help us to evolve and collaborate and work together. And I'm also thinking about local feminist groups here in Rotterdam where I now live, but also back in Athens, where I come from. And I know that there is a need [for feminist servers] there. I hope that they can benefit from the existence of our feminist servers, especially towards helping to a future of more technological autonomy. Probably that cannot be completed, but at least to try to be less dependent on giant tech corporations for their communication or for publishing our works or our struggles or things that we need to communicate with the world, um, and interconnect with other feminist groups out there. So I hope that our feminist servers can help that perspective.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I totally agree, and I find it so beautiful how we use tools as always a means to an end. I don't think anyone of us glorifies them and it's like: [making a] server is the end game. No, it's about using [a server] to learn together and to hang out and communicate. So I think that's very beautiful. I'm from Georgia and I didn't have anyone to talk about any of those things around me. That's how I actually got here. And this is already my dream scenario come to life. So now I'm trying to reconnect with people who are not so technical, but we are already starting to have something local in Georgia as well. So yeah, it's kind of that's what feminist servers are to me.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I agree and I would like to give a more pragmatic and nuanced [view] on this thing. I would say that the cooperative model here would be one of my dreams for the feminist servers we have. And that it can include a membership fee so we can make our services more sustainable because from the past experience, and we've seen that the only way of giving time, it works well for learning, but then it's very difficult to host services for other artists and feminists that we would like to have. So a more concrete approach to the dream of the future for the life of our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: What I observe right now is that the critique of big tech companies is high but the awareness that there is an alternative way to use technology is very invisible so far. And that's a lot of work to speak up for that and to make it shown. So that would be some vision of mine to not look at faces of complete disbelief when talking about having our own server.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like more people and collectives engaged in setting up feminist servers and in general feminist infrastructure initiatives. I would be interested in more local gynaecological considerations embedded inside the set up of future feminist servers. Dreaming, creating data centers made for and by feminist servers. And coordination between different feminist servers to avoid reinventing the wheel or to enable supporting each other in knowledge and solidarity processes. To share resources and funding, to share common technical infrastructure or by having people that have specific skills and knowledge that can contribute to different initiatives. And finally, my big dream is one day to have feminist servers that then orientate towards providing services to communities that are facing strong gender based violence online and censorship in digital spaces [such as] pro-choice activists, post porno and sex workers. So that's a long term projection, but I would like that we can manage to go there one day.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: The idea of more sysadmins people who join us in the backend! [People] not just there for the services, who learn with us and try to engage with the technology and the machines which are surrounding us. Sysadmins unite (!) to break the [local] isolation of having that technofeminist praxis and awareness.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Maybe it's nice to continue because our project also works with trans* feminism and Disability Justice, and I love the ways in which the trans* feminist, THF, TransHackFeminism becomes a shared user in the access server page. But also, I think that there's a specific understanding of trans* feminism that you seem to be working with because it comes up again many times on the Anarchaserver page. What does it mean to you to serve trans* feminism in this project? I think it's also related to a lot of the dreams that you just shared. Would you want to say something more about trans* feminism specifically?'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm still a little bit like scared about this fact of serving and hosting. And it's like, I feel like by inhabiting these servers and then also maintaining and configuring the affective infrastructures in which we are moving, that we are trans* hack feminists. And it's [about] these kinds of spaces. It's not serving. It's, you know, like fluid. It's like good. It's like you are feeling the practices of technology. It's like configuring together. It's yeah, it's more like an actualization of trans* hack feminism. I like it has a history, also. The TransHackFeminism, was a reaction on the electictechcarnival (https://eclectictechcarnival.org/) to open specific identity politics and women-only-spaces up, to trans* people. And then the reaction came.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: I would also be super curious to hear what it means to have come from a cis-woman only space and going through the process of opening that up to trans* people.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So I try to put here just a little definition that we created for the feminist museum about TransHackFeminism. Hmm ... ?? .... So we have to define it like: The Mummy is a museum of the future taking place in the 22nd century. It's a museum about sexism that has disappeared: it is curated with Anamhoo, a sys adnim of Anarchaserver that organised the trans* hack feminist convergence in Mexico. We try to collect seven different artistic pieces..... I have been in a collective in Spain that is called Donestech (https://www.donestech.net/) in Catalan that was created in 2007. At that moment, there was no other collective that was working on the relation between gender and technologies and free software. But I think that the paradigm of inclusion of women in digital tech related spaces was needed, no? But it's very 90s, no? [We became more] trans* feminist in our politics, in our feminist politics. We made an event where we would meet together, [and you had to be] open to trans* feminism. So that's why it was called TransHackFeminism and because it was organized not only by me and Sophie Toupin, but also by the people of Pechblenda which was a space in Calafou and Julito who were trans feminist. It appeared in 2008 in Spain, in the feminist conference in Granada.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I would like to elaborate a bit more on what ooooo mentioned a little bit of the story of events because we are based in different locations within Europe. So the eclectictechcarnival takes place not even yearly.; sometimes it is 2, 3 years inbetween. Well, I admit I haven't been at that many. I've been in the last one, it was an organized in Greece where I am based. The one before was in Italy, and the one before Italy was called TransHack Feminism in Calafou. And because I organized it, the question of who can join this event came up because every time as time passes as spideralex mentioned feminism itself changes, and it's always this question of who can join our event? And again, for example, the last, let's say a firewall, is cis men. Can cis men join our events? So this is the base of the conversation as we try to provide safe spaces and for those who are marginalized, within technology and its environments. But I would say it's an open question, and it always depends on the locality of the event. And on those organizing it. Of course, we all have our own idea and praxis of feminism.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: To me it was also new, I was not sure what that trans* referred to, because in the German speaking context [people] were talking maybe of queer feminism. So I was curious to also learn [about trans* feminism as] a part of the struggle against a current of feminism that in some places is stronger than others, and that is about the exclusion of trans* people and non-binary. And so that was one aspect that I find interesting to learn, and I find its good to call it trans* feminism to make it explicit.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, and important because at a certain moment, there was really a confusion for me because I was at the CCC (Chaos Computer Congres) and there was a transhack meeting. So I joined into the meeting because it was about the organization of the next gathering. But actually, it was about trans nationality. So it was more like focusing on Spain and Italy. They have like trans hack meetings, but it's actually transnational meetings.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So we have hack meetings. Yeah, when we make it across different countries it becomes a trans hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, sure. But it's interesting that the one refers to like identity politics in relation to gender, it seems. And the other, of course not. It's much wider also about your national identity. But it is confusing, or it is also how the term can be hacked so that that gets certain meanings by actually also using it. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, it was confusing. And then the confusion was pretty interesting. We only had two trans hack meetings in the history of trans hack meetings in Europe. One in Poland and the other one was three years ago, four years ago in Tarnack and there some people thought it was a trans* hack meeting, but it was pretty cool because this way we had more queer people around. Yeah, it wasn't that easy. It was like: No, no, this is not the trans* hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And actually, there was recently a transhack meeting in Bologna that also had a sysadmin of systerserver involved. It was also called like that. That's nice. So yeah, it's a somehow yeah, it's hacked then. But yeah, it's not so nice if you're then there and it's a quite cis-normative environment because that's not that the safer space that you went there for. This is not a trans* hack meeting this is a transhack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: During THF, the question was also: what is now the most important term in it? Is trans*? is it hack? is it feminism? Can feminism be hacked, can feminism be trans*? Can hack be transed? Can you trans* hack? It's like, you know, it is circulating inside of the dependencies within these three denominators.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: In the pad, I have shared the link to the documentation of that session. So maybe then you can dig more in. It wasn't so many people that say they're interested, in trans*feminism. But the trans terminology, about transitioning, about transition, about all the links that it could have with immigration with transformation, with even of politics, you know, and so on, so on, so on. So yeah, I think we can put it in different layers and for sure, at least when it was set up in Calafou in 2017 the first layer was about trans*feminist politics.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, just to add, sometimes when you encounter a term for first time, you make a conclusion depending on your background and your identity, etc. So of course, when our services uses terms it feels important and to give a description of them: what does this term contain? It's also very important that when we do things that we are open about it, the terminology we're using what does refer to and why it is constructed like that? And it is important because it changes very quickly, in all this researches of all that is happening in migration realities to multi species studies and keeping in mind always intersectionality they all add up in the end in the concept of creating safe spaces. So I think this is something to consider when we use terms, how we came up with and why we came up with the terms we use.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And it was really important that people do a bit of research and find their own history in this terminology, you know. It's also by the people inhabiting or by the people embodying that it becomes and not only by a definition. I mean, it's ever changing also.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I agree in the sense I think that Anarchaserver is one of the first pages including the THF and all the documentation, and I feel very complicated to give a straightforward definition. And now we are trying to make access to the documentation that has been created around that concept. Now we are trying to clarify, to know, a definition of our internet politics and gender and diversity and so on, which is the text that we are trying to set up about Anarchaserver. But for Trans Hack Feminism convergences, I would find it very difficult to give a straightforward definition and an explicit one.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's not about giving you straightforward definition. They can be, as you said, you link to a document that as you said gives a story of how this happened.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Mm-Hmm. Yeah, that's all there.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe we have to create expiration dates on our Wiki pages. If we don't visit them in certain time becomes too old and it becomes a reference without being actual. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: But I've seen this, coming up when we organize events and you know, we have to do open calls and these things are always reconfiguring. Hacking with THF helps to hack patriarchy, capitalism and other systems of oppression. Hacking refers to the act of doing and taking things apart, understanding them in a deeper way. Hacking is action performance. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: So one last question is how do you define in your group the terms server and the relations between service and clients because we also read in your manifesto and that your project is about re configuring these relations? So it's a question that maybe speaks to like literally the server, but maybe also metaphorically the serving of values or the working together for the making of space.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: For me, the server is like a space, like a room. It's not only a machine, but we can go into it because usually we meet, especially if we live in other places, we meet on the server. It's our meeting point like instead of going to a cafe, we meet in the terminal. So while we’re in the terminal we try to help each other, educate ourselves and spend time together. So it's a connecting room that we can go in and work together in. And about the ‘server’ ‘client’, I really don't like the word client in general, but I know the technical term. I just don't see it translating in a social way for us inside the feminist server constellations because it is more of a corporate thing. Other people have said its more like inhabiting the servers instead of serving. So its not only that the server serves, and the other is a transmitter it becomes an interchangeable role that you also receive at the same time instead of only offering the other side. I would like more that we do both.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: We have a lot of humor in the poetics, and really intense reflections and critical thinking about the terminology, which is used inside of these machines. Common are terms like master/slave. Server/client. So there is really critical thinking about it and also to approach it differently, fail/success. And you can say, OK, yeah, we have failed but try to say, oh, we have some data somewhere, we can reconstruct this. So we often deconstruct this language and appropriate it in a way that is closer to our identity and our politics. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm looking at some of the histories of feminist servers. I saw two approaches that I really like one that was from 2013 was when they twisted the language at the feminist server summit that was held on the question of a feminist server into: Are you being served? And I really like that because it fits my my understanding of feminism as talking about the embodied experience of not being served in certain contexts. And the other one is from the fall, the ‘From Skin to Steel Manifesto’ that must have come from to Brazil. They start their manifesto by claiming that we are all already and thinking about, body experience as serving. And that's very close to what I would call care practices. So where where are the lines between serving and caring? It's really a very radical political claim to look for things about who is being served and it is close to this question of who has access and who can participate.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Even though we do things all the time we never say server/client. If we want to be fair to what convention you need for the client, even the commercial thinking, we use the word interface and allies with the collaboration when we want to talk about the people who would like to do things with our servers and interfaces can apply. Apply both to the look of the of the websites, but also how we communicate to the people outside our internal group. So we don't refer to the client almost at all.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: But then as a tiny, technical follow up question, how do you technically reconfigure these relations?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's like another network topology, peer to peer. So technically there are protocols which are allowing that, but we're not there yet. But for example, what we also tried to do with the feminist server is to have distributed services that not each server has the same, services that we are using. One has the ether pads, another has other things.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So its not really changing the server client, but like it's more like making a redistributed model of dependency. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: One of the points that THF articulated is that of autonomy where with having a Feminist server: you choose your dependencies.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like to ask MELT something, so you are also working on server access? Access Server? Is it still server access the project you are working on?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It's called Access Server, the project.'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I wondered, maybe its too quick to digest what we said so far. But still, I wondered what you thought about the convergences between the thoughts between your Access Server project and what we have been discussing so far?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Hm, yeah so part of the ACCESS SERVER project is that we're technically trying to understand how it can work so that when people email institutions asking for accessibility, the email will cc the previous email with access requests to the same institution. So we're trying to technically create a collectivity so that disabled people emailing understand see that they're not the only ones that are emailing to any institution. So emailers have the sense that, oh, many other people have emailed as well. So I think that this relates to how you’re talking about technical collectivity and trying to share resources and offer other options for points of connection. This is still a technical question. We're not exactly sure how to do it yet and also to maintain people's privacy at the same time. So there's a few questions there behind that. But I think that this is the desire to understand the technically active collective body that is emailing with access requests. ''<br />
<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: When listening to you. I think notions of care and trust is where I feel a lot of shared questions and maybe sometimes struggles or figurings out. And also in these relations between how to reach out and work with other people with an infrastructure that we provide. Because the idea is really that other disabled people can use the email server and the website that comes with it. So there are also questions of how to even make the website accessible. There are guidelines around that, we have some knowledge around that. But then also how to reach out, also across other axes of discrimination and oppression. How to build that trust also. And also technically then if someone sends an email through our email server how can we make sure that their name is anonymous, for example, the IP address, etc. So that's a lot of questions that still seem also hard to ensure safety. Then also, we skipped the question on trolling and how to carry the risk of providing, feminist and accessible services. That's also a big one for us still to figure out. How can we, I think we can’t prevent people from abusing our service, but how can we even make sure that it doesn't affect more people? And maybe also it doesn't affect us too much. So all of these questions, I think, are quite related.''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:MELT: ''Also, when you were speaking, something that also came to mind is that I think that the idea of the access server, constantly reminds us of the world that we live in where ableism is so structural. And this is the kind of reality that we're posited against. I'm also curious to see how how we can get people interested in using it, because also even when people are paid for their labour and even when they write emails to institutions, institutions themselves have so much work to do to change. And so I think that that is also a similar condition that you're working with with the feminist server projects where you're publicizing. We're trying to make more visible, so to speak, that there are alternatives, other ways of doing things that do not conform to ableism and capitalism as discriminatory and oppressive standards. Our project approach institutions and requires them to change. And that's also what you're doing. I think what the feminist server project is like trying to provide an alternative to show that a change is possible.''</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Interview_Meltionary&diff=1448Interview Meltionary2022-11-16T17:21:34Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div>FSS - Feminst server Sysadmins <br /><br />
MELT - Meltionary<br />
<br /><br /><br />
<big>'''Could you walk us through the ways Access Server is used?'''</big><br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
<br />
:''MELT: The first thing that piqued our interest was the sub page Access Server, because it has the same title as our project. Could you walk us through the ways in which that page is used? Who uses it? What are the steps to follow and what happens if something doesn't work? We are also interested in the kinds of conversations you perhaps already had among your group to set up the page.''<br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
FSS: <br />
When searching for an answer to this question, we had a very technical way of looking at it. The page is from a [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki Mediawiki] that we installed. We have this helpful "history" function under each created page, as it's a collaborative writing tool, it keeps track of the previous edits. So what we actually did yesterday is hit the history button to try to find the history of that specific page because it also has a timestamp, and it also sees the user who was actually creating this page. So we found that the user was THF and that there was three other users: ooooo, b04 and ezn. They were also contributing to the the technical appearance of this page. The THF user refers to ‘trans hack feminism’, which was [[Main_Page#TransHackFeminist_Convergence|a convergence]] organized in Calafou. . So it's not very clear who made that page, but it is made in that convergence, so there were people sitting around the table and making it. Do you want to contextualize the THF user spideralex? Or the trans hack feminist convergence?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
So the THF user was created around the first TransHackFeminist convergence in 2013. It was a shared user of the different people that have been documenting the different sessions that were held at this first event of one week. We have been sharing <the user> to document basically the different conversations. And then the wiki has remained as a space where different TransHackFeminist events could document what they did. In the wiki, we write about feminist servers in general and when we document the Anarchaserver's technical and other work.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
More on the technical side – this was the first thing I did when I joined Anarchaserver. As spideralex said, the documentations of different projects kept going on. So there were two similar pages with server set up documentation. The first thing I did was to merge and update them. But also, we had this conversation with ooooo that it would be nice if someone actually tries it. Yeah, sometimes it's nice if someone else tries to follow the instructions because you, yourself, know what you're doing. And I also did the styling of the page and then I did the overall styling of MediaWiki, and I wanted for it to be a bit more welcoming than a default page. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS:<br />
And I think also as it is a wiki, it would be nice now that you <MELT> are in residence for the Fair New Idea project, we would welcome your visions on accessibility. It would be an invitation, of course, that you could also become an active intervener or would change and modify and add to the content of that page to maybe broaden up this idea of what access to the server is. Besides from its technical perspective of how to exchange SSH keys (secure shell) and make user modifications.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
'''<big>How do you think about accessibility?</big>''' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It is very interesting to hear from everyone about what kind of accessibility you think with! I hear a lot about collaborations that produce the wiki with you as a way to literally access the server. And I also understand that it is also a kind of accessibility to make the server accessible by documenting how to use it. But I'm curious what it would mean for you to make the server disability accessible? How do you think about accessibility? What does that mean in your project? Do you have some thoughts on that?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I can start with this question. So. Accessibility, yeah, it's a concern. Accessibility in terms of who can work and make use of our services that we host. And at the moment it‘s mostly people who are part of the collective and with this project. A Fair New Idea was also for us a way to try to reach out and to try to see how we could host people besides our internal network. So that's why we invited you for a residency. So anyway, it was an opportunity to reach out to first artists and of course, we'll see how it will go. But since most of are artists and at the same time we have technical knowledge and we would like to share basic cohabitation with artists who can learn to work outside very commercial, centralized online tools. So that's one path of accessibility. So then there's the accessibility of who can join in our networks because sometimes the activism is something that not everybody can afford, because most of the times that we volunteer on a project. So having available resources, even if it's minimal for people to do things, with our servers is a very important accessibility factor. And then it comes, of course, accessibility of our user interfaces who can actually read and learn and from the content we host on our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe I can add something: For me, the first part of accessibility was also for myself even, to start being familiar with, how to use a server, how to get there and how to do stuff there and not look at it as a black box that I cannot touch because I'm afraid. So by trying to bring people that are not experts or not technologists into collectives in which people can help each other in educating themselves so they feel more emancipated to use not only commercial tools, but also their own or open source ones. For the future what I'm currently thinking of is that I would like things that we do on the server, like maybe a website or a wiki or whatever to be more inclusive to people with disabilities, for example. What I see now when it comes to that is that colours could be too much for some people to read, or <we could develop tools like> some functions for people who cannot hear and who would really like it to learn more about technology can use. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I am interested in understanding accessibility as something that too is about how we make our tools and services and contents more accessible to deaf and disabled people. And also to people who don't speak Spanish and English. Then again, in general how contents and services can be made more known and accessible to short term collectivities and individuals. I’m also interested in how you can enable a lower threshold for feminist collectives to engage in and maintain their own technical infrastructures.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Thank you so much for these answers and also these very varied and different considerations of access. In relation to infrastructure, tech and language, and of course, disability. Yeah, I think we are both excited to continue working on that together. The next question is about speculative dreaming: What future perspectives for the feminist server do you wish or dream of?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I dream that our feminist server continues to be a meeting point and space for feminist peers that will help us to evolve and collaborate and work together. And I'm also thinking about local feminist groups here in Rotterdam where I now live, but also back in Athens, where I come from. And I know that there is a need [for feminist servers] there. I hope that they can benefit from the existence of our feminist servers, especially towards helping to a future of more technological autonomy. Probably that cannot be completed, but at least to try to be less dependent on giant tech corporations for their communication or for publishing our works or our struggles or things that we need to communicate with the world, um, and interconnect with other feminist groups out there. So I hope that our feminist servers can help that perspective.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I totally agree, and I find it so beautiful how we use tools as always a means to an end. I don't think anyone of us glorifies them and it's like: [making a] server is the end game. No, it's about using [a server] to learn together and to hang out and communicate. So I think that's very beautiful. I'm from Georgia and I didn't have anyone to talk about any of those things around me. That's how I actually got here. And this is already my dream scenario come to life. So now I'm trying to reconnect with people who are not so technical, but we are already starting to have something local in Georgia as well. So yeah, it's kind of that's what feminist servers are to me.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I agree and I would like to give a more pragmatic and nuanced [view] on this thing. I would say that the cooperative model here would be one of my dreams for the feminist servers we have. And that it can include a membership fee so we can make our services more sustainable because from the past experience, and we've seen that the only way of giving time, it works well for learning, but then it's very difficult to host services for other artists and feminists that we would like to have. So a more concrete approach to the dream of the future for the life of our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: What I observe right now is that the critique of big tech companies is high but the awareness that there is an alternative way to use technology is very invisible so far. And that's a lot of work to speak up for that and to make it shown. So that would be some vision of mine to not look at faces of complete disbelief when talking about having our own server.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like more people and collectives engaged in setting up feminist servers and in general feminist infrastructure initiatives. I would be interested in more local gynaecological considerations embedded inside the set up of future feminist servers. Dreaming, creating data centers made for and by feminist servers. And coordination between different feminist servers to avoid reinventing the wheel or to enable supporting each other in knowledge and solidarity processes. To share resources and funding, to share common technical infrastructure or by having people that have specific skills and knowledge that can contribute to different initiatives. And finally, my big dream is one day to have feminist servers that then orientate towards providing services to communities that are facing strong gender based violence online and censorship in digital spaces [such as] pro-choice activists, post porno and sex workers. So that's a long term projection, but I would like that we can manage to go there one day.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: The idea of more sysadmins people who join us in the backend! [People] not just there for the services, who learn with us and try to engage with the technology and the machines which are surrounding us. Sysadmins unite (!) to break the [local] isolation of having that technofeminist praxis and awareness.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Maybe it's nice to continue because our project also works with trans* feminism and Disability Justice, and I love the ways in which the trans* feminist, THF, TransHackFeminism becomes a shared user in the access server page. But also, I think that there's a specific understanding of trans* feminism that you seem to be working with because it comes up again many times on the Anarchaserver page. What does it mean to you to serve trans* feminism in this project? I think it's also related to a lot of the dreams that you just shared. Would you want to say something more about trans* feminism specifically?'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm still a little bit like scared about this fact of serving and hosting. And it's like, I feel like by inhabiting these servers and then also maintaining and configuring the affective infrastructures in which we are moving, that we are trans* hack feminists. And it's [about] these kinds of spaces. It's not serving. It's, you know, like fluid. It's like good. It's like you are feeling the practices of technology. It's like configuring together. It's yeah, it's more like an actualization of trans* hack feminism. I like it has a history, also. The TransHackFeminism, was a reaction on the electictechcarnival (https://eclectictechcarnival.org/) to open specific identity politics and women-only-spaces up, to trans* people. And then the reaction came.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: I would also be super curious to hear what it means to have come from a cis-woman only space and going through the process of opening that up to trans* people.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So I try to put here just a little definition that we created for the feminist museum about TransHackFeminism. Hmm ... ?? .... So we have to define it like: The Mummy is a museum of the future taking place in the 22nd century. It's a museum about sexism that has disappeared: it is curated with Anamhoo, a sys adnim of Anarchaserver that organised the trans* hack feminist convergence in Mexico. We try to collect seven different artistic pieces..... I have been in a collective in Spain that is called Donestech (https://www.donestech.net/) in Catalan that was created in 2007. At that moment, there was no other collective that was working on the relation between gender and technologies and free software. But I think that the paradigm of inclusion of women in digital tech related spaces was needed, no? But it's very 90s, no? [We became more] trans* feminist in our politics, in our feminist politics. We made an event where we would meet together, [and you had to be] open to trans* feminism. So that's why it was called TransHackFeminism and because it was organized not only by me and Sophie Toupin, but also by the people of Pechblenda which was a space in Calafou and Julito who were trans feminist. It appeared in 2008 in Spain, in the feminist conference in Granada.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I would like to elaborate a bit more on what ooooo mentioned a little bit of the story of events because we are based in different locations within Europe. So the eclectictechcarnival takes place not even yearly.; sometimes it is 2, 3 years inbetween. Well, I admit I haven't been at that many. I've been in the last one, it was an organized in Greece where I am based. The one before was in Italy, and the one before Italy was called TransHack Feminism in Calafou. And because I organized it, the question of who can join this event came up because every time as time passes as spideralex mentioned feminism itself changes, and it's always this question of who can join our event? And again, for example, the last, let's say a firewall, is cis men. Can cis men join our events? So this is the base of the conversation as we try to provide safe spaces and for those who are marginalized, within technology and its environments. But I would say it's an open question, and it always depends on the locality of the event. And on those organizing it. Of course, we all have our own idea and praxis of feminism.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: To me it was also new, I was not sure what that trans* referred to, because in the German speaking context [people] were talking maybe of queer feminism. So I was curious to also learn [about trans* feminism as] a part of the struggle against a current of feminism that in some places is stronger than others, and that is about the exclusion of trans* people and non-binary. And so that was one aspect that I find interesting to learn, and I find its good to call it trans* feminism to make it explicit.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, and important because at a certain moment, there was really a confusion for me because I was at the CCC (Chaos Computer Congres) and there was a transhack meeting. So I joined into the meeting because it was about the organization of the next gathering. But actually, it was about trans nationality. So it was more like focusing on Spain and Italy. They have like trans hack meetings, but it's actually transnational meetings.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So we have hack meetings. Yeah, when we make it across different countries it becomes a trans hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, sure. But it's interesting that the one refers to like identity politics in relation to gender, it seems. And the other, of course not. It's much wider also about your national identity. But it is confusing, or it is also how the term can be hacked so that that gets certain meanings by actually also using it. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, it was confusing. And then the confusion was pretty interesting. We only had two trans hack meetings in the history of trans hack meetings in Europe. One in Poland and the other one was three years ago, four years ago in Tarnack and there some people thought it was a trans* hack meeting, but it was pretty cool because this way we had more queer people around. Yeah, it wasn't that easy. It was like: No, no, this is not the trans* hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And actually, there was recently a transhack meeting in Bologna that also had a sysadmin of systerserver involved. It was also called like that. That's nice. So yeah, it's a somehow yeah, it's hacked then. But yeah, it's not so nice if you're then there and it's a quite cis-normative environment because that's not that the safer space that you went there for. This is not a trans* hack meeting this is a transhack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: During THF, the question was also: what is now the most important term in it? Is trans*? is it hack? is it feminism? Can feminism be hacked, can feminism be trans*? Can hack be transed? Can you trans* hack? It's like, you know, it is circulating inside of the dependencies within these three denominators.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: In the pad, I have shared the link to the documentation of that session. So maybe then you can dig more in. It wasn't so many people that say they're interested, in trans*feminism. But the trans terminology, about transitioning, about transition, about all the links that it could have with immigration with transformation, with even of politics, you know, and so on, so on, so on. So yeah, I think we can put it in different layers and for sure, at least when it was set up in Calafou in 2017 the first layer was about trans*feminist politics.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, just to add, sometimes when you encounter a term for first time, you make a conclusion depending on your background and your identity, etc. So of course, when our services uses terms it feels important and to give a description of them: what does this term contain? It's also very important that when we do things that we are open about it, the terminology we're using what does refer to and why it is constructed like that? And it is important because it changes very quickly, in all this researches of all that is happening in migration realities to multi species studies and keeping in mind always intersectionality they all add up in the end in the concept of creating safe spaces. So I think this is something to consider when we use terms, how we came up with and why we came up with the terms we use.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And it was really important that people do a bit of research and find their own history in this terminology, you know. It's also by the people inhabiting or by the people embodying that it becomes and not only by a definition. I mean, it's ever changing also.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I agree in the sense I think that Anarchaserver is one of the first pages including the THF and all the documentation, and I feel very complicated to give a straightforward definition. And now we are trying to make access to the documentation that has been created around that concept. Now we are trying to clarify, to know, a definition of our internet politics and gender and diversity and so on, which is the text that we are trying to set up about Anarchaserver. But for Trans Hack Feminism convergences, I would find it very difficult to give a straightforward definition and an explicit one.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's not about giving you straightforward definition. They can be, as you said, you link to a document that as you said gives a story of how this happened.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Mm-Hmm. Yeah, that's all there.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe we have to create expiration dates on our Wiki pages. If we don't visit them in certain time becomes too old and it becomes a reference without being actual. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: But I've seen this, coming up when we organize events and you know, we have to do open calls and these things are always reconfiguring. Hacking with THF helps to hack patriarchy, capitalism and other systems of oppression. Hacking refers to the act of doing and taking things apart, understanding them in a deeper way. Hacking is action performance. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: So one last question is how do you define in your group the terms server and the relations between service and clients because we also read in your manifesto and that your project is about re configuring these relations? So it's a question that maybe speaks to like literally the server, but maybe also metaphorically the serving of values or the working together for the making of space.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: For me, the server is like a space, like a room. It's not only a machine, but we can go into it because usually we meet, especially if we live in other places, we meet on the server. It's our meeting point like instead of going to a cafe, we meet in the terminal. So while we’re in the terminal we try to help each other, educate ourselves and spend time together. So it's a connecting room that we can go in and work together in. And about the ‘server’ ‘client’, I really don't like the word client in general, but I know the technical term. I just don't see it translating in a social way for us inside the feminist server constellations because it is more of a corporate thing. Other people have said its more like inhabiting the servers instead of serving. So its not only that the server serves, and the other is a transmitter it becomes an interchangeable role that you also receive at the same time instead of only offering the other side. I would like more that we do both.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: We have a lot of humor in the poetics, and really intense reflections and critical thinking about the terminology, which is used inside of these machines. Common are terms like master/slave. Server/client. So there is really critical thinking about it and also to approach it differently, fail/success. And you can say, OK, yeah, we have failed but try to say, oh, we have some data somewhere, we can reconstruct this. So we often deconstruct this language and appropriate it in a way that is closer to our identity and our politics. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm looking at some of the histories of feminist servers. I saw two approaches that I really like one that was from 2013 was when they twisted the language at the feminist server summit that was held on the question of a feminist server into: Are you being served? And I really like that because it fits my my understanding of feminism as talking about the embodied experience of not being served in certain contexts. And the other one is from the fall, the ‘From Skin to Steel Manifesto’ that must have come from to Brazil. They start their manifesto by claiming that we are all already and thinking about, body experience as serving. And that's very close to what I would call care practices. So where where are the lines between serving and caring? It's really a very radical political claim to look for things about who is being served and it is close to this question of who has access and who can participate.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Even though we do things all the time we never say server/client. If we want to be fair to what convention you need for the client, even the commercial thinking, we use the word interface and allies with the collaboration when we want to talk about the people who would like to do things with our servers and interfaces can apply. Apply both to the look of the of the websites, but also how we communicate to the people outside our internal group. So we don't refer to the client almost at all.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: But then as a tiny, technical follow up question, how do you technically reconfigure these relations?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's like another network topology, peer to peer. So technically there are protocols which are allowing that, but we're not there yet. But for example, what we also tried to do with the feminist server is to have distributed services that not each server has the same, services that we are using. One has the ether pads, another has other things.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So its not really changing the server client, but like it's more like making a redistributed model of dependency. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: One of the points that THF articulated is that of autonomy where with having a Feminist server: you choose your dependencies.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like to ask MELT something, so you are also working on server access? Access Server? Is it still server access the project you are working on?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It's called Access Server, the project.'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I wondered, maybe its too quick to digest what we said so far. But still, I wondered what you thought about the convergences between the thoughts between your Access Server project and what we have been discussing so far?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Hm, yeah so part of the ACCESS SERVER project is that we're technically trying to understand how it can work so that when people email institutions asking for accessibility, the email will cc the previous email with access requests to the same institution. So we're trying to technically create a collectivity so that disabled people emailing understand see that they're not the only ones that are emailing to any institution. So emailers have the sense that, oh, many other people have emailed as well. So I think that this relates to how you’re talking about technical collectivity and trying to share resources and offer other options for points of connection. This is still a technical question. We're not exactly sure how to do it yet and also to maintain people's privacy at the same time. So there's a few questions there behind that. But I think that this is the desire to understand the technically active collective body that is emailing with access requests. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:MELT: When listening to you. I think notions of care and trust is where I feel a lot of shared questions and maybe sometimes struggles or figurings out. And also in these relations between how to reach out and work with other people with an infrastructure that we provide. Because the idea is really that other disabled people can use the email server and the website that comes with it. So there are also questions of how to even make the website accessible. There are guidelines around that, we have some knowledge around that. But then also how to reach out, also across other axes of discrimination and oppression. How to build that trust also. And also technically then if someone sends an email through our email server how can we make sure that their name is anonymous, for example, the IP address, etc. So that's a lot of questions that still seem also hard to ensure safety. Then also, we skipped the question on trolling and how to carry the risk of providing, feminist and accessible services. That's also a big one for us still to figure out. How can we, I think we can’t prevent people from abusing our service, but how can we even make sure that it doesn't affect more people? And maybe also it doesn't affect us too much. So all of these questions, I think, are quite related.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:MELT: Also, when you were speaking, something that also came to mind is that I think that the idea of the access server, constantly reminds us of the world that we live in where ableism is so structural. And this is the kind of reality that we're posited against. I'm also curious to see how how we can get people interested in using it, because also even when people are paid for their labour and even when they write emails to institutions, institutions themselves have so much work to do to change. And so I think that that is also a similar condition that you're working with with the feminist server projects where you're publicizing. We're trying to make more visible, so to speak, that there are alternatives, other ways of doing things that do not conform to ableism and capitalism as discriminatory and oppressive standards. Our project approach institutions and requires them to change. And that's also what you're doing. I think what the feminist server project is like trying to provide an alternative to show that a change is possible. <br />
''</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Interview_Meltionary&diff=1447Interview Meltionary2022-11-16T17:20:14Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div>FSS - Feminst server Sysadmins <br /><br />
MELT - Meltionary<br />
<br /><br /><br />
<big>'''Could you walk us through the ways Access Server is used?'''</big><br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
<br />
:''MELT: The first thing that piqued our interest was the sub page Access Server, because it has the same title as our project. Could you walk us through the ways in which that page is used? Who uses it? What are the steps to follow and what happens if something doesn't work? We are also interested in the kinds of conversations you perhaps already had among your group to set up the page.''<br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
FSS: <br />
When searching for an answer to this question, we had a very technical way of looking at it. The page is from a [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki Mediawiki] that we installed. We have this helpful "history" function under each created page, as it's a collaborative writing tool, it keeps track of the previous edits. So what we actually did yesterday is hit the history button to try to find the history of that specific page because it also has a timestamp, and it also sees the user who was actually creating this page. So we found that the user was THF and that there was three other users: ooooo, b04 and ezn. They were also contributing to the the technical appearance of this page. The THF user refers to ‘trans hack feminism’, which was [[Main_Page#TransHackFeminist_Convergence|a convergence]] organized in Calafou. . So it's not very clear who made that page, but it is made in that convergence, so there were people sitting around the table and making it. Do you want to contextualize the THF user spideralex? Or the trans hack feminist convergence?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
So the THF user was created around the first TransHackFeminist convergence in 2013. It was a shared user of the different people that have been documenting the different sessions that were held at this first event of one week. We have been sharing <the user> to document basically the different conversations. And then the wiki has remained as a space where different TransHackFeminist events could document what they did. In the wiki, we write about feminist servers in general and when we document the Anarchaserver's technical and other work.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
More on the technical side – this was the first thing I did when I joined Anarchaserver. As spideralex said, the documentations of different projects kept going on. So there were two similar pages with server set up documentation. The first thing I did was to merge and update them. But also, we had this conversation with ooooo that it would be nice if someone actually tries it. Yeah, sometimes it's nice if someone else tries to follow the instructions because you, yourself, know what you're doing. And I also did the styling of the page and then I did the overall styling of MediaWiki, and I wanted for it to be a bit more welcoming than a default page. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS:<br />
And I think also as it is a wiki, it would be nice now that you <MELT> are in residence for the Fair New Idea project, we would welcome your visions on accessibility. It would be an invitation, of course, that you could also become an active intervener or would change and modify and add to the content of that page to maybe broaden up this idea of what access to the server is. Besides from its technical perspective of how to exchange SSH keys (secure shell) and make user modifications.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
