Thursday 31st March 2005

Indymedia administrator admits that Indymedia does ban IP addresses

It has been revealed through confidential sources that Indymedia does have the ability to ban IP addresses with its mir software. They claim that IP addresses are not logged but are stored in RAM.

Considering that all the evidence of automate post hiding suggested that this was happening - despite Indymedia's consistent denials - proves beyond doubt that policy was being pursued. This revelation demolishes Indymedia's credibility as a trustworthy source of information.

Monday 11nd October 2004

On Thursday 7th October 2004 for currently uncertain reasons the FBI seized the servers which hosted IndyMedia UK and several other regional IMCs. Speculative reasons include the publication of personal details of two Swiss undercover police officers and the publication of the names and addresses of attendees of November's Republican Party Conference in New York. There can be little doubt that the FBI's action was timed to cause maximum disruption IndyMedia UK's participation in the European Social Forum. However, the disruption was minimised by the swift action of IndyMedia UK who had alternative servers online within hours.

Whilst I condemn the FBI's attempt at wielding superpower muscle to suppress free speech, there were developments in other areas of IndyMedia UK in its immediate aftermath which for some resurrect some remaining unanswered questions and further cause for concern.

Having tried to look at the IndyMedia UK site late on Thursday night I found myself on IndyMedia UK's irc.indymedia.org #uk observing as events unfolded. A comment was posted on the site's article about the FBI's raid which raised the question of the security of the IP addresses of IndyMedia UK's users. I added my own comment in which I asked how an IP address ban could be maintained if an IP address log did not exist, referring to the ban which existed on my IP address for three months. This comment was evidently quite widely read as many of the counter referrals linked back to the original article.

Later on I posted another comment which linked to a news article which seemed to indicate that the FBI did not have the legal power to seize the equipment of ISPs. This comment never appeared.

Shortly afterwards I was then contacted via #uk by an IndyMedia UK administrator who said, 'we need to talk'. They said that my second comment had been removed because I put my website address in the homepage field (as I always do) and it contains a section on IndyMeda UK censorship, with no trace of irony! However, during the course of our irc conversation they all but admitted that there was an automated system which hides comments and articles based on the poster's IP address. To then argue that this does not constitute an IP address ban is further semantic pedantry.

In discussing why certain topics were apparently taboo, such as the Bilderberg Group and September 11th, another IndyMedia UK admin joined in by implying that discussion of these subjects suggested an anti-Semitic agenda!

They then laid the responsibility for the FBI raid at my feet by saying, 'can you see how you might have encourage the FBI to seize our server?' and justified this accusation by suggesting that my complaints about IndyMedia censorship and IP address bans had somehow drawn the FBI in to harvest IP addresses from a non-existent log.

After suggesting that I cease making accusations about censorship and IP address bans the administrator then made further accusations by saying, 'if you hadnt spammed, with lots of triumphant comments... bragging about how we couldnt stay up all night, or similar'. So far from the truth! I had actually been extremely impressed at how quickly and defiantly the replacement servers had been put online. But at this point my rage boiled over, a result of which was that I was then banned from irc.indymedia.org #uk. Again, there seems to be no sense of irony in this action!

Copied and pasted conversations from irc.indymedia.org #uk supplied by others show that in spite of sheer preposterousness of the accusation of wittingly or unwittingly encouraging the FBI raid and posting of 'triumphant comments' which is categorically untrue are being allowed to percolate through IndyMedia channels totally unchallenged. Further, despite the copied and pasted evidence from irc.indymedia.org which shows that a ban has been placed upon me in #uk IndyMedia UK administrators still insist that there is no ban.

There is much justified objection within IndyMedia to the seizure of their servers by the FBI but that many cite freedom of speech as grounds for their objection whilst their is evidently an effort to suppress certain opinions on IndyMedia, in the UK at least, reeks of hypocrisy. It is not necessarily that those individuals who demand freedom of speech that are guilty of this hypocrisy, but whilst they demand it from without should equally demand it from within. The hypocrisy lies within the collective nature of IndyMedia UK who are prepared to shirk the responsibility which comes with the authority they embrace. I am not necessarily asserting that inflammatory or bigoted articles and comments be ignored - rather that they be answerable to their scapegoats. And that where a process of automated censorship is being operated that they have the spine to admit it rather than obfuscate with definitions of whether burying items deeply away from the casual readership (in the case of articles) or under the patio (in the case of comments) constitutes censorship. Any attempt to withhold information by any means is a degree of censorship.

It ought not be necessary to re-iterate it but I condemn the action of the FBI as strongly as any IndyMedia UK administrator. If there is any doubt about this it can only come from people who have no knowledge of who I am and the work I have been involved in for the past 22 years. But I am no longer prepared to play snakes and ladders with the prejudices of those IndyMedia UK administrators who choose to blinker themselves or misrepresent me and numerous other contributors who have been victims of their overzealous sheriffing.

If anybody within IndyMedia UK feels the need to respond to me, may I courteously request that you address your comments to me and not in in-house mutterings to which I am not privy and then gleefully complain that I have somehow ignored you - as has been the case in the past.

As previously stated, this issue has not evaporated. Until it is satisfactorily dealt with and for the record the earlier postings on this subject remain archived for examination.

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