Servidor feminista/Feminist Server

Welcome to this brainstorming session about feminist servers. We will start by a collective reflection on the idea of feminist server: To start the discussion of what is a Feminist Server, we would like to share the principles that followed the Feminist Server Summit I organised by the Constant. Following the discussion, Femke from Constant came up with the following principles. Such principle/defintion help us to think in an expansive way of about feminist servers.

   Is a situated technology. She has a sense of context and considers herself part of an ecology of practice
   Is run for and by a community that cares enough for her in order to make her exist
   Builds on the materiality of software, hardware and the bodies gathered around it
   Opens herself to expose processes, tools, sources , habits, patterns
   Does not strive for seamlessness. Talk of transparency too often signals that something is being made invisible (Division of labour –  the not so fun stuff is made by people – that's a feminisy issue)
   Avoids efficiency, ease-of-use, scaleability and immediacy because they can be traps
   Knows that networking is actually an awkward, promiscuous and parasitic practice
   Is autonomous in the sense that she decides for her own dependencies
   Radically questions the conditions for serving and service; experiments with changing client – server relations where she can  
   Treats technology as part of a social reality          
   Wants networks to be mutable and read-write accessible
   Does not confuse safety with security
   Takes the risk of exposing her insecurity  
   Tries hard not to apologise when she sometimes is not available

• This is not a closed "definition". Other principles can be added to this list of principles.

For the collective reflections the questions we would like to address are:

   1. Why is it important to have a feminist server ?                                   

   2. Personal Motivation for being at the meeting? Why are you interested by a feminist server?                             

   3. Challenges and reservations?                                 

   4. Map all the task that we need to make up a server /and roles that exists.                                            

   5. Map other projects that have attempted to do this? What are the resources already available?

   6. What we do for the rest of the week?

The collective answers ca be find below:

   1. Why is it important to have a feminist server ?  
   

-- The need to have feminist servers have emerged throughout the past years. More recently, though there was a story where a woman in Madrid who was doing feminist videos. This woman started be harrassed and trolled online. Following this incident, the need arise among the feminist scene in Spain to have a safer space on the net to host feminist content. Also: Post-porno content cannot hosted anywhere because they are considered as pornographic material.. -- There is a need, there is a niche for such a server. There are no such political space where feminist resistance happen. -- At the ETC in 2008, people were working on a video server to host post-porno stuff, but the project never came to fruitition. --It is important to have access to a server where you are in control of your content, you know where it is located, etc. This is about regaining control and gain autonomy. It is about being able to have feminist mailing lists that are managed by a feminist tech collective, e-mails services, etc. -- There has been an awareness that there are often few women, genderqueer and trans that are involved in tecky stuff. It is about transfering knowledge and recognising that techy.

-- safe space online to keep feminist projects -- lost material, start from zero, after four years of hard work => take content in our hands -- problem with access to servers that are administered elsewhere -- social, political implications -- bring the control of access, usage and diffusion in our hands -- pull together our projects, information, and have full control of it -- space for storing stuff withtout passing through providers, and not knowing what they will do with our content -- physical contact -- independence when having the physical hardware in access 2. Personal Motivation for being at the meeting? Why are you interested by a feminist server? -- a feminist server is different from anarchist server: (not that important the gender of the person who maintains) need of civility of this political and recognition of the figure of the server. Political statement. Trans-hack-feminist emancipation. -- Lack of autonomous infrastructure in the Internet. -- Feminists: decide what we need. We: have to take care of what we *really* need. -- Gathering space to coordinate between different feminists. A space that enables new agencies. -- Feminism is very hard term in many levels. A negative context. Strange that it does not exist. When we talk about feminism there is often a «  brrr ». It is very necessary? This is a provocation : an interesting one. -- Personal level: own server is good, feminist server. We have to start getting involved into infrastructure. And learn how to administrate.

-- I want to learn the skills. -- I love feminists that work with technology. I am interested in doing tech in a feminist way. Good occasion to experiment and see what our needs are. -- learn what our needs are by doing it ourselves. -- necessity to place things (infrastructure) in our hands. -- 3. Challenges and reservations? It is quite a big responsability.