'''<big>How do you think about accessibility?</big>''' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It is very interesting to hear from everyone about what kind of accessibility you think with! I hear a lot about collaborations that produce the wiki with you as a way to literally access the server. And I also understand that it is also a kind of accessibility to make the server accessible by documenting how to use it. But I'm curious what it would mean for you to make the server disability accessible? How do you think about accessibility? What does that mean in your project? Do you have some thoughts on that?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I can start with this question. So. Accessibility, yeah, it's a concern. Accessibility in terms of who can work and make use of our services that we host. And at the moment it‘s mostly people who are part of the collective and with this project. A Fair New Idea was also for us a way to try to reach out and to try to see how we could host people besides our internal network. So that's why we invited you for a residency. So anyway, it was an opportunity to reach out to first artists and of course, we'll see how it will go. But since most of are artists and at the same time we have technical knowledge and we would like to share basic cohabitation with artists who can learn to work outside very commercial, centralized online tools. So that's one path of accessibility. So then there's the accessibility of who can join in our networks because sometimes the activism is something that not everybody can afford, because most of the times that we volunteer on a project. So having available resources, even if it's minimal for people to do things, with our servers is a very important accessibility factor. And then it comes, of course, accessibility of our user interfaces who can actually read and learn and from the content we host on our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe I can add something: For me, the first part of accessibility was also for myself even, to start being familiar with, how to use a server, how to get there and how to do stuff there and not look at it as a black box that I cannot touch because I'm afraid. So by trying to bring people that are not experts or not technologists into collectives in which people can help each other in educating themselves so they feel more emancipated to use not only commercial tools, but also their own or open source ones. For the future what I'm currently thinking of is that I would like things that we do on the server, like maybe a website or a wiki or whatever to be more inclusive to people with disabilities, for example. What I see now when it comes to that is that colours could be too much for some people to read, or <we could develop tools like> some functions for people who cannot hear and who would really like it to learn more about technology can use. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I am interested in understanding accessibility as something that too is about how we make our tools and services and contents more accessible to deaf and disabled people. And also to people who don't speak Spanish and English. Then again, in general how contents and services can be made more known and accessible to short term collectivities and individuals. I’m also interested in how you can enable a lower threshold for feminist collectives to engage in and maintain their own technical infrastructures.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Thank you so much for these answers and also these very varied and different considerations of access. In relation to infrastructure, tech and language, and of course, disability. Yeah, I think we are both excited to continue working on that together. The next question is about speculative dreaming: What future perspectives for the feminist server do you wish or dream of?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I dream that our feminist server continues to be a meeting point and space for feminist peers that will help us to evolve and collaborate and work together. And I'm also thinking about local feminist groups here in Rotterdam where I now live, but also back in Athens, where I come from. And I know that there is a need [for feminist servers] there. I hope that they can benefit from the existence of our feminist servers, especially towards helping to a future of more technological autonomy. Probably that cannot be completed, but at least to try to be less dependent on giant tech corporations for their communication or for publishing our works or our struggles or things that we need to communicate with the world, um, and interconnect with other feminist groups out there. So I hope that our feminist servers can help that perspective.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I totally agree, and I find it so beautiful how we use tools as always a means to an end. I don't think anyone of us glorifies them and it's like: [making a] server is the end game. No, it's about using [a server] to learn together and to hang out and communicate. So I think that's very beautiful. I'm from Georgia and I didn't have anyone to talk about any of those things around me. That's how I actually got here. And this is already my dream scenario come to life. So now I'm trying to reconnect with people who are not so technical, but we are already starting to have something local in Georgia as well. So yeah, it's kind of that's what feminist servers are to me.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I agree and I would like to give a more pragmatic and nuanced [view] on this thing. I would say that the cooperative model here would be one of my dreams for the feminist servers we have. And that it can include a membership fee so we can make our services more sustainable because from the past experience, and we've seen that the only way of giving time, it works well for learning, but then it's very difficult to host services for other artists and feminists that we would like to have. So a more concrete approach to the dream of the future for the life of our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: What I observe right now is that the critique of big tech companies is high but the awareness that there is an alternative way to use technology is very invisible so far. And that's a lot of work to speak up for that and to make it shown. So that would be some vision of mine to not look at faces of complete disbelief when talking about having our own server.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like more people and collectives engaged in setting up feminist servers and in general feminist infrastructure initiatives. I would be interested in more local gynaecological considerations embedded inside the set up of future feminist servers. Dreaming, creating data centers made for and by feminist servers. And coordination between different feminist servers to avoid reinventing the wheel or to enable supporting each other in knowledge and solidarity processes. To share resources and funding, to share common technical infrastructure or by having people that have specific skills and knowledge that can contribute to different initiatives. And finally, my big dream is one day to have feminist servers that then orientate towards providing services to communities that are facing strong gender based violence online and censorship in digital spaces [such as] pro-choice activists, post porno and sex workers. So that's a long term projection, but I would like that we can manage to go there one day.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: The idea of more sysadmins people who join us in the backend! [People] not just there for the services, who learn with us and try to engage with the technology and the machines which are surrounding us. Sysadmins unite (!) to break the [local] isolation of having that technofeminist praxis and awareness.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Maybe it's nice to continue because our project also works with trans* feminism and Disability Justice, and I love the ways in which the trans* feminist, THF, TransHackFeminism becomes a shared user in the access server page. But also, I think that there's a specific understanding of trans* feminism that you seem to be working with because it comes up again many times on the Anarchaserver page. What does it mean to you to serve trans* feminism in this project? I think it's also related to a lot of the dreams that you just shared. Would you want to say something more about trans* feminism specifically?'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm still a little bit like scared about this fact of serving and hosting. And it's like, I feel like by inhabiting these servers and then also maintaining and configuring the affective infrastructures in which we are moving, that we are trans* hack feminists. And it's [about] these kinds of spaces. It's not serving. It's, you know, like fluid. It's like good. It's like you are feeling the practices of technology. It's like configuring together. It's yeah, it's more like an actualization of trans* hack feminism. I like it has a history, also. The TransHackFeminism, was a reaction on the electictechcarnival (https://eclectictechcarnival.org/) to open specific identity politics and women-only-spaces up, to trans* people. And then the reaction came.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: I would also be super curious to hear what it means to have come from a cis-woman only space and going through the process of opening that up to trans* people.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So I try to put here just a little definition that we created for the feminist museum about TransHackFeminism. Hmm ... ?? .... So we have to define it like: The Mummy is a museum of the future taking place in the 22nd century. It's a museum about sexism that has disappeared: it is curated with Anamhoo, a sys adnim of Anarchaserver that organised the trans* hack feminist convergence in Mexico. We try to collect seven different artistic pieces..... I have been in a collective in Spain that is called Donestech (https://www.donestech.net/) in Catalan that was created in 2007. At that moment, there was no other collective that was working on the relation between gender and technologies and free software. But I think that the paradigm of inclusion of women in digital tech related spaces was needed, no? But it's very 90s, no? [We became more] trans* feminist in our politics, in our feminist politics. We made an event where we would meet together, [and you had to be] open to trans* feminism. So that's why it was called TransHackFeminism and because it was organized not only by me and Sophie Toupin, but also by the people of Pechblenda which was a space in Calafou and Julito who were trans feminist. It appeared in 2008 in Spain, in the feminist conference in Granada.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I would like to elaborate a bit more on what ooooo mentioned a little bit of the story of events because we are based in different locations within Europe. So the eclectictechcarnival takes place not even yearly.; sometimes it is 2, 3 years inbetween. Well, I admit I haven't been at that many. I've been in the last one, it was an organized in Greece where I am based. The one before was in Italy, and the one before Italy was called TransHack Feminism in Calafou. And because I organized it, the question of who can join this event came up because every time as time passes as spideralex mentioned feminism itself changes, and it's always this question of who can join our event? And again, for example, the last, let's say a firewall, is cis men. Can cis men join our events? So this is the base of the conversation as we try to provide safe spaces and for those who are marginalized, within technology and its environments. But I would say it's an open question, and it always depends on the locality of the event. And on those organizing it. Of course, we all have our own idea and praxis of feminism.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: To me it was also new, I was not sure what that trans* referred to, because in the German speaking context [people] were talking maybe of queer feminism. So I was curious to also learn [about trans* feminism as] a part of the struggle against a current of feminism that in some places is stronger than others, and that is about the exclusion of trans* people and non-binary. And so that was one aspect that I find interesting to learn, and I find its good to call it trans* feminism to make it explicit.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, and important because at a certain moment, there was really a confusion for me because I was at the CCC (Chaos Computer Congres) and there was a transhack meeting. So I joined into the meeting because it was about the organization of the next gathering. But actually, it was about trans nationality. So it was more like focusing on Spain and Italy. They have like trans hack meetings, but it's actually transnational meetings.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So we have hack meetings. Yeah, when we make it across different countries it becomes a trans hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, sure. But it's interesting that the one refers to like identity politics in relation to gender, it seems. And the other, of course not. It's much wider also about your national identity. But it is confusing, or it is also how the term can be hacked so that that gets certain meanings by actually also using it. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, it was confusing. And then the confusion was pretty interesting. We only had two trans hack meetings in the history of trans hack meetings in Europe. One in Poland and the other one was three years ago, four years ago in Tarnack and there some people thought it was a trans* hack meeting, but it was pretty cool because this way we had more queer people around. Yeah, it wasn't that easy. It was like: No, no, this is not the trans* hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And actually, there was recently a transhack meeting in Bologna that also had a sysadmin of systerserver involved. It was also called like that. That's nice. So yeah, it's a somehow yeah, it's hacked then. But yeah, it's not so nice if you're then there and it's a quite cis-normative environment because that's not that the safer space that you went there for. This is not a trans* hack meeting this is a transhack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: During THF, the question was also: what is now the most important term in it? Is trans*? is it hack? is it feminism? Can feminism be hacked, can feminism be trans*? Can hack be transed? Can you trans* hack? It's like, you know, it is circulating inside of the dependencies within these three denominators.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: In the pad, I have shared the link to the documentation of that session. So maybe then you can dig more in. It wasn't so many people that say they're interested, in trans*feminism. But the trans terminology, about transitioning, about transition, about all the links that it could have with immigration with transformation, with even of politics, you know, and so on, so on, so on. So yeah, I think we can put it in different layers and for sure, at least when it was set up in Calafou in 2017 the first layer was about trans*feminist politics.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, just to add, sometimes when you encounter a term for first time, you make a conclusion depending on your background and your identity, etc. So of course, when our services uses terms it feels important and to give a description of them: what does this term contain? It's also very important that when we do things that we are open about it, the terminology we're using what does refer to and why it is constructed like that? And it is important because it changes very quickly, in all this researches of all that is happening in migration realities to multi species studies and keeping in mind always intersectionality they all add up in the end in the concept of creating safe spaces. So I think this is something to consider when we use terms, how we came up with and why we came up with the terms we use.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And it was really important that people do a bit of research and find their own history in this terminology, you know. It's also by the people inhabiting or by the people embodying that it becomes and not only by a definition. I mean, it's ever changing also.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I agree in the sense I think that Anarchaserver is one of the first pages including the THF and all the documentation, and I feel very complicated to give a straightforward definition. And now we are trying to make access to the documentation that has been created around that concept. Now we are trying to clarify, to know, a definition of our internet politics and gender and diversity and so on, which is the text that we are trying to set up about Anarchaserver. But for Trans Hack Feminism convergences, I would find it very difficult to give a straightforward definition and an explicit one.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's not about giving you straightforward definition. They can be, as you said, you link to a document that as you said gives a story of how this happened.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Mm-Hmm. Yeah, that's all there.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe we have to create expiration dates on our Wiki pages. If we don't visit them in certain time becomes too old and it becomes a reference without being actual. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: But I've seen this, coming up when we organize events and you know, we have to do open calls and these things are always reconfiguring. Hacking with THF helps to hack patriarchy, capitalism and other systems of oppression. Hacking refers to the act of doing and taking things apart, understanding them in a deeper way. Hacking is action performance. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: So one last question is how do you define in your group the terms server and the relations between service and clients because we also read in your manifesto and that your project is about re configuring these relations? So it's a question that maybe speaks to like literally the server, but maybe also metaphorically the serving of values or the working together for the making of space.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: For me, the server is like a space, like a room. It's not only a machine, but we can go into it because usually we meet, especially if we live in other places, we meet on the server. It's our meeting point like instead of going to a cafe, we meet in the terminal. So while we’re in the terminal we try to help each other, educate ourselves and spend time together. So it's a connecting room that we can go in and work together in. And about the ‘server’ ‘client’, I really don't like the word client in general, but I know the technical term. I just don't see it translating in a social way for us inside the feminist server constellations because it is more of a corporate thing. Other people have said its more like inhabiting the servers instead of serving. So its not only that the server serves, and the other is a transmitter it becomes an interchangeable role that you also receive at the same time instead of only offering the other side. I would like more that we do both.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: We have a lot of humor in the poetics, and really intense reflections and critical thinking about the terminology, which is used inside of these machines. Common are terms like master/slave. Server/client. So there is really critical thinking about it and also to approach it differently, fail/success. And you can say, OK, yeah, we have failed but try to say, oh, we have some data somewhere, we can reconstruct this. So we often deconstruct this language and appropriate it in a way that is closer to our identity and our politics. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm looking at some of the histories of feminist servers. I saw two approaches that I really like one that was from 2013 was when they twisted the language at the feminist server summit that was held on the question of a feminist server into: Are you being served? And I really like that because it fits my my understanding of feminism as talking about the embodied experience of not being served in certain contexts. And the other one is from the fall, the ‘From Skin to Steel Manifesto’ that must have come from to Brazil. They start their manifesto by claiming that we are all already and thinking about, body experience as serving. And that's very close to what I would call care practices. So where where are the lines between serving and caring? It's really a very radical political claim to look for things about who is being served and it is close to this question of who has access and who can participate.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Even though we do things all the time we never say server/client. If we want to be fair to what convention you need for the client, even the commercial thinking, we use the word interface and allies with the collaboration when we want to talk about the people who would like to do things with our servers and interfaces can apply. Apply both to the look of the of the websites, but also how we communicate to the people outside our internal group. So we don't refer to the client almost at all.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: But then as a tiny, technical follow up question, how do you technically reconfigure these relations?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's like another network topology, peer to peer. So technically there are protocols which are allowing that, but we're not there yet. But for example, what we also tried to do with the feminist server is to have distributed services that not each server has the same, services that we are using. One has the ether pads, another has other things.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So its not really changing the server client, but like it's more like making a redistributed model of dependency. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: One of the points that THF articulated is that of autonomy where with having a Feminist server: you choose your dependencies.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like to ask MELT something, so you are also working on server access? Access Server? Is it still server access the project you are working on?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: It's called Access Server, the project.'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I wondered, maybe its too quick to digest what we said so far. But still, I wondered what you thought about the convergences between the thoughts between your Access Server project and what we have been discussing so far?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
:''MELT: Hm, yeah so part of the ACCESS SERVER project is that we're technically trying to understand how it can work so that when people email institutions asking for accessibility, the email will cc the previous email with access requests to the same institution. So we're trying to technically create a collectivity so that disabled people emailing understand see that they're not the only ones that are emailing to any institution. So emailers have the sense that, oh, many other people have emailed as well. So I think that this relates to how you’re talking about technical collectivity and trying to share resources and offer other options for points of connection. This is still a technical question. We're not exactly sure how to do it yet and also to maintain people's privacy at the same time. So there's a few questions there behind that. But I think that this is the desire to understand the technically active collective body that is emailing with access requests. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
MELT: When listening to you. I think notions of care and trust is where I feel a lot of shared questions and maybe sometimes struggles or figurings out. And also in these relations between how to reach out and work with other people with an infrastructure that we provide. Because the idea is really that other disabled people can use the email server and the website that comes with it. So there are also questions of how to even make the website accessible. There are guidelines around that, we have some knowledge around that. But then also how to reach out, also across other axes of discrimination and oppression. How to build that trust also. And also technically then if someone sends an email through our email server how can we make sure that their name is anonymous, for example, the IP address, etc. So that's a lot of questions that still seem also hard to ensure safety. Then also, we skipped the question on trolling and how to carry the risk of providing, feminist and accessible services. That's also a big one for us still to figure out. How can we, I think we can’t prevent people from abusing our service, but how can we even make sure that it doesn't affect more people? And maybe also it doesn't affect us too much. So all of these questions, I think, are quite related.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
MELT: Also, when you were speaking, something that also came to mind is that I think that the idea of the access server, constantly reminds us of the world that we live in where ableism is so structural. And this is the kind of reality that we're posited against. I'm also curious to see how how we can get people interested in using it, because also even when people are paid for their labour and even when they write emails to institutions, institutions themselves have so much work to do to change. And so I think that that is also a similar condition that you're working with with the feminist server projects where you're publicizing. We're trying to make more visible, so to speak, that there are alternatives, other ways of doing things that do not conform to ableism and capitalism as discriminatory and oppressive standards. Our project approach institutions and requires them to change. And that's also what you're doing. I think what the feminist server project is like trying to provide an alternative to show that a change is possible. <br />
''</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Interview_Meltionary&diff=1446Interview Meltionary2022-11-16T17:18:24Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div>FSS - Feminst server Sysadmins <br /><br />
MELT - Meltionary<br />
<br /><br /><br />
<big>'''Could you walk us through the ways Access Server is used?'''</big><br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
<br />
:''MELT: The first thing that piqued our interest was the sub page Access Server, because it has the same title as our project. Could you walk us through the ways in which that page is used? Who uses it? What are the steps to follow and what happens if something doesn't work? We are also interested in the kinds of conversations you perhaps already had among your group to set up the page.''<br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
FSS: <br />
When searching for an answer to this question, we had a very technical way of looking at it. The page is from a [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki Mediawiki] that we installed. We have this helpful "history" function under each created page, as it's a collaborative writing tool, it keeps track of the previous edits. So what we actually did yesterday is hit the history button to try to find the history of that specific page because it also has a timestamp, and it also sees the user who was actually creating this page. So we found that the user was THF and that there was three other users: ooooo, b04 and ezn. They were also contributing to the the technical appearance of this page. The THF user refers to ‘trans hack feminism’, which was [[Main_Page#TransHackFeminist_Convergence|a convergence]] organized in Calafou. . So it's not very clear who made that page, but it is made in that convergence, so there were people sitting around the table and making it. Do you want to contextualize the THF user spideralex? Or the trans hack feminist convergence?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
So the THF user was created around the first TransHackFeminist convergence in 2013. It was a shared user of the different people that have been documenting the different sessions that were held at this first event of one week. We have been sharing <the user> to document basically the different conversations. And then the wiki has remained as a space where different TransHackFeminist events could document what they did. In the wiki, we write about feminist servers in general and when we document the Anarchaserver's technical and other work.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
More on the technical side – this was the first thing I did when I joined Anarchaserver. As spideralex said, the documentations of different projects kept going on. So there were two similar pages with server set up documentation. The first thing I did was to merge and update them. But also, we had this conversation with ooooo that it would be nice if someone actually tries it. Yeah, sometimes it's nice if someone else tries to follow the instructions because you, yourself, know what you're doing. And I also did the styling of the page and then I did the overall styling of MediaWiki, and I wanted for it to be a bit more welcoming than a default page. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS:<br />
And I think also as it is a wiki, it would be nice now that you <MELT> are in residence for the Fair New Idea project, we would welcome your visions on accessibility. It would be an invitation, of course, that you could also become an active intervener or would change and modify and add to the content of that page to maybe broaden up this idea of what access to the server is. Besides from its technical perspective of how to exchange SSH keys (secure shell) and make user modifications.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
'''<big>How do you think about accessibility?</big>''' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: It is very interesting to hear from everyone about what kind of accessibility you think with! I hear a lot about collaborations that produce the wiki with you as a way to literally access the server. And I also understand that it is also a kind of accessibility to make the server accessible by documenting how to use it. But I'm curious what it would mean for you to make the server disability accessible? How do you think about accessibility? What does that mean in your project? Do you have some thoughts on that?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I can start with this question. So. Accessibility, yeah, it's a concern. Accessibility in terms of who can work and make use of our services that we host. And at the moment it‘s mostly people who are part of the collective and with this project. A Fair New Idea was also for us a way to try to reach out and to try to see how we could host people besides our internal network. So that's why we invited you for a residency. So anyway, it was an opportunity to reach out to first artists and of course, we'll see how it will go. But since most of are artists and at the same time we have technical knowledge and we would like to share basic cohabitation with artists who can learn to work outside very commercial, centralized online tools. So that's one path of accessibility. So then there's the accessibility of who can join in our networks because sometimes the activism is something that not everybody can afford, because most of the times that we volunteer on a project. So having available resources, even if it's minimal for people to do things, with our servers is a very important accessibility factor. And then it comes, of course, accessibility of our user interfaces who can actually read and learn and from the content we host on our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe I can add something: For me, the first part of accessibility was also for myself even, to start being familiar with, how to use a server, how to get there and how to do stuff there and not look at it as a black box that I cannot touch because I'm afraid. So by trying to bring people that are not experts or not technologists into collectives in which people can help each other in educating themselves so they feel more emancipated to use not only commercial tools, but also their own or open source ones. For the future what I'm currently thinking of is that I would like things that we do on the server, like maybe a website or a wiki or whatever to be more inclusive to people with disabilities, for example. What I see now when it comes to that is that colours could be too much for some people to read, or <we could develop tools like> some functions for people who cannot hear and who would really like it to learn more about technology can use. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I am interested in understanding accessibility as something that too is about how we make our tools and services and contents more accessible to deaf and disabled people. And also to people who don't speak Spanish and English. Then again, in general how contents and services can be made more known and accessible to short term collectivities and individuals. I’m also interested in how you can enable a lower threshold for feminist collectives to engage in and maintain their own technical infrastructures.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: Thank you so much for these answers and also these very varied and different considerations of access. In relation to infrastructure, tech and language, and of course, disability. Yeah, I think we are both excited to continue working on that together. The next question is about speculative dreaming: What future perspectives for the feminist server do you wish or dream of?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I dream that our feminist server continues to be a meeting point and space for feminist peers that will help us to evolve and collaborate and work together. And I'm also thinking about local feminist groups here in Rotterdam where I now live, but also back in Athens, where I come from. And I know that there is a need [for feminist servers] there. I hope that they can benefit from the existence of our feminist servers, especially towards helping to a future of more technological autonomy. Probably that cannot be completed, but at least to try to be less dependent on giant tech corporations for their communication or for publishing our works or our struggles or things that we need to communicate with the world, um, and interconnect with other feminist groups out there. So I hope that our feminist servers can help that perspective.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I totally agree, and I find it so beautiful how we use tools as always a means to an end. I don't think anyone of us glorifies them and it's like: [making a] server is the end game. No, it's about using [a server] to learn together and to hang out and communicate. So I think that's very beautiful. I'm from Georgia and I didn't have anyone to talk about any of those things around me. That's how I actually got here. And this is already my dream scenario come to life. So now I'm trying to reconnect with people who are not so technical, but we are already starting to have something local in Georgia as well. So yeah, it's kind of that's what feminist servers are to me.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I agree and I would like to give a more pragmatic and nuanced [view] on this thing. I would say that the cooperative model here would be one of my dreams for the feminist servers we have. And that it can include a membership fee so we can make our services more sustainable because from the past experience, and we've seen that the only way of giving time, it works well for learning, but then it's very difficult to host services for other artists and feminists that we would like to have. So a more concrete approach to the dream of the future for the life of our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: What I observe right now is that the critique of big tech companies is high but the awareness that there is an alternative way to use technology is very invisible so far. And that's a lot of work to speak up for that and to make it shown. So that would be some vision of mine to not look at faces of complete disbelief when talking about having our own server.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like more people and collectives engaged in setting up feminist servers and in general feminist infrastructure initiatives. I would be interested in more local gynaecological considerations embedded inside the set up of future feminist servers. Dreaming, creating data centers made for and by feminist servers. And coordination between different feminist servers to avoid reinventing the wheel or to enable supporting each other in knowledge and solidarity processes. To share resources and funding, to share common technical infrastructure or by having people that have specific skills and knowledge that can contribute to different initiatives. And finally, my big dream is one day to have feminist servers that then orientate towards providing services to communities that are facing strong gender based violence online and censorship in digital spaces [such as] pro-choice activists, post porno and sex workers. So that's a long term projection, but I would like that we can manage to go there one day.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: The idea of more sysadmins people who join us in the backend! [People] not just there for the services, who learn with us and try to engage with the technology and the machines which are surrounding us. Sysadmins unite (!) to break the [local] isolation of having that technofeminist praxis and awareness.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: Maybe it's nice to continue because our project also works with trans* feminism and Disability Justice, and I love the ways in which the trans* feminist, THF, TransHackFeminism becomes a shared user in the access server page. But also, I think that there's a specific understanding of trans* feminism that you seem to be working with because it comes up again many times on the Anarchaserver page. What does it mean to you to serve trans* feminism in this project? I think it's also related to a lot of the dreams that you just shared. Would you want to say something more about trans* feminism specifically?'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm still a little bit like scared about this fact of serving and hosting. And it's like, I feel like by inhabiting these servers and then also maintaining and configuring the affective infrastructures in which we are moving, that we are trans* hack feminists. And it's [about] these kinds of spaces. It's not serving. It's, you know, like fluid. It's like good. It's like you are feeling the practices of technology. It's like configuring together. It's yeah, it's more like an actualization of trans* hack feminism. I like it has a history, also. The TransHackFeminism, was a reaction on the electictechcarnival (https://eclectictechcarnival.org/) to open specific identity politics and women-only-spaces up, to trans* people. And then the reaction came.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: I would also be super curious to hear what it means to have come from a cis-woman only space and going through the process of opening that up to trans* people.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So I try to put here just a little definition that we created for the feminist museum about TransHackFeminism. Hmm ... ?? .... So we have to define it like: The Mummy is a museum of the future taking place in the 22nd century. It's a museum about sexism that has disappeared: it is curated with Anamhoo, a sys adnim of Anarchaserver that organised the trans* hack feminist convergence in Mexico. We try to collect seven different artistic pieces..... I have been in a collective in Spain that is called Donestech (https://www.donestech.net/) in Catalan that was created in 2007. At that moment, there was no other collective that was working on the relation between gender and technologies and free software. But I think that the paradigm of inclusion of women in digital tech related spaces was needed, no? But it's very 90s, no? [We became more] trans* feminist in our politics, in our feminist politics. We made an event where we would meet together, [and you had to be] open to trans* feminism. So that's why it was called TransHackFeminism and because it was organized not only by me and Sophie Toupin, but also by the people of Pechblenda which was a space in Calafou and Julito who were trans feminist. It appeared in 2008 in Spain, in the feminist conference in Granada.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I would like to elaborate a bit more on what ooooo mentioned a little bit of the story of events because we are based in different locations within Europe. So the eclectictechcarnival takes place not even yearly.; sometimes it is 2, 3 years inbetween. Well, I admit I haven't been at that many. I've been in the last one, it was an organized in Greece where I am based. The one before was in Italy, and the one before Italy was called TransHack Feminism in Calafou. And because I organized it, the question of who can join this event came up because every time as time passes as spideralex mentioned feminism itself changes, and it's always this question of who can join our event? And again, for example, the last, let's say a firewall, is cis men. Can cis men join our events? So this is the base of the conversation as we try to provide safe spaces and for those who are marginalized, within technology and its environments. But I would say it's an open question, and it always depends on the locality of the event. And on those organizing it. Of course, we all have our own idea and praxis of feminism.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: To me it was also new, I was not sure what that trans* referred to, because in the German speaking context [people] were talking maybe of queer feminism. So I was curious to also learn [about trans* feminism as] a part of the struggle against a current of feminism that in some places is stronger than others, and that is about the exclusion of trans* people and non-binary. And so that was one aspect that I find interesting to learn, and I find its good to call it trans* feminism to make it explicit.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, and important because at a certain moment, there was really a confusion for me because I was at the CCC (Chaos Computer Congres) and there was a transhack meeting. So I joined into the meeting because it was about the organization of the next gathering. But actually, it was about trans nationality. So it was more like focusing on Spain and Italy. They have like trans hack meetings, but it's actually transnational meetings.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So we have hack meetings. Yeah, when we make it across different countries it becomes a trans hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, sure. But it's interesting that the one refers to like identity politics in relation to gender, it seems. And the other, of course not. It's much wider also about your national identity. But it is confusing, or it is also how the term can be hacked so that that gets certain meanings by actually also using it. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, it was confusing. And then the confusion was pretty interesting. We only had two trans hack meetings in the history of trans hack meetings in Europe. One in Poland and the other one was three years ago, four years ago in Tarnack and there some people thought it was a trans* hack meeting, but it was pretty cool because this way we had more queer people around. Yeah, it wasn't that easy. It was like: No, no, this is not the trans* hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And actually, there was recently a transhack meeting in Bologna that also had a sysadmin of systerserver involved. It was also called like that. That's nice. So yeah, it's a somehow yeah, it's hacked then. But yeah, it's not so nice if you're then there and it's a quite cis-normative environment because that's not that the safer space that you went there for. This is not a trans* hack meeting this is a transhack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: During THF, the question was also: what is now the most important term in it? Is trans*? is it hack? is it feminism? Can feminism be hacked, can feminism be trans*? Can hack be transed? Can you trans* hack? It's like, you know, it is circulating inside of the dependencies within these three denominators.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: In the pad, I have shared the link to the documentation of that session. So maybe then you can dig more in. It wasn't so many people that say they're interested, in trans*feminism. But the trans terminology, about transitioning, about transition, about all the links that it could have with immigration with transformation, with even of politics, you know, and so on, so on, so on. So yeah, I think we can put it in different layers and for sure, at least when it was set up in Calafou in 2017 the first layer was about trans*feminist politics.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, just to add, sometimes when you encounter a term for first time, you make a conclusion depending on your background and your identity, etc. So of course, when our services uses terms it feels important and to give a description of them: what does this term contain? It's also very important that when we do things that we are open about it, the terminology we're using what does refer to and why it is constructed like that? And it is important because it changes very quickly, in all this researches of all that is happening in migration realities to multi species studies and keeping in mind always intersectionality they all add up in the end in the concept of creating safe spaces. So I think this is something to consider when we use terms, how we came up with and why we came up with the terms we use.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And it was really important that people do a bit of research and find their own history in this terminology, you know. It's also by the people inhabiting or by the people embodying that it becomes and not only by a definition. I mean, it's ever changing also.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I agree in the sense I think that Anarchaserver is one of the first pages including the THF and all the documentation, and I feel very complicated to give a straightforward definition. And now we are trying to make access to the documentation that has been created around that concept. Now we are trying to clarify, to know, a definition of our internet politics and gender and diversity and so on, which is the text that we are trying to set up about Anarchaserver. But for Trans Hack Feminism convergences, I would find it very difficult to give a straightforward definition and an explicit one.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's not about giving you straightforward definition. They can be, as you said, you link to a document that as you said gives a story of how this happened.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Mm-Hmm. Yeah, that's all there.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe we have to create expiration dates on our Wiki pages. If we don't visit them in certain time becomes too old and it becomes a reference without being actual. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: But I've seen this, coming up when we organize events and you know, we have to do open calls and these things are always reconfiguring. Hacking with THF helps to hack patriarchy, capitalism and other systems of oppression. Hacking refers to the act of doing and taking things apart, understanding them in a deeper way. Hacking is action performance. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: So one last question is how do you define in your group the terms server and the relations between service and clients because we also read in your manifesto and that your project is about re configuring these relations? So it's a question that maybe speaks to like literally the server, but maybe also metaphorically the serving of values or the working together for the making of space.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: For me, the server is like a space, like a room. It's not only a machine, but we can go into it because usually we meet, especially if we live in other places, we meet on the server. It's our meeting point like instead of going to a cafe, we meet in the terminal. So while we’re in the terminal we try to help each other, educate ourselves and spend time together. So it's a connecting room that we can go in and work together in. And about the ‘server’ ‘client’, I really don't like the word client in general, but I know the technical term. I just don't see it translating in a social way for us inside the feminist server constellations because it is more of a corporate thing. Other people have said its more like inhabiting the servers instead of serving. So its not only that the server serves, and the other is a transmitter it becomes an interchangeable role that you also receive at the same time instead of only offering the other side. I would like more that we do both.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: We have a lot of humor in the poetics, and really intense reflections and critical thinking about the terminology, which is used inside of these machines. Common are terms like master/slave. Server/client. So there is really critical thinking about it and also to approach it differently, fail/success. And you can say, OK, yeah, we have failed but try to say, oh, we have some data somewhere, we can reconstruct this. So we often deconstruct this language and appropriate it in a way that is closer to our identity and our politics. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm looking at some of the histories of feminist servers. I saw two approaches that I really like one that was from 2013 was when they twisted the language at the feminist server summit that was held on the question of a feminist server into: Are you being served? And I really like that because it fits my my understanding of feminism as talking about the embodied experience of not being served in certain contexts. And the other one is from the fall, the ‘From Skin to Steel Manifesto’ that must have come from to Brazil. They start their manifesto by claiming that we are all already and thinking about, body experience as serving. And that's very close to what I would call care practices. So where where are the lines between serving and caring? It's really a very radical political claim to look for things about who is being served and it is close to this question of who has access and who can participate.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Even though we do things all the time we never say server/client. If we want to be fair to what convention you need for the client, even the commercial thinking, we use the word interface and allies with the collaboration when we want to talk about the people who would like to do things with our servers and interfaces can apply. Apply both to the look of the of the websites, but also how we communicate to the people outside our internal group. So we don't refer to the client almost at all.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: But then as a tiny, technical follow up question, how do you technically reconfigure these relations?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's like another network topology, peer to peer. So technically there are protocols which are allowing that, but we're not there yet. But for example, what we also tried to do with the feminist server is to have distributed services that not each server has the same, services that we are using. One has the ether pads, another has other things.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So its not really changing the server client, but like it's more like making a redistributed model of dependency. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: One of the points that THF articulated is that of autonomy where with having a Feminist server: you choose your dependencies.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like to ask MELT something, so you are also working on server access? Access Server? Is it still server access the project you are working on?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: It's called Access Server, the project.'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I wondered, maybe its too quick to digest what we said so far. But still, I wondered what you thought about the convergences between the thoughts between your Access Server project and what we have been discussing so far?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: Hm, yeah so part of the ACCESS SERVER project is that we're technically trying to understand how it can work so that when people email institutions asking for accessibility, the email will cc the previous email with access requests to the same institution. So we're trying to technically create a collectivity so that disabled people emailing understand see that they're not the only ones that are emailing to any institution. So emailers have the sense that, oh, many other people have emailed as well. So I think that this relates to how you’re talking about technical collectivity and trying to share resources and offer other options for points of connection. This is still a technical question. We're not exactly sure how to do it yet and also to maintain people's privacy at the same time. So there's a few questions there behind that. But I think that this is the desire to understand the technically active collective body that is emailing with access requests. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
MELT: When listening to you. I think notions of care and trust is where I feel a lot of shared questions and maybe sometimes struggles or figurings out. And also in these relations between how to reach out and work with other people with an infrastructure that we provide. Because the idea is really that other disabled people can use the email server and the website that comes with it. So there are also questions of how to even make the website accessible. There are guidelines around that, we have some knowledge around that. But then also how to reach out, also across other axes of discrimination and oppression. How to build that trust also. And also technically then if someone sends an email through our email server how can we make sure that their name is anonymous, for example, the IP address, etc. So that's a lot of questions that still seem also hard to ensure safety. Then also, we skipped the question on trolling and how to carry the risk of providing, feminist and accessible services. That's also a big one for us still to figure out. How can we, I think we can’t prevent people from abusing our service, but how can we even make sure that it doesn't affect more people? And maybe also it doesn't affect us too much. So all of these questions, I think, are quite related.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
MELT: Also, when you were speaking, something that also came to mind is that I think that the idea of the access server, constantly reminds us of the world that we live in where ableism is so structural. And this is the kind of reality that we're posited against. I'm also curious to see how how we can get people interested in using it, because also even when people are paid for their labour and even when they write emails to institutions, institutions themselves have so much work to do to change. And so I think that that is also a similar condition that you're working with with the feminist server projects where you're publicizing. We're trying to make more visible, so to speak, that there are alternatives, other ways of doing things that do not conform to ableism and capitalism as discriminatory and oppressive standards. Our project approach institutions and requires them to change. And that's also what you're doing. I think what the feminist server project is like trying to provide an alternative to show that a change is possible. <br />
''</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Interview_Meltionary&diff=1445Interview Meltionary2022-11-16T17:16:31Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div>FSS - Feminst server Sysadmins <br /><br />
MELT - Meltionary<br />
<br /><br /><br />
<big>'''Could you walk us through the ways Access Server is used?'''</big><br />
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''MELT: The first thing that piqued our interest was the sub page Access Server, because it has the same title as our project. Could you walk us through the ways in which that page is used? Who uses it? What are the steps to follow and what happens if something doesn't work? We are also interested in the kinds of conversations you perhaps already had among your group to set up the page.''<br />
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FSS: <br />
When searching for an answer to this question, we had a very technical way of looking at it. The page is from a [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki Mediawiki] that we installed. We have this helpful "history" function under each created page, as it's a collaborative writing tool, it keeps track of the previous edits. So what we actually did yesterday is hit the history button to try to find the history of that specific page because it also has a timestamp, and it also sees the user who was actually creating this page. So we found that the user was THF and that there was three other users: ooooo, b04 and ezn. They were also contributing to the the technical appearance of this page. The THF user refers to ‘trans hack feminism’, which was [[Main_Page#TransHackFeminist_Convergence|a convergence]] organized in Calafou. . So it's not very clear who made that page, but it is made in that convergence, so there were people sitting around the table and making it. Do you want to contextualize the THF user spideralex? Or the trans hack feminist convergence?<br />
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FSS: <br />
So the THF user was created around the first TransHackFeminist convergence in 2013. It was a shared user of the different people that have been documenting the different sessions that were held at this first event of one week. We have been sharing <the user> to document basically the different conversations. And then the wiki has remained as a space where different TransHackFeminist events could document what they did. In the wiki, we write about feminist servers in general and when we document the Anarchaserver's technical and other work.<br />
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FSS: <br />
More on the technical side – this was the first thing I did when I joined Anarchaserver. As spideralex said, the documentations of different projects kept going on. So there were two similar pages with server set up documentation. The first thing I did was to merge and update them. But also, we had this conversation with ooooo that it would be nice if someone actually tries it. Yeah, sometimes it's nice if someone else tries to follow the instructions because you, yourself, know what you're doing. And I also did the styling of the page and then I did the overall styling of MediaWiki, and I wanted for it to be a bit more welcoming than a default page. <br />
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FSS:<br />
And I think also as it is a wiki, it would be nice now that you <MELT> are in residence for the Fair New Idea project, we would welcome your visions on accessibility. It would be an invitation, of course, that you could also become an active intervener or would change and modify and add to the content of that page to maybe broaden up this idea of what access to the server is. Besides from its technical perspective of how to exchange SSH keys (secure shell) and make user modifications.<br />
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'''<big>How do you think about accessibility?</big>''' <br />
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''MELT: It is very interesting to hear from everyone about what kind of accessibility you think with! I hear a lot about collaborations that produce the wiki with you as a way to literally access the server. And I also understand that it is also a kind of accessibility to make the server accessible by documenting how to use it. But I'm curious what it would mean for you to make the server disability accessible? How do you think about accessibility? What does that mean in your project? Do you have some thoughts on that?''<br />
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FSS: I can start with this question. So. Accessibility, yeah, it's a concern. Accessibility in terms of who can work and make use of our services that we host. And at the moment it‘s mostly people who are part of the collective and with this project. A Fair New Idea was also for us a way to try to reach out and to try to see how we could host people besides our internal network. So that's why we invited you for a residency. So anyway, it was an opportunity to reach out to first artists and of course, we'll see how it will go. But since most of are artists and at the same time we have technical knowledge and we would like to share basic cohabitation with artists who can learn to work outside very commercial, centralized online tools. So that's one path of accessibility. So then there's the accessibility of who can join in our networks because sometimes the activism is something that not everybody can afford, because most of the times that we volunteer on a project. So having available resources, even if it's minimal for people to do things, with our servers is a very important accessibility factor. And then it comes, of course, accessibility of our user interfaces who can actually read and learn and from the content we host on our servers.<br />
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FSS: Maybe I can add something: For me, the first part of accessibility was also for myself even, to start being familiar with, how to use a server, how to get there and how to do stuff there and not look at it as a black box that I cannot touch because I'm afraid. So by trying to bring people that are not experts or not technologists into collectives in which people can help each other in educating themselves so they feel more emancipated to use not only commercial tools, but also their own or open source ones. For the future what I'm currently thinking of is that I would like things that we do on the server, like maybe a website or a wiki or whatever to be more inclusive to people with disabilities, for example. What I see now when it comes to that is that colours could be too much for some people to read, or <we could develop tools like> some functions for people who cannot hear and who would really like it to learn more about technology can use. <br />
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FSS: I am interested in understanding accessibility as something that too is about how we make our tools and services and contents more accessible to deaf and disabled people. And also to people who don't speak Spanish and English. Then again, in general how contents and services can be made more known and accessible to short term collectivities and individuals. I’m also interested in how you can enable a lower threshold for feminist collectives to engage in and maintain their own technical infrastructures.<br />
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''MELT: Thank you so much for these answers and also these very varied and different considerations of access. In relation to infrastructure, tech and language, and of course, disability. Yeah, I think we are both excited to continue working on that together. The next question is about speculative dreaming: What future perspectives for the feminist server do you wish or dream of?''<br />
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FSS: I dream that our feminist server continues to be a meeting point and space for feminist peers that will help us to evolve and collaborate and work together. And I'm also thinking about local feminist groups here in Rotterdam where I now live, but also back in Athens, where I come from. And I know that there is a need [for feminist servers] there. I hope that they can benefit from the existence of our feminist servers, especially towards helping to a future of more technological autonomy. Probably that cannot be completed, but at least to try to be less dependent on giant tech corporations for their communication or for publishing our works or our struggles or things that we need to communicate with the world, um, and interconnect with other feminist groups out there. So I hope that our feminist servers can help that perspective.<br />
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FSS: I totally agree, and I find it so beautiful how we use tools as always a means to an end. I don't think anyone of us glorifies them and it's like: [making a] server is the end game. No, it's about using [a server] to learn together and to hang out and communicate. So I think that's very beautiful. I'm from Georgia and I didn't have anyone to talk about any of those things around me. That's how I actually got here. And this is already my dream scenario come to life. So now I'm trying to reconnect with people who are not so technical, but we are already starting to have something local in Georgia as well. So yeah, it's kind of that's what feminist servers are to me.<br />
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FSS: Yes, I agree and I would like to give a more pragmatic and nuanced [view] on this thing. I would say that the cooperative model here would be one of my dreams for the feminist servers we have. And that it can include a membership fee so we can make our services more sustainable because from the past experience, and we've seen that the only way of giving time, it works well for learning, but then it's very difficult to host services for other artists and feminists that we would like to have. So a more concrete approach to the dream of the future for the life of our servers.<br />
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FSS: What I observe right now is that the critique of big tech companies is high but the awareness that there is an alternative way to use technology is very invisible so far. And that's a lot of work to speak up for that and to make it shown. So that would be some vision of mine to not look at faces of complete disbelief when talking about having our own server.<br />
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FSS: I would like more people and collectives engaged in setting up feminist servers and in general feminist infrastructure initiatives. I would be interested in more local gynaecological considerations embedded inside the set up of future feminist servers. Dreaming, creating data centers made for and by feminist servers. And coordination between different feminist servers to avoid reinventing the wheel or to enable supporting each other in knowledge and solidarity processes. To share resources and funding, to share common technical infrastructure or by having people that have specific skills and knowledge that can contribute to different initiatives. And finally, my big dream is one day to have feminist servers that then orientate towards providing services to communities that are facing strong gender based violence online and censorship in digital spaces [such as] pro-choice activists, post porno and sex workers. So that's a long term projection, but I would like that we can manage to go there one day.<br />
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FSS: The idea of more sysadmins people who join us in the backend! [People] not just there for the services, who learn with us and try to engage with the technology and the machines which are surrounding us. Sysadmins unite (!) to break the [local] isolation of having that technofeminist praxis and awareness.<br />
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''MELT: Maybe it's nice to continue because our project also works with trans* feminism and Disability Justice, and I love the ways in which the trans* feminist, THF, TransHackFeminism becomes a shared user in the access server page. But also, I think that there's a specific understanding of trans* feminism that you seem to be working with because it comes up again many times on the Anarchaserver page. What does it mean to you to serve trans* feminism in this project? I think it's also related to a lot of the dreams that you just shared. Would you want to say something more about trans* feminism specifically?'' <br />
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FSS: I'm still a little bit like scared about this fact of serving and hosting. And it's like, I feel like by inhabiting these servers and then also maintaining and configuring the affective infrastructures in which we are moving, that we are trans* hack feminists. And it's [about] these kinds of spaces. It's not serving. It's, you know, like fluid. It's like good. It's like you are feeling the practices of technology. It's like configuring together. It's yeah, it's more like an actualization of trans* hack feminism. I like it has a history, also. The TransHackFeminism, was a reaction on the electictechcarnival (https://eclectictechcarnival.org/) to open specific identity politics and women-only-spaces up, to trans* people. And then the reaction came.<br />
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''MELT: I would also be super curious to hear what it means to have come from a cis-woman only space and going through the process of opening that up to trans* people.<br />
''<br />
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FSS: So I try to put here just a little definition that we created for the feminist museum about TransHackFeminism. Hmm ... ?? .... So we have to define it like: The Mummy is a museum of the future taking place in the 22nd century. It's a museum about sexism that has disappeared: it is curated with Anamhoo, a sys adnim of Anarchaserver that organised the trans* hack feminist convergence in Mexico. We try to collect seven different artistic pieces..... I have been in a collective in Spain that is called Donestech (https://www.donestech.net/) in Catalan that was created in 2007. At that moment, there was no other collective that was working on the relation between gender and technologies and free software. But I think that the paradigm of inclusion of women in digital tech related spaces was needed, no? But it's very 90s, no? [We became more] trans* feminist in our politics, in our feminist politics. We made an event where we would meet together, [and you had to be] open to trans* feminism. So that's why it was called TransHackFeminism and because it was organized not only by me and Sophie Toupin, but also by the people of Pechblenda which was a space in Calafou and Julito who were trans feminist. It appeared in 2008 in Spain, in the feminist conference in Granada.<br />
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FSS: Yes, I would like to elaborate a bit more on what ooooo mentioned a little bit of the story of events because we are based in different locations within Europe. So the eclectictechcarnival takes place not even yearly.; sometimes it is 2, 3 years inbetween. Well, I admit I haven't been at that many. I've been in the last one, it was an organized in Greece where I am based. The one before was in Italy, and the one before Italy was called TransHack Feminism in Calafou. And because I organized it, the question of who can join this event came up because every time as time passes as spideralex mentioned feminism itself changes, and it's always this question of who can join our event? And again, for example, the last, let's say a firewall, is cis men. Can cis men join our events? So this is the base of the conversation as we try to provide safe spaces and for those who are marginalized, within technology and its environments. But I would say it's an open question, and it always depends on the locality of the event. And on those organizing it. Of course, we all have our own idea and praxis of feminism.<br />
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FSS: To me it was also new, I was not sure what that trans* referred to, because in the German speaking context [people] were talking maybe of queer feminism. So I was curious to also learn [about trans* feminism as] a part of the struggle against a current of feminism that in some places is stronger than others, and that is about the exclusion of trans* people and non-binary. And so that was one aspect that I find interesting to learn, and I find its good to call it trans* feminism to make it explicit.<br />
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FSS: Yeah, and important because at a certain moment, there was really a confusion for me because I was at the CCC (Chaos Computer Congres) and there was a transhack meeting. So I joined into the meeting because it was about the organization of the next gathering. But actually, it was about trans nationality. So it was more like focusing on Spain and Italy. They have like trans hack meetings, but it's actually transnational meetings.<br />
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FSS: So we have hack meetings. Yeah, when we make it across different countries it becomes a trans hack meeting.<br />
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FSS: Yeah, sure. But it's interesting that the one refers to like identity politics in relation to gender, it seems. And the other, of course not. It's much wider also about your national identity. But it is confusing, or it is also how the term can be hacked so that that gets certain meanings by actually also using it. <br />
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FSS: Yeah, it was confusing. And then the confusion was pretty interesting. We only had two trans hack meetings in the history of trans hack meetings in Europe. One in Poland and the other one was three years ago, four years ago in Tarnack and there some people thought it was a trans* hack meeting, but it was pretty cool because this way we had more queer people around. Yeah, it wasn't that easy. It was like: No, no, this is not the trans* hack meeting.<br />
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FSS: And actually, there was recently a transhack meeting in Bologna that also had a sysadmin of systerserver involved. It was also called like that. That's nice. So yeah, it's a somehow yeah, it's hacked then. But yeah, it's not so nice if you're then there and it's a quite cis-normative environment because that's not that the safer space that you went there for. This is not a trans* hack meeting this is a transhack meeting.<br />
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FSS: During THF, the question was also: what is now the most important term in it? Is trans*? is it hack? is it feminism? Can feminism be hacked, can feminism be trans*? Can hack be transed? Can you trans* hack? It's like, you know, it is circulating inside of the dependencies within these three denominators.<br />
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FSS: In the pad, I have shared the link to the documentation of that session. So maybe then you can dig more in. It wasn't so many people that say they're interested, in trans*feminism. But the trans terminology, about transitioning, about transition, about all the links that it could have with immigration with transformation, with even of politics, you know, and so on, so on, so on. So yeah, I think we can put it in different layers and for sure, at least when it was set up in Calafou in 2017 the first layer was about trans*feminist politics.<br />
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FSS: Yeah, just to add, sometimes when you encounter a term for first time, you make a conclusion depending on your background and your identity, etc. So of course, when our services uses terms it feels important and to give a description of them: what does this term contain? It's also very important that when we do things that we are open about it, the terminology we're using what does refer to and why it is constructed like that? And it is important because it changes very quickly, in all this researches of all that is happening in migration realities to multi species studies and keeping in mind always intersectionality they all add up in the end in the concept of creating safe spaces. So I think this is something to consider when we use terms, how we came up with and why we came up with the terms we use.<br />
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FSS: And it was really important that people do a bit of research and find their own history in this terminology, you know. It's also by the people inhabiting or by the people embodying that it becomes and not only by a definition. I mean, it's ever changing also.<br />
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FSS: I agree in the sense I think that Anarchaserver is one of the first pages including the THF and all the documentation, and I feel very complicated to give a straightforward definition. And now we are trying to make access to the documentation that has been created around that concept. Now we are trying to clarify, to know, a definition of our internet politics and gender and diversity and so on, which is the text that we are trying to set up about Anarchaserver. But for Trans Hack Feminism convergences, I would find it very difficult to give a straightforward definition and an explicit one.<br />
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FSS: It's not about giving you straightforward definition. They can be, as you said, you link to a document that as you said gives a story of how this happened.<br />
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FSS: Mm-Hmm. Yeah, that's all there.<br />
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FSS: Maybe we have to create expiration dates on our Wiki pages. If we don't visit them in certain time becomes too old and it becomes a reference without being actual. <br />
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FSS: But I've seen this, coming up when we organize events and you know, we have to do open calls and these things are always reconfiguring. Hacking with THF helps to hack patriarchy, capitalism and other systems of oppression. Hacking refers to the act of doing and taking things apart, understanding them in a deeper way. Hacking is action performance. <br />
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''MELT: So one last question is how do you define in your group the terms server and the relations between service and clients because we also read in your manifesto and that your project is about re configuring these relations? So it's a question that maybe speaks to like literally the server, but maybe also metaphorically the serving of values or the working together for the making of space.<br />
''<br />
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FSS: For me, the server is like a space, like a room. It's not only a machine, but we can go into it because usually we meet, especially if we live in other places, we meet on the server. It's our meeting point like instead of going to a cafe, we meet in the terminal. So while we’re in the terminal we try to help each other, educate ourselves and spend time together. So it's a connecting room that we can go in and work together in. And about the ‘server’ ‘client’, I really don't like the word client in general, but I know the technical term. I just don't see it translating in a social way for us inside the feminist server constellations because it is more of a corporate thing. Other people have said its more like inhabiting the servers instead of serving. So its not only that the server serves, and the other is a transmitter it becomes an interchangeable role that you also receive at the same time instead of only offering the other side. I would like more that we do both.<br />
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FSS: We have a lot of humor in the poetics, and really intense reflections and critical thinking about the terminology, which is used inside of these machines. Common are terms like master/slave. Server/client. So there is really critical thinking about it and also to approach it differently, fail/success. And you can say, OK, yeah, we have failed but try to say, oh, we have some data somewhere, we can reconstruct this. So we often deconstruct this language and appropriate it in a way that is closer to our identity and our politics. <br />
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FSS: I'm looking at some of the histories of feminist servers. I saw two approaches that I really like one that was from 2013 was when they twisted the language at the feminist server summit that was held on the question of a feminist server into: Are you being served? And I really like that because it fits my my understanding of feminism as talking about the embodied experience of not being served in certain contexts. And the other one is from the fall, the ‘From Skin to Steel Manifesto’ that must have come from to Brazil. They start their manifesto by claiming that we are all already and thinking about, body experience as serving. And that's very close to what I would call care practices. So where where are the lines between serving and caring? It's really a very radical political claim to look for things about who is being served and it is close to this question of who has access and who can participate.<br />
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FSS: Even though we do things all the time we never say server/client. If we want to be fair to what convention you need for the client, even the commercial thinking, we use the word interface and allies with the collaboration when we want to talk about the people who would like to do things with our servers and interfaces can apply. Apply both to the look of the of the websites, but also how we communicate to the people outside our internal group. So we don't refer to the client almost at all.<br />
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''MELT: But then as a tiny, technical follow up question, how do you technically reconfigure these relations?''<br />
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FSS: It's like another network topology, peer to peer. So technically there are protocols which are allowing that, but we're not there yet. But for example, what we also tried to do with the feminist server is to have distributed services that not each server has the same, services that we are using. One has the ether pads, another has other things.<br />
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FSS: So its not really changing the server client, but like it's more like making a redistributed model of dependency. <br />
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FSS: One of the points that THF articulated is that of autonomy where with having a Feminist server: you choose your dependencies.<br />
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FSS: I would like to ask MELT something, so you are also working on server access? Access Server? Is it still server access the project you are working on?<br />
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''MELT: It's called Access Server, the project.'' <br />
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FSS: I wondered, maybe its too quick to digest what we said so far. But still, I wondered what you thought about the convergences between the thoughts between your Access Server project and what we have been discussing so far?<br />
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''MELT: Hm, yeah so part of the ACCESS SERVER project is that we're technically trying to understand how it can work so that when people email institutions asking for accessibility, the email will cc the previous email with access requests to the same institution. So we're trying to technically create a collectivity so that disabled people emailing understand see that they're not the only ones that are emailing to any institution. So emailers have the sense that, oh, many other people have emailed as well. So I think that this relates to how you’re talking about technical collectivity and trying to share resources and offer other options for points of connection. This is still a technical question. We're not exactly sure how to do it yet and also to maintain people's privacy at the same time. So there's a few questions there behind that. But I think that this is the desire to understand the technically active collective body that is emailing with access requests. <br />
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MELT: When listening to you. I think notions of care and trust is where I feel a lot of shared questions and maybe sometimes struggles or figurings out. And also in these relations between how to reach out and work with other people with an infrastructure that we provide. Because the idea is really that other disabled people can use the email server and the website that comes with it. So there are also questions of how to even make the website accessible. There are guidelines around that, we have some knowledge around that. But then also how to reach out, also across other axes of discrimination and oppression. How to build that trust also. And also technically then if someone sends an email through our email server how can we make sure that their name is anonymous, for example, the IP address, etc. So that's a lot of questions that still seem also hard to ensure safety. Then also, we skipped the question on trolling and how to carry the risk of providing, feminist and accessible services. That's also a big one for us still to figure out. How can we, I think we can’t prevent people from abusing our service, but how can we even make sure that it doesn't affect more people? And maybe also it doesn't affect us too much. So all of these questions, I think, are quite related.<br />
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MELT: Also, when you were speaking, something that also came to mind is that I think that the idea of the access server, constantly reminds us of the world that we live in where ableism is so structural. And this is the kind of reality that we're posited against. I'm also curious to see how how we can get people interested in using it, because also even when people are paid for their labour and even when they write emails to institutions, institutions themselves have so much work to do to change. And so I think that that is also a similar condition that you're working with with the feminist server projects where you're publicizing. We're trying to make more visible, so to speak, that there are alternatives, other ways of doing things that do not conform to ableism and capitalism as discriminatory and oppressive standards. Our project approach institutions and requires them to change. And that's also what you're doing. I think what the feminist server project is like trying to provide an alternative to show that a change is possible. <br />
''</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Interview_Meltionary&diff=1444Interview Meltionary2022-11-16T16:51:23Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div>FSS - Feminst server Sysadmins <br /><br />
MELT - Meltionary<br />
<br /><br /><br />
<big>'''Could you walk us through the ways Access Server is used?'''</big><br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
<br />
''MELT: The first thing that piqued our interest was the sub page Access Server, because it has the same title as our project. Could you walk us through the ways in which that page is used? Who uses it? What are the steps to follow and what happens if something doesn't work? We are also interested in the kinds of conversations you perhaps already had among your group to set up the page.''<br />
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<br /><br />
FSS: <br />
When searching for an answer to this question, we had a very technical way of looking at it. The page is from a [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki Mediawiki] that we installed. We have this helpful "history" function under each created page, as it's a collaborative writing tool, it keeps track of the previous edits. So what we actually did yesterday is hit the history button to try to find the history of that specific page because it also has a timestamp, and it also sees the user who was actually creating this page. So we found that the user was THF and that there was three other users: ooooo, b04 and ezn. They were also contributing to the the technical appearance of this page. The THF user refers to ‘trans hack feminism’, which was [[Main_Page#TransHackFeminist_Convergence|a convergence]] organized in Calafou. . So it's not very clear who made that page, but it is made in that convergence, so there were people sitting around the table and making it. Do you want to contextualize the THF user spideralex? Or the trans hack feminist convergence?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
So the THF user was created around the first TransHackFeminist convergence in 2013. It was a shared user of the different people that have been documenting the different sessions that were held at this first event of one week. We have been sharing <the user> to document basically the different conversations. And then the wiki has remained as a space where different TransHackFeminist events could document what they did. In the wiki, we write about feminist servers in general and when we document the Anarchaserver's technical and other work.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
More on the technical side – this was the first thing I did when I joined Anarchaserver. As spideralex said, the documentations of different projects kept going on. So there were two similar pages with server set up documentation. The first thing I did was to merge and update them. But also, we had this conversation with ooooo that it would be nice if someone actually tries it. Yeah, sometimes it's nice if someone else tries to follow the instructions because you, yourself, know what you're doing. And I also did the styling of the page and then I did the overall styling of MediaWiki, and I wanted for it to be a bit more welcoming than a default page. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS:<br />
And I think also as it is a wiki, it would be nice now that you <MELT> are in residence for the Fair New Idea project, we would welcome your visions on accessibility. It would be an invitation, of course, that you could also become an active intervener or would change and modify and add to the content of that page to maybe broaden up this idea of what access to the server is. Besides from its technical perspective of how to exchange SSH keys (secure shell) and make user modifications.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
'''<big>How do you think about accessibility?</big>''' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: It is very interesting to hear from everyone about what kind of accessibility you think with! I hear a lot about collaborations that produce the wiki with you as a way to literally access the server. And I also understand that it is also a kind of accessibility to make the server accessible by documenting how to use it. But I'm curious what it would mean for you to make the server disability accessible? How do you think about accessibility? What does that mean in your project? Do you have some thoughts on that?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I can start with this question. So. Accessibility, yeah, it's a concern. Accessibility in terms of who can work and make use of our services that we host. And at the moment it‘s mostly people who are part of the collective and with this project. A Fair New Idea was also for us a way to try to reach out and to try to see how we could host people besides our internal network. So that's why we invited you for a residency. So anyway, it was an opportunity to reach out to first artists and of course, we'll see how it will go. But since most of are artists and at the same time we have technical knowledge and we would like to share basic cohabitation with artists who can learn to work outside very commercial, centralized online tools. So that's one path of accessibility. So then there's the accessibility of who can join in our networks because sometimes the activism is something that not everybody can afford, because most of the times that we volunteer on a project. So having available resources, even if it's minimal for people to do things, with our servers is a very important accessibility factor. And then it comes, of course, accessibility of our user interfaces who can actually read and learn and from the content we host on our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe I can add something: For me, the first part of accessibility was also for myself even, to start being familiar with, how to use a server, how to get there and how to do stuff there and not look at it as a black box that I cannot touch because I'm afraid. So by trying to bring people that are not experts or not technologists into collectives in which people can help each other in educating themselves so they feel more emancipated to use not only commercial tools, but also their own or open source ones. For the future what I'm currently thinking of is that I would like things that we do on the server, like maybe a website or a wiki or whatever to be more inclusive to people with disabilities, for example. What I see now when it comes to that is that colours could be too much for some people to read, or <we could develop tools like> some functions for people who cannot hear and who would really like it to learn more about technology can use. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So I agree with everything that has been said and the different layers of accessibility. I am interested in understanding accessibility as something that too is about how we make our tools and services and contents more accessible to Deaf and disabled people. And also to people who don't speak Spanish and English. Then again, in general how contents and services can be made more known and accessible to short term collectivities and individuals. I’m also interested in how you can enable a lower threshold for feminist collectives to engage in and maintain their own technical infrastructures.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: Thank you so much for these answers and also these very varied and different considerations of access. In relation to infrastructure, tech and language, and of course, disability. Yeah, I think we are both excited to continue working on that together. The next question is about speculative dreaming: What future perspectives for the feminist server do you wish or dream of?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I dream that our feminist server continues to be a meeting point and space for feminist peers that will help us to evolve and collaborate and work together. And I'm also thinking about local feminist groups here in Rotterdam where I now live, but also back in Athens, where I come from. And I know that there is a need [for feminist servers] there. I hope that they can benefit from the existence of servers like ?Femserver ?, especially towards helping to a future of more technological autonomy. Probably that cannot be completed, but at least to try to be less dependent on giant tech corporations for their communication or for publishing our works or our struggles or things that we need to communicate with the world, um, and interconnect with other feminist groups out there. So I hope that the feminist servers can help that perspective.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I totally agree, and I find it so beautiful how we use tools as always a means to an end. I don't think anyone of us glorifies them and it's like: [making a] server is the end game. No, it's about using [a server] to learn together and to hang out and communicate. So I think that's very beautiful. I'm from Georgia and I didn't have anyone to talk about any of those things around me. That's how I actually ended up here. And this is already my dream scenario come to life. So now I'm trying to reconnect with people who are not so technical, but we are already starting to have something local in Georgia as well. So yeah, it's kind of that's what feminist servers are to me.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I agree with Estragon and I would like to give a more pragmatic and nuanced [view] on this thing. I would say that the cooperative model here would be one of my dreams for the feminist servers we have. And that it can include a membership fee so we can make our services more sustainable because from the past experience, and we've seen that the only way of giving time, it works well for learning and things like that, but then it's very difficult to host services for other artists and feminists that we would like to have. So a more concrete approach to the dream of the future for the life of our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: What I observe right now is that the critique of big tech companies is high but the awareness that there is an alternative way way to use technology is very invisible so far. And that's a lot of work to speak up for that and to make it shown. So that would be some vision of mine to not look at faces of complete disbelief when talking about having our own server.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like more people and collectives engaged in setting up feminist servers and in general feminist infrastructure initiatives. I would be interested in more local gynecological considerations embedded inside the set up of future feminist servers. Dreaming, creating data centers made for and by feminist servers. And coordination between different feminist servers to avoid reinventing the wheel or to enable supporting each other in knowledge and solidarity processes. To share resources and funding, to share common technical infrastructure or by having people that have specific skills and knowledge that can contribute to different service initiatives. And finally, my big dream is one day to have feminist servers that then orientate towards providing services to communities that are facing strong gender based violence online and censorship in digital spaces [such as] pro-choice activists, post porno and sex workers. So that's a long term projection, but I would like that we can manage to go there one day.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: The idea of more sysadmins people who join us in the backend! [People] not just there for the services, who learn with us and try to engage with the technology and the machines which are surrounding us waiting to be engaged. Sysadmins unite (!) to break the isolation and the local isolation of having that awareness.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: Maybe it's nice to continue because our project also works with trans* feminism and Disability Justice, and I love the ways in which the trans*feminist, THF, trans hack feminism becomes a shared user in the access server page. But also, I think that there's a specific understanding of trans*feminism that you seem to be working with because it comes up again many times on the Anarchaserver page. What does it mean to you to serve trans*feminism in this project? I think it's also related to a lot of the dreams that you just shared. Would you want to say something more about trans*feminism specifically?'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm still a little bit like scared about this fact of serving and hosting. And it's like, I feel like by inhabiting these servers and then also maintaining and configuring the affective infrastructures in which we are moving that we are trans* hack feminists. And it's [about] these kinds of spaces. It's not serving. It's, you know, like fluid. It's like good. It's like you are feeling the practices of technology. It's like configuring together. It's yeah, it's more like an actualization of trans* hack feminism than than this kind of serving. And I get a little bit lost in it. But like it has a history, also. Also, the trans* hack feminism, it was a reaction in the electic tech carnival (https://eclectictechcarnival.org/) to open specific identity politics and women-only-spaces up to trans* people. And then the reaction came. But I guess spideralex and Sophie were involved in redefining the trans* feminist as, uh, a convergence in Calafou. So maybe she can say something more about that.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: I would also be super curious to hear what it means to have come from a cis-woman only space and going through the process of opening that up to trans* people.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So I try to put here just a little definition that we created for the feminist museum about trans* hack feminism. Hmm. So we have to define it like: The Mummy is a museum of the future taking place in the 22nd century. It's a museum about sexism that has disappeared. And so we make a curation with Anamou, which is a sys adnim of Anarchaserver that organised the trans* hack feminist convergence in Mexico. We try to collect seven different artistic pieces. I have been in a collective in Spain that is called Donestech (https://www.donestech.net/) in Catalan that was created in 2007. At that moment, there was no other collective that was working on the relation between gender and technologies and free software technologies. But I think that the paradigm of inclusion of women in digital tech related spaces was needed, no? But it's very 90s, no? [We became more] trans* feminist in our politics, in our feminist politics. We made an event where we would meet together, [and you had to be] open to trans* feminism. So that's why it was called trans hack feminism and because it was organized not only by me and Sophie Toupin, but also by the people of the XXX which was a space in Calafou and Pulido who were trans feminist. It appeared in 2008 in Spain, in the feminist conference in Granada.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I would like to elaborate a bit more on what ooooo mentioned a little bit of the story of events because we are based in different locations within Europe. So we have these events maybe for a year or maybe two to meet. Well, I admit I haven't been at that many. I've been in the last one, it was an organized in Greece where I am based. The one before was in Italy, and the one before Italy was called Trans Hack Feminism in Calafou. And because I organized it, the question of who can join this event came up because every time as time passes as spideralex mentioned feminism itself changes, and it's always this question of who can join our event? And again, for example, the last, let's say a firewall, is cis men. Can cis men join our events? So this is the base of the conversation as we try to provide safe spaces and for those who are marginalized, within technology and its environments. But I would say it's an open question, and it always depends on the locality of the event. And on those organizing it. Of course, we all have our own idea and praxis of feminism.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: To me it was also new, I was not sure what that trans* referred to, because in the German speaking context [people] were talking maybe of queer feminism. So I was curious to also learn [about trans* feminism as] a part of the struggle against a current of feminism that in some places is stronger than others, and that is about the exclusion of trans* people and non-binary. And so that was one aspect that I find interesting to learn, and I find its good to call it trans* feminism to make it explicit.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, and important because at a certain moment, there was really a confusion for me because I was at the CCC (Chaos Computer Congres) and there was a trans hack meeting. So I joined into the meeting because it was about the organization of the next festival. But actually, it was about trans nationality. So it was more like focusing on Spain and Italy. They have like trans hack meetings, but it's actually transnational meetings.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So we have hack meetings. Yeah, when we make it across different countries it becomes a trans hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, sure. But it's interesting that the one refers to like identity politics in relation to gender, it seems. And the other, of course not. It's much wider also about your national identity. But it is confusing, or it is also how the term can be hacked so that that gets certain meanings by actually also using it. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, it was confusing. And then the confusion was pretty interesting. We only had two trans hack meetings in the history of trans hack meetings in Europe. One in Poland and the other one was three years ago, four years ago in Danack and there some people thought it was a trans* hack meeting, but it was pretty cool because this way we had more queer people around. Yeah, it wasn't that easy. It was like: No, no, this is not the trans* hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And actually, there was one recently in Bologna that also had a sysadmin of syster server involved. It was also called like that. That's nice. So yeah, it's a somehow yeah, it's hacked then. But yeah, it's not so nice if you're then there and it's a quite cis-normative environment because that's not that the safer space that you went there for. This is not a trans* hack meeting this is a trans hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: During THF, the question was also: what is now the most important term in it? Is trans*? is it hack? is it feminism? Can feminism be hacked, can feminism be trans*? Can hack be transed? Can you trans* hack? It's like, you know, it was like circulating inside of the dependencies within these three terminologies.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: In the pad, I have shared the link to the documentation of that session. So maybe then you can dig more in. It wasn't so many people that say they're interested, in trans*feminism. But the trans terminology, about transitioning, about transition, about all the links that it could have with immigration with transformation, with even of politics, you know, and so on, so on, so on. So yeah, I think we can put it in different layers and for sure, at least when it was set up in Calafou in 2017 the first layer was about trans*feminist politics.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, just to add, sometimes when you encounter a term for first time, you make a conclusion depending on your background and your identity, etc. So of course, when our services uses terms it feels important and to give a description of them: what does this term contain? It's also very important that when we do things that we are open about it, the terminology we're using what does refer to and why it is constructed like that? And it is important because it changes very quickly, in all this researches of all that is happening in migration realities to multi species studies and keeping in mind always intersectionality they all add up in the end in the concept of creating safe spaces. So I think this is something to consider when we use terms, how we came up with and why we came up with the terms we use.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And it was really important that people do a bit of research and find their own history in this terminology, you know. It's also by the people inhabiting or by the people embodying that it becomes and not only by a definition. I mean, it's ever changing also.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I agree in the sense I think that Anarchaserver is one of the first pages including the THF and all the documentation, and I feel very complicated to give a straightforward definition. And now we are trying to make access to the documentation that has been created around that concept. Now we are trying to clarify, to know, a definition of our internet politics and gender and diversity and so on, which is the text that we are trying to set up about Anarchaserver. But for Trans Hack Feminism convergences, I would find it very difficult to give a straightforward definition and an explicit one.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's not about giving you straightforward definition. They can be, as you said, you link to a document that as you said gives a story of how this happened.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Mm-Hmm. Yeah, that's all there.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe we have to create expiration dates on our Wiki pages. If we don't visit them in certain time becomes too old and it becomes a reference without being actual. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: But I've seen this, coming up when we organize events and you know, we have to do open calls and these things are always reconfiguring. Hacking with THF helps to hack patriarchy, capitalism and other systems of oppression. Hacking refers to the act of doing and taking things apart, understanding them in a deeper way. Hacking is action performance. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: So one last question is how do you define in your group the terms server and the relations between service and clients because we also read in your manifesto and that your project is about re configuring these relations? So it's a question that maybe speaks to like literally the server, but maybe also metaphorically the serving of values or the working together for the making of space.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: For me, the server is like a space, like a room. It's not only a machine, but we can go into it because usually we meet, especially if we live in other places, we meet on the server. It's our meeting point like instead of going to a cafe, we meet in the terminal. So while we’re in the terminal we try to help each other, educate ourselves and spend time together. So it's a connecting room that we can go in and work together in. And about the ‘server’ ‘client’, I really don't like the word client in general, but I know the technical term. I just don't see it translating in a social way for us inside the feminist server constellations because it is more of a corporate thing. Other people have said its more like inhabiting the servers instead of serving. So its not only that the server serves, and the other is a transmitter it becomes an interchangeable role that you also receive at the same time instead of only offering the other side. I would like more that we do both.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: We have a lot of humor in the poetics, and really intense reflections and critical thinking about the terminology, which is used inside of these machines. Common are terms like master/slave. Server/client. So there is really critical thinking about it and also to approach it differently, fail/success. And you can say, OK, yeah, we have failed but try to say, oh, we have some data somewhere, we can reconstruct this. So we often deconstruct this language and appropriate it in a way that is closer to our identity and our politics. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm looking at some of the histories of feminist servers. I saw two approaches that I really like one that was from 2013 was when they twisted the language at the feminist server summit that was held on the question of a feminist server into: Are you being served? And I really like that because it fits my my understanding of feminism as talking about the embodied experience of not being served in certain contexts. And the other one is from the fall, the ‘From Skin to Steel Manifesto’ that must have come from to Brazil. They start their manifesto by claiming that we are all already and thinking about, body experience as serving. And that's very close to what I would call care practices. So where where are the lines between serving and caring? It's really a very radical political claim to look for things about who is being served and it is close to this question of who has access and who can participate.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Even though we do things all the time we never say server/client. If we want to be fair to what convention you need for the client, even the commercial thinking, we use the word interface and allies with the collaboration when we want to talk about the people who would like to do things with our servers and interfaces can apply. Apply both to the look of the of the websites, but also how we communicate to the people outside our internal group. So we don't refer to the client almost at all.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: But then as a tiny, technical follow up question, how do you technically reconfigure these relations?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's like another network topology, peer to peer. So technically there are protocols which are allowing that, but we're not there yet. But for example, what we also tried to do with the feminist server is to have distributed services that not each server has the same, services that we are using. One has the ether pads, another has other things.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So its not really changing the server client, but like it's more like making a redistributed model of dependency. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: One of the points that THF articulated is that of autonomy where with having a Feminist server: you choose your dependencies.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like to ask MELT something, so you are also working on server access? Access Server? Is it still server access the project you are working on?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: It's called Access Server, the project.'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I wondered, maybe its too quick to digest what we said so far. But still, I wondered what you thought about the convergences between the thoughts between your Access Server project and what we have been discussing so far?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: Hm, yeah so part of the ACCESS SERVER project is that we're technically trying to understand how it can work so that when people email institutions asking for accessibility, the email will cc the previous email with access requests to the same institution. So we're trying to technically create a collectivity so that disabled people emailing understand see that they're not the only ones that are emailing to any institution. So emailers have the sense that, oh, many other people have emailed as well. So I think that this relates to how you’re talking about technical collectivity and trying to share resources and offer other options for points of connection. This is still a technical question. We're not exactly sure how to do it yet and also to maintain people's privacy at the same time. So there's a few questions there behind that. But I think that this is the desire to understand the technically active collective body that is emailing with access requests. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
MELT: When listening to you. I think notions of care and trust is where I feel a lot of shared questions and maybe sometimes struggles or figurings out. And also in these relations between how to reach out and work with other people with an infrastructure that we provide. Because the idea is really that other disabled people can use the email server and the website that comes with it. So there are also questions of how to even make the website accessible. There are guidelines around that, we have some knowledge around that. But then also how to reach out, also across other axes of discrimination and oppression. How to build that trust also. And also technically then if someone sends an email through our email server how can we make sure that their name is anonymous, for example, the IP address, etc. So that's a lot of questions that still seem also hard to ensure safety. Then also, we skipped the question on trolling and how to carry the risk of providing, feminist and accessible services. That's also a big one for us still to figure out. How can we, I think we can’t prevent people from abusing our service, but how can we even make sure that it doesn't affect more people? And maybe also it doesn't affect us too much. So all of these questions, I think, are quite related.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
MELT: Also, when you were speaking, something that also came to mind is that I think that the idea of the access server, constantly reminds us of the world that we live in where ableism is so structural. And this is the kind of reality that we're posited against. I'm also curious to see how how we can get people interested in using it, because also even when people are paid for their labour and even when they write emails to institutions, institutions themselves have so much work to do to change. And so I think that that is also a similar condition that you're working with with the feminist server projects where you're publicizing. We're trying to make more visible, so to speak, that there are alternatives, other ways of doing things that do not conform to ableism and capitalism as discriminatory and oppressive standards. Our project approach institutions and requires them to change. And that's also what you're doing. I think what the feminist server project is like trying to provide an alternative to show that a change is possible. <br />
''</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Interview_Meltionary&diff=1443Interview Meltionary2022-11-16T16:33:45Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div>FSS - Feminst server Sysadmins <br /><br />
MELT - Meltionary<br />
<br /><br /><br />
<big>'''Could you walk us through the ways Access Server is used?'''</big><br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
<br />
''MELT: The first thing that piqued our interest was the sub page Access Server, because it has the same title as our project. Could you walk us through the ways in which that page is used? Who uses it? What are the steps to follow and what happens if something doesn't work? We are also interested in the kinds of conversations you perhaps already had among your group to set up the page.''<br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
FSS: <br />
When searching for an answer to this question, we had a very technical way of looking at it. The page is from a wiki that we installed. We have this helpful "history button" function because it's a collaborative writing tool, like versioning. So what we actually did yesterday is hit the history button to try to find the history of that specific page because it also has a timestamp, and it also sees the user who was actually creating this page. So we found that the user was THF and that there was three other users: ooooo, b04 and ezn. They were also contributing to the the technical appearance of this page. The THF user refers to ‘trans hack feminism’, which was a convergence organized in Calafou. It’s a user we created. So it's not very clear who made that page, but it is made in that convergence, so there were people sitting around the table and making it. Do you want to contextualize the THF user spideralex? Or the trans hack feminist convergence?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
So the THF user was created around the first trans hack feminist conference in 2013. It was a shared user of the different people that have been documenting the different sessions that were held at this first event of one week. We have been sharing <the user> to document basically the different conversations. And then the wiki has remained as a space where different trans hack feminist events could document what they did. When we document feminist servers in general and when we document the Anarchaserver with specific work.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
More on the technical side – this was the first thing I did when I joined Anarchaserver. As spideralex said, the documentations of different projects kept going on. So there were two similar server set up documentations. The first thing I did was to merge and update them. But also, we had this conversation with ooooo that it would be nice if someone actually uses it. Yeah, it's a bit when you are technical and like, really, really doing it, sometimes it's nice if someone else has a look because you know what you're doing. And I also did the styling of the page and then I did the overall styling of Media Wiki, and I wanted for it to be a bit more welcoming than a default page. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS:<br />
And I think also as it is a wiki, it would be nice now that you <MELT> are in residence for the Fair New Idea project, we would welcome your visions on accessibility. It would be an invitation, of course, that you could also become an active intervener or would change and modify and add to the content of that page to maybe broaden up this idea of what access to the server is. Besides from its technical perspective of how to exchange SSH keys (secure shell) and make user modifications.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