In a context like Calafou, there might be quite a few challenges in terms of: Hardware, power cut, cost, etc. Is there a lack of capacity? What about long term commitment? What is the purpose of a Feminist Server? Is it to play around or to serve a political purpose? We need to have a common understanding. What about the sustainability of the server. How does it become sustainable socially? Administering a server on a personal machine vs. administering a server for other collective/people/etc. Different thing to work on my server and working with other people. If i want to learn about server administration. It is to meet other people. 2 approach to administer a server : everyone has access to the server (many sys admin) - or otherwsie what will be the policy? (is a feminist server about boundary setting? If so what are these boundaries?). In my network i don't have enough people who are interested to manage a feminist server, so i need to collaborate with people at the international level. If we create a feminist server, will feminist want to use? Will they trump less efficiency for politics? Or will they say the services are too slow, i am switching to a "free" corporate service (google, microsoft, etc.)

   4. Tasks/Role Feminist Server. 
   

• Access to data.
• Physical / local server VS VM Servers.
• Who is managing the contact with the VM/Servers Physical?

(Communicating with BASIC HARDWARE on the VM).

• Servers -> Public Regular/Making visible the initiative.
• Security of the servers and Need to be part of the Common vision of

all participants.

• Interacting/ Answering to the community.
• Maintenance of the servers.
• Role of minority (Watch the Attacks!) OUTSIDE dimension.
• Setting and configuring the machines.
• Documentation.
• Transition.
• Fund rising/Money/Sustainability.
• Checking on projects - Alive? Dead?
• Accounts/ Comptas del proyecto.
• Admins.
• Admins transferring knowledge.

5. Map other projects that exist out there

   Anarcha Server (Tatchanka): A virtual machine has been offered to the PechBlenda in Calafou by the Tech Collective called Tatchanka. The server has not been used now. The project is at a stand still.       

   Les samedis: a group that has been meeting every saturday in Brussels with the Constant to try to better understand and manage servers.             

   Gender changers: Have tried for many years to set this up. 

Comment: Why past projects have failed?

   There is usually only one person who is a tecky. All the responsabilities fall on her/they.      

   It never came to the stage of people who care about it. Few people use it.          

   Overlapping problem:  1) no capacity of transfering knowledge and 2) Feminist friends are too scattered in different projects and don't take time to learn about how technology works. 

6. Follow-up - what do we do throughout the week? -- what do we want to achieve this week? -- plan or not? -- talk + practice: small setup & doing it. -- slot tomorrow that we can go & learn a bit about the server. -- virtual server is available BUT we want to see things physically how they work!!! -- Linux machines ARE servers.

--- HOWTO with Servers (Donna) Virginia wolf quoting > A Room of One's Own = A server of One's own Servers: different types of services that can be kept on a server. Chat, email, web. (called Web server. Mail server) Phisical machines or Virtual server. Updating and upgrading is important for a server. (either way can be hacked) Virtual machines - fine for web mail, chat.. but some things don't work well. You need real hardware: for network serviced (dhcp, streaming, ...). Physical machines are sometimes better for activism. Political tensions -- so when you have independent server is good (political angles, independency). Physical machine - you can bring with you :) Independent chat (voice) agents to communicate with people. Weaknesses for running own server. --needs cordination --needs maintenance --needs user base Don't use Amazon servers: poorly maintained, not secure.. Better go to a company that's fully in control of the kernel. "Can I update the kernel?" - if they say "NO", don't use them. "Platform as a service". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_as_a_service in 10 years they loose users cannot "compite" with gmail or mainstream platforms the user want fast services, and a server that take more than 10minuts will be discardet and people will change to mainstream services. How to start? -- website and public things -- very cheap hosting VPN. -- for chat and email -- own server. All that is private. -- NB! You should have your data encrypted. VPS - who is the company, where is it based? What kind of reputation does it have? Other activists: what providers are they using? Hactivist group with a wiki about tools, with ideas where to host your server:

   Marsupi >   http://es.blogxpopuli.org/wiki/Marsupi_%28server%29

   List of services from hacktivistas: http://wiki.hacktivistas.net/index.php?title=Tools#Web

    Sindominio.net

    Autistici

    Riseup

    Marsupi

    Ourproject

    Probeta

   Poivron.org > https://poivron.org/

   Tachanka > https://tachanka.org/wiki/PublicAbout

   from backbone409: http://backbone409.calafou.org/participants/index.en.html

   Espiv, Greece: Autonomous server >https://espiv.net/

   Fédération FDN, France: Federation of DIY Internet providers

Virtual machines had a lot of virtual machines in one, throttling is the name of this practice. How to's secure server

   http://www.mysql-apache-php.com/basic-linux-security.htm

   http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-security.html

   http://www.tecmint.com/linux-server-hardening-security-tips/

Server crash course When you first log into a server, you see the "shell". bash shell command basis |$ls | list | |$pwd | shows you where you are (which directory) | |$ps aux | grep | what's running on the machine | |$ps aux | more | |$uname -a | checks which OS is running the server| |$ps awux | more | shows all your service (s meet sleep)| |$ls -lt | more |$cd | change directory| |$vi default.xml | opens a text file to show defaults. NB! Read more about that before playing with the machine!| |$netstat -t upan| tells you what is "listening" on which port. Port 80 = http, there are many others| |$sudo su - | got me in root, | |#cd /var/log/ | lists all the logs| |#pwd | ..| |~. | bring you back to the current machine (if the connection is stuck). If it doesn't work the first time, do it a couple of times.| DAEMON/SERVICES installed? |# ls /etc/init.d listening ? |# netstat -lnptu | which are the active ports and which processes are opening the ports |# netstat -lnptu | which are the active ports and which processes are opening the ports processes? |#ps awux | more COMMAND TOOLS tab 2 times LOGS if you have a problem, you talk to a log syslog -- system logs There are different debug log levels thereś a lot of log levels If you want to learn about maintaining a server: defchix.org eclectic tech..? + volunteer for riseup.net NB! We should only run services that don't collect data! Because of data retention act. Web chat. Voip. -- also bcs it's not a very strong machine. DIFFERENT SERVERS PRESENT:

ANARCHA > 209.51.163.19 > ssh authetication using ssh key (PubKeyAuthentication) core: services: firewall, ssh, git, to be installed :

GENDER CHANGERS > jean > services for realtimework to communicate core: services: ssh, freeswitch, postfix mailserver, to be installed: vpn (not yet installed), chat: gabber/irc Wireless Antwerp > ooooo > services media distribution core: Linux bolwerk2 2.6.32-5-amd64 #1 SMP Mon Feb 25 00:26:11 UTC 2013 x86_64 GNU/Linux services: sh, icecast server (streaming) liquid soap (radio software) nginx (secure traffic router) logs: /var/log/icecast config: /etc/icecast2/icecast.xml /etc/liquidsoap upstage Ansible (software) > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansible_%28software%29 Ansible sciFi > https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ansible ngi nx. http://nginx.com/ handy tool. service that allows you to generate a public private key pair. ssl command OpenSSL (starts a prompt; use Ctrl+D to get out of it) runs also on a vps - slow look for RSA alternatives!! (DES3) Git & GIT Hub. GIT - command line tools get copies of things and push copies of things can be run locally git repository stores copies of things (configuration files and so on) $git usage: git [--version] [--help] [-C <path>] [-c name=value]

          [--exec-path[=<path>]] [--html-path] [--man-path] [--info-path]
          [-p|--paginate|--no-pager] [--no-replace-objects] [--bare]
          [--git-dir=<path>] [--work-tree=<path>] [--namespace=<name>]
          <command> [<args>]

Running a postfix mail server

1. apt-get postfix

You have access to a really good UNIX Machine. How would you like to use it? The purpose of the server: -- to communicate -- encrypted chat server: Jabber (through Pidgin) --