'''<big>How do you think about accessibility?</big>''' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: It is very interesting to hear from everyone about what kind of accessibility you think with! I hear a lot about collaborations that produce the wiki with you as a way to literally access the server. And I also understand that it is also a kind of accessibility to make the server accessible by documenting how to use it. But I'm curious what it would mean for you to make the server disability accessible? How do you think about accessibility? What does that mean in your project? Do you have some thoughts on that?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I can start with this question. So. Accessibility, yeah, it's a concern. Accessibility in terms of who can work and make use of our services that we host. And at the moment it‘s mostly people who are part of the collective and with this project. A Fair New Idea was also for us a way to try to reach out and to try to see how we could host people besides our internal network. So that's why we invited you for a residency. So anyway, it was an opportunity to reach out to first artists and of course, we'll see how it will go. But since most of are artists and at the same time we have technical knowledge and we would like to share basic cohabitation with artists who can learn to work outside very commercial, centralized online tools. So that's one path of accessibility. So then there's the accessibility of who can join in our networks because sometimes the activism is something that not everybody can afford, because most of the times that we volunteer on a project. So having available resources, even if it's minimal for people to do things, with our servers is a very important accessibility factor. And then it comes, of course, accessibility of our user interfaces who can actually read and learn and from the content we host on our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe I can add something: For me, the first part of accessibility was also for myself even, to start being familiar with, how to use a server, how to get there and how to do stuff there and not look at it as a black box that I cannot touch because I'm afraid. So by trying to bring people that are not experts or not technologists into collectives in which people can help each other in educating themselves so they feel more emancipated to use not only commercial tools, but also their own or open source ones. For the future what I'm currently thinking of is that I would like things that we do on the server, like maybe a website or a wiki or whatever to be more inclusive to people with disabilities, for example. What I see now when it comes to that is that colours could be too much for some people to read, or <we could develop tools like> some functions for people who cannot hear and who would really like it to learn more about technology can use. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So I agree with everything that has been said and the different layers of accessibility. I am interested in understanding accessibility as something that too is about how we make our tools and services and contents more accessible to Deaf and disabled people. And also to people who don't speak Spanish and English. Then again, in general how contents and services can be made more known and accessible to short term collectivities and individuals. I’m also interested in how you can enable a lower threshold for feminist collectives to engage in and maintain their own technical infrastructures.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: Thank you so much for these answers and also these very varied and different considerations of access. In relation to infrastructure, tech and language, and of course, disability. Yeah, I think we are both excited to continue working on that together. The next question is about speculative dreaming: What future perspectives for the feminist server do you wish or dream of?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I dream that our feminist server continues to be a meeting point and space for feminist peers that will help us to evolve and collaborate and work together. And I'm also thinking about local feminist groups here in Rotterdam where I now live, but also back in Athens, where I come from. And I know that there is a need [for feminist servers] there. I hope that they can benefit from the existence of servers like ?Femserver ?, especially towards helping to a future of more technological autonomy. Probably that cannot be completed, but at least to try to be less dependent on giant tech corporations for their communication or for publishing our works or our struggles or things that we need to communicate with the world, um, and interconnect with other feminist groups out there. So I hope that the feminist servers can help that perspective.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I totally agree, and I find it so beautiful how we use tools as always a means to an end. I don't think anyone of us glorifies them and it's like: [making a] server is the end game. No, it's about using [a server] to learn together and to hang out and communicate. So I think that's very beautiful. I'm from Georgia and I didn't have anyone to talk about any of those things around me. That's how I actually ended up here. And this is already my dream scenario come to life. So now I'm trying to reconnect with people who are not so technical, but we are already starting to have something local in Georgia as well. So yeah, it's kind of that's what feminist servers are to me.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I agree with Estragon and I would like to give a more pragmatic and nuanced [view] on this thing. I would say that the cooperative model here would be one of my dreams for the feminist servers we have. And that it can include a membership fee so we can make our services more sustainable because from the past experience, and we've seen that the only way of giving time, it works well for learning and things like that, but then it's very difficult to host services for other artists and feminists that we would like to have. So a more concrete approach to the dream of the future for the life of our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: What I observe right now is that the critique of big tech companies is high but the awareness that there is an alternative way way to use technology is very invisible so far. And that's a lot of work to speak up for that and to make it shown. So that would be some vision of mine to not look at faces of complete disbelief when talking about having our own server.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like more people and collectives engaged in setting up feminist servers and in general feminist infrastructure initiatives. I would be interested in more local gynecological considerations embedded inside the set up of future feminist servers. Dreaming, creating data centers made for and by feminist servers. And coordination between different feminist servers to avoid reinventing the wheel or to enable supporting each other in knowledge and solidarity processes. To share resources and funding, to share common technical infrastructure or by having people that have specific skills and knowledge that can contribute to different service initiatives. And finally, my big dream is one day to have feminist servers that then orientate towards providing services to communities that are facing strong gender based violence online and censorship in digital spaces [such as] pro-choice activists, post porno and sex workers. So that's a long term projection, but I would like that we can manage to go there one day.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: The idea of more sysadmins people who join us in the backend! [People] not just there for the services, who learn with us and try to engage with the technology and the machines which are surrounding us waiting to be engaged. Sysadmins unite (!) to break the isolation and the local isolation of having that awareness.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: Maybe it's nice to continue because our project also works with trans* feminism and Disability Justice, and I love the ways in which the trans*feminist, THF, trans hack feminism becomes a shared user in the access server page. But also, I think that there's a specific understanding of trans*feminism that you seem to be working with because it comes up again many times on the Anarchaserver page. What does it mean to you to serve trans*feminism in this project? I think it's also related to a lot of the dreams that you just shared. Would you want to say something more about trans*feminism specifically?'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm still a little bit like scared about this fact of serving and hosting. And it's like, I feel like by inhabiting these servers and then also maintaining and configuring the affective infrastructures in which we are moving that we are trans* hack feminists. And it's [about] these kinds of spaces. It's not serving. It's, you know, like fluid. It's like good. It's like you are feeling the practices of technology. It's like configuring together. It's yeah, it's more like an actualization of trans* hack feminism than than this kind of serving. And I get a little bit lost in it. But like it has a history, also. Also, the trans* hack feminism, it was a reaction in the electic tech carnival (https://eclectictechcarnival.org/) to open specific identity politics and women-only-spaces up to trans* people. And then the reaction came. But I guess spideralex and Sophie were involved in redefining the trans* feminist as, uh, a convergence in Calafou. So maybe she can say something more about that.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: I would also be super curious to hear what it means to have come from a cis-woman only space and going through the process of opening that up to trans* people.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So I try to put here just a little definition that we created for the feminist museum about trans* hack feminism. Hmm. So we have to define it like: The Mummy is a museum of the future taking place in the 22nd century. It's a museum about sexism that has disappeared. And so we make a curation with Anamou, which is a sys adnim of Anarchaserver that organised the trans* hack feminist convergence in Mexico. We try to collect seven different artistic pieces. I have been in a collective in Spain that is called Donestech (https://www.donestech.net/) in Catalan that was created in 2007. At that moment, there was no other collective that was working on the relation between gender and technologies and free software technologies. But I think that the paradigm of inclusion of women in digital tech related spaces was needed, no? But it's very 90s, no? [We became more] trans* feminist in our politics, in our feminist politics. We made an event where we would meet together, [and you had to be] open to trans* feminism. So that's why it was called trans hack feminism and because it was organized not only by me and Sophie Toupin, but also by the people of the XXX which was a space in Calafou and Pulido who were trans feminist. It appeared in 2008 in Spain, in the feminist conference in Granada.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I would like to elaborate a bit more on what ooooo mentioned a little bit of the story of events because we are based in different locations within Europe. So we have these events maybe for a year or maybe two to meet. Well, I admit I haven't been at that many. I've been in the last one, it was an organized in Greece where I am based. The one before was in Italy, and the one before Italy was called Trans Hack Feminism in Calafou. And because I organized it, the question of who can join this event came up because every time as time passes as spideralex mentioned feminism itself changes, and it's always this question of who can join our event? And again, for example, the last, let's say a firewall, is cis men. Can cis men join our events? So this is the base of the conversation as we try to provide safe spaces and for those who are marginalized, within technology and its environments. But I would say it's an open question, and it always depends on the locality of the event. And on those organizing it. Of course, we all have our own idea and praxis of feminism.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: To me it was also new, I was not sure what that trans* referred to, because in the German speaking context [people] were talking maybe of queer feminism. So I was curious to also learn [about trans* feminism as] a part of the struggle against a current of feminism that in some places is stronger than others, and that is about the exclusion of trans* people and non-binary. And so that was one aspect that I find interesting to learn, and I find its good to call it trans* feminism to make it explicit.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, and important because at a certain moment, there was really a confusion for me because I was at the CCC (Chaos Computer Congres) and there was a trans hack meeting. So I joined into the meeting because it was about the organization of the next festival. But actually, it was about trans nationality. So it was more like focusing on Spain and Italy. They have like trans hack meetings, but it's actually transnational meetings.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So we have hack meetings. Yeah, when we make it across different countries it becomes a trans hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, sure. But it's interesting that the one refers to like identity politics in relation to gender, it seems. And the other, of course not. It's much wider also about your national identity. But it is confusing, or it is also how the term can be hacked so that that gets certain meanings by actually also using it. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, it was confusing. And then the confusion was pretty interesting. We only had two trans hack meetings in the history of trans hack meetings in Europe. One in Poland and the other one was three years ago, four years ago in Danack and there some people thought it was a trans* hack meeting, but it was pretty cool because this way we had more queer people around. Yeah, it wasn't that easy. It was like: No, no, this is not the trans* hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And actually, there was one recently in Bologna that also had a sysadmin of syster server involved. It was also called like that. That's nice. So yeah, it's a somehow yeah, it's hacked then. But yeah, it's not so nice if you're then there and it's a quite cis-normative environment because that's not that the safer space that you went there for. This is not a trans* hack meeting this is a trans hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: During THF, the question was also: what is now the most important term in it? Is trans*? is it hack? is it feminism? Can feminism be hacked, can feminism be trans*? Can hack be transed? Can you trans* hack? It's like, you know, it was like circulating inside of the dependencies within these three terminologies.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: In the pad, I have shared the link to the documentation of that session. So maybe then you can dig more in. It wasn't so many people that say they're interested, in trans*feminism. But the trans terminology, about transitioning, about transition, about all the links that it could have with immigration with transformation, with even of politics, you know, and so on, so on, so on. So yeah, I think we can put it in different layers and for sure, at least when it was set up in Calafou in 2017 the first layer was about trans*feminist politics.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, just to add, sometimes when you encounter a term for first time, you make a conclusion depending on your background and your identity, etc. So of course, when our services uses terms it feels important and to give a description of them: what does this term contain? It's also very important that when we do things that we are open about it, the terminology we're using what does refer to and why it is constructed like that? And it is important because it changes very quickly, in all this researches of all that is happening in migration realities to multi species studies and keeping in mind always intersectionality they all add up in the end in the concept of creating safe spaces. So I think this is something to consider when we use terms, how we came up with and why we came up with the terms we use.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And it was really important that people do a bit of research and find their own history in this terminology, you know. It's also by the people inhabiting or by the people embodying that it becomes and not only by a definition. I mean, it's ever changing also.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I agree in the sense I think that Anarchaserver is one of the first pages including the THF and all the documentation, and I feel very complicated to give a straightforward definition. And now we are trying to make access to the documentation that has been created around that concept. Now we are trying to clarify, to know, a definition of our internet politics and gender and diversity and so on, which is the text that we are trying to set up about Anarchaserver. But for Trans Hack Feminism convergences, I would find it very difficult to give a straightforward definition and an explicit one.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's not about giving you straightforward definition. They can be, as you said, you link to a document that as you said gives a story of how this happened.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Mm-Hmm. Yeah, that's all there.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe we have to create expiration dates on our Wiki pages. If we don't visit them in certain time becomes too old and it becomes a reference without being actual. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: But I've seen this, coming up when we organize events and you know, we have to do open calls and these things are always reconfiguring. Hacking with THF helps to hack patriarchy, capitalism and other systems of oppression. Hacking refers to the act of doing and taking things apart, understanding them in a deeper way. Hacking is action performance. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: So one last question is how do you define in your group the terms server and the relations between service and clients because we also read in your manifesto and that your project is about re configuring these relations? So it's a question that maybe speaks to like literally the server, but maybe also metaphorically the serving of values or the working together for the making of space.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: For me, the server is like a space, like a room. It's not only a machine, but we can go into it because usually we meet, especially if we live in other places, we meet on the server. It's our meeting point like instead of going to a cafe, we meet in the terminal. So while we’re in the terminal we try to help each other, educate ourselves and spend time together. So it's a connecting room that we can go in and work together in. And about the ‘server’ ‘client’, I really don't like the word client in general, but I know the technical term. I just don't see it translating in a social way for us inside the feminist server constellations because it is more of a corporate thing. Other people have said its more like inhabiting the servers instead of serving. So its not only that the server serves, and the other is a transmitter it becomes an interchangeable role that you also receive at the same time instead of only offering the other side. I would like more that we do both.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: We have a lot of humor in the poetics, and really intense reflections and critical thinking about the terminology, which is used inside of these machines. Common are terms like master/slave. Server/client. So there is really critical thinking about it and also to approach it differently, fail/success. And you can say, OK, yeah, we have failed but try to say, oh, we have some data somewhere, we can reconstruct this. So we often deconstruct this language and appropriate it in a way that is closer to our identity and our politics. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm looking at some of the histories of feminist servers. I saw two approaches that I really like one that was from 2013 was when they twisted the language at the feminist server summit that was held on the question of a feminist server into: Are you being served? And I really like that because it fits my my understanding of feminism as talking about the embodied experience of not being served in certain contexts. And the other one is from the fall, the ‘From Skin to Steel Manifesto’ that must have come from to Brazil. They start their manifesto by claiming that we are all already and thinking about, body experience as serving. And that's very close to what I would call care practices. So where where are the lines between serving and caring? It's really a very radical political claim to look for things about who is being served and it is close to this question of who has access and who can participate.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Even though we do things all the time we never say server/client. If we want to be fair to what convention you need for the client, even the commercial thinking, we use the word interface and allies with the collaboration when we want to talk about the people who would like to do things with our servers and interfaces can apply. Apply both to the look of the of the websites, but also how we communicate to the people outside our internal group. So we don't refer to the client almost at all.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: But then as a tiny, technical follow up question, how do you technically reconfigure these relations?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's like another network topology, peer to peer. So technically there are protocols which are allowing that, but we're not there yet. But for example, what we also tried to do with the feminist server is to have distributed services that not each server has the same, services that we are using. One has the ether pads, another has other things.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So its not really changing the server client, but like it's more like making a redistributed model of dependency. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: One of the points that THF articulated is that of autonomy where with having a Feminist server: you choose your dependencies.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like to ask MELT something, so you are also working on server access? Access Server? Is it still server access the project you are working on?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: It's called Access Server, the project.'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I wondered, maybe its too quick to digest what we said so far. But still, I wondered what you thought about the convergences between the thoughts between your Access Server project and what we have been discussing so far?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: Hm, yeah so part of the ACCESS SERVER project is that we're technically trying to understand how it can work so that when people email institutions asking for accessibility, the email will cc the previous email with access requests to the same institution. So we're trying to technically create a collectivity so that disabled people emailing understand see that they're not the only ones that are emailing to any institution. So emailers have the sense that, oh, many other people have emailed as well. So I think that this relates to how you’re talking about technical collectivity and trying to share resources and offer other options for points of connection. This is still a technical question. We're not exactly sure how to do it yet and also to maintain people's privacy at the same time. So there's a few questions there behind that. But I think that this is the desire to understand the technically active collective body that is emailing with access requests. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
MELT: When listening to you. I think notions of care and trust is where I feel a lot of shared questions and maybe sometimes struggles or figurings out. And also in these relations between how to reach out and work with other people with an infrastructure that we provide. Because the idea is really that other disabled people can use the email server and the website that comes with it. So there are also questions of how to even make the website accessible. There are guidelines around that, we have some knowledge around that. But then also how to reach out, also across other axes of discrimination and oppression. How to build that trust also. And also technically then if someone sends an email through our email server how can we make sure that their name is anonymous, for example, the IP address, etc. So that's a lot of questions that still seem also hard to ensure safety. Then also, we skipped the question on trolling and how to carry the risk of providing, feminist and accessible services. That's also a big one for us still to figure out. How can we, I think we can’t prevent people from abusing our service, but how can we even make sure that it doesn't affect more people? And maybe also it doesn't affect us too much. So all of these questions, I think, are quite related.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
MELT: Also, when you were speaking, something that also came to mind is that I think that the idea of the access server, constantly reminds us of the world that we live in where ableism is so structural. And this is the kind of reality that we're posited against. I'm also curious to see how how we can get people interested in using it, because also even when people are paid for their labour and even when they write emails to institutions, institutions themselves have so much work to do to change. And so I think that that is also a similar condition that you're working with with the feminist server projects where you're publicizing. We're trying to make more visible, so to speak, that there are alternatives, other ways of doing things that do not conform to ableism and capitalism as discriminatory and oppressive standards. Our project approach institutions and requires them to change. And that's also what you're doing. I think what the feminist server project is like trying to provide an alternative to show that a change is possible. <br />
''</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Interview_Meltionary&diff=1442Interview Meltionary2022-11-16T16:33:08Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div>FSS - Feminst server Sysadmins <br /><br />
MELT - Meltionary<br />
<br /><br /><br />
<big>'''Could you walk us through the ways Access Server is used?'''</big><br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
''<br />
MELT: The first thing that piqued our interest was the sub page Access Server, because it has the same title as our project. Could you walk us through the ways in which that page is used? Who uses it? What are the steps to follow and what happens if something doesn't work? We are also interested in the kinds of conversations you perhaps already had among your group to set up the page.''<br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
FSS: <br />
When searching for an answer to this question, we had a very technical way of looking at it. The page is from a wiki that we installed. We have this helpful "history button" function because it's a collaborative writing tool, like versioning. So what we actually did yesterday is hit the history button to try to find the history of that specific page because it also has a timestamp, and it also sees the user who was actually creating this page. So we found that the user was THF and that there was three other users: ooooo, b04 and ezn. They were also contributing to the the technical appearance of this page. The THF user refers to ‘trans hack feminism’, which was a convergence organized in Calafou. It’s a user we created. So it's not very clear who made that page, but it is made in that convergence, so there were people sitting around the table and making it. Do you want to contextualize the THF user spideralex? Or the trans hack feminist convergence?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
So the THF user was created around the first trans hack feminist conference in 2013. It was a shared user of the different people that have been documenting the different sessions that were held at this first event of one week. We have been sharing <the user> to document basically the different conversations. And then the wiki has remained as a space where different trans hack feminist events could document what they did. When we document feminist servers in general and when we document the Anarchaserver with specific work.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
More on the technical side – this was the first thing I did when I joined Anarchaserver. As spideralex said, the documentations of different projects kept going on. So there were two similar server set up documentations. The first thing I did was to merge and update them. But also, we had this conversation with ooooo that it would be nice if someone actually uses it. Yeah, it's a bit when you are technical and like, really, really doing it, sometimes it's nice if someone else has a look because you know what you're doing. And I also did the styling of the page and then I did the overall styling of Media Wiki, and I wanted for it to be a bit more welcoming than a default page. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS:<br />
And I think also as it is a wiki, it would be nice now that you <MELT> are in residence for the Fair New Idea project, we would welcome your visions on accessibility. It would be an invitation, of course, that you could also become an active intervener or would change and modify and add to the content of that page to maybe broaden up this idea of what access to the server is. Besides from its technical perspective of how to exchange SSH keys (secure shell) and make user modifications.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
'''<big>How do you think about accessibility?</big>''' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: It is very interesting to hear from everyone about what kind of accessibility you think with! I hear a lot about collaborations that produce the wiki with you as a way to literally access the server. And I also understand that it is also a kind of accessibility to make the server accessible by documenting how to use it. But I'm curious what it would mean for you to make the server disability accessible? How do you think about accessibility? What does that mean in your project? Do you have some thoughts on that?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I can start with this question. So. Accessibility, yeah, it's a concern. Accessibility in terms of who can work and make use of our services that we host. And at the moment it‘s mostly people who are part of the collective and with this project. A Fair New Idea was also for us a way to try to reach out and to try to see how we could host people besides our internal network. So that's why we invited you for a residency. So anyway, it was an opportunity to reach out to first artists and of course, we'll see how it will go. But since most of are artists and at the same time we have technical knowledge and we would like to share basic cohabitation with artists who can learn to work outside very commercial, centralized online tools. So that's one path of accessibility. So then there's the accessibility of who can join in our networks because sometimes the activism is something that not everybody can afford, because most of the times that we volunteer on a project. So having available resources, even if it's minimal for people to do things, with our servers is a very important accessibility factor. And then it comes, of course, accessibility of our user interfaces who can actually read and learn and from the content we host on our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe I can add something: For me, the first part of accessibility was also for myself even, to start being familiar with, how to use a server, how to get there and how to do stuff there and not look at it as a black box that I cannot touch because I'm afraid. So by trying to bring people that are not experts or not technologists into collectives in which people can help each other in educating themselves so they feel more emancipated to use not only commercial tools, but also their own or open source ones. For the future what I'm currently thinking of is that I would like things that we do on the server, like maybe a website or a wiki or whatever to be more inclusive to people with disabilities, for example. What I see now when it comes to that is that colours could be too much for some people to read, or <we could develop tools like> some functions for people who cannot hear and who would really like it to learn more about technology can use. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So I agree with everything that has been said and the different layers of accessibility. I am interested in understanding accessibility as something that too is about how we make our tools and services and contents more accessible to Deaf and disabled people. And also to people who don't speak Spanish and English. Then again, in general how contents and services can be made more known and accessible to short term collectivities and individuals. I’m also interested in how you can enable a lower threshold for feminist collectives to engage in and maintain their own technical infrastructures.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: Thank you so much for these answers and also these very varied and different considerations of access. In relation to infrastructure, tech and language, and of course, disability. Yeah, I think we are both excited to continue working on that together. The next question is about speculative dreaming: What future perspectives for the feminist server do you wish or dream of?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I dream that our feminist server continues to be a meeting point and space for feminist peers that will help us to evolve and collaborate and work together. And I'm also thinking about local feminist groups here in Rotterdam where I now live, but also back in Athens, where I come from. And I know that there is a need [for feminist servers] there. I hope that they can benefit from the existence of servers like ?Femserver ?, especially towards helping to a future of more technological autonomy. Probably that cannot be completed, but at least to try to be less dependent on giant tech corporations for their communication or for publishing our works or our struggles or things that we need to communicate with the world, um, and interconnect with other feminist groups out there. So I hope that the feminist servers can help that perspective.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I totally agree, and I find it so beautiful how we use tools as always a means to an end. I don't think anyone of us glorifies them and it's like: [making a] server is the end game. No, it's about using [a server] to learn together and to hang out and communicate. So I think that's very beautiful. I'm from Georgia and I didn't have anyone to talk about any of those things around me. That's how I actually ended up here. And this is already my dream scenario come to life. So now I'm trying to reconnect with people who are not so technical, but we are already starting to have something local in Georgia as well. So yeah, it's kind of that's what feminist servers are to me.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I agree with Estragon and I would like to give a more pragmatic and nuanced [view] on this thing. I would say that the cooperative model here would be one of my dreams for the feminist servers we have. And that it can include a membership fee so we can make our services more sustainable because from the past experience, and we've seen that the only way of giving time, it works well for learning and things like that, but then it's very difficult to host services for other artists and feminists that we would like to have. So a more concrete approach to the dream of the future for the life of our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: What I observe right now is that the critique of big tech companies is high but the awareness that there is an alternative way way to use technology is very invisible so far. And that's a lot of work to speak up for that and to make it shown. So that would be some vision of mine to not look at faces of complete disbelief when talking about having our own server.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like more people and collectives engaged in setting up feminist servers and in general feminist infrastructure initiatives. I would be interested in more local gynecological considerations embedded inside the set up of future feminist servers. Dreaming, creating data centers made for and by feminist servers. And coordination between different feminist servers to avoid reinventing the wheel or to enable supporting each other in knowledge and solidarity processes. To share resources and funding, to share common technical infrastructure or by having people that have specific skills and knowledge that can contribute to different service initiatives. And finally, my big dream is one day to have feminist servers that then orientate towards providing services to communities that are facing strong gender based violence online and censorship in digital spaces [such as] pro-choice activists, post porno and sex workers. So that's a long term projection, but I would like that we can manage to go there one day.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: The idea of more sysadmins people who join us in the backend! [People] not just there for the services, who learn with us and try to engage with the technology and the machines which are surrounding us waiting to be engaged. Sysadmins unite (!) to break the isolation and the local isolation of having that awareness.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: Maybe it's nice to continue because our project also works with trans* feminism and Disability Justice, and I love the ways in which the trans*feminist, THF, trans hack feminism becomes a shared user in the access server page. But also, I think that there's a specific understanding of trans*feminism that you seem to be working with because it comes up again many times on the Anarchaserver page. What does it mean to you to serve trans*feminism in this project? I think it's also related to a lot of the dreams that you just shared. Would you want to say something more about trans*feminism specifically?'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm still a little bit like scared about this fact of serving and hosting. And it's like, I feel like by inhabiting these servers and then also maintaining and configuring the affective infrastructures in which we are moving that we are trans* hack feminists. And it's [about] these kinds of spaces. It's not serving. It's, you know, like fluid. It's like good. It's like you are feeling the practices of technology. It's like configuring together. It's yeah, it's more like an actualization of trans* hack feminism than than this kind of serving. And I get a little bit lost in it. But like it has a history, also. Also, the trans* hack feminism, it was a reaction in the electic tech carnival (https://eclectictechcarnival.org/) to open specific identity politics and women-only-spaces up to trans* people. And then the reaction came. But I guess spideralex and Sophie were involved in redefining the trans* feminist as, uh, a convergence in Calafou. So maybe she can say something more about that.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: I would also be super curious to hear what it means to have come from a cis-woman only space and going through the process of opening that up to trans* people.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So I try to put here just a little definition that we created for the feminist museum about trans* hack feminism. Hmm. So we have to define it like: The Mummy is a museum of the future taking place in the 22nd century. It's a museum about sexism that has disappeared. And so we make a curation with Anamou, which is a sys adnim of Anarchaserver that organised the trans* hack feminist convergence in Mexico. We try to collect seven different artistic pieces. I have been in a collective in Spain that is called Donestech (https://www.donestech.net/) in Catalan that was created in 2007. At that moment, there was no other collective that was working on the relation between gender and technologies and free software technologies. But I think that the paradigm of inclusion of women in digital tech related spaces was needed, no? But it's very 90s, no? [We became more] trans* feminist in our politics, in our feminist politics. We made an event where we would meet together, [and you had to be] open to trans* feminism. So that's why it was called trans hack feminism and because it was organized not only by me and Sophie Toupin, but also by the people of the XXX which was a space in Calafou and Pulido who were trans feminist. It appeared in 2008 in Spain, in the feminist conference in Granada.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I would like to elaborate a bit more on what ooooo mentioned a little bit of the story of events because we are based in different locations within Europe. So we have these events maybe for a year or maybe two to meet. Well, I admit I haven't been at that many. I've been in the last one, it was an organized in Greece where I am based. The one before was in Italy, and the one before Italy was called Trans Hack Feminism in Calafou. And because I organized it, the question of who can join this event came up because every time as time passes as spideralex mentioned feminism itself changes, and it's always this question of who can join our event? And again, for example, the last, let's say a firewall, is cis men. Can cis men join our events? So this is the base of the conversation as we try to provide safe spaces and for those who are marginalized, within technology and its environments. But I would say it's an open question, and it always depends on the locality of the event. And on those organizing it. Of course, we all have our own idea and praxis of feminism.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: To me it was also new, I was not sure what that trans* referred to, because in the German speaking context [people] were talking maybe of queer feminism. So I was curious to also learn [about trans* feminism as] a part of the struggle against a current of feminism that in some places is stronger than others, and that is about the exclusion of trans* people and non-binary. And so that was one aspect that I find interesting to learn, and I find its good to call it trans* feminism to make it explicit.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, and important because at a certain moment, there was really a confusion for me because I was at the CCC (Chaos Computer Congres) and there was a trans hack meeting. So I joined into the meeting because it was about the organization of the next festival. But actually, it was about trans nationality. So it was more like focusing on Spain and Italy. They have like trans hack meetings, but it's actually transnational meetings.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So we have hack meetings. Yeah, when we make it across different countries it becomes a trans hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, sure. But it's interesting that the one refers to like identity politics in relation to gender, it seems. And the other, of course not. It's much wider also about your national identity. But it is confusing, or it is also how the term can be hacked so that that gets certain meanings by actually also using it. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, it was confusing. And then the confusion was pretty interesting. We only had two trans hack meetings in the history of trans hack meetings in Europe. One in Poland and the other one was three years ago, four years ago in Danack and there some people thought it was a trans* hack meeting, but it was pretty cool because this way we had more queer people around. Yeah, it wasn't that easy. It was like: No, no, this is not the trans* hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And actually, there was one recently in Bologna that also had a sysadmin of syster server involved. It was also called like that. That's nice. So yeah, it's a somehow yeah, it's hacked then. But yeah, it's not so nice if you're then there and it's a quite cis-normative environment because that's not that the safer space that you went there for. This is not a trans* hack meeting this is a trans hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: During THF, the question was also: what is now the most important term in it? Is trans*? is it hack? is it feminism? Can feminism be hacked, can feminism be trans*? Can hack be transed? Can you trans* hack? It's like, you know, it was like circulating inside of the dependencies within these three terminologies.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: In the pad, I have shared the link to the documentation of that session. So maybe then you can dig more in. It wasn't so many people that say they're interested, in trans*feminism. But the trans terminology, about transitioning, about transition, about all the links that it could have with immigration with transformation, with even of politics, you know, and so on, so on, so on. So yeah, I think we can put it in different layers and for sure, at least when it was set up in Calafou in 2017 the first layer was about trans*feminist politics.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, just to add, sometimes when you encounter a term for first time, you make a conclusion depending on your background and your identity, etc. So of course, when our services uses terms it feels important and to give a description of them: what does this term contain? It's also very important that when we do things that we are open about it, the terminology we're using what does refer to and why it is constructed like that? And it is important because it changes very quickly, in all this researches of all that is happening in migration realities to multi species studies and keeping in mind always intersectionality they all add up in the end in the concept of creating safe spaces. So I think this is something to consider when we use terms, how we came up with and why we came up with the terms we use.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And it was really important that people do a bit of research and find their own history in this terminology, you know. It's also by the people inhabiting or by the people embodying that it becomes and not only by a definition. I mean, it's ever changing also.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I agree in the sense I think that Anarchaserver is one of the first pages including the THF and all the documentation, and I feel very complicated to give a straightforward definition. And now we are trying to make access to the documentation that has been created around that concept. Now we are trying to clarify, to know, a definition of our internet politics and gender and diversity and so on, which is the text that we are trying to set up about Anarchaserver. But for Trans Hack Feminism convergences, I would find it very difficult to give a straightforward definition and an explicit one.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's not about giving you straightforward definition. They can be, as you said, you link to a document that as you said gives a story of how this happened.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Mm-Hmm. Yeah, that's all there.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe we have to create expiration dates on our Wiki pages. If we don't visit them in certain time becomes too old and it becomes a reference without being actual. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: But I've seen this, coming up when we organize events and you know, we have to do open calls and these things are always reconfiguring. Hacking with THF helps to hack patriarchy, capitalism and other systems of oppression. Hacking refers to the act of doing and taking things apart, understanding them in a deeper way. Hacking is action performance. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: So one last question is how do you define in your group the terms server and the relations between service and clients because we also read in your manifesto and that your project is about re configuring these relations? So it's a question that maybe speaks to like literally the server, but maybe also metaphorically the serving of values or the working together for the making of space.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: For me, the server is like a space, like a room. It's not only a machine, but we can go into it because usually we meet, especially if we live in other places, we meet on the server. It's our meeting point like instead of going to a cafe, we meet in the terminal. So while we’re in the terminal we try to help each other, educate ourselves and spend time together. So it's a connecting room that we can go in and work together in. And about the ‘server’ ‘client’, I really don't like the word client in general, but I know the technical term. I just don't see it translating in a social way for us inside the feminist server constellations because it is more of a corporate thing. Other people have said its more like inhabiting the servers instead of serving. So its not only that the server serves, and the other is a transmitter it becomes an interchangeable role that you also receive at the same time instead of only offering the other side. I would like more that we do both.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: We have a lot of humor in the poetics, and really intense reflections and critical thinking about the terminology, which is used inside of these machines. Common are terms like master/slave. Server/client. So there is really critical thinking about it and also to approach it differently, fail/success. And you can say, OK, yeah, we have failed but try to say, oh, we have some data somewhere, we can reconstruct this. So we often deconstruct this language and appropriate it in a way that is closer to our identity and our politics. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm looking at some of the histories of feminist servers. I saw two approaches that I really like one that was from 2013 was when they twisted the language at the feminist server summit that was held on the question of a feminist server into: Are you being served? And I really like that because it fits my my understanding of feminism as talking about the embodied experience of not being served in certain contexts. And the other one is from the fall, the ‘From Skin to Steel Manifesto’ that must have come from to Brazil. They start their manifesto by claiming that we are all already and thinking about, body experience as serving. And that's very close to what I would call care practices. So where where are the lines between serving and caring? It's really a very radical political claim to look for things about who is being served and it is close to this question of who has access and who can participate.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Even though we do things all the time we never say server/client. If we want to be fair to what convention you need for the client, even the commercial thinking, we use the word interface and allies with the collaboration when we want to talk about the people who would like to do things with our servers and interfaces can apply. Apply both to the look of the of the websites, but also how we communicate to the people outside our internal group. So we don't refer to the client almost at all.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: But then as a tiny, technical follow up question, how do you technically reconfigure these relations?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's like another network topology, peer to peer. So technically there are protocols which are allowing that, but we're not there yet. But for example, what we also tried to do with the feminist server is to have distributed services that not each server has the same, services that we are using. One has the ether pads, another has other things.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So its not really changing the server client, but like it's more like making a redistributed model of dependency. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: One of the points that THF articulated is that of autonomy where with having a Feminist server: you choose your dependencies.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like to ask MELT something, so you are also working on server access? Access Server? Is it still server access the project you are working on?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: It's called Access Server, the project.'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I wondered, maybe its too quick to digest what we said so far. But still, I wondered what you thought about the convergences between the thoughts between your Access Server project and what we have been discussing so far?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: Hm, yeah so part of the ACCESS SERVER project is that we're technically trying to understand how it can work so that when people email institutions asking for accessibility, the email will cc the previous email with access requests to the same institution. So we're trying to technically create a collectivity so that disabled people emailing understand see that they're not the only ones that are emailing to any institution. So emailers have the sense that, oh, many other people have emailed as well. So I think that this relates to how you’re talking about technical collectivity and trying to share resources and offer other options for points of connection. This is still a technical question. We're not exactly sure how to do it yet and also to maintain people's privacy at the same time. So there's a few questions there behind that. But I think that this is the desire to understand the technically active collective body that is emailing with access requests. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
MELT: When listening to you. I think notions of care and trust is where I feel a lot of shared questions and maybe sometimes struggles or figurings out. And also in these relations between how to reach out and work with other people with an infrastructure that we provide. Because the idea is really that other disabled people can use the email server and the website that comes with it. So there are also questions of how to even make the website accessible. There are guidelines around that, we have some knowledge around that. But then also how to reach out, also across other axes of discrimination and oppression. How to build that trust also. And also technically then if someone sends an email through our email server how can we make sure that their name is anonymous, for example, the IP address, etc. So that's a lot of questions that still seem also hard to ensure safety. Then also, we skipped the question on trolling and how to carry the risk of providing, feminist and accessible services. That's also a big one for us still to figure out. How can we, I think we can’t prevent people from abusing our service, but how can we even make sure that it doesn't affect more people? And maybe also it doesn't affect us too much. So all of these questions, I think, are quite related.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
MELT: Also, when you were speaking, something that also came to mind is that I think that the idea of the access server, constantly reminds us of the world that we live in where ableism is so structural. And this is the kind of reality that we're posited against. I'm also curious to see how how we can get people interested in using it, because also even when people are paid for their labour and even when they write emails to institutions, institutions themselves have so much work to do to change. And so I think that that is also a similar condition that you're working with with the feminist server projects where you're publicizing. We're trying to make more visible, so to speak, that there are alternatives, other ways of doing things that do not conform to ableism and capitalism as discriminatory and oppressive standards. Our project approach institutions and requires them to change. And that's also what you're doing. I think what the feminist server project is like trying to provide an alternative to show that a change is possible. <br />
''</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Interview_Meltionary&diff=1441Interview Meltionary2022-11-16T16:32:47Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div>FSS - Feminst server Sysadmins <br /><br />
MELT - Meltionary<br />
<br /><br />
<big>'''Could you walk us through the ways Access Server is used?'''</big><br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
''<br />
MELT: The first thing that piqued our interest was the sub page Access Server, because it has the same title as our project. Could you walk us through the ways in which that page is used? Who uses it? What are the steps to follow and what happens if something doesn't work? We are also interested in the kinds of conversations you perhaps already had among your group to set up the page.''<br />
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
FSS: <br />
When searching for an answer to this question, we had a very technical way of looking at it. The page is from a wiki that we installed. We have this helpful "history button" function because it's a collaborative writing tool, like versioning. So what we actually did yesterday is hit the history button to try to find the history of that specific page because it also has a timestamp, and it also sees the user who was actually creating this page. So we found that the user was THF and that there was three other users: ooooo, b04 and ezn. They were also contributing to the the technical appearance of this page. The THF user refers to ‘trans hack feminism’, which was a convergence organized in Calafou. It’s a user we created. So it's not very clear who made that page, but it is made in that convergence, so there were people sitting around the table and making it. Do you want to contextualize the THF user spideralex? Or the trans hack feminist convergence?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
So the THF user was created around the first trans hack feminist conference in 2013. It was a shared user of the different people that have been documenting the different sessions that were held at this first event of one week. We have been sharing <the user> to document basically the different conversations. And then the wiki has remained as a space where different trans hack feminist events could document what they did. When we document feminist servers in general and when we document the Anarchaserver with specific work.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: <br />
More on the technical side – this was the first thing I did when I joined Anarchaserver. As spideralex said, the documentations of different projects kept going on. So there were two similar server set up documentations. The first thing I did was to merge and update them. But also, we had this conversation with ooooo that it would be nice if someone actually uses it. Yeah, it's a bit when you are technical and like, really, really doing it, sometimes it's nice if someone else has a look because you know what you're doing. And I also did the styling of the page and then I did the overall styling of Media Wiki, and I wanted for it to be a bit more welcoming than a default page. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS:<br />
And I think also as it is a wiki, it would be nice now that you <MELT> are in residence for the Fair New Idea project, we would welcome your visions on accessibility. It would be an invitation, of course, that you could also become an active intervener or would change and modify and add to the content of that page to maybe broaden up this idea of what access to the server is. Besides from its technical perspective of how to exchange SSH keys (secure shell) and make user modifications.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
'''<big>How do you think about accessibility?</big>''' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: It is very interesting to hear from everyone about what kind of accessibility you think with! I hear a lot about collaborations that produce the wiki with you as a way to literally access the server. And I also understand that it is also a kind of accessibility to make the server accessible by documenting how to use it. But I'm curious what it would mean for you to make the server disability accessible? How do you think about accessibility? What does that mean in your project? Do you have some thoughts on that?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I can start with this question. So. Accessibility, yeah, it's a concern. Accessibility in terms of who can work and make use of our services that we host. And at the moment it‘s mostly people who are part of the collective and with this project. A Fair New Idea was also for us a way to try to reach out and to try to see how we could host people besides our internal network. So that's why we invited you for a residency. So anyway, it was an opportunity to reach out to first artists and of course, we'll see how it will go. But since most of are artists and at the same time we have technical knowledge and we would like to share basic cohabitation with artists who can learn to work outside very commercial, centralized online tools. So that's one path of accessibility. So then there's the accessibility of who can join in our networks because sometimes the activism is something that not everybody can afford, because most of the times that we volunteer on a project. So having available resources, even if it's minimal for people to do things, with our servers is a very important accessibility factor. And then it comes, of course, accessibility of our user interfaces who can actually read and learn and from the content we host on our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe I can add something: For me, the first part of accessibility was also for myself even, to start being familiar with, how to use a server, how to get there and how to do stuff there and not look at it as a black box that I cannot touch because I'm afraid. So by trying to bring people that are not experts or not technologists into collectives in which people can help each other in educating themselves so they feel more emancipated to use not only commercial tools, but also their own or open source ones. For the future what I'm currently thinking of is that I would like things that we do on the server, like maybe a website or a wiki or whatever to be more inclusive to people with disabilities, for example. What I see now when it comes to that is that colours could be too much for some people to read, or <we could develop tools like> some functions for people who cannot hear and who would really like it to learn more about technology can use. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So I agree with everything that has been said and the different layers of accessibility. I am interested in understanding accessibility as something that too is about how we make our tools and services and contents more accessible to Deaf and disabled people. And also to people who don't speak Spanish and English. Then again, in general how contents and services can be made more known and accessible to short term collectivities and individuals. I’m also interested in how you can enable a lower threshold for feminist collectives to engage in and maintain their own technical infrastructures.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: Thank you so much for these answers and also these very varied and different considerations of access. In relation to infrastructure, tech and language, and of course, disability. Yeah, I think we are both excited to continue working on that together. The next question is about speculative dreaming: What future perspectives for the feminist server do you wish or dream of?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I dream that our feminist server continues to be a meeting point and space for feminist peers that will help us to evolve and collaborate and work together. And I'm also thinking about local feminist groups here in Rotterdam where I now live, but also back in Athens, where I come from. And I know that there is a need [for feminist servers] there. I hope that they can benefit from the existence of servers like ?Femserver ?, especially towards helping to a future of more technological autonomy. Probably that cannot be completed, but at least to try to be less dependent on giant tech corporations for their communication or for publishing our works or our struggles or things that we need to communicate with the world, um, and interconnect with other feminist groups out there. So I hope that the feminist servers can help that perspective.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I totally agree, and I find it so beautiful how we use tools as always a means to an end. I don't think anyone of us glorifies them and it's like: [making a] server is the end game. No, it's about using [a server] to learn together and to hang out and communicate. So I think that's very beautiful. I'm from Georgia and I didn't have anyone to talk about any of those things around me. That's how I actually ended up here. And this is already my dream scenario come to life. So now I'm trying to reconnect with people who are not so technical, but we are already starting to have something local in Georgia as well. So yeah, it's kind of that's what feminist servers are to me.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I agree with Estragon and I would like to give a more pragmatic and nuanced [view] on this thing. I would say that the cooperative model here would be one of my dreams for the feminist servers we have. And that it can include a membership fee so we can make our services more sustainable because from the past experience, and we've seen that the only way of giving time, it works well for learning and things like that, but then it's very difficult to host services for other artists and feminists that we would like to have. So a more concrete approach to the dream of the future for the life of our servers.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: What I observe right now is that the critique of big tech companies is high but the awareness that there is an alternative way way to use technology is very invisible so far. And that's a lot of work to speak up for that and to make it shown. So that would be some vision of mine to not look at faces of complete disbelief when talking about having our own server.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like more people and collectives engaged in setting up feminist servers and in general feminist infrastructure initiatives. I would be interested in more local gynecological considerations embedded inside the set up of future feminist servers. Dreaming, creating data centers made for and by feminist servers. And coordination between different feminist servers to avoid reinventing the wheel or to enable supporting each other in knowledge and solidarity processes. To share resources and funding, to share common technical infrastructure or by having people that have specific skills and knowledge that can contribute to different service initiatives. And finally, my big dream is one day to have feminist servers that then orientate towards providing services to communities that are facing strong gender based violence online and censorship in digital spaces [such as] pro-choice activists, post porno and sex workers. So that's a long term projection, but I would like that we can manage to go there one day.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: The idea of more sysadmins people who join us in the backend! [People] not just there for the services, who learn with us and try to engage with the technology and the machines which are surrounding us waiting to be engaged. Sysadmins unite (!) to break the isolation and the local isolation of having that awareness.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: Maybe it's nice to continue because our project also works with trans* feminism and Disability Justice, and I love the ways in which the trans*feminist, THF, trans hack feminism becomes a shared user in the access server page. But also, I think that there's a specific understanding of trans*feminism that you seem to be working with because it comes up again many times on the Anarchaserver page. What does it mean to you to serve trans*feminism in this project? I think it's also related to a lot of the dreams that you just shared. Would you want to say something more about trans*feminism specifically?'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm still a little bit like scared about this fact of serving and hosting. And it's like, I feel like by inhabiting these servers and then also maintaining and configuring the affective infrastructures in which we are moving that we are trans* hack feminists. And it's [about] these kinds of spaces. It's not serving. It's, you know, like fluid. It's like good. It's like you are feeling the practices of technology. It's like configuring together. It's yeah, it's more like an actualization of trans* hack feminism than than this kind of serving. And I get a little bit lost in it. But like it has a history, also. Also, the trans* hack feminism, it was a reaction in the electic tech carnival (https://eclectictechcarnival.org/) to open specific identity politics and women-only-spaces up to trans* people. And then the reaction came. But I guess spideralex and Sophie were involved in redefining the trans* feminist as, uh, a convergence in Calafou. So maybe she can say something more about that.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: I would also be super curious to hear what it means to have come from a cis-woman only space and going through the process of opening that up to trans* people.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So I try to put here just a little definition that we created for the feminist museum about trans* hack feminism. Hmm. So we have to define it like: The Mummy is a museum of the future taking place in the 22nd century. It's a museum about sexism that has disappeared. And so we make a curation with Anamou, which is a sys adnim of Anarchaserver that organised the trans* hack feminist convergence in Mexico. We try to collect seven different artistic pieces. I have been in a collective in Spain that is called Donestech (https://www.donestech.net/) in Catalan that was created in 2007. At that moment, there was no other collective that was working on the relation between gender and technologies and free software technologies. But I think that the paradigm of inclusion of women in digital tech related spaces was needed, no? But it's very 90s, no? [We became more] trans* feminist in our politics, in our feminist politics. We made an event where we would meet together, [and you had to be] open to trans* feminism. So that's why it was called trans hack feminism and because it was organized not only by me and Sophie Toupin, but also by the people of the XXX which was a space in Calafou and Pulido who were trans feminist. It appeared in 2008 in Spain, in the feminist conference in Granada.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I would like to elaborate a bit more on what ooooo mentioned a little bit of the story of events because we are based in different locations within Europe. So we have these events maybe for a year or maybe two to meet. Well, I admit I haven't been at that many. I've been in the last one, it was an organized in Greece where I am based. The one before was in Italy, and the one before Italy was called Trans Hack Feminism in Calafou. And because I organized it, the question of who can join this event came up because every time as time passes as spideralex mentioned feminism itself changes, and it's always this question of who can join our event? And again, for example, the last, let's say a firewall, is cis men. Can cis men join our events? So this is the base of the conversation as we try to provide safe spaces and for those who are marginalized, within technology and its environments. But I would say it's an open question, and it always depends on the locality of the event. And on those organizing it. Of course, we all have our own idea and praxis of feminism.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: To me it was also new, I was not sure what that trans* referred to, because in the German speaking context [people] were talking maybe of queer feminism. So I was curious to also learn [about trans* feminism as] a part of the struggle against a current of feminism that in some places is stronger than others, and that is about the exclusion of trans* people and non-binary. And so that was one aspect that I find interesting to learn, and I find its good to call it trans* feminism to make it explicit.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, and important because at a certain moment, there was really a confusion for me because I was at the CCC (Chaos Computer Congres) and there was a trans hack meeting. So I joined into the meeting because it was about the organization of the next festival. But actually, it was about trans nationality. So it was more like focusing on Spain and Italy. They have like trans hack meetings, but it's actually transnational meetings.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So we have hack meetings. Yeah, when we make it across different countries it becomes a trans hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, sure. But it's interesting that the one refers to like identity politics in relation to gender, it seems. And the other, of course not. It's much wider also about your national identity. But it is confusing, or it is also how the term can be hacked so that that gets certain meanings by actually also using it. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, it was confusing. And then the confusion was pretty interesting. We only had two trans hack meetings in the history of trans hack meetings in Europe. One in Poland and the other one was three years ago, four years ago in Danack and there some people thought it was a trans* hack meeting, but it was pretty cool because this way we had more queer people around. Yeah, it wasn't that easy. It was like: No, no, this is not the trans* hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And actually, there was one recently in Bologna that also had a sysadmin of syster server involved. It was also called like that. That's nice. So yeah, it's a somehow yeah, it's hacked then. But yeah, it's not so nice if you're then there and it's a quite cis-normative environment because that's not that the safer space that you went there for. This is not a trans* hack meeting this is a trans hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: During THF, the question was also: what is now the most important term in it? Is trans*? is it hack? is it feminism? Can feminism be hacked, can feminism be trans*? Can hack be transed? Can you trans* hack? It's like, you know, it was like circulating inside of the dependencies within these three terminologies.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: In the pad, I have shared the link to the documentation of that session. So maybe then you can dig more in. It wasn't so many people that say they're interested, in trans*feminism. But the trans terminology, about transitioning, about transition, about all the links that it could have with immigration with transformation, with even of politics, you know, and so on, so on, so on. So yeah, I think we can put it in different layers and for sure, at least when it was set up in Calafou in 2017 the first layer was about trans*feminist politics.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, just to add, sometimes when you encounter a term for first time, you make a conclusion depending on your background and your identity, etc. So of course, when our services uses terms it feels important and to give a description of them: what does this term contain? It's also very important that when we do things that we are open about it, the terminology we're using what does refer to and why it is constructed like that? And it is important because it changes very quickly, in all this researches of all that is happening in migration realities to multi species studies and keeping in mind always intersectionality they all add up in the end in the concept of creating safe spaces. So I think this is something to consider when we use terms, how we came up with and why we came up with the terms we use.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: And it was really important that people do a bit of research and find their own history in this terminology, you know. It's also by the people inhabiting or by the people embodying that it becomes and not only by a definition. I mean, it's ever changing also.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I agree in the sense I think that Anarchaserver is one of the first pages including the THF and all the documentation, and I feel very complicated to give a straightforward definition. And now we are trying to make access to the documentation that has been created around that concept. Now we are trying to clarify, to know, a definition of our internet politics and gender and diversity and so on, which is the text that we are trying to set up about Anarchaserver. But for Trans Hack Feminism convergences, I would find it very difficult to give a straightforward definition and an explicit one.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's not about giving you straightforward definition. They can be, as you said, you link to a document that as you said gives a story of how this happened.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Mm-Hmm. Yeah, that's all there.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Maybe we have to create expiration dates on our Wiki pages. If we don't visit them in certain time becomes too old and it becomes a reference without being actual. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: But I've seen this, coming up when we organize events and you know, we have to do open calls and these things are always reconfiguring. Hacking with THF helps to hack patriarchy, capitalism and other systems of oppression. Hacking refers to the act of doing and taking things apart, understanding them in a deeper way. Hacking is action performance. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: So one last question is how do you define in your group the terms server and the relations between service and clients because we also read in your manifesto and that your project is about re configuring these relations? So it's a question that maybe speaks to like literally the server, but maybe also metaphorically the serving of values or the working together for the making of space.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: For me, the server is like a space, like a room. It's not only a machine, but we can go into it because usually we meet, especially if we live in other places, we meet on the server. It's our meeting point like instead of going to a cafe, we meet in the terminal. So while we’re in the terminal we try to help each other, educate ourselves and spend time together. So it's a connecting room that we can go in and work together in. And about the ‘server’ ‘client’, I really don't like the word client in general, but I know the technical term. I just don't see it translating in a social way for us inside the feminist server constellations because it is more of a corporate thing. Other people have said its more like inhabiting the servers instead of serving. So its not only that the server serves, and the other is a transmitter it becomes an interchangeable role that you also receive at the same time instead of only offering the other side. I would like more that we do both.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: We have a lot of humor in the poetics, and really intense reflections and critical thinking about the terminology, which is used inside of these machines. Common are terms like master/slave. Server/client. So there is really critical thinking about it and also to approach it differently, fail/success. And you can say, OK, yeah, we have failed but try to say, oh, we have some data somewhere, we can reconstruct this. So we often deconstruct this language and appropriate it in a way that is closer to our identity and our politics. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I'm looking at some of the histories of feminist servers. I saw two approaches that I really like one that was from 2013 was when they twisted the language at the feminist server summit that was held on the question of a feminist server into: Are you being served? And I really like that because it fits my my understanding of feminism as talking about the embodied experience of not being served in certain contexts. And the other one is from the fall, the ‘From Skin to Steel Manifesto’ that must have come from to Brazil. They start their manifesto by claiming that we are all already and thinking about, body experience as serving. And that's very close to what I would call care practices. So where where are the lines between serving and caring? It's really a very radical political claim to look for things about who is being served and it is close to this question of who has access and who can participate.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: Even though we do things all the time we never say server/client. If we want to be fair to what convention you need for the client, even the commercial thinking, we use the word interface and allies with the collaboration when we want to talk about the people who would like to do things with our servers and interfaces can apply. Apply both to the look of the of the websites, but also how we communicate to the people outside our internal group. So we don't refer to the client almost at all.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: But then as a tiny, technical follow up question, how do you technically reconfigure these relations?''<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: It's like another network topology, peer to peer. So technically there are protocols which are allowing that, but we're not there yet. But for example, what we also tried to do with the feminist server is to have distributed services that not each server has the same, services that we are using. One has the ether pads, another has other things.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: So its not really changing the server client, but like it's more like making a redistributed model of dependency. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: One of the points that THF articulated is that of autonomy where with having a Feminist server: you choose your dependencies.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I would like to ask MELT something, so you are also working on server access? Access Server? Is it still server access the project you are working on?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: It's called Access Server, the project.'' <br />
<br /><br /><br />
FSS: I wondered, maybe its too quick to digest what we said so far. But still, I wondered what you thought about the convergences between the thoughts between your Access Server project and what we have been discussing so far?<br />
<br /><br /><br />
''MELT: Hm, yeah so part of the ACCESS SERVER project is that we're technically trying to understand how it can work so that when people email institutions asking for accessibility, the email will cc the previous email with access requests to the same institution. So we're trying to technically create a collectivity so that disabled people emailing understand see that they're not the only ones that are emailing to any institution. So emailers have the sense that, oh, many other people have emailed as well. So I think that this relates to how you’re talking about technical collectivity and trying to share resources and offer other options for points of connection. This is still a technical question. We're not exactly sure how to do it yet and also to maintain people's privacy at the same time. So there's a few questions there behind that. But I think that this is the desire to understand the technically active collective body that is emailing with access requests. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
MELT: When listening to you. I think notions of care and trust is where I feel a lot of shared questions and maybe sometimes struggles or figurings out. And also in these relations between how to reach out and work with other people with an infrastructure that we provide. Because the idea is really that other disabled people can use the email server and the website that comes with it. So there are also questions of how to even make the website accessible. There are guidelines around that, we have some knowledge around that. But then also how to reach out, also across other axes of discrimination and oppression. How to build that trust also. And also technically then if someone sends an email through our email server how can we make sure that their name is anonymous, for example, the IP address, etc. So that's a lot of questions that still seem also hard to ensure safety. Then also, we skipped the question on trolling and how to carry the risk of providing, feminist and accessible services. That's also a big one for us still to figure out. How can we, I think we can’t prevent people from abusing our service, but how can we even make sure that it doesn't affect more people? And maybe also it doesn't affect us too much. So all of these questions, I think, are quite related.<br />
<br /><br /><br />
MELT: Also, when you were speaking, something that also came to mind is that I think that the idea of the access server, constantly reminds us of the world that we live in where ableism is so structural. And this is the kind of reality that we're posited against. I'm also curious to see how how we can get people interested in using it, because also even when people are paid for their labour and even when they write emails to institutions, institutions themselves have so much work to do to change. And so I think that that is also a similar condition that you're working with with the feminist server projects where you're publicizing. We're trying to make more visible, so to speak, that there are alternatives, other ways of doing things that do not conform to ableism and capitalism as discriminatory and oppressive standards. Our project approach institutions and requires them to change. And that's also what you're doing. I think what the feminist server project is like trying to provide an alternative to show that a change is possible. <br />
''</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Interview_Meltionary&diff=1440Interview Meltionary2022-11-16T16:29:46Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div>FSS - Feminst server Sysadmins<br />
MELT - Meltionary<br />
<br />
<big>'''Could you walk us through the ways Access Server is used?'''</big><br />
<br />
<br /><br />
''<br />
MELT: The first thing that piqued our interest was the sub page Access Server, because it has the same title as our project. Could you walk us through the ways in which that page is used? Who uses it? What are the steps to follow and what happens if something doesn't work? We are also interested in the kinds of conversations you perhaps already had among your group to set up the page.''<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: <br />
When searching for an answer to this question, we had a very technical way of looking at it. The page is from a wiki that we installed. We have this helpful "history button" function because it's a collaborative writing tool, like versioning. So what we actually did yesterday is hit the history button to try to find the history of that specific page because it also has a timestamp, and it also sees the user who was actually creating this page. So we found that the user was THF and that there was three other users: ooooo, b04 and ezn. They were also contributing to the the technical appearance of this page. The THF user refers to ‘trans hack feminism’, which was a convergence organized in Calafou. It’s a user we created. So it's not very clear who made that page, but it is made in that convergence, so there were people sitting around the table and making it. Do you want to contextualize the THF user spideralex? Or the trans hack feminist convergence?<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: <br />
So the THF user was created around the first trans hack feminist conference in 2013. It was a shared user of the different people that have been documenting the different sessions that were held at this first event of one week. We have been sharing <the user> to document basically the different conversations. And then the wiki has remained as a space where different trans hack feminist events could document what they did. When we document feminist servers in general and when we document the Anarchaserver with specific work.<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: <br />
More on the technical side – this was the first thing I did when I joined Anarchaserver. As spideralex said, the documentations of different projects kept going on. So there were two similar server set up documentations. The first thing I did was to merge and update them. But also, we had this conversation with ooooo that it would be nice if someone actually uses it. Yeah, it's a bit when you are technical and like, really, really doing it, sometimes it's nice if someone else has a look because you know what you're doing. And I also did the styling of the page and then I did the overall styling of Media Wiki, and I wanted for it to be a bit more welcoming than a default page. <br />
<br /><br />
FSS:<br />
And I think also as it is a wiki, it would be nice now that you <MELT> are in residence for the Fair New Idea project, we would welcome your visions on accessibility. It would be an invitation, of course, that you could also become an active intervener or would change and modify and add to the content of that page to maybe broaden up this idea of what access to the server is. Besides from its technical perspective of how to exchange SSH keys (secure shell) and make user modifications.<br />
<br /><br />
'''<big>How do you think about accessibility?</big>''' <br />
<br /><br />
''MELT: It is very interesting to hear from everyone about what kind of accessibility you think with! I hear a lot about collaborations that produce the wiki with you as a way to literally access the server. And I also understand that it is also a kind of accessibility to make the server accessible by documenting how to use it. But I'm curious what it would mean for you to make the server disability accessible? How do you think about accessibility? What does that mean in your project? Do you have some thoughts on that?''<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: I can start with this question. So. Accessibility, yeah, it's a concern. Accessibility in terms of who can work and make use of our services that we host. And at the moment it‘s mostly people who are part of the collective and with this project. A Fair New Idea was also for us a way to try to reach out and to try to see how we could host people besides our internal network. So that's why we invited you for a residency. So anyway, it was an opportunity to reach out to first artists and of course, we'll see how it will go. But since most of are artists and at the same time we have technical knowledge and we would like to share basic cohabitation with artists who can learn to work outside very commercial, centralized online tools. So that's one path of accessibility. So then there's the accessibility of who can join in our networks because sometimes the activism is something that not everybody can afford, because most of the times that we volunteer on a project. So having available resources, even if it's minimal for people to do things, with our servers is a very important accessibility factor. And then it comes, of course, accessibility of our user interfaces who can actually read and learn and from the content we host on our servers.<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: Maybe I can add something: For me, the first part of accessibility was also for myself even, to start being familiar with, how to use a server, how to get there and how to do stuff there and not look at it as a black box that I cannot touch because I'm afraid. So by trying to bring people that are not experts or not technologists into collectives in which people can help each other in educating themselves so they feel more emancipated to use not only commercial tools, but also their own or open source ones. For the future what I'm currently thinking of is that I would like things that we do on the server, like maybe a website or a wiki or whatever to be more inclusive to people with disabilities, for example. What I see now when it comes to that is that colours could be too much for some people to read, or <we could develop tools like> some functions for people who cannot hear and who would really like it to learn more about technology can use. <br />
<br /><br />
FSS: So I agree with everything that has been said and the different layers of accessibility. I am interested in understanding accessibility as something that too is about how we make our tools and services and contents more accessible to Deaf and disabled people. And also to people who don't speak Spanish and English. Then again, in general how contents and services can be made more known and accessible to short term collectivities and individuals. I’m also interested in how you can enable a lower threshold for feminist collectives to engage in and maintain their own technical infrastructures.<br />
<br /><br />
''MELT: Thank you so much for these answers and also these very varied and different considerations of access. In relation to infrastructure, tech and language, and of course, disability. Yeah, I think we are both excited to continue working on that together. The next question is about speculative dreaming: What future perspectives for the feminist server do you wish or dream of?''<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: I dream that our feminist server continues to be a meeting point and space for feminist peers that will help us to evolve and collaborate and work together. And I'm also thinking about local feminist groups here in Rotterdam where I now live, but also back in Athens, where I come from. And I know that there is a need [for feminist servers] there. I hope that they can benefit from the existence of servers like ?Femserver ?, especially towards helping to a future of more technological autonomy. Probably that cannot be completed, but at least to try to be less dependent on giant tech corporations for their communication or for publishing our works or our struggles or things that we need to communicate with the world, um, and interconnect with other feminist groups out there. So I hope that the feminist servers can help that perspective.<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: I totally agree, and I find it so beautiful how we use tools as always a means to an end. I don't think anyone of us glorifies them and it's like: [making a] server is the end game. No, it's about using [a server] to learn together and to hang out and communicate. So I think that's very beautiful. I'm from Georgia and I didn't have anyone to talk about any of those things around me. That's how I actually ended up here. And this is already my dream scenario come to life. So now I'm trying to reconnect with people who are not so technical, but we are already starting to have something local in Georgia as well. So yeah, it's kind of that's what feminist servers are to me.<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I agree with Estragon and I would like to give a more pragmatic and nuanced [view] on this thing. I would say that the cooperative model here would be one of my dreams for the feminist servers we have. And that it can include a membership fee so we can make our services more sustainable because from the past experience, and we've seen that the only way of giving time, it works well for learning and things like that, but then it's very difficult to host services for other artists and feminists that we would like to have. So a more concrete approach to the dream of the future for the life of our servers.<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: What I observe right now is that the critique of big tech companies is high but the awareness that there is an alternative way way to use technology is very invisible so far. And that's a lot of work to speak up for that and to make it shown. So that would be some vision of mine to not look at faces of complete disbelief when talking about having our own server.<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: I would like more people and collectives engaged in setting up feminist servers and in general feminist infrastructure initiatives. I would be interested in more local gynecological considerations embedded inside the set up of future feminist servers. Dreaming, creating data centers made for and by feminist servers. And coordination between different feminist servers to avoid reinventing the wheel or to enable supporting each other in knowledge and solidarity processes. To share resources and funding, to share common technical infrastructure or by having people that have specific skills and knowledge that can contribute to different service initiatives. And finally, my big dream is one day to have feminist servers that then orientate towards providing services to communities that are facing strong gender based violence online and censorship in digital spaces [such as] pro-choice activists, post porno and sex workers. So that's a long term projection, but I would like that we can manage to go there one day.<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: The idea of more sysadmins people who join us in the backend! [People] not just there for the services, who learn with us and try to engage with the technology and the machines which are surrounding us waiting to be engaged. Sysadmins unite (!) to break the isolation and the local isolation of having that awareness.<br />
<br /><br />
''MELT: Maybe it's nice to continue because our project also works with trans* feminism and Disability Justice, and I love the ways in which the trans*feminist, THF, trans hack feminism becomes a shared user in the access server page. But also, I think that there's a specific understanding of trans*feminism that you seem to be working with because it comes up again many times on the Anarchaserver page. What does it mean to you to serve trans*feminism in this project? I think it's also related to a lot of the dreams that you just shared. Would you want to say something more about trans*feminism specifically?'' <br />
<br /><br />
FSS: I'm still a little bit like scared about this fact of serving and hosting. And it's like, I feel like by inhabiting these servers and then also maintaining and configuring the affective infrastructures in which we are moving that we are trans* hack feminists. And it's [about] these kinds of spaces. It's not serving. It's, you know, like fluid. It's like good. It's like you are feeling the practices of technology. It's like configuring together. It's yeah, it's more like an actualization of trans* hack feminism than than this kind of serving. And I get a little bit lost in it. But like it has a history, also. Also, the trans* hack feminism, it was a reaction in the electic tech carnival (https://eclectictechcarnival.org/) to open specific identity politics and women-only-spaces up to trans* people. And then the reaction came. But I guess spideralex and Sophie were involved in redefining the trans* feminist as, uh, a convergence in Calafou. So maybe she can say something more about that.<br />
<br /><br />
''MELT: I would also be super curious to hear what it means to have come from a cis-woman only space and going through the process of opening that up to trans* people.<br />
''<br />
FSS: So I try to put here just a little definition that we created for the feminist museum about trans* hack feminism. Hmm. So we have to define it like: The Mummy is a museum of the future taking place in the 22nd century. It's a museum about sexism that has disappeared. And so we make a curation with Anamou, which is a sys adnim of Anarchaserver that organised the trans* hack feminist convergence in Mexico. We try to collect seven different artistic pieces. I have been in a collective in Spain that is called Donestech (https://www.donestech.net/) in Catalan that was created in 2007. At that moment, there was no other collective that was working on the relation between gender and technologies and free software technologies. But I think that the paradigm of inclusion of women in digital tech related spaces was needed, no? But it's very 90s, no? [We became more] trans* feminist in our politics, in our feminist politics. We made an event where we would meet together, [and you had to be] open to trans* feminism. So that's why it was called trans hack feminism and because it was organized not only by me and Sophie Toupin, but also by the people of the XXX which was a space in Calafou and Pulido who were trans feminist. It appeared in 2008 in Spain, in the feminist conference in Granada.<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: Yes, I would like to elaborate a bit more on what ooooo mentioned a little bit of the story of events because we are based in different locations within Europe. So we have these events maybe for a year or maybe two to meet. Well, I admit I haven't been at that many. I've been in the last one, it was an organized in Greece where I am based. The one before was in Italy, and the one before Italy was called Trans Hack Feminism in Calafou. And because I organized it, the question of who can join this event came up because every time as time passes as spideralex mentioned feminism itself changes, and it's always this question of who can join our event? And again, for example, the last, let's say a firewall, is cis men. Can cis men join our events? So this is the base of the conversation as we try to provide safe spaces and for those who are marginalized, within technology and its environments. But I would say it's an open question, and it always depends on the locality of the event. And on those organizing it. Of course, we all have our own idea and praxis of feminism.<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: To me it was also new, I was not sure what that trans* referred to, because in the German speaking context [people] were talking maybe of queer feminism. So I was curious to also learn [about trans* feminism as] a part of the struggle against a current of feminism that in some places is stronger than others, and that is about the exclusion of trans* people and non-binary. And so that was one aspect that I find interesting to learn, and I find its good to call it trans* feminism to make it explicit.<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, and important because at a certain moment, there was really a confusion for me because I was at the CCC (Chaos Computer Congres) and there was a trans hack meeting. So I joined into the meeting because it was about the organization of the next festival. But actually, it was about trans nationality. So it was more like focusing on Spain and Italy. They have like trans hack meetings, but it's actually transnational meetings.<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: So we have hack meetings. Yeah, when we make it across different countries it becomes a trans hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, sure. But it's interesting that the one refers to like identity politics in relation to gender, it seems. And the other, of course not. It's much wider also about your national identity. But it is confusing, or it is also how the term can be hacked so that that gets certain meanings by actually also using it. <br />
<br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, it was confusing. And then the confusion was pretty interesting. We only had two trans hack meetings in the history of trans hack meetings in Europe. One in Poland and the other one was three years ago, four years ago in Danack and there some people thought it was a trans* hack meeting, but it was pretty cool because this way we had more queer people around. Yeah, it wasn't that easy. It was like: No, no, this is not the trans* hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: And actually, there was one recently in Bologna that also had a sysadmin of syster server involved. It was also called like that. That's nice. So yeah, it's a somehow yeah, it's hacked then. But yeah, it's not so nice if you're then there and it's a quite cis-normative environment because that's not that the safer space that you went there for. This is not a trans* hack meeting this is a trans hack meeting.<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: During THF, the question was also: what is now the most important term in it? Is trans*? is it hack? is it feminism? Can feminism be hacked, can feminism be trans*? Can hack be transed? Can you trans* hack? It's like, you know, it was like circulating inside of the dependencies within these three terminologies.<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: In the pad, I have shared the link to the documentation of that session. So maybe then you can dig more in. It wasn't so many people that say they're interested, in trans*feminism. But the trans terminology, about transitioning, about transition, about all the links that it could have with immigration with transformation, with even of politics, you know, and so on, so on, so on. So yeah, I think we can put it in different layers and for sure, at least when it was set up in Calafou in 2017 the first layer was about trans*feminist politics.<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: Yeah, just to add, sometimes when you encounter a term for first time, you make a conclusion depending on your background and your identity, etc. So of course, when our services uses terms it feels important and to give a description of them: what does this term contain? It's also very important that when we do things that we are open about it, the terminology we're using what does refer to and why it is constructed like that? And it is important because it changes very quickly, in all this researches of all that is happening in migration realities to multi species studies and keeping in mind always intersectionality they all add up in the end in the concept of creating safe spaces. So I think this is something to consider when we use terms, how we came up with and why we came up with the terms we use.<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: And it was really important that people do a bit of research and find their own history in this terminology, you know. It's also by the people inhabiting or by the people embodying that it becomes and not only by a definition. I mean, it's ever changing also.<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: I agree in the sense I think that Anarchaserver is one of the first pages including the THF and all the documentation, and I feel very complicated to give a straightforward definition. And now we are trying to make access to the documentation that has been created around that concept. Now we are trying to clarify, to know, a definition of our internet politics and gender and diversity and so on, which is the text that we are trying to set up about Anarchaserver. But for Trans Hack Feminism convergences, I would find it very difficult to give a straightforward definition and an explicit one.<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: It's not about giving you straightforward definition. They can be, as you said, you link to a document that as you said gives a story of how this happened.<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: Mm-Hmm. Yeah, that's all there.<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: Maybe we have to create expiration dates on our Wiki pages. If we don't visit them in certain time becomes too old and it becomes a reference without being actual. <br />
<br /><br />
FSS: But I've seen this, coming up when we organize events and you know, we have to do open calls and these things are always reconfiguring. Hacking with THF helps to hack patriarchy, capitalism and other systems of oppression. Hacking refers to the act of doing and taking things apart, understanding them in a deeper way. Hacking is action performance. <br />
<br /><br />
''MELT: So one last question is how do you define in your group the terms server and the relations between service and clients because we also read in your manifesto and that your project is about re configuring these relations? So it's a question that maybe speaks to like literally the server, but maybe also metaphorically the serving of values or the working together for the making of space.<br />
''<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: For me, the server is like a space, like a room. It's not only a machine, but we can go into it because usually we meet, especially if we live in other places, we meet on the server. It's our meeting point like instead of going to a cafe, we meet in the terminal. So while we’re in the terminal we try to help each other, educate ourselves and spend time together. So it's a connecting room that we can go in and work together in. And about the ‘server’ ‘client’, I really don't like the word client in general, but I know the technical term. I just don't see it translating in a social way for us inside the feminist server constellations because it is more of a corporate thing. Other people have said its more like inhabiting the servers instead of serving. So its not only that the server serves, and the other is a transmitter it becomes an interchangeable role that you also receive at the same time instead of only offering the other side. I would like more that we do both.<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: We have a lot of humor in the poetics, and really intense reflections and critical thinking about the terminology, which is used inside of these machines. Common are terms like master/slave. Server/client. So there is really critical thinking about it and also to approach it differently, fail/success. And you can say, OK, yeah, we have failed but try to say, oh, we have some data somewhere, we can reconstruct this. So we often deconstruct this language and appropriate it in a way that is closer to our identity and our politics. <br />
<br /><br />
FSS: I'm looking at some of the histories of feminist servers. I saw two approaches that I really like one that was from 2013 was when they twisted the language at the feminist server summit that was held on the question of a feminist server into: Are you being served? And I really like that because it fits my my understanding of feminism as talking about the embodied experience of not being served in certain contexts. And the other one is from the fall, the ‘From Skin to Steel Manifesto’ that must have come from to Brazil. They start their manifesto by claiming that we are all already and thinking about, body experience as serving. And that's very close to what I would call care practices. So where where are the lines between serving and caring? It's really a very radical political claim to look for things about who is being served and it is close to this question of who has access and who can participate.<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: Even though we do things all the time we never say server/client. If we want to be fair to what convention you need for the client, even the commercial thinking, we use the word interface and allies with the collaboration when we want to talk about the people who would like to do things with our servers and interfaces can apply. Apply both to the look of the of the websites, but also how we communicate to the people outside our internal group. So we don't refer to the client almost at all.<br />
<br /><br />
''MELT: But then as a tiny, technical follow up question, how do you technically reconfigure these relations?''<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: It's like another network topology, peer to peer. So technically there are protocols which are allowing that, but we're not there yet. But for example, what we also tried to do with the feminist server is to have distributed services that not each server has the same, services that we are using. One has the ether pads, another has other things.<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: So its not really changing the server client, but like it's more like making a redistributed model of dependency. <br />
<br /><br />
FSS: One of the points that THF articulated is that of autonomy where with having a Feminist server: you choose your dependencies.<br />
<br /><br />
FSS: I would like to ask MELT something, so you are also working on server access? Access Server? Is it still server access the project you are working on?<br />
<br /><br />
''MELT: It's called Access Server, the project.'' <br />
<br /><br />
FSS: I wondered, maybe its too quick to digest what we said so far. But still, I wondered what you thought about the convergences between the thoughts between your Access Server project and what we have been discussing so far?<br />
<br /><br />
''MELT: Hm, yeah so part of the ACCESS SERVER project is that we're technically trying to understand how it can work so that when people email institutions asking for accessibility, the email will cc the previous email with access requests to the same institution. So we're trying to technically create a collectivity so that disabled people emailing understand see that they're not the only ones that are emailing to any institution. So emailers have the sense that, oh, many other people have emailed as well. So I think that this relates to how you’re talking about technical collectivity and trying to share resources and offer other options for points of connection. This is still a technical question. We're not exactly sure how to do it yet and also to maintain people's privacy at the same time. So there's a few questions there behind that. But I think that this is the desire to understand the technically active collective body that is emailing with access requests. <br />
<br /><br />
MELT: When listening to you. I think notions of care and trust is where I feel a lot of shared questions and maybe sometimes struggles or figurings out. And also in these relations between how to reach out and work with other people with an infrastructure that we provide. Because the idea is really that other disabled people can use the email server and the website that comes with it. So there are also questions of how to even make the website accessible. There are guidelines around that, we have some knowledge around that. But then also how to reach out, also across other axes of discrimination and oppression. How to build that trust also. And also technically then if someone sends an email through our email server how can we make sure that their name is anonymous, for example, the IP address, etc. So that's a lot of questions that still seem also hard to ensure safety. Then also, we skipped the question on trolling and how to carry the risk of providing, feminist and accessible services. That's also a big one for us still to figure out. How can we, I think we can’t prevent people from abusing our service, but how can we even make sure that it doesn't affect more people? And maybe also it doesn't affect us too much. So all of these questions, I think, are quite related.<br />
<br /><br />
MELT: Also, when you were speaking, something that also came to mind is that I think that the idea of the access server, constantly reminds us of the world that we live in where ableism is so structural. And this is the kind of reality that we're posited against. I'm also curious to see how how we can get people interested in using it, because also even when people are paid for their labour and even when they write emails to institutions, institutions themselves have so much work to do to change. And so I think that that is also a similar condition that you're working with with the feminist server projects where you're publicizing. We're trying to make more visible, so to speak, that there are alternatives, other ways of doing things that do not conform to ableism and capitalism as discriminatory and oppressive standards. Our project approach institutions and requires them to change. And that's also what you're doing. I think what the feminist server project is like trying to provide an alternative to show that a change is possible. <br />
''</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Interview_Meltionary&diff=1439Interview Meltionary2022-11-16T16:24:22Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div>FSS - Feminst server Sysadmins<br />
MELT - Meltionary<br />
<br />
<big>'''Could you walk us through the ways Access Server is used?'''</big><br />
''<br />
MELT: The first thing that piqued our interest was the sub page Access Server, because it has the same title as our project. Could you walk us through the ways in which that page is used? Who uses it? What are the steps to follow and what happens if something doesn't work? We are also interested in the kinds of conversations you perhaps already had among your group to set up the page.''<br />
<br />
FSS: <br />
When searching for an answer to this question, we had a very technical way of looking at it. The page is from a wiki that we installed. We have this helpful "history button" function because it's a collaborative writing tool, like versioning. So what we actually did yesterday is hit the history button to try to find the history of that specific page because it also has a timestamp, and it also sees the user who was actually creating this page. So we found that the user was THF and that there was three other users: ooooo, b04 and ezn. They were also contributing to the the technical appearance of this page. The THF user refers to ‘trans hack feminism’, which was a convergence organized in Calafou. It’s a user we created. So it's not very clear who made that page, but it is made in that convergence, so there were people sitting around the table and making it. Do you want to contextualize the THF user spideralex? Or the trans hack feminist convergence?<br />
<br />
FSS: <br />
So the THF user was created around the first trans hack feminist conference in 2013. It was a shared user of the different people that have been documenting the different sessions that were held at this first event of one week. We have been sharing <the user> to document basically the different conversations. And then the wiki has remained as a space where different trans hack feminist events could document what they did. When we document feminist servers in general and when we document the Anarchaserver with specific work.<br />
<br />
FSS: <br />
More on the technical side – this was the first thing I did when I joined Anarchaserver. As spideralex said, the documentations of different projects kept going on. So there were two similar server set up documentations. The first thing I did was to merge and update them. But also, we had this conversation with ooooo that it would be nice if someone actually uses it. Yeah, it's a bit when you are technical and like, really, really doing it, sometimes it's nice if someone else has a look because you know what you're doing. And I also did the styling of the page and then I did the overall styling of Media Wiki, and I wanted for it to be a bit more welcoming than a default page. <br />
<br />
ooooo:<br />
And I think also as it is a wiki, it would be nice now that you <MELT> are in residence for the Fair New Idea project, we would welcome your visions on accessibility. It would be an invitation, of course, that you could also become an active intervener or would change and modify and add to the content of that page to maybe broaden up this idea of what access to the server is. Besides from its technical perspective of how to exchange SSH keys (secure shell) and make user modifications.<br />
<br />
'''<big>How do you think about accessibility?</big>''' <br />
<br />
''MELT: It is very interesting to hear from everyone about what kind of accessibility you think with! I hear a lot about collaborations that produce the wiki with you as a way to literally access the server. And I also understand that it is also a kind of accessibility to make the server accessible by documenting how to use it. But I'm curious what it would mean for you to make the server disability accessible? How do you think about accessibility? What does that mean in your project? Do you have some thoughts on that?''<br />
<br />
FSS: I can start with this question. So. Accessibility, yeah, it's a concern. Accessibility in terms of who can work and make use of our services that we host. And at the moment it‘s mostly people who are part of the collective and with this project. A Fair New Idea was also for us a way to try to reach out and to try to see how we could host people besides our internal network. So that's why we invited you for a residency. So anyway, it was an opportunity to reach out to first artists and of course, we'll see how it will go. But since most of are artists and at the same time we have technical knowledge and we would like to share basic cohabitation with artists who can learn to work outside very commercial, centralized online tools. So that's one path of accessibility. So then there's the accessibility of who can join in our networks because sometimes the activism is something that not everybody can afford, because most of the times that we volunteer on a project. So having available resources, even if it's minimal for people to do things, with our servers is a very important accessibility factor. And then it comes, of course, accessibility of our user interfaces who can actually read and learn and from the content we host on our servers.<br />
<br />
FSS: Maybe I can add something: For me, the first part of accessibility was also for myself even, to start being familiar with, how to use a server, how to get there and how to do stuff there and not look at it as a black box that I cannot touch because I'm afraid. So by trying to bring people that are not experts or not technologists into collectives in which people can help each other in educating themselves so they feel more emancipated to use not only commercial tools, but also their own or open source ones. For the future what I'm currently thinking of is that I would like things that we do on the server, like maybe a website or a wiki or whatever to be more inclusive to people with disabilities, for example. What I see now when it comes to that is that colours could be too much for some people to read, or <we could develop tools like> some functions for people who cannot hear and who would really like it to learn more about technology can use. <br />
<br />
FSS: So I agree with everything that has been said and the different layers of accessibility. I am interested in understanding accessibility as something that too is about how we make our tools and services and contents more accessible to Deaf and disabled people. And also to people who don't speak Spanish and English. Then again, in general how contents and services can be made more known and accessible to short term collectivities and individuals. I’m also interested in how you can enable a lower threshold for feminist collectives to engage in and maintain their own technical infrastructures.<br />
<br />
''MELT: Thank you so much for these answers and also these very varied and different considerations of access. In relation to infrastructure, tech and language, and of course, disability. Yeah, I think we are both excited to continue working on that together. The next question is about speculative dreaming: What future perspectives for the feminist server do you wish or dream of?''<br />
<br />
FSS: I dream that our feminist server continues to be a meeting point and space for feminist peers that will help us to evolve and collaborate and work together. And I'm also thinking about local feminist groups here in Rotterdam where I now live, but also back in Athens, where I come from. And I know that there is a need [for feminist servers] there. I hope that they can benefit from the existence of servers like ?Femserver ?, especially towards helping to a future of more technological autonomy. Probably that cannot be completed, but at least to try to be less dependent on giant tech corporations for their communication or for publishing our works or our struggles or things that we need to communicate with the world, um, and interconnect with other feminist groups out there. So I hope that the feminist servers can help that perspective.<br />
<br />
FSS: I totally agree, and I find it so beautiful how we use tools as always a means to an end. I don't think anyone of us glorifies them and it's like: [making a] server is the end game. No, it's about using [a server] to learn together and to hang out and communicate. So I think that's very beautiful. I'm from Georgia and I didn't have anyone to talk about any of those things around me. That's how I actually ended up here. And this is already my dream scenario come to life. So now I'm trying to reconnect with people who are not so technical, but we are already starting to have something local in Georgia as well. So yeah, it's kind of that's what feminist servers are to me.<br />
<br />
FSS: Yes, I agree with Estragon and I would like to give a more pragmatic and nuanced [view] on this thing. I would say that the cooperative model here would be one of my dreams for the feminist servers we have. And that it can include a membership fee so we can make our services more sustainable because from the past experience, and we've seen that the only way of giving time, it works well for learning and things like that, but then it's very difficult to host services for other artists and feminists that we would like to have. So a more concrete approach to the dream of the future for the life of our servers.<br />
<br />
FSS: What I observe right now is that the critique of big tech companies is high but the awareness that there is an alternative way way to use technology is very invisible so far. And that's a lot of work to speak up for that and to make it shown. So that would be some vision of mine to not look at faces of complete disbelief when talking about having our own server.<br />
<br />
FSS: I would like more people and collectives engaged in setting up feminist servers and in general feminist infrastructure initiatives. I would be interested in more local gynecological considerations embedded inside the set up of future feminist servers. Dreaming, creating data centers made for and by feminist servers. And coordination between different feminist servers to avoid reinventing the wheel or to enable supporting each other in knowledge and solidarity processes. To share resources and funding, to share common technical infrastructure or by having people that have specific skills and knowledge that can contribute to different service initiatives. And finally, my big dream is one day to have feminist servers that then orientate towards providing services to communities that are facing strong gender based violence online and censorship in digital spaces [such as] pro-choice activists, post porno and sex workers. So that's a long term projection, but I would like that we can manage to go there one day.<br />
<br />
FSS: The idea of more sysadmins people who join us in the backend! [People] not just there for the services, who learn with us and try to engage with the technology and the machines which are surrounding us waiting to be engaged. Sysadmins unite (!) to break the isolation and the local isolation of having that awareness.<br />
<br />
''MELT: Maybe it's nice to continue because our project also works with trans* feminism and Disability Justice, and I love the ways in which the trans*feminist, THF, trans hack feminism becomes a shared user in the access server page. But also, I think that there's a specific understanding of trans*feminism that you seem to be working with because it comes up again many times on the Anarchaserver page. What does it mean to you to serve trans*feminism in this project? I think it's also related to a lot of the dreams that you just shared. Would you want to say something more about trans*feminism specifically?'' <br />
<br />
FSS: I'm still a little bit like scared about this fact of serving and hosting. And it's like, I feel like by inhabiting these servers and then also maintaining and configuring the affective infrastructures in which we are moving that we are trans* hack feminists. And it's [about] these kinds of spaces. It's not serving. It's, you know, like fluid. It's like good. It's like you are feeling the practices of technology. It's like configuring together. It's yeah, it's more like an actualization of trans* hack feminism than than this kind of serving. And I get a little bit lost in it. But like it has a history, also. Also, the trans* hack feminism, it was a reaction in the electic tech carnival (https://eclectictechcarnival.org/) to open specific identity politics and women-only-spaces up to trans* people. And then the reaction came. But I guess spideralex and Sophie were involved in redefining the trans* feminist as, uh, a convergence in Calafou. So maybe she can say something more about that.<br />
<br />
''MELT: I would also be super curious to hear what it means to have come from a cis-woman only space and going through the process of opening that up to trans* people.<br />
''<br />
FSS: So I try to put here just a little definition that we created for the feminist museum about trans* hack feminism. Hmm. So we have to define it like: The Mummy is a museum of the future taking place in the 22nd century. It's a museum about sexism that has disappeared. And so we make a curation with Anamou, which is a sys adnim of Anarchaserver that organised the trans* hack feminist convergence in Mexico. We try to collect seven different artistic pieces. I have been in a collective in Spain that is called Donestech (https://www.donestech.net/) in Catalan that was created in 2007. At that moment, there was no other collective that was working on the relation between gender and technologies and free software technologies. But I think that the paradigm of inclusion of women in digital tech related spaces was needed, no? But it's very 90s, no? [We became more] trans* feminist in our politics, in our feminist politics. We made an event where we would meet together, [and you had to be] open to trans* feminism. So that's why it was called trans hack feminism and because it was organized not only by me and Sophie Toupin, but also by the people of the XXX which was a space in Calafou and Pulido who were trans feminist. It appeared in 2008 in Spain, in the feminist conference in Granada.<br />
<br />
FSS: Yes, I would like to elaborate a bit more on what ooooo mentioned a little bit of the story of events because we are based in different locations within Europe. So we have these events maybe for a year or maybe two to meet. Well, I admit I haven't been at that many. I've been in the last one, it was an organized in Greece where I am based. The one before was in Italy, and the one before Italy was called Trans Hack Feminism in Calafou. And because I organized it, the question of who can join this event came up because every time as time passes as spideralex mentioned feminism itself changes, and it's always this question of who can join our event? And again, for example, the last, let's say a firewall, is cis men. Can cis men join our events? So this is the base of the conversation as we try to provide safe spaces and for those who are marginalized, within technology and its environments. But I would say it's an open question, and it always depends on the locality of the event. And on those organizing it. Of course, we all have our own idea and praxis of feminism.<br />
<br />
FSS: To me it was also new, I was not sure what that trans* referred to, because in the German speaking context [people] were talking maybe of queer feminism. So I was curious to also learn [about trans* feminism as] a part of the struggle against a current of feminism that in some places is stronger than others, and that is about the exclusion of trans* people and non-binary. And so that was one aspect that I find interesting to learn, and I find its good to call it trans* feminism to make it explicit.<br />
<br />
FSS: Yeah, and important because at a certain moment, there was really a confusion for me because I was at the CCC (Chaos Computer Congres) and there was a trans hack meeting. So I joined into the meeting because it was about the organization of the next festival. But actually, it was about trans nationality. So it was more like focusing on Spain and Italy. They have like trans hack meetings, but it's actually transnational meetings.<br />
<br />
FSS: So we have hack meetings. Yeah, when we make it across different countries it becomes a trans hack meeting.<br />
<br />
FSS: Yeah, sure. But it's interesting that the one refers to like identity politics in relation to gender, it seems. And the other, of course not. It's much wider also about your national identity. But it is confusing, or it is also how the term can be hacked so that that gets certain meanings by actually also using it. <br />
<br />
FSS: Yeah, it was confusing. And then the confusion was pretty interesting. We only had two trans hack meetings in the history of trans hack meetings in Europe. One in Poland and the other one was three years ago, four years ago in Danack and there some people thought it was a trans* hack meeting, but it was pretty cool because this way we had more queer people around. Yeah, it wasn't that easy. It was like: No, no, this is not the trans* hack meeting.<br />
<br />
FSS: And actually, there was one recently in Bologna that also had a sysadmin of syster server involved. It was also called like that. That's nice. So yeah, it's a somehow yeah, it's hacked then. But yeah, it's not so nice if you're then there and it's a quite cis-normative environment because that's not that the safer space that you went there for. This is not a trans* hack meeting this is a trans hack meeting.<br />
<br />
FSS: During THF, the question was also: what is now the most important term in it? Is trans*? is it hack? is it feminism? Can feminism be hacked, can feminism be trans*? Can hack be transed? Can you trans* hack? It's like, you know, it was like circulating inside of the dependencies within these three terminologies.<br />
<br />
FSS: In the pad, I have shared the link to the documentation of that session. So maybe then you can dig more in. It wasn't so many people that say they're interested, in trans feminism. But the trans terminology, about transitioning, about transition, about all the links that it could have with immigration with transformation, with even of politics, you know, and so on, so on, so on. So yeah, I think we can put it in different layers and for sure, at least when it was set up in Calafou in 2017 the first layer was about trans feminist politics.<br />
<br />
FSS: Yeah, just to add, sometimes when you encounter a term for first time, you make a conclusion depending on your background and your identity, etc. So of course, when our services uses terms it feels important and to give a description of them: what does this term contain? It's also very important that when we do things that we are open about it, the terminology we're using what does refer to and why it is constructed like that? And it is important because it changes very quickly, in all this researches of all that is happening in migration realities to multi species studies and keeping in mind always intersectionality they all add up in the end in the concept of creating safe spaces. So I think this is something to consider when we use terms, how we came up with and why we came up with the terms we use.<br />
<br />
FSS: And it was really important that people do a bit of research and find their own history in this terminology, you know. It's also by the people inhabiting or by the people embodying that it becomes and not only by a definition. I mean, it's ever changing also.<br />
<br />
FSS: I agree in the sense I think that Anarchaserver is one of the first pages including the THF and all the documentation, and I feel very complicated to give a straightforward definition. And now we are trying to make access to the documentation that has been created around that concept. Now we are trying to clarify, to know, a definition of our internet politics and gender and diversity and so on, which is the text that we are trying to set up about Anarchaserver. But for Trans Hack Feminism convergences, I would find it very difficult to give a straightforward definition and an explicit one.<br />
<br />
FSS: It's not about giving you straightforward definition. They can be, as you said, you link to a document that as you said gives a story of how this happened.<br />
<br />
FSS: Mm-Hmm. Yeah, that's all there.<br />
<br />
FSS: Maybe we have to create expiration dates on our Wiki pages. If we don't visit them in certain time becomes too old and it becomes a reference without being actual. <br />
<br />
FSS: But I've seen this, coming up when we organize events and you know, we have to do open calls and these things are always reconfiguring. Hacking with THF helps to hack patriarchy, capitalism and other systems of oppression. Hacking refers to the act of doing and taking things apart, understanding them in a deeper way. Hacking is action performance. <br />
<br />
''MELT: So one last question is how do you define in your group the terms server and the relations between service and clients because we also read in your manifesto and that your project is about re configuring these relations? So it's a question that maybe speaks to like literally the server, but maybe also metaphorically the serving of values or the working together for the making of space.<br />
''<br />
FSS: For me, the server is like a space, like a room. It's not only a machine, but we can go into it because usually we meet, especially if we live in other places, we meet on the server. It's our meeting point like instead of going to a cafe, we meet in the terminal. So while we’re in the terminal we try to help each other, educate ourselves and spend time together. So it's a connecting room that we can go in and work together in. And about the ‘server’ ‘client’, I really don't like the word client in general, but I know the technical term. I just don't see it translating in a social way for us inside the feminist server constellations because it is more of a corporate thing. Other people have said its more like inhabiting the servers instead of serving. So its not only that the server serves, and the other is a transmitter it becomes an interchangeable role that you also receive at the same time instead of only offering the other side. I would like more that we do both.<br />
<br />
FSS: We have a lot of humor in the poetics, and really intense reflections and critical thinking about the terminology, which is used inside of these machines. Common are terms like master/slave. Server/client. So there is really critical thinking about it and also to approach it differently, fail/success. And you can say, OK, yeah, we have failed but try to say, oh, we have some data somewhere, we can reconstruct this. So we often deconstruct this language and appropriate it in a way that is closer to our identity and our politics. <br />
<br />
FSS: I'm looking at some of the histories of feminist servers. I saw two approaches that I really like one that was from 2013 was when they twisted the language at the feminist server summit that was held on the question of a feminist server into: Are you being served? And I really like that because it fits my my understanding of feminism as talking about the embodied experience of not being served in certain contexts. And the other one is from the fall, the ‘From Skin to Steel Manifesto’ that must have come from to Brazil. They start their manifesto by claiming that we are all already and thinking about, body experience as serving. And that's very close to what I would call care practices. So where where are the lines between serving and caring? It's really a very radical political claim to look for things about who is being served and it is close to this question of who has access and who can participate.<br />
<br />
FSS: Even though we do things all the time we never say server/client. If we want to be fair to what convention you need for the client, even the commercial thinking, we use the word interface and allies with the collaboration when we want to talk about the people who would like to do things with our servers and interfaces can apply. Apply both to the look of the of the websites, but also how we communicate to the people outside our internal group. So we don't refer to the client almost at all.<br />
<br />
''MELT: But then as a tiny, technical follow up question, how do you technically reconfigure these relations?''<br />
<br />
FSS: It's like another network topology, peer to peer. So technically there are protocols which are allowing that, but we're not there yet. But for example, what we also tried to do with the feminist server is to have distributed services that not each server has the same, services that we are using. One has the ether pads, another has other things.<br />
<br />
FSS: So its not really changing the server client, but like it's more like making a redistributed model of dependency. <br />
<br />
FSS: One of the points that THF articulated is that of autonomy where with having a Feminist server: you choose your dependencies.<br />
<br />
FSS: I would like to ask MELT something, so you are also working on server access? Access Server? Is it still server access the project you are working on?<br />
<br />
''MELT: It's called Access Server, the project.'' <br />
<br />
FSS: I wondered, maybe its too quick to digest what we said so far. But still, I wondered what you thought about the convergences between the thoughts between your Access Server project and what we have been discussing so far?<br />
<br />
''MELT: Hm, yeah so part of the ACCESS SERVER project is that we're technically trying to understand how it can work so that when people email institutions asking for accessibility, the email will cc the previous email with access requests to the same institution. So we're trying to technically create a collectivity so that disabled people emailing understand see that they're not the only ones that are emailing to any institution. So emailers have the sense that, oh, many other people have emailed as well. So I think that this relates to how you’re talking about technical collectivity and trying to share resources and offer other options for points of connection. This is still a technical question. We're not exactly sure how to do it yet and also to maintain people's privacy at the same time. So there's a few questions there behind that. But I think that this is the desire to understand the technically active collective body that is emailing with access requests. <br />
<br />
===== MELT: When listening to you. I think notions of care and trust is where I feel a lot of shared questions and maybe sometimes struggles or figurings out. And also in these relations between how to reach out and work with other people with an infrastructure that we provide. Because the idea is really that other disabled people can use the email server and the website that comes with it. So there are also questions of how to even make the website accessible. There are guidelines around that, we have some knowledge around that. But then also how to reach out, also across other axes of discrimination and oppression. How to build that trust also. And also technically then if someone sends an email through our email server how can we make sure that their name is anonymous, for example, the IP address, etc. So that's a lot of questions that still seem also hard to ensure safety. Then also, we skipped the question on trolling and how to carry the risk of providing, feminist and accessible services. That's also a big one for us still to figure out. How can we, I think we can’t prevent people from abusing our service, but how can we even make sure that it doesn't affect more people? And maybe also it doesn't affect us too much. So all of these questions, I think, are quite related.<br />
<br />
MELT: Also, when you were speaking, something that also came to mind is that I think that the idea of the access server, constantly reminds us of the world that we live in where ableism is so structural. And this is the kind of reality that we're posited against. I'm also curious to see how how we can get people interested in using it, because also even when people are paid for their labor and even when they write emails to institutions, institutions themselves have so much work to do to change. And so I think that that is also a similar condition that you're working with with the feminist server projects where you're publicizing. We're trying to make more visible, so to speak, that there are alternatives, other ways of doing things that do not conform to ableism and capitalism as discriminatory and oppressive standards. Our project approach institutions and requires them to change. And that's also what you're doing. I think what the feminist server project is like trying to provide an alternative to show that a change is possible. <br />
''</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Interview_Meltionary&diff=1438Interview Meltionary2022-11-16T16:16:54Z<p>Ooooo: Created page with "FSS - Feminst server Sysadmins MELT - Meltionary === Could you walk us through the ways Access Server is used? === ===== MELT: The first thing that piqued our interest was..."</p>
<hr />
<div>FSS - Feminst server Sysadmins<br />
MELT - Meltionary<br />
<br />
=== Could you walk us through the ways Access Server is used? ===<br />
===== <br />
MELT: The first thing that piqued our interest was the sub page Access Server, because it has the same title as our project. Could you walk us through the ways in which that page is used? Who uses it? What are the steps to follow and what happens if something doesn't work? We are also interested in the kinds of conversations you perhaps already had among your group to set up the page. =====<br />
<br />
FSS: <br />
When searching for an answer to this question, we had a very technical way of looking at it. The page is from a wiki that we installed. We have this helpful "history button" function because it's a collaborative writing tool, like versioning. So what we actually did yesterday is hit the history button to try to find the history of that specific page because it also has a timestamp, and it also sees the user who was actually creating this page. So we found that the user was THF and that there was three other users: ooooo, b04 and ezn. They were also contributing to the the technical appearance of this page. The THF user refers to ‘trans hack feminism’, which was a convergence organized in Calafou. It’s a user we created. So it's not very clear who made that page, but it is made in that convergence, so there were people sitting around the table and making it. Do you want to contextualize the THF user spideralex? Or the trans hack feminist convergence?<br />
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FSS: <br />
So the THF user was created around the first trans hack feminist conference in 2013. It was a shared user of the different people that have been documenting the different sessions that were held at this first event of one week. We have been sharing <the user> to document basically the different conversations. And then the wiki has remained as a space where different trans hack feminist events could document what they did. When we document feminist servers in general and when we document the Anarchaserver with specific work.<br />
<br />
FSS: <br />
More on the technical side – this was the first thing I did when I joined Anarchaserver. As spideralex said, the documentations of different projects kept going on. So there were two similar server set up documentations. The first thing I did was to merge and update them. But also, we had this conversation with ooooo that it would be nice if someone actually uses it. Yeah, it's a bit when you are technical and like, really, really doing it, sometimes it's nice if someone else has a look because you know what you're doing. And I also did the styling of the page and then I did the overall styling of Media Wiki, and I wanted for it to be a bit more welcoming than a default page. <br />
<br />
ooooo:<br />
And I think also as it is a wiki, it would be nice now that you <MELT> are in residence for the Fair New Idea project, we would welcome your visions on accessibility. It would be an invitation, of course, that you could also become an active intervener or would change and modify and add to the content of that page to maybe broaden up this idea of what access to the server is. Besides from its technical perspective of how to exchange SSH keys (secure shell) and make user modifications.<br />
<br />
=== How do you think about accessibility? ===<br />
===== MELT: It is very interesting to hear from everyone about what kind of accessibility you think with! I hear a lot about collaborations that produce the wiki with you as a way to literally access the server. And I also understand that it is also a kind of accessibility to make the server accessible by documenting how to use it. But I'm curious what it would mean for you to make the server disability accessible? How do you think about accessibility? What does that mean in your project? Do you have some thoughts on that?<br />
=====<br />
FSS: I can start with this question. So. Accessibility, yeah, it's a concern. Accessibility in terms of who can work and make use of our services that we host. And at the moment it‘s mostly people who are part of the collective and with this project. A Fair New Idea was also for us a way to try to reach out and to try to see how we could host people besides our internal network. So that's why we invited you for a residency. So anyway, it was an opportunity to reach out to first artists and of course, we'll see how it will go. But since most of are artists and at the same time we have technical knowledge and we would like to share basic cohabitation with artists who can learn to work outside very commercial, centralized online tools. So that's one path of accessibility. So then there's the accessibility of who can join in our networks because sometimes the activism is something that not everybody can afford, because most of the times that we volunteer on a project. So having available resources, even if it's minimal for people to do things, with our servers is a very important accessibility factor. And then it comes, of course, accessibility of our user interfaces who can actually read and learn and from the content we host on our servers.<br />
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FSS: Maybe I can add something: For me, the first part of accessibility was also for myself even, to start being familiar with, how to use a server, how to get there and how to do stuff there and not look at it as a black box that I cannot touch because I'm afraid. So by trying to bring people that are not experts or not technologists into collectives in which people can help each other in educating themselves so they feel more emancipated to use not only commercial tools, but also their own or open source ones. For the future what I'm currently thinking of is that I would like things that we do on the server, like maybe a website or a wiki or whatever to be more inclusive to people with disabilities, for example. What I see now when it comes to that is that colours could be too much for some people to read, or <we could develop tools like> some functions for people who cannot hear and who would really like it to learn more about technology can use. <br />
<br />
FSS: So I agree with everything that has been said and the different layers of accessibility. I am interested in understanding accessibility as something that too is about how we make our tools and services and contents more accessible to Deaf and disabled people. And also to people who don't speak Spanish and English. Then again, in general how contents and services can be made more known and accessible to short term collectivities and individuals. I’m also interested in how you can enable a lower threshold for feminist collectives to engage in and maintain their own technical infrastructures.<br />
<br />
===== MELT: Thank you so much for these answers and also these very varied and different considerations of access. In relation to infrastructure, tech and language, and of course, disability. Yeah, I think we are both excited to continue working on that together. The next question is about speculative dreaming: What future perspectives for the feminist server do you wish or dream of?<br />
=====<br />
FSS: I dream that our feminist server continues to be a meeting point and space for feminist peers that will help us to evolve and collaborate and work together. And I'm also thinking about local feminist groups here in Rotterdam where I now live, but also back in Athens, where I come from. And I know that there is a need [for feminist servers] there. I hope that they can benefit from the existence of servers like ?Femserver ?, especially towards helping to a future of more technological autonomy. Probably that cannot be completed, but at least to try to be less dependent on giant tech corporations for their communication or for publishing our works or our struggles or things that we need to communicate with the world, um, and interconnect with other feminist groups out there. So I hope that the feminist servers can help that perspective.<br />
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FSS: I totally agree, and I find it so beautiful how we use tools as always a means to an end. I don't think anyone of us glorifies them and it's like: [making a] server is the end game. No, it's about using [a server] to learn together and to hang out and communicate. So I think that's very beautiful. I'm from Georgia and I didn't have anyone to talk about any of those things around me. That's how I actually ended up here. And this is already my dream scenario come to life. So now I'm trying to reconnect with people who are not so technical, but we are already starting to have something local in Georgia as well. So yeah, it's kind of that's what feminist servers are to me.<br />
<br />
FSS: Yes, I agree with Estragon and I would like to give a more pragmatic and nuanced [view] on this thing. I would say that the cooperative model here would be one of my dreams for the feminist servers we have. And that it can include a membership fee so we can make our services more sustainable because from the past experience, and we've seen that the only way of giving time, it works well for learning and things like that, but then it's very difficult to host services for other artists and feminists that we would like to have. So a more concrete approach to the dream of the future for the life of our servers.<br />
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FSS: What I observe right now is that the critique of big tech companies is high but the awareness that there is an alternative way way to use technology is very invisible so far. And that's a lot of work to speak up for that and to make it shown. So that would be some vision of mine to not look at faces of complete disbelief when talking about having our own server.<br />
<br />
FSS: I would like more people and collectives engaged in setting up feminist servers and in general feminist infrastructure initiatives. I would be interested in more local gynecological considerations embedded inside the set up of future feminist servers. Dreaming, creating data centers made for and by feminist servers. And coordination between different feminist servers to avoid reinventing the wheel or to enable supporting each other in knowledge and solidarity processes. To share resources and funding, to share common technical infrastructure or by having people that have specific skills and knowledge that can contribute to different service initiatives. And finally, my big dream is one day to have feminist servers that then orientate towards providing services to communities that are facing strong gender based violence online and censorship in digital spaces [such as] pro-choice activists, post porno and sex workers. So that's a long term projection, but I would like that we can manage to go there one day.<br />
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FSS: The idea of more sysadmins people who join us in the backend! [People] not just there for the services, who learn with us and try to engage with the technology and the machines which are surrounding us waiting to be engaged. Sysadmins unite (!) to break the isolation and the local isolation of having that awareness.<br />
===== <br />
MELT: Maybe it's nice to continue because our project also works with trans* feminism and Disability Justice, and I love the ways in which the trans*feminist, THF, trans hack feminism becomes a shared user in the access server page. But also, I think that there's a specific understanding of trans*feminism that you seem to be working with because it comes up again many times on the Anarchaserver page. What does it mean to you to serve trans*feminism in this project? I think it's also related to a lot of the dreams that you just shared. Would you want to say something more about trans*feminism specifically? =====<br />
<br />
FSS: I'm still a little bit like scared about this fact of serving and hosting. And it's like, I feel like by inhabiting these servers and then also maintaining and configuring the affective infrastructures in which we are moving that we are trans* hack feminists. And it's [about] these kinds of spaces. It's not serving. It's, you know, like fluid. It's like good. It's like you are feeling the practices of technology. It's like configuring together. It's yeah, it's more like an actualization of trans* hack feminism than than this kind of serving. And I get a little bit lost in it. But like it has a history, also. Also, the trans* hack feminism, it was a reaction in the electic tech carnival (https://eclectictechcarnival.org/) to open specific identity politics and women-only-spaces up to trans* people. And then the reaction came. But I guess spideralex and Sophie were involved in redefining the trans* feminist as, uh, a convergence in Calafou. So maybe she can say something more about that.<br />
===== <br />
MELT: I would also be super curious to hear what it means to have come from a cis-woman only space and going through the process of opening that up to trans* people.<br />
=====<br />
FSS: So I try to put here just a little definition that we created for the feminist museum about trans* hack feminism. Hmm. So we have to define it like: The Mummy is a museum of the future taking place in the 22nd century. It's a museum about sexism that has disappeared. And so we make a curation with Anamou, which is a sys adnim of Anarchaserver that organised the trans* hack feminist convergence in Mexico. We try to collect seven different artistic pieces. I have been in a collective in Spain that is called Donestech (https://www.donestech.net/) in Catalan that was created in 2007. At that moment, there was no other collective that was working on the relation between gender and technologies and free software technologies. But I think that the paradigm of inclusion of women in digital tech related spaces was needed, no? But it's very 90s, no? [We became more] trans* feminist in our politics, in our feminist politics. We made an event where we would meet together, [and you had to be] open to trans* feminism. So that's why it was called trans hack feminism and because it was organized not only by me and Sophie Toupin, but also by the people of the XXX which was a space in Calafou and Pulido who were trans feminist. It appeared in 2008 in Spain, in the feminist conference in Granada.<br />
<br />
FSC: Yes, I would like to elaborate a bit more on what ooooo mentioned a little bit of the story of events because we are based in different locations within Europe. So we have these events maybe for a year or maybe two to meet. Well, I admit I haven't been at that many. I've been in the last one, it was an organized in Greece where I am based. The one before was in Italy, and the one before Italy was called Trans Hack Feminism in Calafou. And because I organized it, the question of who can join this event came up because every time as time passes as spideralex mentioned feminism itself changes, and it's always this question of who can join our event? And again, for example, the last, let's say a firewall, is cis men. Can cis men join our events? So this is the base of the conversation as we try to provide safe spaces and for those who are marginalized, within technology and its environments. But I would say it's an open question, and it always depends on the locality of the event. And on those organizing it. Of course, we all have our own idea and praxis of feminism.<br />
<br />
FSS: To me it was also new, I was not sure what that trans* referred to, because in the German speaking context [people] were talking maybe of queer feminism. So I was curious to also learn [about trans* feminism as] a part of the struggle against a current of feminism that in some places is stronger than others, and that is about the exclusion of trans* people and non-binary. And so that was one aspect that I find interesting to learn, and I find its good to call it trans* feminism to make it explicit.<br />
<br />
FSS: Yeah, and important because at a certain moment, there was really a confusion for me because I was at the CCC (Chaos Computer Congres) and there was a trans hack meeting. So I joined into the meeting because it was about the organization of the next festival. But actually, it was about trans nationality. So it was more like focusing on Spain and Italy. They have like trans hack meetings, but it's actually transnational meetings.<br />
<br />
FSS: So we have hack meetings. Yeah, when we make it across different countries it becomes a trans hack meeting.<br />
<br />
FSS: Yeah, sure. But it's interesting that the one refers to like identity politics in relation to gender, it seems. And the other, of course not. It's much wider also about your national identity. But it is confusing, or it is also how the term can be hacked so that that gets certain meanings by actually also using it. <br />
<br />
FSS: Yeah, it was confusing. And then the confusion was pretty interesting. We only had two trans hack meetings in the history of trans hack meetings in Europe. One in Poland and the other one was three years ago, four years ago in Danack and there some people thought it was a trans* hack meeting, but it was pretty cool because this way we had more queer people around. Yeah, it wasn't that easy. It was like: No, no, this is not the trans* hack meeting.<br />
<br />
FSS: And actually, there was one recently in Bologna that also had a sysadmin of syster server involved. It was also called like that. That's nice. So yeah, it's a somehow yeah, it's hacked then. But yeah, it's not so nice if you're then there and it's a quite cis-normative environment because that's not that the safer space that you went there for. This is not a trans* hack meeting this is a trans hack meeting.<br />
<br />
FSS: During THF, the question was also: what is now the most important term in it? Is trans*? is it hack? is it feminism? Can feminism be hacked, can feminism be trans*? Can hack be transed? Can you trans* hack? It's like, you know, it was like circulating inside of the dependencies within these three terminologies.<br />
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FSS: In the pad, I have shared the link to the documentation of that session. So maybe then you can dig more in. It wasn't so many people that say they're interested, in trans feminism. But the trans terminology, about transitioning, about transition, about all the links that it could have with immigration with transformation, with even of politics, you know, and so on, so on, so on. So yeah, I think we can put it in different layers and for sure, at least when it was set up in Calafou in 2017 the first layer was about trans feminist politics.<br />
<br />
FSS: Yeah, just to add, sometimes when you encounter a term for first time, you make a conclusion depending on your background and your identity, etc. So of course, when our services uses terms it feels important and to give a description of them: what does this term contain? It's also very important that when we do things that we are open about it, the terminology we're using what does refer to and why it is constructed like that? And it is important because it changes very quickly, in all this researches of all that is happening in migration realities to multi species studies and keeping in mind always intersectionality they all add up in the end in the concept of creating safe spaces. So I think this is something to consider when we use terms, how we came up with and why we came up with the terms we use.<br />
<br />
FSS: And it was really important that people do a bit of research and find their own history in this terminology, you know. It's also by the people inhabiting or by the people embodying that it becomes and not only by a definition. I mean, it's ever changing also.<br />
<br />
FSS: I agree in the sense I think that Anarchaserver is one of the first pages including the THF and all the documentation, and I feel very complicated to give a straightforward definition. And now we are trying to make access to the documentation that has been created around that concept. Now we are trying to clarify, to know, a definition of our internet politics and gender and diversity and so on, which is the text that we are trying to set up about Anarchaserver. But for Trans Hack Feminism convergences, I would find it very difficult to give a straightforward definition and an explicit one.<br />
<br />
FSS: It's not about giving you straightforward definition. They can be, as you said, you link to a document that as you said gives a story of how this happened.<br />
<br />
FSS: Mm-Hmm. Yeah, that's all there.<br />
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FSS: Maybe we have to create expiration dates on our Wiki pages. If we don't visit them in certain time becomes too old and it becomes a reference without being actual. <br />
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FSS: But I've seen this, coming up when we organize events and you know, we have to do open calls and these things are always reconfiguring. Hacking with THF helps to hack patriarchy, capitalism and other systems of oppression. Hacking refers to the act of doing and taking things apart, understanding them in a deeper way. Hacking is action performance. <br />
===== <br />
MELT: So one last question is how do you define in your group the terms server and the relations between service and clients because we also read in your manifesto and that your project is about re configuring these relations? So it's a question that maybe speaks to like literally the server, but maybe also metaphorically the serving of values or the working together for the making of space.<br />
=====<br />
FSS: For me, the server is like a space, like a room. It's not only a machine, but we can go into it because usually we meet, especially if we live in other places, we meet on the server. It's our meeting point like instead of going to a cafe, we meet in the terminal. So while we’re in the terminal we try to help each other, educate ourselves and spend time together. So it's a connecting room that we can go in and work together in. And about the ‘server’ ‘client’, I really don't like the word client in general, but I know the technical term. I just don't see it translating in a social way for us inside the feminist server constellations because it is more of a corporate thing. Other people have said its more like inhabiting the servers instead of serving. So its not only that the server serves, and the other is a transmitter it becomes an interchangeable role that you also receive at the same time instead of only offering the other side. I would like more that we do both.<br />
<br />
FSS: We have a lot of humor in the poetics, and really intense reflections and critical thinking about the terminology, which is used inside of these machines. Common are terms like master/slave. Server/client. So there is really critical thinking about it and also to approach it differently, fail/success. And you can say, OK, yeah, we have failed but try to say, oh, we have some data somewhere, we can reconstruct this. So we often deconstruct this language and appropriate it in a way that is closer to our identity and our politics. <br />
<br />
FSS: I'm looking at some of the histories of feminist servers. I saw two approaches that I really like one that was from 2013 was when they twisted the language at the feminist server summit that was held on the question of a feminist server into: Are you being served? And I really like that because it fits my my understanding of feminism as talking about the embodied experience of not being served in certain contexts. And the other one is from the fall, the ‘From Skin to Steel Manifesto’ that must have come from to Brazil. They start their manifesto by claiming that we are all already and thinking about, body experience as serving. And that's very close to what I would call care practices. So where where are the lines between serving and caring? It's really a very radical political claim to look for things about who is being served and it is close to this question of who has access and who can participate.<br />
<br />
FSS: Even though we do things all the time we never say server/client. If we want to be fair to what convention you need for the client, even the commercial thinking, we use the word interface and allies with the collaboration when we want to talk about the people who would like to do things with our servers and interfaces can apply. Apply both to the look of the of the websites, but also how we communicate to the people outside our internal group. So we don't refer to the client almost at all.<br />
<br />
MELT: But then as a tiny, technical follow up question, how do you technically reconfigure these relations?<br />
<br />
FSS: It's like another network topology, peer to peer. So technically there are protocols which are allowing that, but we're not there yet. But for example, what we also tried to do with the feminist server is to have distributed services that not each server has the same, services that we are using. One has the ether pads, another has other things.<br />
<br />
FSS: So its not really changing the server client, but like it's more like making a redistributed model of dependency. <br />
<br />
FSS: One of the points that THF articulated is that of autonomy where with having a Feminist server: you choose your dependencies.<br />
<br />
FSS: I would like to ask MELT something, so you are also working on server access? Access Server? Is it still server access the project you are working on?<br />
<br />
===== MELT: It's called Access Server, the project. =====<br />
<br />
FSS: I wondered, maybe its too quick to digest what we said so far. But still, I wondered what you thought about the convergences between the thoughts between your Access Server project and what we have been discussing so far?<br />
<br />
===== MELT: Hm, yeah so part of the ACCESS SERVER project is that we're technically trying to understand how it can work so that when people email institutions asking for accessibility, the email will cc the previous email with access requests to the same institution. So we're trying to technically create a collectivity so that disabled people emailing understand see that they're not the only ones that are emailing to any institution. So emailers have the sense that, oh, many other people have emailed as well. So I think that this relates to how you’re talking about technical collectivity and trying to share resources and offer other options for points of connection. This is still a technical question. We're not exactly sure how to do it yet and also to maintain people's privacy at the same time. So there's a few questions there behind that. But I think that this is the desire to understand the technically active collective body that is emailing with access requests. =====<br />
<br />
===== MELT: When listening to you. I think notions of care and trust is where I feel a lot of shared questions and maybe sometimes struggles or figurings out. And also in these relations between how to reach out and work with other people with an infrastructure that we provide. Because the idea is really that other disabled people can use the email server and the website that comes with it. So there are also questions of how to even make the website accessible. There are guidelines around that, we have some knowledge around that. But then also how to reach out, also across other axes of discrimination and oppression. How to build that trust also. And also technically then if someone sends an email through our email server how can we make sure that their name is anonymous, for example, the IP address, etc. So that's a lot of questions that still seem also hard to ensure safety. Then also, we skipped the question on trolling and how to carry the risk of providing, feminist and accessible services. That's also a big one for us still to figure out. How can we, I think we can’t prevent people from abusing our service, but how can we even make sure that it doesn't affect more people? And maybe also it doesn't affect us too much. So all of these questions, I think, are quite related.<br />
<br />
MELT: Also, when you were speaking, something that also came to mind is that I think that the idea of the access server, constantly reminds us of the world that we live in where ableism is so structural. And this is the kind of reality that we're posited against. I'm also curious to see how how we can get people interested in using it, because also even when people are paid for their labor and even when they write emails to institutions, institutions themselves have so much work to do to change. And so I think that that is also a similar condition that you're working with with the feminist server projects where you're publicizing. We're trying to make more visible, so to speak, that there are alternatives, other ways of doing things that do not conform to ableism and capitalism as discriminatory and oppressive standards. Our project approach institutions and requires them to change. And that's also what you're doing. I think what the feminist server project is like trying to provide an alternative to show that a change is possible. =====</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Access_server&diff=1437Access server2022-11-16T16:09:43Z<p>Ooooo: /* ›››››››››››››› Interview Meltionary Access Server */</p>
<hr />
<div><div style="font-family:monospace; font-size:14px; background-color:#E9F8A8;"><br />
<br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› SSH===<br />
<br />
:: '''SSH keys''' provide '''a more secure way''' of logging into a virtual private server with SSH than using a password alone. While a password can eventually be cracked with a brute force attack, SSH keys are nearly impossible to decipher by brute force alone. Generating a key pair provides you with two long string of characters: a public and a private key. You can place the public key on any server, and then unlock it by connecting to it with a client that already has the private key. When the two match up, the system unlocks without the need for a password. You can increase security even more by protecting the private key with a passphrase. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Making changes in ssh===<br />
<br />
:: Remember to: <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::'''Tip''': I can check all available services in /etc/init.d <br />
::'''Attention''': if there are problems, grep to see if it actually stops the service Like this: <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh stop</pre> <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ps aux | grep ssh</pre><br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh start</pre><br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ps aux | grep ssh</pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Debug===<br />
<br />
::Debug with a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">-v</code> flag. max 3 "v"s<br />
<br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ssh <user>@<server> -vvv </pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Create RSA Key Pair===<br />
<br />
::You create your '''RSA key pair''' in the computer from which you want to log to the server. <br />
<br />
::I can use this key pair for several servers, but if I want to enter a same server from different computers, I create different rsa key pairs. <br />
<br />
::Lo voy a crear a nivel local [en mi compu] y esa va a ser la llave rsa ssh que voy a usar para entrar en mis vps. NO genero una para cada vps sino que esa misma me sirve para todas. Si voy a usar varios ordenadores para entrar en un vps, sí necesitaré crear una llave ssh por máquina desde la cual estoy accediendo. <br />
<br />
::So each admin in a server is going to have at least one rsa key pair. <br />
<br />
::Be careful to pay attention from which user you create this in your local machine [computer]. Since the rsa key pairs are saved in a hidden directory in my user home directory [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~/.ssh</code>], if Im trying to login from a different user, it will confuse home directories since each user has a different home directory. <br />
<br />
::So, from the user in my localmachine that I wish to use to access the server, I will create my rsa key pair: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096</pre><br />
<br />
::By default it will generate two keys in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~/.ssh</code>, a public key and a private key. We are going to copy our public key to the server. If we don't have access to this server, we will send it to an admin of Anarcha server so that she can do it. <br />
<br />
::When generating the key, you will need to introduce a '''passphrase'''.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Copy public key to the server===<br />
<br />
::After generating an SSH key pair, you will want to copy your public key to your new server. <br />
<br />
::To securely copy the public key, we shall enable password authentication on the remote server, by editing the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/ssh/sshd_config</code> file, and disable it after having copied the public key<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::uncomment and set <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">PasswordAuthentication</code> to <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">yes</code> and then to <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">no</code> after copying is done.<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">PasswordAuthentication yes</pre> <br />
<br />
::To copy your public key, run the following command <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh-copy-id <user>@<server></pre><br />
<br />
::To enable the use of SSH key to authenticate as the new remote user, you must add the public key to a special file in the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory in the user's home directory. Assuming that we are going to create superuser accounts for each new admin we will do the following: <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Creating new sysadmin accounts===<br />
<br />
::Changing to root user <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo su</pre><br />
<br />
::Check the sudo users<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> grep '^sudo:.*$' /etc/group | cut -d: -f4</pre><br />
<br />
::If you are not yet, we create a ''superuser'' ['''note''': it will ask me to introduce a passwd] <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">adduser <superusername></pre><br />
<br />
::Then we will add the ''superuser'' to sudoers: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">usermod -aG sudo <superuser></pre><br />
<br />
::We now change to ''superuser'': <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">su <superuser></pre> <br />
<br />
::When we change user, we will be by default in the user's home directory [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~</code>]. You can do <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">cd ~</code> just in case. <br />
<br />
::It is also possible to create a user [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> for example] and give it a limited privilege [to execute a certain command[s] as ''root'']. To do this, create a new file [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> for instance] in the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/sudoers.d/</code> directory <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">touch /etc/sudoers.d/waters</pre><br />
<br />
::and edit it with <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">visudo</code> ['''this is very important''' as it alerts you regarding any syntax errors]<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo visudo /etc/sudoers.d/waters</pre><br />
<br />
::and add the following line to allow the user <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> to use a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">chmod</code> command for example<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">waters ALL=(ALL) /usr/bin/chmod</pre><br />
<br />
::To allow user <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> to run a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">chmod</code> command without entering a password edit the file this way<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">waters ALL= NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/chmod</pre><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› .ssh directory and authorized_keys===<br />
<br />
::'''Creating <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory and <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> document in the superuser home directory'''.<br />
<br />
::As the superuser to whom we want to give ssh access to the server, create a new directory called <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> and restrict its permissions with the following commands: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">mkdir .ssh</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chmod 700 .ssh</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown superuser:group</pre><br />
<br />
::Now open a file in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> called <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> with a text editor. We will use nano to edit the file: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">nano .ssh/authorized_keys</pre><br />
<br />
::Now copy-paste the public key [which should be in your clipboard] by pasting it into the editor. Save and close.<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ctrl + s</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ctrl + x</pre><br />
<br />
::Now restrict the permissions of the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> file with this command: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chmod 600 .ssh/authorized_keys</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown superuser:group</pre><br />
<br />
::Type this command once to return to the root user: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">exit</pre> <br />
<br />
::As we are creating a new user + authentication as root, we have to change the owner of the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory to the new user [recursively <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">- R</code>]<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown <user>:<user> .ssh -R</pre><br />
<br />
::Now you [the new sysadmin] may SSH login as your new user, using the private key as authentication. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
====. . . . . . › After reboot====<br />
<br />
::Access physical mainframe to reboot the encrypted virtual machine. Ask permissions to the syteradmins, by posting on the mailingslist <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">anarchaserver@lists.systerserver.net</code><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
====. . . . . . › SSH Reverse DNS Lookup Disable====<br />
<br />
::The invalid logins are normal, since there are bots that try to bruteforce servers. <br />
::As for the "possible break-in attempt" message, The system is trying to do a reverse DNS lookup to match the connecting IP with the ''hostname'' that is trying to connect and fails to do so. <br />
::The setting that controls that is <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">UseDNS</code> in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/ssh/sshd_config</code><br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::y agrega la línea: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">UseDNS no</pre><br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::Force ssh login to server<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::and change & uncomment: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ChallengeResponseAuthentication no</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">PasswordAuthentication no</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">UsePAM yes</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
====. . . . . . › Change ssh port access====<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::The first option that you may want to change is the port that SSH runs on. Find the line that looks like this: <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">Port 22</code><br />
<br />
::If we change this number to something in '''between 1025 and 65536''', the SSH service on our server will look for connections on a different port. This is sometimes helpful because unauthorized users sometimes try to break into servers by attacking SSH. If you change the location, they will need to complete the extra step of sniffing it out. <br />
::If you change this value, you will need to keep in mind that your server is running on the new port. <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::So now you would have to access to the server like this: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh <superuser>@<server> -p <portnumber></pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› References===<br />
<br />
::_ [http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1773227 Thread: log full of "POSSIBLE BREAK-IN ATTEMPT!" ]<br />
::_ [https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/restart-service How to start, restart and stop SSH service]<br />
::_ [https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/copy-public-key How to add SSH key to server]<br />
::_ [https://www.golinuxcloud.com/add-user-to-sudoers/ How to add user to sudoers with best practices & examples]<br />
::_ [https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-unix-running-sudo-command-without-a-password/ How to run sudo command without a password on a Linux or Unix]<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Interview Meltionary Access Server ===<br />
<br />
This conversation took place between [https://www.anarchaserver.org Anarchaserver], [https://leverburns.blue/ Lever Burns], [https://systerserver.net/ Systerserver] and the arts-design duo [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] on the 4th of February 2022. It has been shortened and edited for clarity by MELT. Present were: Estragon, Mika, [https:/www.ooooo.be/ ooooo], spideralex, nate, Mara (Feminist Server Sysadmins) (FSS), Ren Loren and Isabel (MELT). <br />
<br />
[https://www.anarchaserver.org Anarchaserver], [https://leverburns.blue/ Lever Burns], [https://systerserver.net/ Systerserver] are a distributed group of people based in Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece, Spain and Italy, working on feminist infrastructures and servers. Their work on setting up a [https://tube.systerserver.net/ peertube] instance to provide an online video based residency to artists, is currently supported by the program [https://afairnewidea.be/en/topics/873/entries/10844 A Fair New Idea?!] (AFNI).<br />
<br />
[https://meltionary.com/ MELT] is an arts-design duo currently working on an email server called ACCESS SERVER that anonymizes, collects and financially compensates access requests that disabled people send to institutions. ACCESS SERVER is currently supported by a fellowship with the Het Nieuwe Instituut.<br />
<br />
The feminist servers invited [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] for a one month residency in order to try out feminist infrastructures for their project. We decided to begin the residency with an interview, focusing on how we have shared language in our projects but the ways they make meaning, are different.[https://meltionary.com/ MELT] found the subpage [https://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Access_server&action=edit ACCESS SERVER] on the website of Anarchaserver – a subpage set up to help people to access this feminist server. [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] wanted to ask about and consider the resonances between ACCESS SERVER as a way of logging into the feminist servers' infrastructure, and ACCESS SERVER as a way of making access for disabled people into cultural institutions. What followed was a conversation around technology, trans*feminism, sysadmin work, access, and disability.<br />
<br />
We met in a hybrid way: some of us were present at Varia in Rotterdam and enjoyed coffee and fruits together, some joined via the self-hosted Jitsi instance of futuretic, an allied autonomous server.<br />
<br />
[[Interview_Meltionary|Interview Meltionary]]<br />
<br />
</div></div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Access_server&diff=1436Access server2022-11-16T16:07:45Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div><div style="font-family:monospace; font-size:14px; background-color:#E9F8A8;"><br />
<br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› SSH===<br />
<br />
:: '''SSH keys''' provide '''a more secure way''' of logging into a virtual private server with SSH than using a password alone. While a password can eventually be cracked with a brute force attack, SSH keys are nearly impossible to decipher by brute force alone. Generating a key pair provides you with two long string of characters: a public and a private key. You can place the public key on any server, and then unlock it by connecting to it with a client that already has the private key. When the two match up, the system unlocks without the need for a password. You can increase security even more by protecting the private key with a passphrase. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Making changes in ssh===<br />
<br />
:: Remember to: <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::'''Tip''': I can check all available services in /etc/init.d <br />
::'''Attention''': if there are problems, grep to see if it actually stops the service Like this: <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh stop</pre> <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ps aux | grep ssh</pre><br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh start</pre><br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ps aux | grep ssh</pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Debug===<br />
<br />
::Debug with a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">-v</code> flag. max 3 "v"s<br />
<br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ssh <user>@<server> -vvv </pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Create RSA Key Pair===<br />
<br />
::You create your '''RSA key pair''' in the computer from which you want to log to the server. <br />
<br />
::I can use this key pair for several servers, but if I want to enter a same server from different computers, I create different rsa key pairs. <br />
<br />
::Lo voy a crear a nivel local [en mi compu] y esa va a ser la llave rsa ssh que voy a usar para entrar en mis vps. NO genero una para cada vps sino que esa misma me sirve para todas. Si voy a usar varios ordenadores para entrar en un vps, sí necesitaré crear una llave ssh por máquina desde la cual estoy accediendo. <br />
<br />
::So each admin in a server is going to have at least one rsa key pair. <br />
<br />
::Be careful to pay attention from which user you create this in your local machine [computer]. Since the rsa key pairs are saved in a hidden directory in my user home directory [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~/.ssh</code>], if Im trying to login from a different user, it will confuse home directories since each user has a different home directory. <br />
<br />
::So, from the user in my localmachine that I wish to use to access the server, I will create my rsa key pair: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096</pre><br />
<br />
::By default it will generate two keys in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~/.ssh</code>, a public key and a private key. We are going to copy our public key to the server. If we don't have access to this server, we will send it to an admin of Anarcha server so that she can do it. <br />
<br />
::When generating the key, you will need to introduce a '''passphrase'''.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Copy public key to the server===<br />
<br />
::After generating an SSH key pair, you will want to copy your public key to your new server. <br />
<br />
::To securely copy the public key, we shall enable password authentication on the remote server, by editing the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/ssh/sshd_config</code> file, and disable it after having copied the public key<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::uncomment and set <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">PasswordAuthentication</code> to <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">yes</code> and then to <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">no</code> after copying is done.<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">PasswordAuthentication yes</pre> <br />
<br />
::To copy your public key, run the following command <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh-copy-id <user>@<server></pre><br />
<br />
::To enable the use of SSH key to authenticate as the new remote user, you must add the public key to a special file in the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory in the user's home directory. Assuming that we are going to create superuser accounts for each new admin we will do the following: <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Creating new sysadmin accounts===<br />
<br />
::Changing to root user <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo su</pre><br />
<br />
::Check the sudo users<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> grep '^sudo:.*$' /etc/group | cut -d: -f4</pre><br />
<br />
::If you are not yet, we create a ''superuser'' ['''note''': it will ask me to introduce a passwd] <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">adduser <superusername></pre><br />
<br />
::Then we will add the ''superuser'' to sudoers: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">usermod -aG sudo <superuser></pre><br />
<br />
::We now change to ''superuser'': <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">su <superuser></pre> <br />
<br />
::When we change user, we will be by default in the user's home directory [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~</code>]. You can do <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">cd ~</code> just in case. <br />
<br />
::It is also possible to create a user [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> for example] and give it a limited privilege [to execute a certain command[s] as ''root'']. To do this, create a new file [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> for instance] in the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/sudoers.d/</code> directory <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">touch /etc/sudoers.d/waters</pre><br />
<br />
::and edit it with <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">visudo</code> ['''this is very important''' as it alerts you regarding any syntax errors]<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo visudo /etc/sudoers.d/waters</pre><br />
<br />
::and add the following line to allow the user <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> to use a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">chmod</code> command for example<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">waters ALL=(ALL) /usr/bin/chmod</pre><br />
<br />
::To allow user <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> to run a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">chmod</code> command without entering a password edit the file this way<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">waters ALL= NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/chmod</pre><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› .ssh directory and authorized_keys===<br />
<br />
::'''Creating <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory and <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> document in the superuser home directory'''.<br />
<br />
::As the superuser to whom we want to give ssh access to the server, create a new directory called <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> and restrict its permissions with the following commands: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">mkdir .ssh</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chmod 700 .ssh</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown superuser:group</pre><br />
<br />
::Now open a file in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> called <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> with a text editor. We will use nano to edit the file: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">nano .ssh/authorized_keys</pre><br />
<br />
::Now copy-paste the public key [which should be in your clipboard] by pasting it into the editor. Save and close.<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ctrl + s</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ctrl + x</pre><br />
<br />
::Now restrict the permissions of the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> file with this command: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chmod 600 .ssh/authorized_keys</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown superuser:group</pre><br />
<br />
::Type this command once to return to the root user: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">exit</pre> <br />
<br />
::As we are creating a new user + authentication as root, we have to change the owner of the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory to the new user [recursively <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">- R</code>]<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown <user>:<user> .ssh -R</pre><br />
<br />
::Now you [the new sysadmin] may SSH login as your new user, using the private key as authentication. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
====. . . . . . › After reboot====<br />
<br />
::Access physical mainframe to reboot the encrypted virtual machine. Ask permissions to the syteradmins, by posting on the mailingslist <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">anarchaserver@lists.systerserver.net</code><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
====. . . . . . › SSH Reverse DNS Lookup Disable====<br />
<br />
::The invalid logins are normal, since there are bots that try to bruteforce servers. <br />
::As for the "possible break-in attempt" message, The system is trying to do a reverse DNS lookup to match the connecting IP with the ''hostname'' that is trying to connect and fails to do so. <br />
::The setting that controls that is <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">UseDNS</code> in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/ssh/sshd_config</code><br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::y agrega la línea: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">UseDNS no</pre><br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::Force ssh login to server<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::and change & uncomment: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ChallengeResponseAuthentication no</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">PasswordAuthentication no</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">UsePAM yes</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
====. . . . . . › Change ssh port access====<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::The first option that you may want to change is the port that SSH runs on. Find the line that looks like this: <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">Port 22</code><br />
<br />
::If we change this number to something in '''between 1025 and 65536''', the SSH service on our server will look for connections on a different port. This is sometimes helpful because unauthorized users sometimes try to break into servers by attacking SSH. If you change the location, they will need to complete the extra step of sniffing it out. <br />
::If you change this value, you will need to keep in mind that your server is running on the new port. <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::So now you would have to access to the server like this: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh <superuser>@<server> -p <portnumber></pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› References===<br />
<br />
::_ [http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1773227 Thread: log full of "POSSIBLE BREAK-IN ATTEMPT!" ]<br />
::_ [https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/restart-service How to start, restart and stop SSH service]<br />
::_ [https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/copy-public-key How to add SSH key to server]<br />
::_ [https://www.golinuxcloud.com/add-user-to-sudoers/ How to add user to sudoers with best practices & examples]<br />
::_ [https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-unix-running-sudo-command-without-a-password/ How to run sudo command without a password on a Linux or Unix]<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Interview Meltionary Access Server ===<br />
<br />
This conversation took place between Anarchaserver, [https://leverburns.blue/ Lever Burns], [https://systerserver.net/ Systerserver] and the arts-design duo [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] on the 4th of February 2022. It has been shortened and edited for clarity by MELT. Present were: Estragon, Mika, [[https:/www.ooooo.be|ooooo]], spideralex, nate, Mara (Feminist Server Sysadmins) (FSS), Ren Loren and Isabel (MELT). <br />
<br />
Anarchaserver, [https://leverburns.blue/ Lever Burns], [https://systerserver.net/ Systerserver] are a distributed group of people based in Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece, Spain and Italy, working on feminist infrastructures and servers. Their work on setting up a [https://tube.systerserver.net/ peertube] instance to provide an online video based residency to artists, is currently supported by the program [https://afairnewidea.be/en/topics/873/entries/10844 A Fair New Idea?!] (AFNI).<br />
<br />
[https://meltionary.com/ MELT] is an arts-design duo currently working on an email server called ACCESS SERVER that anonymizes, collects and financially compensates access requests that disabled people send to institutions. ACCESS SERVER is currently supported by a fellowship with the Het Nieuwe Instituut.<br />
<br />
The feminist servers invited [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] for a one month residency in order to try out feminist infrastructures for their project. We decided to begin the residency with an interview, focusing on how we have shared language in our projects but the ways they make meaning, are different.[https://meltionary.com/ MELT] found the subpage [https://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Access_server&action=edit ACCESS SERVER] on the website of Anarchaserver – a subpage set up to help people to access this feminist server. [https://meltionary.com/ MELT] wanted to ask about and consider the resonances between ACCESS SERVER as a way of logging into the feminist servers' infrastructure, and ACCESS SERVER as a way of making access for disabled people into cultural institutions. What followed was a conversation around technology, trans*feminism, sysadmin work, access, and disability.<br />
<br />
We met in a hybrid way: some of us were present at Varia in Rotterdam and enjoyed coffee and fruits together, some joined via the self-hosted Jitsi instance of futuretic, an allied autonomous server.<br />
<br />
[[Interview_Meltionary|Interview Meltionary]]<br />
<br />
</div></div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Access_server&diff=1435Access server2022-11-16T15:59:19Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div><div style="font-family:monospace; font-size:14px; background-color:#E9F8A8;"><br />
<br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› SSH===<br />
<br />
:: '''SSH keys''' provide '''a more secure way''' of logging into a virtual private server with SSH than using a password alone. While a password can eventually be cracked with a brute force attack, SSH keys are nearly impossible to decipher by brute force alone. Generating a key pair provides you with two long string of characters: a public and a private key. You can place the public key on any server, and then unlock it by connecting to it with a client that already has the private key. When the two match up, the system unlocks without the need for a password. You can increase security even more by protecting the private key with a passphrase. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Making changes in ssh===<br />
<br />
:: Remember to: <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::'''Tip''': I can check all available services in /etc/init.d <br />
::'''Attention''': if there are problems, grep to see if it actually stops the service Like this: <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh stop</pre> <br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ps aux | grep ssh</pre><br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> sudo service ssh start</pre><br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ps aux | grep ssh</pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Debug===<br />
<br />
::Debug with a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">-v</code> flag. max 3 "v"s<br />
<br />
:: <pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> ssh <user>@<server> -vvv </pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Create RSA Key Pair===<br />
<br />
::You create your '''RSA key pair''' in the computer from which you want to log to the server. <br />
<br />
::I can use this key pair for several servers, but if I want to enter a same server from different computers, I create different rsa key pairs. <br />
<br />
::Lo voy a crear a nivel local [en mi compu] y esa va a ser la llave rsa ssh que voy a usar para entrar en mis vps. NO genero una para cada vps sino que esa misma me sirve para todas. Si voy a usar varios ordenadores para entrar en un vps, sí necesitaré crear una llave ssh por máquina desde la cual estoy accediendo. <br />
<br />
::So each admin in a server is going to have at least one rsa key pair. <br />
<br />
::Be careful to pay attention from which user you create this in your local machine [computer]. Since the rsa key pairs are saved in a hidden directory in my user home directory [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~/.ssh</code>], if Im trying to login from a different user, it will confuse home directories since each user has a different home directory. <br />
<br />
::So, from the user in my localmachine that I wish to use to access the server, I will create my rsa key pair: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096</pre><br />
<br />
::By default it will generate two keys in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~/.ssh</code>, a public key and a private key. We are going to copy our public key to the server. If we don't have access to this server, we will send it to an admin of Anarcha server so that she can do it. <br />
<br />
::When generating the key, you will need to introduce a '''passphrase'''.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› Copy public key to the server===<br />
<br />
::After generating an SSH key pair, you will want to copy your public key to your new server. <br />
<br />
::To securely copy the public key, we shall enable password authentication on the remote server, by editing the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/ssh/sshd_config</code> file, and disable it after having copied the public key<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::uncomment and set <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">PasswordAuthentication</code> to <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">yes</code> and then to <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">no</code> after copying is done.<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">PasswordAuthentication yes</pre> <br />
<br />
::To copy your public key, run the following command <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh-copy-id <user>@<server></pre><br />
<br />
::To enable the use of SSH key to authenticate as the new remote user, you must add the public key to a special file in the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory in the user's home directory. Assuming that we are going to create superuser accounts for each new admin we will do the following: <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Creating new sysadmin accounts===<br />
<br />
::Changing to root user <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo su</pre><br />
<br />
::Check the sudo users<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%"> grep '^sudo:.*$' /etc/group | cut -d: -f4</pre><br />
<br />
::If you are not yet, we create a ''superuser'' ['''note''': it will ask me to introduce a passwd] <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">adduser <superusername></pre><br />
<br />
::Then we will add the ''superuser'' to sudoers: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">usermod -aG sudo <superuser></pre><br />
<br />
::We now change to ''superuser'': <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">su <superuser></pre> <br />
<br />
::When we change user, we will be by default in the user's home directory [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">~</code>]. You can do <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">cd ~</code> just in case. <br />
<br />
::It is also possible to create a user [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> for example] and give it a limited privilege [to execute a certain command[s] as ''root'']. To do this, create a new file [<code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> for instance] in the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/sudoers.d/</code> directory <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">touch /etc/sudoers.d/waters</pre><br />
<br />
::and edit it with <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">visudo</code> ['''this is very important''' as it alerts you regarding any syntax errors]<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo visudo /etc/sudoers.d/waters</pre><br />
<br />
::and add the following line to allow the user <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> to use a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">chmod</code> command for example<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">waters ALL=(ALL) /usr/bin/chmod</pre><br />
<br />
::To allow user <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">waters</code> to run a <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">chmod</code> command without entering a password edit the file this way<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">waters ALL= NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/chmod</pre><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› .ssh directory and authorized_keys===<br />
<br />
::'''Creating <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory and <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> document in the superuser home directory'''.<br />
<br />
::As the superuser to whom we want to give ssh access to the server, create a new directory called <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> and restrict its permissions with the following commands: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">mkdir .ssh</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chmod 700 .ssh</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown superuser:group</pre><br />
<br />
::Now open a file in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> called <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> with a text editor. We will use nano to edit the file: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">nano .ssh/authorized_keys</pre><br />
<br />
::Now copy-paste the public key [which should be in your clipboard] by pasting it into the editor. Save and close.<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ctrl + s</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ctrl + x</pre><br />
<br />
::Now restrict the permissions of the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">authorized_keys</code> file with this command: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chmod 600 .ssh/authorized_keys</pre><br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown superuser:group</pre><br />
<br />
::Type this command once to return to the root user: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">exit</pre> <br />
<br />
::As we are creating a new user + authentication as root, we have to change the owner of the <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">.ssh</code> directory to the new user [recursively <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">- R</code>]<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">chown <user>:<user> .ssh -R</pre><br />
<br />
::Now you [the new sysadmin] may SSH login as your new user, using the private key as authentication. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
====. . . . . . › After reboot====<br />
<br />
::Access physical mainframe to reboot the encrypted virtual machine. Ask permissions to the syteradmins, by posting on the mailingslist <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">anarchaserver@lists.systerserver.net</code><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
====. . . . . . › SSH Reverse DNS Lookup Disable====<br />
<br />
::The invalid logins are normal, since there are bots that try to bruteforce servers. <br />
::As for the "possible break-in attempt" message, The system is trying to do a reverse DNS lookup to match the connecting IP with the ''hostname'' that is trying to connect and fails to do so. <br />
::The setting that controls that is <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">UseDNS</code> in <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">/etc/ssh/sshd_config</code><br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::y agrega la línea: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">UseDNS no</pre><br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::Force ssh login to server<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::and change & uncomment: <br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ChallengeResponseAuthentication no</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">PasswordAuthentication no</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">UsePAM yes</pre> <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
====. . . . . . › Change ssh port access====<br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config</pre><br />
<br />
::The first option that you may want to change is the port that SSH runs on. Find the line that looks like this: <code style="border-color:#DDE3DB; color:red;">Port 22</code><br />
<br />
::If we change this number to something in '''between 1025 and 65536''', the SSH service on our server will look for connections on a different port. This is sometimes helpful because unauthorized users sometimes try to break into servers by attacking SSH. If you change the location, they will need to complete the extra step of sniffing it out. <br />
::If you change this value, you will need to keep in mind that your server is running on the new port. <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">service ssh restart</pre><br />
<br />
::So now you would have to access to the server like this: <br />
<br />
::<pre style="background-color:#F2E4F5; border-color:#7F1594; color:blue; width:90%">ssh <superuser>@<server> -p <portnumber></pre><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===›››››››››››››› References===<br />
<br />
::_ [http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1773227 Thread: log full of "POSSIBLE BREAK-IN ATTEMPT!" ]<br />
::_ [https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/restart-service How to start, restart and stop SSH service]<br />
::_ [https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/copy-public-key How to add SSH key to server]<br />
::_ [https://www.golinuxcloud.com/add-user-to-sudoers/ How to add user to sudoers with best practices & examples]<br />
::_ [https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-unix-running-sudo-command-without-a-password/ How to run sudo command without a password on a Linux or Unix]<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
===›››››››››››››› Interview Meltionary Access Server ===<br />
<br />
This conversation took place between Anarchaserver, Lever Burns, Systerserver and the arts-design duo MELT on the 4th of February 2022. It has been shortened and edited for clarity by MELT. Present were: Estragon, Mika, ooooo, spideralex, nate, Mara, Ren Loren and Isabel. <br />
<br />
Anarchaserver, Lever Burns and Systerserver are a distributed group of people based in Belium, the Netherlands, Greece, Spain and Italy, working on feminist infrastructures and servers. Their work on setting up a peertube instance to provide an online video based residency to artists, is currently supported by the program A Fair New Idea?! (AFNI).<br />
<br />
MELT is an arts-design duo currently working on an email server called ACCESS SERVER that anonymizes, collects and financially compensates access requests that disabled people send to institutions. ACCESS SERVER is currently supported by a fellowship with the Het Nieuwe Instituut.<br />
<br />
The feminist servers invited MELT for a one month residency in order to try out feminist infrastructures for their project. We decided to begin the residency with an interview, focusing on how we have shared language in our projects but the ways they make meaning, are different. MELT found the subpage ACCESS SERVER on the website of Anarchaserver – a subpage set up to help people to access this feminist server. MELT wanted to ask about and consider the resonances between ACCESS SERVER as a way of logging into the feminist servers' infrastructure, and ACCESS SERVER as a way of making access for disabled people into cultural institutions. What followed was a conversation around technology, trans*feminism, sysadmin work, access, and disability.<br />
<br />
We met in a hybrid way: some of us were present at Varia in Rotterdam and enjoyed coffee and fruits together, some joined via the self-hosted Jitsi instance of futuretic, an alied autonomous server.<br />
<br />
[[Interview_Meltionary|Interview Meltionary]]<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
</div></div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Be_a_guardian,_a_fire_extinguisher,_a_scriba,_an_interface&diff=1403Be a guardian, a fire extinguisher, a scriba, an interface2022-02-24T15:39:41Z<p>Ooooo: /* Current roles 2022 */</p>
<hr />
<div>En esta pagina detallamos los diferentes roles de las comparsas que administran Anarchaserver. <br />
<br />
= CAST =<br />
<br />
== Guardianas ==<br />
<br />
Estas son las personas que se hacen cargo de revisar posibles bugs que se encuentren en los contenedores y de mantener los contenedores actualizados asegurando su seguridad y la funcionalidad de las aplicaciones. Se trata de un trabajo que requiere cierta rutina y dedicarle tiempo cada mes para ver si todo funciona correctamente y si hace falta llevar a cabo actualizaciones o procesos de testeo. <br />
<br />
Cada contenedor necesita de una guardiana por lo menos aunque lo ideal serian dos guardianas, así podrían darse apoyo entre ellas. <br />
<br />
Living data:<br />
<br />
Repository: <br />
<br />
Transitional: <br />
<br />
Nekrocemetery:<br />
<br />
BackUp AS:<br />
<br />
[[File:Guardianas.jpeg|400px]]<br />
<br />
== Apagafuegos ==<br />
<br />
Estas son las personas que tienen mas experiencia administrando y a quien podemos recurrir en caso de que se sufra un ataque o algo muy raro este pasando, cuando las guardianas no consiguen hacer funcionar la seguridad o funcionalidad de su contenedor piden ayuda a las apagafuegos quienes se ofrecen a echarles una mano.<br />
<br />
Estaría bueno contar con un par de apagafuegos para todos los contenedores de AS.<br />
<br />
[[File:Apagafuegos.png|400px]]<br />
<br />
<br />
== Interfaces ==<br />
<br />
Estas son las personas que estarán dando apoyo a las guardianas usando los servicios de AS y señalando si algunos no funcionan o presentan problemas, también son las personas que estarán en comunicación con las habitantes de AS (es decir las personas que usen alguno o varios de sus servicios y/o que estén subiendo/creando contenidos en AS). Las interfaces dan apoyo a estas habitantes y a las guardianas, facilitan el flujo de información y trabajan tb apoyando a las escribas, pueden ser ellas mismas escribas. <br />
<br />
Estaría bueno contar con un par de interfaces para todos los contenedores de AS.<br />
<br />
[[File:Interfaz.jpg|400px]]<br />
<br />
== Escribas ==<br />
<br />
Escribas: Estas son las personas que estarán dando apoyo escribiendo la documentación de AS, sea creando contenidos en su wiki, sea en su gitlab, sea redactando documentos necesarios para sus servicios, sea desarrollando narrativas, las escribas pueden ser tb interfaces, de hecho se recomienda que estos roles se solapen entre si.<br />
<br />
Estaría bueno contar con un par de escribas para todos los contenedores de AS.<br />
<br />
[[File:Escriba.jpg|400px]]<br />
<br />
= ENG=<br />
<br />
== Guardians ==<br />
<br />
These are the people who are in charge of checking for possible bugs in the containers and keeping the containers updated to ensure their security and the functionality of the applications. This is a job that requires some routine and time every month to see if everything is working correctly and if updates or testing processes are needed. <br />
<br />
Each container needs at least one guardian, but ideally two, so that they can support each other.<br />
<br />
Living data:<br />
<br />
Repository: <br />
<br />
Transitional: <br />
<br />
Nekrocemetery:<br />
<br />
BackUp AS:<br />
<br />
[[File:Guardianas.jpeg|400px]]<br />
<br />
== Fire extinguisher ==<br />
<br />
These are the people who have the most experience managing and to whom we can turn if we suffer an attack or something very strange is happening, when the guards are not able to make the security or functionality of their container work they ask for help from the fire extinguishers who offer to give them a hand.<br />
<br />
It would be good to have a couple of fire extinguishers for all AS containers.<br />
<br />
[[File:Apagafuegos.png|400px]]<br />
<br />
== Interfaces ==<br />
<br />
These are the people who will be supporting the guardians by using the AS services and pointing out if some of them are not working or have problems, they are also the people who will be in communication with the inhabitants of AS (i.e. people who are using one or more of their services and/or are uploading/creating content in AS). The interfaces support these people and the gatekeepers, facilitate the flow of information and work in support of the scribes - they can be scribes themselves. <br />
<br />
It would be good to have a couple of interfaces for all the AS containers.<br />
<br />
[[File:Interfaz.jpg|400px]]<br />
<br />
== Scribes ==<br />
<br />
Scribes: These are the people who will be providing support by writing AS documentation, either by creating content in their wiki, or in their gitlab, or by writing documents needed for their services, or by developing narratives. Scribes can be tb interfaces, in fact it is recommended that these roles overlap each other.<br />
<br />
It would be good to have a couple of scribes for all the AS containers.<br />
<br />
[[File:Escriba.jpg|400px]]<br />
<br />
= Current roles 2022 =<br />
<br />
Fire-extinguishers: Gaba, Mara, Duy (in relation to link with tachanka)<br />
<br />
'''Living data container'''<br />
<br />
'''Alexandria'''<br />
<br />
Guardian: ezn, ooooo<br />
<br />
Admin wiki: spideralex<br />
<br />
Scriba: spideralex, ezn<br />
<br />
'''Zoia Horn'''<br />
<br />
Guardian: ezn, ooooo<br />
<br />
Admin WP farm: spideralex, <br />
<br />
'''Transitional data container'''<br />
<br />
Guardian: b01, ezn<br />
<br />
Scriba: spideralex<br />
<br />
'''Nekrocemetery container'''<br />
<br />
Guardian: b01, ooooo<br />
<br />
Interface: spideralex<br />
<br />
Scriba: spideralex<br />
<br />
'''Repository container'''<br />
<br />
Guardian: b01,<br />
<br />
Interface: spideralex, <br />
<br />
'''Sonification'''<br />
<br />
Guardian: b01,<br />
<br />
'''BackUp'''<br />
<br />
Guardian: ezn</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Channels_of_communication&diff=1002Channels of communication2021-05-08T21:34:11Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''Channels of communication and tools we use in AS thanks to other femservers'''<br />
<br />
[[File:Vivaelfeminismo.jpg|thumb]]<br />
<br />
<br />
=== EMAIL ===<br />
<br />
We setup a general email address: [anarchaserver@autistiche.org] so you can contact anarchaserver.<br />
<br />
The password of the email account is distributed among the sysadmins. To manage the email account: http://www.autistici.org there's a large button "My account" if you want to access it from a client,<br />
http://www.autistici.org/en/stuff/man_mail/connectionparms.html<br />
<br />
=== MAILING LISTS ===<br />
<br />
For creating the internal AS mailing list, we used Mailman which is already installed on the https://systerserver.net/<br />
<br />
Here is the info of our list https://lists.systerserver.net/mailman3/lists/anarchaserver.lists.systerserver.net/<br />
The list can only be accessed by active sysadmins and their trusted inner circle, people engaged with an ongoing praxis on anarchaserver. <br />
<br />
'''MAILING LIST Femservers'''<br />
<br />
A general public list oriented at people interested in feminist servers has been created, you can visit and register here: https://lists.systerserver.net/mailman3/lists/femservers.lists.systerserver.net/<br />
<br />
[[HowTo manage accounts and access archives]]<br />
<br />
'''MAILING LIST TransHAckFeminist'''<br />
<br />
Join the https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/thfeminist mailing list which is used also for the organisation of the next THF and public announcements of the anarchaserver milestones. Present yourself to the admins and then to the list. The list is in spanglish, which means that all messages should be sent including a translation to spanish or english.<br />
<br />
=== IRC CHANNEL === <br />
<br />
For more information, come and join in our IRC channel, the channel is for all feminist servers.<br />
channel: #femservers<br />
host: irc.autistici.org<br />
port: 9999<br />
<br />
If you are using the TOR network, <br />
the IRC server hidden service address<br />
wi7qkxyrdpu5cmvr.onion<br />
<br />
This is a general howto:<br />
http://www.autistici.org/en/stuff/man_irc/index.html<br />
<br />
For client configuration, read these howtos:<br />
X-Chat: http://www.autistici.org/en/stuff/man_irc/xchat.html<br />
Pidgin: http://www.autistici.org/en/stuff/man_irc/pidgin.html<br />
xchataqua (for Mac OS X): http://www.autistici.org/en/stuff/man_irc/xchataqua.html<br />
<br />
You can also connect through a web interface:<br />
https://webirc.indivia.net/cgiirc/irc.cgi<br />
<br />
=== COLLABORATIVE WRITING === <br />
<br />
We use a pad hosted by http://vedetas.org/ to collaboratively write our to do lists, follow up on our milestones and to fine tune our conceptual framework.<br />
https://antonieta.vedetas.org/p/anarchaserver<br />
<br />
=== CODE REPOSITORY === <br />
<br />
We have a group in the [https://git.systerserver.net/groups/anarchaserver gitlab instance of systerserver] where we list our issues and to do tasks.<br />
<br />
=== BUDGET === <br />
<br />
Our budget is hosted in [https://eveliyn.vedetas.org/dcdhchrgkrcw an online ethercalc] hosted by vedetas.org.<br />
<br />
=== ON BOARDING PROTOCOL ===<br />
<br />
On this [[document we explain steps for on boarding a new sysadmin]] and inhabitants of AS.</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Mediawiki&diff=1000Mediawiki2021-05-08T18:20:40Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div>==FORGOT PASSWORD==<br />
<br />
To retrieve a password, when you know the username, you have to run a maintenance script in the folder:<br />
<br />
<code>cd /var/www/mediawiki/maintenance</code><br />
<br />
set the password for username 'example' to 'newpassword'<br /><br />
<code>php changePassword.php --user=example --password=newpassword</code><br />
<br />
== CREATE USER ==<br />
<br />
How to restrict access ?<br />
<br />
Log in your MediaWiki and click Special Pages at the bottom left of the screen.<br />
Then click Log in / create an account and create a new MediaWiki account.</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Channels_of_communication&diff=988Channels of communication2021-05-08T17:11:14Z<p>Ooooo: /* ON BOARDING PROTOCOL */</p>
<hr />
<div>'''Channels of communication and tools we use in AS thanks to other femservers'''<br />
<br />
[[File:Vivaelfeminismo.jpg|thumb]]<br />
<br />
<br />
=== EMAIL ===<br />
<br />
We setup a general email address: [anarchaserver@autistiche.org] so you can contact anarchaserver.<br />
<br />
The password of the email account is distributed among the sysadmins. To manage the email account: http://www.autistici.org there's a large button "My account" if you want to access it from a client,<br />
http://www.autistici.org/en/stuff/man_mail/connectionparms.html<br />
<br />
=== MAILING LISTS ===<br />
<br />
For creating the internal AS mailing list, we used Mailman which is already installed on the https://systerserver.net/<br />
<br />
Here is the info of our list https://lists.systerserver.net/mailman3/lists/anarchaserver.lists.systerserver.net/<br />
The list can only be accessed by active sysadmins and their trusted inner circle, people engaged with an ongoing praxis on anarchaserver. <br />
<br />
'''MAILING LIST Femservers'''<br />
<br />
A general public list oriented at people interested in feminist servers has been created, you can visit and register here: https://lists.systerserver.net/mailman3/lists/femservers.lists.systerserver.net/<br />
<br />
[[HowTo manage accounts and access archives]]<br />
<br />
'''MAILING LIST TransHAckFeminist'''<br />
<br />
Join the https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/thfeminist mailing list which is used also for the organisation of the next THF and public announcements of the anarchaserver milestones. Present yourself to the admins and then to the list. The list is in spanglish, which means that all messages should be sent including a translation to spanish or english.<br />
<br />
=== IRC CHANNEL === <br />
<br />
For more information, come and join in our IRC channel, the channel is for all feminist servers.<br />
channel: #femservers<br />
host: irc.autistici.org<br />
port: 9999<br />
<br />
If you are using the TOR network, <br />
the IRC server hidden service address<br />
wi7qkxyrdpu5cmvr.onion<br />
<br />
This is a general howto:<br />
http://www.autistici.org/en/stuff/man_irc/index.html<br />
<br />
For client configuration, read these howtos:<br />
X-Chat: http://www.autistici.org/en/stuff/man_irc/xchat.html<br />
Pidgin: http://www.autistici.org/en/stuff/man_irc/pidgin.html<br />
xchataqua (for Mac OS X): http://www.autistici.org/en/stuff/man_irc/xchataqua.html<br />
<br />
You can also connect through a web interface:<br />
https://webirc.indivia.net/cgiirc/irc.cgi<br />
<br />
=== COLLABORATIVE WRITING === <br />
<br />
We use a pad hosted by http://vedetas.org/ to collaboratively write our to do lists, follow up on our milestones and to fine tune our conceptual framework.<br />
https://antonieta.vedetas.org/p/anarchaserver<br />
<br />
=== CODE REPOSITORY === <br />
<br />
We have a group in the [https://git.systerserver.net/groups/anarchaserver gitlab instance of systerserver] where we list our issues and to do tasks.<br />
<br />
=== BUDGET === <br />
<br />
Our budget is hosted in [https://eveliyn.vedetas.org/dcdhchrgkrcw an online ethercalc] hosted by vedetas.org.<br />
<br />
=== ON BOARDING PROTOCOL ===<br />
<br />
On this [[document we explain steps for on boarding a new sysadmin]] in our team of sysadmins and inhabitants of AS.</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Channels_of_communication&diff=987Channels of communication2021-05-08T17:10:59Z<p>Ooooo: /* ON BOARDING PROTOCOL */</p>
<hr />
<div>'''Channels of communication and tools we use in AS thanks to other femservers'''<br />
<br />
[[File:Vivaelfeminismo.jpg|thumb]]<br />
<br />
<br />
=== EMAIL ===<br />
<br />
We setup a general email address: [anarchaserver@autistiche.org] so you can contact anarchaserver.<br />
<br />
The password of the email account is distributed among the sysadmins. To manage the email account: http://www.autistici.org there's a large button "My account" if you want to access it from a client,<br />
http://www.autistici.org/en/stuff/man_mail/connectionparms.html<br />
<br />
=== MAILING LISTS ===<br />
<br />
For creating the internal AS mailing list, we used Mailman which is already installed on the https://systerserver.net/<br />
<br />
Here is the info of our list https://lists.systerserver.net/mailman3/lists/anarchaserver.lists.systerserver.net/<br />
The list can only be accessed by active sysadmins and their trusted inner circle, people engaged with an ongoing praxis on anarchaserver. <br />
<br />
'''MAILING LIST Femservers'''<br />
<br />
A general public list oriented at people interested in feminist servers has been created, you can visit and register here: https://lists.systerserver.net/mailman3/lists/femservers.lists.systerserver.net/<br />
<br />
[[HowTo manage accounts and access archives]]<br />
<br />
'''MAILING LIST TransHAckFeminist'''<br />
<br />
Join the https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/thfeminist mailing list which is used also for the organisation of the next THF and public announcements of the anarchaserver milestones. Present yourself to the admins and then to the list. The list is in spanglish, which means that all messages should be sent including a translation to spanish or english.<br />
<br />
=== IRC CHANNEL === <br />
<br />
For more information, come and join in our IRC channel, the channel is for all feminist servers.<br />
channel: #femservers<br />
host: irc.autistici.org<br />
port: 9999<br />
<br />
If you are using the TOR network, <br />
the IRC server hidden service address<br />
wi7qkxyrdpu5cmvr.onion<br />
<br />
This is a general howto:<br />
http://www.autistici.org/en/stuff/man_irc/index.html<br />
<br />
For client configuration, read these howtos:<br />
X-Chat: http://www.autistici.org/en/stuff/man_irc/xchat.html<br />
Pidgin: http://www.autistici.org/en/stuff/man_irc/pidgin.html<br />
xchataqua (for Mac OS X): http://www.autistici.org/en/stuff/man_irc/xchataqua.html<br />
<br />
You can also connect through a web interface:<br />
https://webirc.indivia.net/cgiirc/irc.cgi<br />
<br />
=== COLLABORATIVE WRITING === <br />
<br />
We use a pad hosted by http://vedetas.org/ to collaboratively write our to do lists, follow up on our milestones and to fine tune our conceptual framework.<br />
https://antonieta.vedetas.org/p/anarchaserver<br />
<br />
=== CODE REPOSITORY === <br />
<br />
We have a group in the [https://git.systerserver.net/groups/anarchaserver gitlab instance of systerserver] where we list our issues and to do tasks.<br />
<br />
=== BUDGET === <br />
<br />
Our budget is hosted in [https://eveliyn.vedetas.org/dcdhchrgkrcw an online ethercalc] hosted by vedetas.org.<br />
<br />
=== ON BOARDING PROTOCOL ===<br />
<br />
On this [[document we explain steps for on boarding a new sysadmin]] in our team of sysadmins and inhabitants of AS.<br />
<br />
https://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php/Document_we_explain_steps_for_on_boarding_a_new_sysadmin</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Document_we_explain_steps_for_on_boarding_a_new_sysadmin&diff=986Document we explain steps for on boarding a new sysadmin2021-05-08T17:09:32Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div>* You can send an email to anarchaserver at autistiche dot org explaining who are you, why are you interested in joining AS, what are the areas you feel you could contribute to the maintenance of AS and/or if you know an AS team member you can directly contact her and s/he will fwd your email to us.<br />
* AS team members will discuss the proposal and if there is consensus and interest among its team, will invite you for an online meeting to get to know each other better.<br />
* Before our online meeting, we recommend you as a starter to read about [[Anarcha_section|the AS architecture]] and [[Be_a_guardian,_a_fire_extinguisher,_a_scriba,_an_interface|AS roles]]. From there, you can lay out questions, doubts or possible areas of interests and discuss those with us during the meeting. From there, depending of what you are interested in contributing to, you will have a collaborative working session with one or various sysadmin of AS that can provide you with guidance regarding your proposal.<br />
* If that first experience was nice for both sides, a new meeting will be set up for adding you to the different communication channels of AS including the wiki (for documentation), the gitlab (for tasks), the mailing list (for communication) and ssh/public hey (for sysadmin AS).<br />
<br />
[[File:TeamofAS.png|frame|center]]</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Document_we_explain_steps_for_on_boarding_a_new_sysadmin&diff=985Document we explain steps for on boarding a new sysadmin2021-05-08T17:08:03Z<p>Ooooo: Created page with "* You can send an email to anarchaserver at autistiche dot org explaining who are you, why are you interested in joining AS, what are the areas you feel you could contribute t..."</p>
<hr />
<div>* You can send an email to anarchaserver at autistiche dot org explaining who are you, why are you interested in joining AS, what are the areas you feel you could contribute to the maintenance of AS and/or if you know an AS sysadmin you can directly contact her and s/he will fwd your email to us.<br />
* AS sysadmins will discuss the proposal and if there is consensus and interest among its sysadmins, will invite you for an online meeting to get to know each other better.<br />
* Before our online meeting, we recommend you as a starter to read about [[Anarcha_section|the AS architecture]] and [[Be_a_guardian,_a_fire_extinguisher,_a_scriba,_an_interface|AS roles]]. From there, you can lay out questions, doubts or possible areas of interests and discuss those with us during the meeting. From there, depending of what you are interested in contributing to, you will have a collaborative working session with one or various sysadmin of AS that can provide you with guidance regarding your proposal.<br />
* If that first experience was nice for both sides, a new meeting will be set up for adding you to the different communication channels of AS including the wiki (for documentation), the gitlab (for tasks), the mailing list (for communication) and ssh/public hey (for sysadmin AS).<br />
<br />
[[File:TeamofAS.png|frame|center]]</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Anarcha_section&diff=983Anarcha section2021-05-08T14:59:27Z<p>Ooooo: /* Get involved */</p>
<hr />
<div>If you are interested in Anarchaserver architecture, hosting services & data, future plans, and how to get involved read the following page. <br />
<br />
-------------<br />
<br />
== Anarchaserver architecture ==<br />
<br />
=== Living data container ===<br />
<br />
We talk about living data when data are available online, get updates, posts and are actively contributed to . We range under living data the contents of this [https://alexandria.anarchaserver.org mediawiki] and the [https://zoiahorn.anarchaserver.org/ WordPress farm Zoia Horn]. <br />
<br />
===== Alexandria ===== <br />
<br />
This is [https://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/ our wiki] that you are reading at the moment. Here we provide space for documenting our work setting up and inhabiting AS and how to engage and get involved and for [[Main_Page#Anarchaserver|documenting feminist infrastructure]] herstory, initiatives and events such as the TransHackFeminist Convergences. <br />
<br />
===== Zoia Horn =====<br />
<br />
This is our feminist multisite blogging platform based on Wordpress. At the moment we are beta-testing different blogs and use cases. We hope to be able in the future to provide wordpress to feminists collectives that require one for documenting and communicating about what they do. Check it out: <br />
<br />
[http://zoiahorn.anarchaserver.org/ Zoiahorn blog] for documenting anarcha physical interface and new blogs inhabited in this container.<br />
<br />
[https://zoiahorn.anarchaserver.org/specfic/ Feminist futurotopias workshops]<br />
<br />
[https://zoiahorn.anarchaserver.org/misexualidad/ Mi sexualidad es una creación artística]<br />
<br />
[https://zoiahorn.anarchaserver.org/holobionte/ Holobionte]<br />
<br />
=== Transitional data container === <br />
<br />
We talk about transitional data when data needs to remain available only for a while and then should be erased properly. We have set up specific services such as:<br />
* Encrypted files sending (Jirafeau https://transitional.anarchaserver.org/jirafeau/)<br />
* Encrypted pastebin where the server has zero knowledge of pasted data. (Zerobin https://transitional.anarchaserver.org/zerobin/). Data is encrypted/decrypted in the browser using 256 bits AES.<br />
* Standard polls and events scheduling (Open Sondage https://transitional.anarchaserver.org/date/)<br />
* CodiMD, a open-source collaborative markdown editor. (https://md.anarchaserver.org/codimd/). Only available to invited users.<br />
* Online surveys (LimeSurvey https://transitional.anarchaserver.org/poll/). Only available to invited users.<br />
<br />
=== Nekrocemetery container === <br />
<br />
We talk about dead data when data has gone offline and it needs to be archived in a way that it remains possible to bring it back to life again. Our nekrocemetery is oriented at feminist websites and projects that are offline and could become zombie data. More on the [https://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php/Nekrocemetery:_Hello_from_the_dead Nekrocemetery:_Hello_from_the_dead ].<br />
<br />
List of archived websites:<br />
* Static backup of [https://gendersec.anarchaserver.org/ Gendersec wiki]<br />
* Static backup of [https://nekrocemetery.anarchaserver.org/mlff/ mlff wesbite]<br />
* Static backup of [https://geekfeminism.anarchaserver.org/ Geek Feminism Wiki]<br />
<br />
=== Repository container ===<br />
<br />
Collective memories, a [https://repository.anarchaserver.org/ cyberfeminist repository] for archiving images, sounds and videos set up with piwigo [[Repository|Container repository]].<br />
<br />
=== Sonification ===<br />
<br />
If you want to listen to AnarchaServer please [http://anarchaserver.org:8000/ connect here and you will ear a sonification of the server]. We have a icecast2 streaming tool installed in AS.<br />
<br />
=== More information === <br />
<br />
* Anarcha host : Apache2 : landing page and vhosts to proxy to the containers<br />
** Container livingdata : Apache2 vhosts for the wiki and the wordpress farm<br />
*** https://alexandria.anarchaserver.org : Mediawiki<br />
*** https://zoiahorn.anarchaserver.org/ : Wordpress Farm<br />
** Container repository : Apache2 vhost for the repository<br />
*** https://repository.anarchaserver.org/ : piwigo (upload images, sounds and vidéos)<br />
** Container transitional : nginx with Yunohost<br />
*** https://transitional.anarchaserver.org/yunohost/sso/ : Access to the services (jirafeau, opensondage, zerobin, limesurvey, mytinytodo)<br />
*** https://transitional.anarchaserver.org/yunohost/admin/#/ : Admin yunohost (create users, install applications, make backups)<br />
** Container nekrocemetery : Apache2 vhosts for each website<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
[[File:BlackquantumFuturism.gif|thumb]]<br />
<br />
== Future is now: Milestones == <br />
<br />
=== Old Roadmap === <br />
<br />
[[Roadmap To do List 2019]]. <br />
<br />
[[Roadmap To do List 2020]]<br />
<br />
=== Current === <br />
<br />
From October 2020, we list to do tasks and issues in Anarchaserver project in [https://git.systerserver.net/groups/anarchaserver/-/issues the gitlab of systerserver].<br />
<br />
===== Maintenance & Infrastructure =====<br />
<br />
* How to [[be a guardian, a fire extinguisher, a scriba, an interface]]<br />
<br />
===== Accessing =====<br />
<br />
* How to [[access server]]<br />
* How to use [[screen]]<br />
* How to access [[database]]<br />
<br />
===== Installing/Testing hardware +distribution =====<br />
<br />
2020:<br />
[[Moving to new machine binti]]<br />
<br />
2019 and before: <br />
[[machine]]<br />
<br />
HowTos:<br />
* [[backup]] system<br />
* [[Upgrade]] debian<br />
* Old: Server [[security]] for Anoia<br />
* [[Check list security for feminist servers]]<br />
* [https://netdata.anarchaserver.org Netdata] for monitoring the different containers of the VM <br />
* Install [[https certbot]] with let's encrypt initiative<br />
* [[Streaming + Sonification]]<br />
<br />
===== Virtualisation =====<br />
<br />
How to set up a LXC container to host others web applications with Linux [[Containers]] (LXC) <br />
<br />
* '''Living data''' > blogging platform & documentation, <br />
** MediaWiki : [[Updating]] sites Mediawiki 1.25 > 1.32 and How to reset passwords for [[mediawiki]]<br />
** [[WordPress Multisites]] a farm of blogs : installation, configuration and utilisation<br />
* '''Transitional''' > [[In transition]] encrypted data transfer, survey's,..., Yunohost installation >> [[How to use yunohost]]<br />
* '''Nekrocemetery''' > [[Nekrocemetery]] and zombie sites<br />
* '''Repository''' > [[Repository]] Image, sound, video - a media repository: Piwigo<br />
<br />
===== Narratives ===== <br />
<br />
* Logo, images, video design about Anarchaserver<br />
* Ckeck List pages for Las Guardianas/Custodians + Apagafuegos/Fire Extinguishers + Escribas + Interfaces<br />
* Prepare [[Terms of Use and Feminist Science Fiction Narrative]]<br />
* Prepare [[Project:Privacy_policy]]<br />
* [[AS SF Narratives]]<br />
<br />
[[File:Computer-criminal.jpg|center]]<br />
WRITE READ EXECUTE<br />
<br />
== Get involved == <br />
<br />
Anarchaserver is an open project, even though moderated where we privilege trust, consensus, autonomy and feminist collaboration for deciding our next adventures in inhabiting AS, in synchronicity with other feminist servers initiatives.<br />
<br />
Our politics are transfeminists, anticapitalist, decolonialist and aim at creating interspecies solidarity with other bodies, nature and machines. Our team of sysadmin is currently composed by different non-binaries, cis women and one cis men. We use English and Spanish (even-tough those are not our first languages) for our internal communications and we intend to build inclusive spaces so that sysadmins from around the world can join AS.<br />
<br />
To coordinate among ourselves, we privilege the no pressure policy for advancing tasks that are freely chosen based on the energy, dreams and availability of AS inhabitants. We are using different means and tools to coordinate and advance the different tasks among ourselves. If you want to get involved, check out our current [[Channels of communication]].</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Main_Page&diff=982Main Page2021-05-08T14:57:34Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Marina Ginesta.png|marina ginesta]]<br />
<br />
== Anarchaserver ==<br />
<br />
Welcome to the wiki of Anarchaserver. <br />
<br />
Anarchaserver is a feminist server which aim is to develop autonomous infrastructure on the Internet for feminists projects. Here we provide space:<br />
<br />
* for documenting our work setting up and inhabiting AS and how to engage and get involved > [[Anarcha section]]<br />
<br />
* for documenting feminist infrastructure herstory, initiatives and events such as the TransHackFeminist Convergences (read below).<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
== Feminist servers ==<br />
<br />
If you are interested in the [[history of Anarchaserver and Feminists Servers visit this section]]. There is also a list of other feminist servers.<br />
<br />
=== BAFIG Meeting Valencia ===<br />
<br />
You can read the public documentation of the [[BAFIF Meeting in Valencia]] (4th of March 2018)<br />
<br />
=== Open Days Femservers Calafou === <br />
<br />
You can read the public documentation of the Open days Femservers in Calafou (10 to 13th March 2018): [https://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/images/a/a2/Servidoras-feministas.pdf Servidores Feministas]<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
== TransHackFeminist Convergence ==<br />
<br />
The server was setup during TransHackFeminist convergence, a 7 day event that was organised for the first time in [http://calafou.org/ Calafou] (Catalonia) in August 2014 and has been replicated in 2015 in Puebla (Mexico) and 2016 in Montreal (Quebec).<br />
<br />
=== First THF 2014 - Calafou ===<br />
<br />
<div><ul> <br />
<li style="display: inline-block;"> [[File:424px-8_THF_wangechi-mutu-uterine-catarrh.png|thumb|none|360px|THF2014]] </li><br />
<br />
You can find [[documentation about the THF 2014]]. <br />
And you can watch the video call for of the [https://vimeo.com/91474712 first THF here]<br />
And a video [https://repository.anarchaserver.org/picture.php?/1763/category/27 about the 7 days of the THF here]<br />
<br />
=== Second THF 2015 - Mexico ===<br />
<br />
<div><ul> <br />
<li style="display: inline-block;"> [[File:thf1.png|thumb|none|540px|THF2015]] </li><br />
</ul><br />
</div><br />
<br />
A second edition was held from the 25 to the 31 of May in Puebla 2015 (Mexico). It was organised by [http://www.ada.org.mx/ Centro Comunitario ADA -Accion Directa Autogestiva].<br />
<br />
You can read the call of the THF Held in Puebla [http://sursiendo.com/blog/2015/06/segundo-encuentro-transhackfeminista-mexico-thfmx2015/#more-5008 here] and an article about [http://www.lajornadadeoriente.com.mx/2015/07/15/para-debatir-sobre-la-tecnologia-y-su-apropiacion-mujeres-de-europa-y-al-se-reuniran-en-puebla/ the event here].<br />
<br />
You can find [[documentation about the THF 2015]].<br />
<br />
=== Third THF 2016 - Montreal ===<br />
<br />
<div><ul> <br />
<li style="display: inline-block;"> [[File:THF2016.png|thumb|none|320px|THF2016]]</li><br />
</ul><br />
</div><br />
<br />
In 2016, a third edition of the TransHackFeminist is initiated in Montreal (Quebec/Canada). You can read more on the THF Held in Montreal here: <br />
https://femhack.noblogs.org/thf-2016/<br />
<br />
You can find [[documentation about the THF 2016]]. <br />
<br />
=== Fanzine THF Feminist Infrastructure 2020 ===<br />
<br />
[[Feminist Infrastructure]]<br />
<br />
----</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Check_list_security_for_feminist_servers&diff=963Check list security for feminist servers2021-04-14T18:31:06Z<p>Ooooo: /* Fail2ban */</p>
<hr />
<div>'''Checklist for security on a feminist server:'''<br />
<br />
== General recomendations ==<br />
<br />
* Active unattended upgrades<br />
* ufw / allow new port ssh<br />
* SSH server: Allow ssh only with key, no password PasswordAuthentication no<br />
* Change the port / remember add ufw allow new port ssh<br />
* Disallow login with root ( PermitRootLogin no)<br />
* Activate fail2ban. /configura new port ssh<br />
* Activate things like chkrootkit rkhunter etckeeper<br />
* Allow only TLSv 1.2 (no 1.0 y 1.1)<br />
* For software or service installed check file permissions and allow minimal needed<br />
* External services: If installing mysql, mongodb, ldap etc check that only uses localhost.<br />
* Apache: Include Security header and CSP in vhost configuration + Install and configure some softwares on the host : apache2 LXC<br />
* Notifications: Configure an everyday mail report sent to sysadmins<br />
* Logging: Logwatch + Configure what to log and what not<br />
* Security for containers depending on the service<br />
<br />
[https://labekka.red/servidoras-feministas/2019/10/09/fanzine-parte-4.html More info en Parte IV - Securicemos nuestra servidora web por La Bekka]<br />
<br />
== Fail2ban ==<br />
<br />
* failregex = fail reg ex <br />
->> define la regla con expresiones regulares en el filtro<br />
<br />
->> define the rule with regular expression in the filter<br />
<br />
<br />
* regex <br />
= expresión regular<br />
<br />
= frequent expression<br />
<br />
<br />
* /etc/fail2ban/filter.d/<br />
->> los filtros están aqui<br />
<br />
->> the filters are here <br />
<br />
<br />
* <br />
->> es necesario crear filtros para que fail2ban las utilice para luego ejecutar acciones<br />
<br />
->> It is necessary to create filters so that fail2ban can use them for executing actions<br />
<br />
->> Actualmente fail2ban establece filtros para Apache, sshd, qmail, vsftpd, lighttpd, Postfix y Courier Mail Server<br />
<br />
->> Actually fail2ban can create filters for Apache, sshd, qmail, vsftpd, lighttpd, Postfix y Courier Mail Server<br />
<br />
->> Los filtros son escritos con expresiones regulares de Python que establecen la regla que hará disparar una determinada acción sobre la IP que origina el hecho. La tupla (regla, acción) o (filtro, acción) es llamado “Jail” o “prisión”, y es lo que determina la penalización a un host maligno<br />
<br />
->> The filters are written with regular expressions from Python that establishes rules that will start a specific action from the IP that is creating the act. The "tupla" (rule, action) or (filter, action) is called “Jail”and it is what determines the penalisation of a malign host.<br />
<br />
<br />
* /var/log/fail2ban.log<br />
->> Los logs de fail2ban se pueden ver <br />
<br />
->> you can see the logs of fail2ban <br />
<br />
<br />
* sudo cat /var/log/fail2ban.log | grep 'ban'<br />
->> ver que ips has sido baneadas<br />
<br />
->> you can see the banned ips <br />
<br />
<br />
* fail2ban-client status ssh<br />
->> Revisarlas por jails<br />
<br />
->> Review the jails <br />
<br />
<br />
* sudo iptables -L -n | awk '$1=="REJECT" && $4!="0.0.0.0/0"'<br />
->> Otra manera guay de verlo es<br />
<br />
->> Another nice way of seeing it<br />
<br />
<br />
* fail2ban-client status<br />
->> Para ver el estado de fail2ban y las jaulas activadas<br />
<br />
->> to see the fail2ban status and the activated jails<br />
<br />
<br />
* fail2ban-client reload sshd<br />
->> Para reiniciar la configuracion de una jaula<br />
<br />
->> for restarting the config of a jail<br />
<br />
[https://serverfault.com/questions/841183/how-to-show-all-banned-ip-with-fail2ban| More info here]<br />
<br />
== ssh-server config ==<br />
* cp /etc/ssh/sshd_config /etc/ssh/sshd_config.bk<br />
--> Hacer una copia de seguridad de la conf<br />
<br />
--> Make a security back up copy of the conf<br />
<br />
<br />
* ss -n -o state established '( dport = :22 or sport = :22 )'<br />
--> Para ver que conexiones por ssh se han establecido<br />
<br />
--> To see what connections have been achievd by SSH<br />
<br />
<br />
* Revisar/Review: /etc/ssh/sshd_config<br />
<br />
Port 22XX<br />
<br />
MaxAuthTries 3<br />
<br />
PubkeyAuthentication yes<br />
<br />
IgnoreRhosts yes<br />
<br />
PasswordAuthentication no<br />
<br />
PermitEmptyPasswords no<br />
<br />
UsePAM no<br />
<br />
X11Forwarding no<br />
<br />
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no<br />
<br />
PermitRootLogin no <br />
<br />
PermitRootLogin without-password<br />
<br />
Protocolo 2<br />
<br />
StrictModes yes<br />
<br />
Logging<br />
<br />
SyslogFacility AUTH<br />
<br />
LogLevel INFO<br />
<br />
* Por buscar/To look for: <br />
PrintMotd no --> esto te muestra el mensaje de inicio/this shows you the message at the beginning<br />
<br />
AcceptEnv LANG LC_* lo dejo por defecto/Let it by default<br />
<br />
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no -> tiene que estar a no/should be as no<br />
<br />
* <br />
--> Cambiar Port 22XX - acordarse de abrir el firewall y poner el nuevo puerto en fail2ban<br />
<br />
--> Change Port 22XX - remember to open the firewall and put new port in fail2ban<br />
<br />
<br />
* sshd -t<br />
--> Para checkear si la configuracion esta bien, antes de reiniciar<br />
<br />
--> For checking th configuration is fine before restarting<br />
<br />
<br />
* service sshd restart<br />
--> Para aplicar cambios<br />
<br />
--> For applying changes:<br />
<br />
== Configuracion security Debian server ==<br />
<br />
* Limita el acceso/limit the access to ssh-key connections<br />
* Copia tu llave al servidor/Copy your key to the server: > ssh-copy-id -i user@server<br />
* Cambiar la configuración para solo permitir conexiones con ssh-keys/Change the configuration for only allowing conections with ssh-keys: nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config<br />
<br />
Modify or add the following line: PasswordAuthentication no<br />
<br />
* change the port for ssh<br />
* use fail2ban (Which jails are important to enable? sshd, I've seen you have much more! )<br />
<br />
* change the info of the server Apache is giving with ServerTokens and ServerSignature<br />
<br />
Open up /etc/apache2/conf.d/security<br />
<br />
Set ServerTokens OS to Prod<br />
<br />
Turn ServerSignature to Off<br />
<br />
Restart Apache web server.<br />
<br />
* Stop/avoid portmapper<br />
<br />
* iptables enabled (together with fail2ban)</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Check_list_security_for_feminist_servers&diff=962Check list security for feminist servers2021-04-14T18:27:36Z<p>Ooooo: /* ssh-server config */</p>
<hr />
<div>'''Checklist for security on a feminist server:'''<br />
<br />
== General recomendations ==<br />
<br />
* Active unattended upgrades<br />
* ufw / allow new port ssh<br />
* SSH server: Allow ssh only with key, no password PasswordAuthentication no<br />
* Change the port / remember add ufw allow new port ssh<br />
* Disallow login with root ( PermitRootLogin no)<br />
* Activate fail2ban. /configura new port ssh<br />
* Activate things like chkrootkit rkhunter etckeeper<br />
* Allow only TLSv 1.2 (no 1.0 y 1.1)<br />
* For software or service installed check file permissions and allow minimal needed<br />
* External services: If installing mysql, mongodb, ldap etc check that only uses localhost.<br />
* Apache: Include Security header and CSP in vhost configuration + Install and configure some softwares on the host : apache2 LXC<br />
* Notifications: Configure an everyday mail report sent to sysadmins<br />
* Logging: Logwatch + Configure what to log and what not<br />
* Security for containers depending on the service<br />
<br />
[https://labekka.red/servidoras-feministas/2019/10/09/fanzine-parte-4.html More info en Parte IV - Securicemos nuestra servidora web por La Bekka]<br />
<br />
== Fail2ban ==<br />
<br />
* failregex = fail reg ex <br />
->> define la regla con expresiones regulares en el filtro<br />
<br />
->> define the rule with regular expression in the filter<br />
<br />
<br />
* regex <br />
= expresión regular<br />
<br />
= frequent expression<br />
<br />
<br />
* /etc/fail2ban/filter.d/<br />
->> los filtros están aqui<br />
<br />
->> the filters are here <br />
<br />
<br />
* <br />
->> es necesario crear filtros para que fail2ban las utilice para luego ejecutar acciones<br />
<br />
->> It is necessary to create filters so that fail2ban can use them for executing actions<br />
<br />
->> Actualmente fail2ban establece filtros para Apache, sshd, qmail, vsftpd, lighttpd, Postfix y Courier Mail Server<br />
<br />
->> Actually fail2ban can create filters for Apache, sshd, qmail, vsftpd, lighttpd, Postfix y Courier Mail Server<br />
<br />
->> Los filtros son escritos con expresiones regulares de Python que establecen la regla que hará disparar una determinada acción sobre la IP que origina el hecho. La tupla (regla, acción) o (filtro, acción) es llamado “Jail” o “prisión”, y es lo que determina la penalización a un host maligno<br />
<br />
->> The filters are written with regular expressions from Python that establishes rules that will start a specific action from the IP that is creating the act. The "tupla" (rule, action) or (filter, action) is called “Jail”and it is what determines the penalisation of a malign host.<br />
<br />
<br />
* /var/log/fail2ban.log<br />
->> Los logs de fail2ban se pueden ver <br />
<br />
->> you can see the logs of fail2ban <br />
<br />
<br />
* sudo cat /var/log/fail2ban.log | grep 'Ban'<br />
->> ver que ips has sido baneadas<br />
<br />
->> you can see the banned ips <br />
<br />
<br />
* fail2ban-client status ssh<br />
->> Revisarlas por jails<br />
<br />
->> Review the jails <br />
<br />
<br />
* sudo iptables -L -n | awk '$1=="REJECT" && $4!="0.0.0.0/0"'<br />
->> Otra manera guay de verlo es<br />
<br />
->> Another nice way of seeing it<br />
<br />
<br />
* fail2ban-client status<br />
->> Para ver el estado de fail2ban y las jaulas activadas<br />
<br />
->> to see the fail2ban status and the activated jails<br />
<br />
<br />
* fail2ban-client reload sshd<br />
->> Para reiniciar la configuracion de una jaula<br />
<br />
->> for restarting the config of a jail<br />
<br />
[https://serverfault.com/questions/841183/how-to-show-all-banned-ip-with-fail2ban| More info here]<br />
<br />
== ssh-server config ==<br />
* cp /etc/ssh/sshd_config /etc/ssh/sshd_config.bk<br />
--> Hacer una copia de seguridad de la conf<br />
<br />
--> Make a security back up copy of the conf<br />
<br />
<br />
* ss -n -o state established '( dport = :22 or sport = :22 )'<br />
--> Para ver que conexiones por ssh se han establecido<br />
<br />
--> To see what connections have been achievd by SSH<br />
<br />
<br />
* Revisar/Review: /etc/ssh/sshd_config<br />
<br />
Port 22XX<br />
<br />
MaxAuthTries 3<br />
<br />
PubkeyAuthentication yes<br />
<br />
IgnoreRhosts yes<br />
<br />
PasswordAuthentication no<br />
<br />
PermitEmptyPasswords no<br />
<br />
UsePAM no<br />
<br />
X11Forwarding no<br />
<br />
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no<br />
<br />
PermitRootLogin no <br />
<br />
PermitRootLogin without-password<br />
<br />
Protocolo 2<br />
<br />
StrictModes yes<br />
<br />
Logging<br />
<br />
SyslogFacility AUTH<br />
<br />
LogLevel INFO<br />
<br />
* Por buscar/To look for: <br />
PrintMotd no --> esto te muestra el mensaje de inicio/this shows you the message at the beginning<br />
<br />
AcceptEnv LANG LC_* lo dejo por defecto/Let it by default<br />
<br />
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no -> tiene que estar a no/should be as no<br />
<br />
* <br />
--> Cambiar Port 22XX - acordarse de abrir el firewall y poner el nuevo puerto en fail2ban<br />
<br />
--> Change Port 22XX - remember to open the firewall and put new port in fail2ban<br />
<br />
<br />
* sshd -t<br />
--> Para checkear si la configuracion esta bien, antes de reiniciar<br />
<br />
--> For checking th configuration is fine before restarting<br />
<br />
<br />
* service sshd restart<br />
--> Para aplicar cambios<br />
<br />
--> For applying changes:<br />
<br />
== Configuracion security Debian server ==<br />
<br />
* Limita el acceso/limit the access to ssh-key connections<br />
* Copia tu llave al servidor/Copy your key to the server: > ssh-copy-id -i user@server<br />
* Cambiar la configuración para solo permitir conexiones con ssh-keys/Change the configuration for only allowing conections with ssh-keys: nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config<br />
<br />
Modify or add the following line: PasswordAuthentication no<br />
<br />
* change the port for ssh<br />
* use fail2ban (Which jails are important to enable? sshd, I've seen you have much more! )<br />
<br />
* change the info of the server Apache is giving with ServerTokens and ServerSignature<br />
<br />
Open up /etc/apache2/conf.d/security<br />
<br />
Set ServerTokens OS to Prod<br />
<br />
Turn ServerSignature to Off<br />
<br />
Restart Apache web server.<br />
<br />
* Stop/avoid portmapper<br />
<br />
* iptables enabled (together with fail2ban)</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Check_list_security_for_feminist_servers&diff=961Check list security for feminist servers2021-04-14T18:23:58Z<p>Ooooo: /* Fail2ban */</p>
<hr />
<div>'''Checklist for security on a feminist server:'''<br />
<br />
== General recomendations ==<br />
<br />
* Active unattended upgrades<br />
* ufw / allow new port ssh<br />
* SSH server: Allow ssh only with key, no password PasswordAuthentication no<br />
* Change the port / remember add ufw allow new port ssh<br />
* Disallow login with root ( PermitRootLogin no)<br />
* Activate fail2ban. /configura new port ssh<br />
* Activate things like chkrootkit rkhunter etckeeper<br />
* Allow only TLSv 1.2 (no 1.0 y 1.1)<br />
* For software or service installed check file permissions and allow minimal needed<br />
* External services: If installing mysql, mongodb, ldap etc check that only uses localhost.<br />
* Apache: Include Security header and CSP in vhost configuration + Install and configure some softwares on the host : apache2 LXC<br />
* Notifications: Configure an everyday mail report sent to sysadmins<br />
* Logging: Logwatch + Configure what to log and what not<br />
* Security for containers depending on the service<br />
<br />
[https://labekka.red/servidoras-feministas/2019/10/09/fanzine-parte-4.html More info en Parte IV - Securicemos nuestra servidora web por La Bekka]<br />
<br />
== Fail2ban ==<br />
<br />
* failregex = fail reg ex <br />
->> define la regla con expresiones regulares en el filtro<br />
<br />
->> define the rule with regular expression in the filter<br />
<br />
<br />
* regex <br />
= expresión regular<br />
<br />
= frequent expression<br />
<br />
<br />
* /etc/fail2ban/filter.d/<br />
->> los filtros están aqui<br />
<br />
->> the filters are here <br />
<br />
<br />
* <br />
->> es necesario crear filtros para que fail2ban las utilice para luego ejecutar acciones<br />
<br />
->> It is necessary to create filters so that fail2ban can use them for executing actions<br />
<br />
->> Actualmente fail2ban establece filtros para Apache, sshd, qmail, vsftpd, lighttpd, Postfix y Courier Mail Server<br />
<br />
->> Actually fail2ban can create filters for Apache, sshd, qmail, vsftpd, lighttpd, Postfix y Courier Mail Server<br />
<br />
->> Los filtros son escritos con expresiones regulares de Python que establecen la regla que hará disparar una determinada acción sobre la IP que origina el hecho. La tupla (regla, acción) o (filtro, acción) es llamado “Jail” o “prisión”, y es lo que determina la penalización a un host maligno<br />
<br />
->> The filters are written with regular expressions from Python that establishes rules that will start a specific action from the IP that is creating the act. The "tupla" (rule, action) or (filter, action) is called “Jail”and it is what determines the penalisation of a malign host.<br />
<br />
<br />
* /var/log/fail2ban.log<br />
->> Los logs de fail2ban se pueden ver <br />
<br />
->> you can see the logs of fail2ban <br />
<br />
<br />
* sudo cat /var/log/fail2ban.log | grep 'Ban'<br />
->> ver que ips has sido baneadas<br />
<br />
->> you can see the banned ips <br />
<br />
<br />
* fail2ban-client status ssh<br />
->> Revisarlas por jails<br />
<br />
->> Review the jails <br />
<br />
<br />
* sudo iptables -L -n | awk '$1=="REJECT" && $4!="0.0.0.0/0"'<br />
->> Otra manera guay de verlo es<br />
<br />
->> Another nice way of seeing it<br />
<br />
<br />
* fail2ban-client status<br />
->> Para ver el estado de fail2ban y las jaulas activadas<br />
<br />
->> to see the fail2ban status and the activated jails<br />
<br />
<br />
* fail2ban-client reload sshd<br />
->> Para reiniciar la configuracion de una jaula<br />
<br />
->> for restarting the config of a jail<br />
<br />
[https://serverfault.com/questions/841183/how-to-show-all-banned-ip-with-fail2ban| More info here]<br />
<br />
== ssh-server config ==<br />
* Hacer una copia de seguridad de la conf/Make a security back up copy of the conf: cp /etc/ssh/sshd_config /etc/ssh/sshd_config.bk<br />
* Para ver que conexiones por ssh se han establecido/To see what connections have been achievd by SSH: ss -n -o state established '( dport = :22 or sport = :22 )'<br />
* Revisar/Review: /etc/ssh/sshd_config<br />
<br />
Port 22XX<br />
<br />
MaxAuthTries 3<br />
<br />
PubkeyAuthentication yes<br />
<br />
IgnoreRhosts yes<br />
<br />
PasswordAuthentication no<br />
<br />
PermitEmptyPasswords no<br />
<br />
UsePAM no<br />
<br />
X11Forwarding no<br />
<br />
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no<br />
<br />
PermitRootLogin no <br />
<br />
PermitRootLogin without-password<br />
<br />
Protocolo 2<br />
<br />
StrictModes yes<br />
<br />
Logging<br />
<br />
SyslogFacility AUTH<br />
<br />
LogLevel INFO<br />
<br />
* Por buscar/To look for: <br />
PrintMotd no --> esto te muestra el mensaje de inicio/this shows you the message at the beginning<br />
<br />
AcceptEnv LANG LC_* lo dejo por defecto/Let it by default<br />
<br />
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no -> tiene que estar a no/should be as no<br />
<br />
* Cambiar Port 22XX - acordarse de abrir el firewall y poner el nuevo puerto en fail2ban/Change Port 22XX - remember to open the firewall and put new port in fail2ban<br />
* Para checkear si la configuracion esta bien, antes de reiniciar/ For checking th configuration is fine before restarting: sshd -t<br />
* Para aplicar cambios/For applying changes: service sshd restart<br />
<br />
== Configuracion security Debian server ==<br />
<br />
* Limita el acceso/limit the access to ssh-key connections<br />
* Copia tu llave al servidor/Copy your key to the server: > ssh-copy-id -i user@server<br />
* Cambiar la configuración para solo permitir conexiones con ssh-keys/Change the configuration for only allowing conections with ssh-keys: nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config<br />
<br />
Modify or add the following line: PasswordAuthentication no<br />
<br />
* change the port for ssh<br />
* use fail2ban (Which jails are important to enable? sshd, I've seen you have much more! )<br />
<br />
* change the info of the server Apache is giving with ServerTokens and ServerSignature<br />
<br />
Open up /etc/apache2/conf.d/security<br />
<br />
Set ServerTokens OS to Prod<br />
<br />
Turn ServerSignature to Off<br />
<br />
Restart Apache web server.<br />
<br />
* Stop/avoid portmapper<br />
<br />
* iptables enabled (together with fail2ban)</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Check_list_security_for_feminist_servers&diff=960Check list security for feminist servers2021-04-14T18:22:54Z<p>Ooooo: /* Fail2ban */</p>
<hr />
<div>'''Checklist for security on a feminist server:'''<br />
<br />
== General recomendations ==<br />
<br />
* Active unattended upgrades<br />
* ufw / allow new port ssh<br />
* SSH server: Allow ssh only with key, no password PasswordAuthentication no<br />
* Change the port / remember add ufw allow new port ssh<br />
* Disallow login with root ( PermitRootLogin no)<br />
* Activate fail2ban. /configura new port ssh<br />
* Activate things like chkrootkit rkhunter etckeeper<br />
* Allow only TLSv 1.2 (no 1.0 y 1.1)<br />
* For software or service installed check file permissions and allow minimal needed<br />
* External services: If installing mysql, mongodb, ldap etc check that only uses localhost.<br />
* Apache: Include Security header and CSP in vhost configuration + Install and configure some softwares on the host : apache2 LXC<br />
* Notifications: Configure an everyday mail report sent to sysadmins<br />
* Logging: Logwatch + Configure what to log and what not<br />
* Security for containers depending on the service<br />
<br />
[https://labekka.red/servidoras-feministas/2019/10/09/fanzine-parte-4.html More info en Parte IV - Securicemos nuestra servidora web por La Bekka]<br />
<br />
== Fail2ban ==<br />
<br />
* failregex = fail reg ex <br />
->> define la regla con expresiones regulares en el filtro<br />
<br />
->> define the rule with regular expression in the filter<br />
<br />
* regex <br />
= expresión regular<br />
<br />
= frequent expression<br />
<br />
* /etc/fail2ban/filter.d/<br />
->> los filtros están aqui<br />
<br />
->> the filters are here <br />
<br />
* <br />
->> es necesario crear filtros para que fail2ban las utilice para luego ejecutar acciones<br />
<br />
->> It is necessary to create filters so that fail2ban can use them for executing actions<br />
<br />
->> Actualmente fail2ban establece filtros para Apache, sshd, qmail, vsftpd, lighttpd, Postfix y Courier Mail Server<br />
<br />
->> Actually fail2ban can create filters for Apache, sshd, qmail, vsftpd, lighttpd, Postfix y Courier Mail Server<br />
<br />
->> Los filtros son escritos con expresiones regulares de Python que establecen la regla que hará disparar una determinada acción sobre la IP que origina el hecho. La tupla (regla, acción) o (filtro, acción) es llamado “Jail” o “prisión”, y es lo que determina la penalización a un host maligno<br />
<br />
->> The filters are written with regular expressions from Python that establishes rules that will start a specific action from the IP that is creating the act. The "tupla" (rule, action) or (filter, action) is called “Jail”and it is what determines the penalisation of a malign host.<br />
<br />
* /var/log/fail2ban.log<br />
->> Los logs de fail2ban se pueden ver <br />
<br />
->> you can see the logs of fail2ban <br />
<br />
* sudo cat /var/log/fail2ban.log | grep 'Ban'<br />
->> ver que ips has sido baneadas<br />
<br />
->> you can see the banned ips <br />
<br />
* fail2ban-client status ssh<br />
->> Revisarlas por jails<br />
<br />
->> Review the jails <br />
<br />
* sudo iptables -L -n | awk '$1=="REJECT" && $4!="0.0.0.0/0"'<br />
->> Otra manera guay de verlo es<br />
<br />
->> Another nice way of seeing it<br />
<br />
* fail2ban-client status<br />
->> Para ver el estado de fail2ban y las jaulas activadas<br />
<br />
->> to see the fail2ban status and the activated jails<br />
<br />
* fail2ban-client reload sshd<br />
->> Para reiniciar la configuracion de una jaula<br />
<br />
->> for restarting the config of a jail<br />
<br />
[https://serverfault.com/questions/841183/how-to-show-all-banned-ip-with-fail2ban| More info here]<br />
<br />
== ssh-server config ==<br />
* Hacer una copia de seguridad de la conf/Make a security back up copy of the conf: cp /etc/ssh/sshd_config /etc/ssh/sshd_config.bk<br />
* Para ver que conexiones por ssh se han establecido/To see what connections have been achievd by SSH: ss -n -o state established '( dport = :22 or sport = :22 )'<br />
* Revisar/Review: /etc/ssh/sshd_config<br />
<br />
Port 22XX<br />
<br />
MaxAuthTries 3<br />
<br />
PubkeyAuthentication yes<br />
<br />
IgnoreRhosts yes<br />
<br />
PasswordAuthentication no<br />
<br />
PermitEmptyPasswords no<br />
<br />
UsePAM no<br />
<br />
X11Forwarding no<br />
<br />
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no<br />
<br />
PermitRootLogin no <br />
<br />
PermitRootLogin without-password<br />
<br />
Protocolo 2<br />
<br />
StrictModes yes<br />
<br />
Logging<br />
<br />
SyslogFacility AUTH<br />
<br />
LogLevel INFO<br />
<br />
* Por buscar/To look for: <br />
PrintMotd no --> esto te muestra el mensaje de inicio/this shows you the message at the beginning<br />
<br />
AcceptEnv LANG LC_* lo dejo por defecto/Let it by default<br />
<br />
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no -> tiene que estar a no/should be as no<br />
<br />
* Cambiar Port 22XX - acordarse de abrir el firewall y poner el nuevo puerto en fail2ban/Change Port 22XX - remember to open the firewall and put new port in fail2ban<br />
* Para checkear si la configuracion esta bien, antes de reiniciar/ For checking th configuration is fine before restarting: sshd -t<br />
* Para aplicar cambios/For applying changes: service sshd restart<br />
<br />
== Configuracion security Debian server ==<br />
<br />
* Limita el acceso/limit the access to ssh-key connections<br />
* Copia tu llave al servidor/Copy your key to the server: > ssh-copy-id -i user@server<br />
* Cambiar la configuración para solo permitir conexiones con ssh-keys/Change the configuration for only allowing conections with ssh-keys: nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config<br />
<br />
Modify or add the following line: PasswordAuthentication no<br />
<br />
* change the port for ssh<br />
* use fail2ban (Which jails are important to enable? sshd, I've seen you have much more! )<br />
<br />
* change the info of the server Apache is giving with ServerTokens and ServerSignature<br />
<br />
Open up /etc/apache2/conf.d/security<br />
<br />
Set ServerTokens OS to Prod<br />
<br />
Turn ServerSignature to Off<br />
<br />
Restart Apache web server.<br />
<br />
* Stop/avoid portmapper<br />
<br />
* iptables enabled (together with fail2ban)</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Check_list_security_for_feminist_servers&diff=959Check list security for feminist servers2021-04-14T18:21:48Z<p>Ooooo: /* Fail2ban */</p>
<hr />
<div>'''Checklist for security on a feminist server:'''<br />
<br />
== General recomendations ==<br />
<br />
* Active unattended upgrades<br />
* ufw / allow new port ssh<br />
* SSH server: Allow ssh only with key, no password PasswordAuthentication no<br />
* Change the port / remember add ufw allow new port ssh<br />
* Disallow login with root ( PermitRootLogin no)<br />
* Activate fail2ban. /configura new port ssh<br />
* Activate things like chkrootkit rkhunter etckeeper<br />
* Allow only TLSv 1.2 (no 1.0 y 1.1)<br />
* For software or service installed check file permissions and allow minimal needed<br />
* External services: If installing mysql, mongodb, ldap etc check that only uses localhost.<br />
* Apache: Include Security header and CSP in vhost configuration + Install and configure some softwares on the host : apache2 LXC<br />
* Notifications: Configure an everyday mail report sent to sysadmins<br />
* Logging: Logwatch + Configure what to log and what not<br />
* Security for containers depending on the service<br />
<br />
[https://labekka.red/servidoras-feministas/2019/10/09/fanzine-parte-4.html More info en Parte IV - Securicemos nuestra servidora web por La Bekka]<br />
<br />
== Fail2ban ==<br />
<br />
* failregex = fail reg ex <br />
->> define la regla con expresiones regulares en el filtro<br />
<br />
->> define the rule with regular expression in the filter<br />
<br />
* regex <br />
= expresión regular<br />
<br />
= frequent expression<br />
<br />
<br />
* /etc/fail2ban/filter.d/<br />
->> los filtros están aqui<br />
<br />
->> the filters are here <br />
<br />
* <br />
->> es necesario crear filtros para que fail2ban las utilice para luego ejecutar acciones<br />
->> It is necessary to create filters so that fail2ban can use them for executing actions<br />
<br />
->> Actualmente fail2ban establece filtros para Apache, sshd, qmail, vsftpd, lighttpd, Postfix y Courier Mail Server/<br />
->> Actually fail2ban can create filters for Apache, sshd, qmail, vsftpd, lighttpd, Postfix y Courier Mail Server<br />
<br />
->> Los filtros son escritos con expresiones regulares de Python que establecen la regla que hará disparar una determinada acción sobre la IP que origina el hecho. La tupla (regla, acción) o (filtro, acción) es llamado “Jail” o “prisión”, y es lo que determina la penalización a un host maligno<br />
->> The filters are written with regular expressions from Python that establishes rules that will start a specific action from the IP that is creating the act. The "tupla" (rule, action) or (filter, action) is called “Jail”and it is what determines the penalisation of a malign host.<br />
<br />
* /var/log/fail2ban.log<br />
->> Los logs de fail2ban se pueden ver <br />
->> you can see the logs of fail2ban <br />
<br />
* sudo cat /var/log/fail2ban.log | grep 'Ban'<br />
->> ver que ips has sido baneadas<br />
->> you can see the banned ips <br />
<br />
* fail2ban-client status ssh<br />
->> Revisarlas por jails<br />
->> Review the jails <br />
<br />
* sudo iptables -L -n | awk '$1=="REJECT" && $4!="0.0.0.0/0"'<br />
->> Otra manera guay de verlo es/<br />
->> Another nice way of seeing it: <br />
<br />
* fail2ban-client status<br />
->> Para ver el estado de fail2ban y las jaulas activadas<br />
->> to see the fail2ban status and the activated jails<br />
<br />
* fail2ban-client reload sshd<br />
Para reiniciar la configuracion de una jaula<br />
for restarting the config of a jail<br />
<br />
[https://serverfault.com/questions/841183/how-to-show-all-banned-ip-with-fail2ban| More info here]<br />
<br />
== ssh-server config ==<br />
* Hacer una copia de seguridad de la conf/Make a security back up copy of the conf: cp /etc/ssh/sshd_config /etc/ssh/sshd_config.bk<br />
* Para ver que conexiones por ssh se han establecido/To see what connections have been achievd by SSH: ss -n -o state established '( dport = :22 or sport = :22 )'<br />
* Revisar/Review: /etc/ssh/sshd_config<br />
<br />
Port 22XX<br />
<br />
MaxAuthTries 3<br />
<br />
PubkeyAuthentication yes<br />
<br />
IgnoreRhosts yes<br />
<br />
PasswordAuthentication no<br />
<br />
PermitEmptyPasswords no<br />
<br />
UsePAM no<br />
<br />
X11Forwarding no<br />
<br />
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no<br />
<br />
PermitRootLogin no <br />
<br />
PermitRootLogin without-password<br />
<br />
Protocolo 2<br />
<br />
StrictModes yes<br />
<br />
Logging<br />
<br />
SyslogFacility AUTH<br />
<br />
LogLevel INFO<br />
<br />
* Por buscar/To look for: <br />
PrintMotd no --> esto te muestra el mensaje de inicio/this shows you the message at the beginning<br />
<br />
AcceptEnv LANG LC_* lo dejo por defecto/Let it by default<br />
<br />
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no -> tiene que estar a no/should be as no<br />
<br />
* Cambiar Port 22XX - acordarse de abrir el firewall y poner el nuevo puerto en fail2ban/Change Port 22XX - remember to open the firewall and put new port in fail2ban<br />
* Para checkear si la configuracion esta bien, antes de reiniciar/ For checking th configuration is fine before restarting: sshd -t<br />
* Para aplicar cambios/For applying changes: service sshd restart<br />
<br />
== Configuracion security Debian server ==<br />
<br />
* Limita el acceso/limit the access to ssh-key connections<br />
* Copia tu llave al servidor/Copy your key to the server: > ssh-copy-id -i user@server<br />
* Cambiar la configuración para solo permitir conexiones con ssh-keys/Change the configuration for only allowing conections with ssh-keys: nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config<br />
<br />
Modify or add the following line: PasswordAuthentication no<br />
<br />
* change the port for ssh<br />
* use fail2ban (Which jails are important to enable? sshd, I've seen you have much more! )<br />
<br />
* change the info of the server Apache is giving with ServerTokens and ServerSignature<br />
<br />
Open up /etc/apache2/conf.d/security<br />
<br />
Set ServerTokens OS to Prod<br />
<br />
Turn ServerSignature to Off<br />
<br />
Restart Apache web server.<br />
<br />
* Stop/avoid portmapper<br />
<br />
* iptables enabled (together with fail2ban)</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Check_list_security_for_feminist_servers&diff=958Check list security for feminist servers2021-04-14T18:21:22Z<p>Ooooo: /* Fail2ban */</p>
<hr />
<div>'''Checklist for security on a feminist server:'''<br />
<br />
== General recomendations ==<br />
<br />
* Active unattended upgrades<br />
* ufw / allow new port ssh<br />
* SSH server: Allow ssh only with key, no password PasswordAuthentication no<br />
* Change the port / remember add ufw allow new port ssh<br />
* Disallow login with root ( PermitRootLogin no)<br />
* Activate fail2ban. /configura new port ssh<br />
* Activate things like chkrootkit rkhunter etckeeper<br />
* Allow only TLSv 1.2 (no 1.0 y 1.1)<br />
* For software or service installed check file permissions and allow minimal needed<br />
* External services: If installing mysql, mongodb, ldap etc check that only uses localhost.<br />
* Apache: Include Security header and CSP in vhost configuration + Install and configure some softwares on the host : apache2 LXC<br />
* Notifications: Configure an everyday mail report sent to sysadmins<br />
* Logging: Logwatch + Configure what to log and what not<br />
* Security for containers depending on the service<br />
<br />
[https://labekka.red/servidoras-feministas/2019/10/09/fanzine-parte-4.html More info en Parte IV - Securicemos nuestra servidora web por La Bekka]<br />
<br />
== Fail2ban ==<br />
<br />
* failregex = fail reg ex <br />
->> define la regla con expresiones regulares en el filtro<br />
->> define the rule with regular expression in the filter<br />
<br />
* regex <br />
= expresión regular<br />
= frequent expression<br />
<br />
<br />
* /etc/fail2ban/filter.d/<br />
->> los filtros están aqui<br />
->> the filters are here <br />
<br />
* <br />
->> es necesario crear filtros para que fail2ban las utilice para luego ejecutar acciones<br />
->> It is necessary to create filters so that fail2ban can use them for executing actions<br />
<br />
->> Actualmente fail2ban establece filtros para Apache, sshd, qmail, vsftpd, lighttpd, Postfix y Courier Mail Server/<br />
->> Actually fail2ban can create filters for Apache, sshd, qmail, vsftpd, lighttpd, Postfix y Courier Mail Server<br />
<br />
->> Los filtros son escritos con expresiones regulares de Python que establecen la regla que hará disparar una determinada acción sobre la IP que origina el hecho. La tupla (regla, acción) o (filtro, acción) es llamado “Jail” o “prisión”, y es lo que determina la penalización a un host maligno<br />
->> The filters are written with regular expressions from Python that establishes rules that will start a specific action from the IP that is creating the act. The "tupla" (rule, action) or (filter, action) is called “Jail”and it is what determines the penalisation of a malign host.<br />
<br />
* /var/log/fail2ban.log<br />
->> Los logs de fail2ban se pueden ver <br />
->> you can see the logs of fail2ban <br />
<br />
* sudo cat /var/log/fail2ban.log | grep 'Ban'<br />
->> ver que ips has sido baneadas<br />
->> you can see the banned ips <br />
<br />
* fail2ban-client status ssh<br />
->> Revisarlas por jails<br />
->> Review the jails <br />
<br />
* sudo iptables -L -n | awk '$1=="REJECT" && $4!="0.0.0.0/0"'<br />
->> Otra manera guay de verlo es/<br />
->> Another nice way of seeing it: <br />
<br />
* fail2ban-client status<br />
->> Para ver el estado de fail2ban y las jaulas activadas<br />
->> to see the fail2ban status and the activated jails<br />
<br />
* fail2ban-client reload sshd<br />
Para reiniciar la configuracion de una jaula<br />
for restarting the config of a jail<br />
<br />
[https://serverfault.com/questions/841183/how-to-show-all-banned-ip-with-fail2ban| More info here]<br />
<br />
== ssh-server config ==<br />
* Hacer una copia de seguridad de la conf/Make a security back up copy of the conf: cp /etc/ssh/sshd_config /etc/ssh/sshd_config.bk<br />
* Para ver que conexiones por ssh se han establecido/To see what connections have been achievd by SSH: ss -n -o state established '( dport = :22 or sport = :22 )'<br />
* Revisar/Review: /etc/ssh/sshd_config<br />
<br />
Port 22XX<br />
<br />
MaxAuthTries 3<br />
<br />
PubkeyAuthentication yes<br />
<br />
IgnoreRhosts yes<br />
<br />
PasswordAuthentication no<br />
<br />
PermitEmptyPasswords no<br />
<br />
UsePAM no<br />
<br />
X11Forwarding no<br />
<br />
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no<br />
<br />
PermitRootLogin no <br />
<br />
PermitRootLogin without-password<br />
<br />
Protocolo 2<br />
<br />
StrictModes yes<br />
<br />
Logging<br />
<br />
SyslogFacility AUTH<br />
<br />
LogLevel INFO<br />
<br />
* Por buscar/To look for: <br />
PrintMotd no --> esto te muestra el mensaje de inicio/this shows you the message at the beginning<br />
<br />
AcceptEnv LANG LC_* lo dejo por defecto/Let it by default<br />
<br />
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no -> tiene que estar a no/should be as no<br />
<br />
* Cambiar Port 22XX - acordarse de abrir el firewall y poner el nuevo puerto en fail2ban/Change Port 22XX - remember to open the firewall and put new port in fail2ban<br />
* Para checkear si la configuracion esta bien, antes de reiniciar/ For checking th configuration is fine before restarting: sshd -t<br />
* Para aplicar cambios/For applying changes: service sshd restart<br />
<br />
== Configuracion security Debian server ==<br />
<br />
* Limita el acceso/limit the access to ssh-key connections<br />
* Copia tu llave al servidor/Copy your key to the server: > ssh-copy-id -i user@server<br />
* Cambiar la configuración para solo permitir conexiones con ssh-keys/Change the configuration for only allowing conections with ssh-keys: nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config<br />
<br />
Modify or add the following line: PasswordAuthentication no<br />
<br />
* change the port for ssh<br />
* use fail2ban (Which jails are important to enable? sshd, I've seen you have much more! )<br />
<br />
* change the info of the server Apache is giving with ServerTokens and ServerSignature<br />
<br />
Open up /etc/apache2/conf.d/security<br />
<br />
Set ServerTokens OS to Prod<br />
<br />
Turn ServerSignature to Off<br />
<br />
Restart Apache web server.<br />
<br />
* Stop/avoid portmapper<br />
<br />
* iptables enabled (together with fail2ban)</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Check_list_security_for_feminist_servers&diff=957Check list security for feminist servers2021-04-14T18:15:43Z<p>Ooooo: /* Fail2ban */</p>
<hr />
<div>'''Checklist for security on a feminist server:'''<br />
<br />
== General recomendations ==<br />
<br />
* Active unattended upgrades<br />
* ufw / allow new port ssh<br />
* SSH server: Allow ssh only with key, no password PasswordAuthentication no<br />
* Change the port / remember add ufw allow new port ssh<br />
* Disallow login with root ( PermitRootLogin no)<br />
* Activate fail2ban. /configura new port ssh<br />
* Activate things like chkrootkit rkhunter etckeeper<br />
* Allow only TLSv 1.2 (no 1.0 y 1.1)<br />
* For software or service installed check file permissions and allow minimal needed<br />
* External services: If installing mysql, mongodb, ldap etc check that only uses localhost.<br />
* Apache: Include Security header and CSP in vhost configuration + Install and configure some softwares on the host : apache2 LXC<br />
* Notifications: Configure an everyday mail report sent to sysadmins<br />
* Logging: Logwatch + Configure what to log and what not<br />
* Security for containers depending on the service<br />
<br />
[https://labekka.red/servidoras-feministas/2019/10/09/fanzine-parte-4.html More info en Parte IV - Securicemos nuestra servidora web por La Bekka]<br />
<br />
== Fail2ban ==<br />
<br />
* failregex = fail reg ex <br />
->> define la regla con expresiones regulares en el filtro<br />
->> define the rule with regular expression in the filter<br />
<br />
* regex <br />
= expresión regular<br />
= frequent expression<br />
<br />
* los filtros están en/the filters are in: /etc/fail2ban/filter.d/<br />
<br />
* es necesario crear filtros para que fail2ban las utilice para luego ejecutar acciones/<br />
It is necessary to create filters so that fail2ban can use them for executing actions<br />
<br />
* Actualmente fail2ban establece filtros para Apache, sshd, qmail, vsftpd, lighttpd, Postfix y Courier Mail Server/<br />
Actually fail2ban can create filters for Apache, sshd, qmail, vsftpd, lighttpd, Postfix y Courier Mail Server<br />
<br />
* Los filtros son escritos con expresiones regulares de Python que establecen la regla que hará disparar una determinada acción sobre la IP que origina el hecho. La tupla (regla, acción) o (filtro, acción) es llamado “Jail” o “prisión”, y es lo que determina la penalización a un host maligno/<br />
The filters are written with regular expressions from Python that establishes rules that will start a specific action from the IP that is creating the act. The "tupla" (rule, action) or (filter, action) is called “Jail”and it is what determines the penalisation of a malign host.<br />
<br />
* Los logs de fail2ban se pueden ver en<br />
you can see the logs of fail2ban here: <br />
/var/log/fail2ban.log<br />
<br />
* Para ver que ips has sido baneadas/<br />
you can see the banned ips here: <br />
sudo cat /var/log/fail2ban.log | grep 'Ban'<br />
<br />
* Revisarlas por jails/<br />
or you can review the jails here: <br />
fail2ban-client status ssh<br />
<br />
* Otra manera guay de verlo es/<br />
Another nice way of seeing it: <br />
sudo iptables -L -n | awk '$1=="REJECT" && $4!="0.0.0.0/0"'<br />
<br />
* Para ver el estado de fail2ban y las jaulas activadas/<br />
to see the fail2ban status and the activated jails: <br />
fail2ban-client status<br />
<br />
* Para reiniciar la configuracion de una jaula/<br />
for restarting the config of a jail: <br />
fail2ban-client reload sshd<br />
<br />
[https://serverfault.com/questions/841183/how-to-show-all-banned-ip-with-fail2ban| More info here]<br />
<br />
== ssh-server config ==<br />
* Hacer una copia de seguridad de la conf/Make a security back up copy of the conf: cp /etc/ssh/sshd_config /etc/ssh/sshd_config.bk<br />
* Para ver que conexiones por ssh se han establecido/To see what connections have been achievd by SSH: ss -n -o state established '( dport = :22 or sport = :22 )'<br />
* Revisar/Review: /etc/ssh/sshd_config<br />
<br />
Port 22XX<br />
<br />
MaxAuthTries 3<br />
<br />
PubkeyAuthentication yes<br />
<br />
IgnoreRhosts yes<br />
<br />
PasswordAuthentication no<br />
<br />
PermitEmptyPasswords no<br />
<br />
UsePAM no<br />
<br />
X11Forwarding no<br />
<br />
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no<br />
<br />
PermitRootLogin no <br />
<br />
PermitRootLogin without-password<br />
<br />
Protocolo 2<br />
<br />
StrictModes yes<br />
<br />
Logging<br />
<br />
SyslogFacility AUTH<br />
<br />
LogLevel INFO<br />
<br />
* Por buscar/To look for: <br />
PrintMotd no --> esto te muestra el mensaje de inicio/this shows you the message at the beginning<br />
<br />
AcceptEnv LANG LC_* lo dejo por defecto/Let it by default<br />
<br />
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no -> tiene que estar a no/should be as no<br />
<br />
* Cambiar Port 22XX - acordarse de abrir el firewall y poner el nuevo puerto en fail2ban/Change Port 22XX - remember to open the firewall and put new port in fail2ban<br />
* Para checkear si la configuracion esta bien, antes de reiniciar/ For checking th configuration is fine before restarting: sshd -t<br />
* Para aplicar cambios/For applying changes: service sshd restart<br />
<br />
== Configuracion security Debian server ==<br />
<br />
* Limita el acceso/limit the access to ssh-key connections<br />
* Copia tu llave al servidor/Copy your key to the server: > ssh-copy-id -i user@server<br />
* Cambiar la configuración para solo permitir conexiones con ssh-keys/Change the configuration for only allowing conections with ssh-keys: nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config<br />
<br />
Modify or add the following line: PasswordAuthentication no<br />
<br />
* change the port for ssh<br />
* use fail2ban (Which jails are important to enable? sshd, I've seen you have much more! )<br />
<br />
* change the info of the server Apache is giving with ServerTokens and ServerSignature<br />
<br />
Open up /etc/apache2/conf.d/security<br />
<br />
Set ServerTokens OS to Prod<br />
<br />
Turn ServerSignature to Off<br />
<br />
Restart Apache web server.<br />
<br />
* Stop/avoid portmapper<br />
<br />
* iptables enabled (together with fail2ban)</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Machine&diff=956Machine2021-04-14T17:57:33Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''Our machine'''<br />
<br />
''Now''<br />
<br />
Linux binti 4.19.0-13-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.19.160-2 (2020-11-28) x86_64 GNU/Linux<br />
<br />
<br />
''Before 2021''<br />
<br />
Linux anoia 3.2.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.2.68-1+deb7u4 x86_64<br />
<br />
The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;<br />
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the<br />
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.<br />
<br />
Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent<br />
permitted by applicable law.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''How many processors has anarchaserver ?'''<br />
<br />
grep processor /proc/cpuinfo | wc -l<br />
<br />
''Now''<br />
<br />
2<br />
<br />
<br />
''Before 2021''<br />
<br />
1<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Get the model name of the processor'''<br />
<br />
cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep "model name"<br />
<br />
''Now''<br />
<br />
model name : QEMU Virtual CPU version 2.5+<br />
<br />
<br />
''Before 2021''<br />
<br />
model name : QEMU Virtual CPU version 2.1.2<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Which memory is allocated to anarchaserver ?'''<br />
<br />
free -m -h<br />
<br />
''Now''<br />
<br />
total used free shared buff/cache available<br />
Mem: 3.9Gi 1.6Gi 602Mi 103Mi 1.7Gi 1.9Gi<br />
Swap: 4.0Gi 870Mi 3.1Gi<br />
<br />
<br />
''Before 2021''<br />
<br />
total used free shared buffers cached<br />
Mem: 1.0G 912M 90M 0B 120M 448M<br />
-/+ buffers/cache: 343M 658M<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Power consumption'''<br />
<br />
sudo apt-get install powertop<br />
<br />
<br />
''Now''<br />
<br />
Summary: 345.8 wakeups/second, 0.0 GPU ops/seconds, 0.0 VFS ops/sec and 9.1% CPU use<br />
<br />
Usage Events/s Category Description<br />
3.3 ms/s 127.2 Timer hrtimer_wakeup<br />
43.6 ms/s 55.6 Process /usr/bin/puredata -nogui /home/b01/anarc<br />
537.9 µs/s 26.5 Timer tick_sched_timer<br />
3.0 ms/s 24.3 Process /usr/sbin/mysqld<br />
4.1 ms/s 18.6 Process /usr/sbin/netdata -P /var/run/netdata/ne<br />
1.5 ms/s 18.9 Interrupt [3] net_rx(softirq)<br />
1.3 ms/s 17.7 Process /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/fail2ban-serve<br />
106.4 µs/s 11.4 Process [rcu_sched]<br />
10.9 ms/s 6.5 Process /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start<br />
481.0 µs/s 6.4 Process /usr/bin/icecast2 -b -c /etc/icecast2/ic<br />
7.6 ms/s 3.5 Process /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/ebpf.plug<br />
0.8 ms/s 5.3 Process [dmcrypt_write]<br />
46.9 µs/s 4.3 kWork gc_worker<br />
7.6 ms/s 0.26 Process /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/apps.plug<br />
<br />
<ESC> Exit<br />
<br />
''Before 2021''<br />
<br />
PowerTOP 2.6.1 Overview Idle stats Frequency stats Device<br />
stats Tunab<br />
<br />
Summary: 34.6 wakeups/second, 0.0 GPU ops/seconds, 0.0 VFS ops/sec and<br />
1.3% CPU<br />
<br />
Usage Events/s Category Description<br />
593.0 µs/s 9.9 Process /usr/sbin/mysqld --basedi<br />
165.0 µs/s 7.9 Timer tick_sched_timer<br />
223.8 µs/s 4.9 Interrupt [3] net_rx(softirq)<br />
4.9 ms/s 2.0 Process [kswapd0]<br />
43.8 µs/s 3.0 Timer hrtimer_wakeup<br />
3.3 ms/s 0.00 Process powertop<br />
49.5 µs/s 1.0 Process [kworker/0:0]<br />
44.7 µs/s 1.0 Process /usr/sbin/cron<br />
29.8 µs/s 1.0 Process /usr/bin/memcached -m 64<br />
11.0 µs/s 1.0 Timer watchdog_timer_fn<br />
6.5 µs/s 1.0 Process [watchdog/0]<br />
4.1 µs/s 1.0 kWork flush_to_ldisc<br />
0.7 µs/s 1.0 kWork cfq_kick_queue<br />
2.3 ms/s 0.00 Process /usr/sbin/rsyslogd -c5<br />
357.0 µs/s 0.00 kWork kcryptd_crypt<br />
246.1 µs/s 0.00 Interrupt [9] RCU(softirq)<br />
208.5 µs/s 0.00 Process sshd: geeksha@pts/3<br />
<br />
<ESC> Exit |</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Machine&diff=955Machine2021-04-14T17:56:50Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''Our machine'''<br />
<br />
''Now''<br />
<br />
Linux binti 4.19.0-13-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.19.160-2 (2020-11-28) x86_64 GNU/Linux<br />
<br />
<br />
''Before 2021''<br />
<br />
Linux anoia 3.2.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.2.68-1+deb7u4 x86_64<br />
<br />
The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;<br />
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the<br />
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.<br />
<br />
Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent<br />
permitted by applicable law.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''How many processors has anarchaserver ?'''<br />
<br />
grep processor /proc/cpuinfo | wc -l<br />
<br />
''Now''<br />
<br />
2<br />
<br />
<br />
''Before 2021''<br />
<br />
1<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Get the model name of the processor'''<br />
<br />
cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep "model name"<br />
<br />
''Now''<br />
<br />
model name : QEMU Virtual CPU version 2.5+<br />
<br />
<br />
''Before 2021''<br />
<br />
model name : QEMU Virtual CPU version 2.1.2<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Which memory is allocated to anarchaserver ?'''<br />
<br />
free -m -h<br />
<br />
''Now''<br />
<br />
total used free shared buff/cache available<br />
Mem: 3.9Gi 1.6Gi 602Mi 103Mi 1.7Gi 1.9Gi<br />
Swap: 4.0Gi 870Mi 3.1Gi<br />
<br />
<br />
''Before 2021''<br />
<br />
total used free shared buffers cached<br />
Mem: 1.0G 912M 90M 0B 120M 448M<br />
-/+ buffers/cache: 343M 658M<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Power consumption'''<br />
<br />
sudo apt-get install powertop<br />
<br />
<br />
''Now''<br />
<br />
Summary: 345.8 wakeups/second, 0.0 GPU ops/seconds, 0.0 VFS ops/sec and 9.1% CPU use<br />
<br />
Usage Events/s Category Description<br />
3.3 ms/s 127.2 Timer hrtimer_wakeup<br />
43.6 ms/s 55.6 Process /usr/bin/puredata -nogui /home/b01/anarc<br />
537.9 µs/s 26.5 Timer tick_sched_timer<br />
3.0 ms/s 24.3 Process /usr/sbin/mysqld<br />
4.1 ms/s 18.6 Process /usr/sbin/netdata -P /var/run/netdata/ne<br />
1.5 ms/s 18.9 Interrupt [3] net_rx(softirq)<br />
1.3 ms/s 17.7 Process /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/fail2ban-serve<br />
106.4 µs/s 11.4 Process [rcu_sched]<br />
10.9 ms/s 6.5 Process /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start<br />
481.0 µs/s 6.4 Process /usr/bin/icecast2 -b -c /etc/icecast2/ic<br />
7.6 ms/s 3.5 Process /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/ebpf.plug<br />
0.8 ms/s 5.3 Process [dmcrypt_write]<br />
46.9 µs/s 4.3 kWork gc_worker<br />
7.6 ms/s 0.26 Process /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/apps.plug<br />
<br />
<ESC> Exit<br />
<br />
''Before 2021''<br />
<br />
PowerTOP 2.6.1 Overview Idle stats Frequency stats Device<br />
stats Tunab<br />
<br />
Summary: 34.6 wakeups/second, 0.0 GPU ops/seconds, 0.0 VFS ops/sec and<br />
1.3% CPU<br />
<br />
Usage Events/s Category Description<br />
593.0 µs/s 9.9 Process /usr/sbin/mysqld --basedi<br />
165.0 µs/s 7.9 Timer tick_sched_timer<br />
223.8 µs/s 4.9 Interrupt [3] net_rx(softirq)<br />
4.9 ms/s 2.0 Process [kswapd0]<br />
43.8 µs/s 3.0 Timer hrtimer_wakeup<br />
3.3 ms/s 0.00 Process powertop<br />
49.5 µs/s 1.0 Process [kworker/0:0]<br />
44.7 µs/s 1.0 Process /usr/sbin/cron<br />
29.8 µs/s 1.0 Process /usr/bin/memcached -m 64<br />
11.0 µs/s 1.0 Timer watchdog_timer_fn<br />
6.5 µs/s 1.0 Process [watchdog/0]<br />
4.1 µs/s 1.0 kWork flush_to_ldisc<br />
0.7 µs/s 1.0 kWork cfq_kick_queue<br />
2.3 ms/s 0.00 Process /usr/sbin/rsyslogd -c5<br />
357.0 µs/s 0.00 kWork kcryptd_crypt<br />
246.1 µs/s 0.00 Interrupt [9] RCU(softirq)<br />
208.5 µs/s 0.00 Process sshd: geeksha@pts/3<br />
<br />
<ESC> Exit |</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Machine&diff=954Machine2021-04-14T17:55:50Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''Our machine'''<br />
<br />
''Now''<br />
<br />
Linux binti 4.19.0-13-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.19.160-2 (2020-11-28) x86_64 GNU/Linux<br />
<br />
<br />
''Before 2021''<br />
<br />
Linux anoia 3.2.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.2.68-1+deb7u4 x86_64<br />
<br />
The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;<br />
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the<br />
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.<br />
<br />
Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent<br />
permitted by applicable law.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''How many processors has anarchaserver ?'''<br />
<br />
grep processor /proc/cpuinfo | wc -l<br />
<br />
''Now''<br />
<br />
2<br />
<br />
<br />
''Before 2021''<br />
<br />
1<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Get the model name of the processor'''<br />
<br />
cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep "model name"<br />
<br />
''Now''<br />
<br />
model name : QEMU Virtual CPU version 2.5+<br />
<br />
<br />
''Before 2021''<br />
<br />
model name : QEMU Virtual CPU version 2.1.2<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Which memory is allocated to anarchaserver ?'''<br />
<br />
free -m -h<br />
<br />
''Now''<br />
<br />
total used free shared buff/cache available<br />
Mem: 3.9Gi 1.6Gi 602Mi 103Mi 1.7Gi 1.9Gi<br />
Swap: 4.0Gi 870Mi 3.1Gi<br />
<br />
<br />
''Before 2021''<br />
<br />
total used free shared buffers cached<br />
Mem: 1.0G 912M 90M 0B 120M 448M<br />
-/+ buffers/cache: 343M 658M<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Power consumption'''<br />
<br />
sudo apt-get install powertop<br />
<br />
<br />
''Now''<br />
<br />
Summary: 345.8 wakeups/second, 0.0 GPU ops/seconds, 0.0 VFS ops/sec and 9.1% CPU use<br />
<br />
Usage Events/s Category Description<br />
3.3 ms/s 127.2 Timer hrtimer_wakeup<br />
43.6 ms/s 55.6 Process /usr/bin/puredata -nogui /home/b01/anarc<br />
537.9 µs/s 26.5 Timer tick_sched_timer<br />
3.0 ms/s 24.3 Process /usr/sbin/mysqld<br />
4.1 ms/s 18.6 Process /usr/sbin/netdata -P /var/run/netdata/ne<br />
1.5 ms/s 18.9 Interrupt [3] net_rx(softirq)<br />
1.3 ms/s 17.7 Process /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/fail2ban-serve<br />
106.4 µs/s 11.4 Process [rcu_sched]<br />
10.9 ms/s 6.5 Process /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start<br />
481.0 µs/s 6.4 Process /usr/bin/icecast2 -b -c /etc/icecast2/ic<br />
7.6 ms/s 3.5 Process /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/ebpf.plug<br />
0.8 ms/s 5.3 Process [dmcrypt_write]<br />
46.9 µs/s 4.3 kWork gc_worker<br />
7.6 ms/s 0.26 Process /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/apps.plug<br />
<br />
<ESC> Exit<br />
<br />
''Before 2021''<br />
<br />
PowerTOP 2.6.1 Overview Idle stats Frequency stats Device<br />
stats Tunab<br />
<br />
Summary: 34.6 wakeups/second, 0.0 GPU ops/seconds, 0.0 VFS ops/sec and<br />
1.3% CPU<br />
<br />
Usage Events/s Category Description<br />
593.0 µs/s 9.9 Process /usr/sbin/mysqld --basedi<br />
165.0 µs/s 7.9 Timer tick_sched_timer<br />
223.8 µs/s 4.9 Interrupt [3] net_rx(softirq)<br />
4.9 ms/s 2.0 Process [kswapd0]<br />
43.8 µs/s 3.0 Timer hrtimer_wakeup<br />
3.3 ms/s 0.00 Process powertop<br />
49.5 µs/s 1.0 Process [kworker/0:0]<br />
44.7 µs/s 1.0 Process /usr/sbin/cron<br />
29.8 µs/s 1.0 Process /usr/bin/memcached -m 64<br />
11.0 µs/s 1.0 Timer watchdog_timer_fn<br />
6.5 µs/s 1.0 Process [watchdog/0]<br />
4.1 µs/s 1.0 kWork flush_to_ldisc<br />
0.7 µs/s 1.0 kWork cfq_kick_queue<br />
2.3 ms/s 0.00 Process /usr/sbin/rsyslogd -c5<br />
357.0 µs/s 0.00 kWork kcryptd_crypt<br />
246.1 µs/s 0.00 Interrupt [9] RCU(softirq)<br />
208.5 µs/s 0.00 Process sshd: geeksha@pts/3<br />
<br />
<ESC> Exit |</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Machine&diff=953Machine2021-04-14T17:54:49Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''Our machine'''<br />
<br />
''Now''<br />
<br />
Linux binti 4.19.0-13-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.19.160-2 (2020-11-28) x86_64 GNU/Linux<br />
<br />
<br />
''Before 2021''<br />
<br />
Linux anoia 3.2.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.2.68-1+deb7u4 x86_64<br />
<br />
The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;<br />
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the<br />
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.<br />
<br />
Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent<br />
permitted by applicable law.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''How many processors has anarchaserver ?'''<br />
<br />
grep processor /proc/cpuinfo | wc -l<br />
<br />
''Now''<br />
<br />
2<br />
<br />
<br />
''Before 2021''<br />
<br />
1<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Get the model name of the processor'''<br />
<br />
cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep "model name"<br />
<br />
''Now''<br />
<br />
model name : QEMU Virtual CPU version 2.5+<br />
<br />
<br />
''Before 2021''<br />
<br />
model name : QEMU Virtual CPU version 2.1.2<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Which memory is allocated to anarchaserver ?'''<br />
<br />
free -m -h<br />
<br />
''Now''<br />
<br />
total used free shared buff/cache available<br />
Mem: 3.9Gi 1.6Gi 602Mi 103Mi 1.7Gi 1.9Gi<br />
Swap: 4.0Gi 870Mi 3.1Gi<br />
<br />
<br />
''Before 2021''<br />
<br />
total used free shared buffers cached<br />
Mem: 1.0G 912M 90M 0B 120M 448M<br />
-/+ buffers/cache: 343M 658M<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Power consumption'''<br />
<br />
sudo apt-get install powertop<br />
<br />
<br />
''Now''<br />
<br />
Summary: 345.8 wakeups/second, 0.0 GPU ops/seconds, 0.0 VFS ops/sec and 9.1% CPU use<br />
<br />
Usage Events/s Category Description<br />
3.3 ms/s 127.2 Timer hrtimer_wakeup<br />
43.6 ms/s 55.6 Process /usr/bin/puredata -nogui /home/b01/anarc<br />
537.9 µs/s 26.5 Timer tick_sched_timer<br />
3.0 ms/s 24.3 Process /usr/sbin/mysqld<br />
4.1 ms/s 18.6 Process /usr/sbin/netdata -P /var/run/netdata/ne<br />
1.5 ms/s 18.9 Interrupt [3] net_rx(softirq)<br />
1.3 ms/s 17.7 Process /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/fail2ban-serve<br />
106.4 µs/s 11.4 Process [rcu_sched]<br />
10.9 ms/s 6.5 Process /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start<br />
481.0 µs/s 6.4 Process /usr/bin/icecast2 -b -c /etc/icecast2/ic<br />
7.6 ms/s 3.5 Process /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/ebpf.plug<br />
0.8 ms/s 5.3 Process [dmcrypt_write]<br />
46.9 µs/s 4.3 kWork gc_worker<br />
7.6 ms/s 0.26 Process /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/apps.plug<br />
<br />
<ESC> Exit<br />
<br />
''Before 2021''<br />
<br />
PowerTOP 2.6.1 Overview Idle stats Frequency stats Device<br />
stats Tunab<br />
<br />
Summary: 34.6 wakeups/second, 0.0 GPU ops/seconds, 0.0 VFS ops/sec and<br />
1.3% CPU<br />
<br />
Usage Events/s Category Description<br />
593.0 µs/s 9.9 Process /usr/sbin/mysqld --basedi<br />
165.0 µs/s 7.9 Timer tick_sched_timer<br />
223.8 µs/s 4.9 Interrupt [3] net_rx(softirq)<br />
4.9 ms/s 2.0 Process [kswapd0]<br />
43.8 µs/s 3.0 Timer hrtimer_wakeup<br />
3.3 ms/s 0.00 Process powertop<br />
49.5 µs/s 1.0 Process [kworker/0:0]<br />
44.7 µs/s 1.0 Process /usr/sbin/cron<br />
29.8 µs/s 1.0 Process /usr/bin/memcached -m 64<br />
11.0 µs/s 1.0 Timer watchdog_timer_fn<br />
6.5 µs/s 1.0 Process [watchdog/0]<br />
4.1 µs/s 1.0 kWork flush_to_ldisc<br />
0.7 µs/s 1.0 kWork cfq_kick_queue<br />
2.3 ms/s 0.00 Process /usr/sbin/rsyslogd -c5<br />
357.0 µs/s 0.00 kWork kcryptd_crypt<br />
246.1 µs/s 0.00 Interrupt [9] RCU(softirq)<br />
208.5 µs/s 0.00 Process sshd: geeksha@pts/3<br />
<br />
<ESC> Exit |</div>Ooooohttps://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php?title=Machine&diff=952Machine2021-04-14T17:54:33Z<p>Ooooo: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''Our machine'''<br />
<br />
''Now''<br />
<br />
Linux binti 4.19.0-13-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.19.160-2 (2020-11-28) x86_64 GNU/Linux<br />
<br />
<br />
''Before 2021''<br />
<br />
Linux anoia 3.2.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.2.68-1+deb7u4 x86_64<br />
<br />
The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;<br />
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the<br />
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.<br />
<br />
Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent<br />
permitted by applicable law.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''How many processors has anarchaserver ?'''<br />
<br />
grep processor /proc/cpuinfo | wc -l<br />
<br />
''Now''<br />
<br />
2<br />
<br />
<br />
''Before 2021''<br />
<br />
1<br />
<br />
'''Get the model name of the processor'''<br />
<br />
cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep "model name"<br />
<br />
''Now''<br />
<br />
model name : QEMU Virtual CPU version 2.5+<br />
<br />
<br />
''Before 2021''<br />
<br />
model name : QEMU Virtual CPU version 2.1.2<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Which memory is allocated to anarchaserver ?'''<br />
<br />
free -m -h<br />
<br />
''Now''<br />
<br />
total used free shared buff/cache available<br />
Mem: 3.9Gi 1.6Gi 602Mi 103Mi 1.7Gi 1.9Gi<br />
Swap: 4.0Gi 870Mi 3.1Gi<br />
<br />
<br />
''Before 2021''<br />
<br />
total used free shared buffers cached<br />
Mem: 1.0G 912M 90M 0B 120M 448M<br />
-/+ buffers/cache: 343M 658M<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Power consumption'''<br />
<br />
sudo apt-get install powertop<br />
<br />
<br />
''Now''<br />
<br />
Summary: 345.8 wakeups/second, 0.0 GPU ops/seconds, 0.0 VFS ops/sec and 9.1% CPU use<br />
<br />
Usage Events/s Category Description<br />
3.3 ms/s 127.2 Timer hrtimer_wakeup<br />
43.6 ms/s 55.6 Process /usr/bin/puredata -nogui /home/b01/anarc<br />
537.9 µs/s 26.5 Timer tick_sched_timer<br />
3.0 ms/s 24.3 Process /usr/sbin/mysqld<br />
4.1 ms/s 18.6 Process /usr/sbin/netdata -P /var/run/netdata/ne<br />
1.5 ms/s 18.9 Interrupt [3] net_rx(softirq)<br />
1.3 ms/s 17.7 Process /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/fail2ban-serve<br />
106.4 µs/s 11.4 Process [rcu_sched]<br />
10.9 ms/s 6.5 Process /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start<br />
481.0 µs/s 6.4 Process /usr/bin/icecast2 -b -c /etc/icecast2/ic<br />
7.6 ms/s 3.5 Process /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/ebpf.plug<br />
0.8 ms/s 5.3 Process [dmcrypt_write]<br />
46.9 µs/s 4.3 kWork gc_worker<br />
7.6 ms/s 0.26 Process /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/apps.plug<br />
<br />
<ESC> Exit<br />
<br />
''Before 2021''<br />
<br />
PowerTOP 2.6.1 Overview Idle stats Frequency stats Device<br />
stats Tunab<br />
<br />
Summary: 34.6 wakeups/second, 0.0 GPU ops/seconds, 0.0 VFS ops/sec and<br />
1.3% CPU<br />
<br />
Usage Events/s Category Description<br />
593.0 µs/s 9.9 Process /usr/sbin/mysqld --basedi<br />
165.0 µs/s 7.9 Timer tick_sched_timer<br />
223.8 µs/s 4.9 Interrupt [3] net_rx(softirq)<br />
4.9 ms/s 2.0 Process [kswapd0]<br />
43.8 µs/s 3.0 Timer hrtimer_wakeup<br />
3.3 ms/s 0.00 Process powertop<br />
49.5 µs/s 1.0 Process [kworker/0:0]<br />
44.7 µs/s 1.0 Process /usr/sbin/cron<br />
29.8 µs/s 1.0 Process /usr/bin/memcached -m 64<br />
11.0 µs/s 1.0 Timer watchdog_timer_fn<br />
6.5 µs/s 1.0 Process [watchdog/0]<br />
4.1 µs/s 1.0 kWork flush_to_ldisc<br />
0.7 µs/s 1.0 kWork cfq_kick_queue<br />
2.3 ms/s 0.00 Process /usr/sbin/rsyslogd -c5<br />
357.0 µs/s 0.00 kWork kcryptd_crypt<br />
246.1 µs/s 0.00 Interrupt [9] RCU(softirq)<br />
208.5 µs/s 0.00 Process sshd: geeksha@pts/3<br />
<br />
<ESC> Exit |</div>Ooooo