Activists arrested because of UK Indymedia secret IP logging

Despite claiming to never do it Indy UK logs your IP details when you post a comment or file a story. Never, never, never use your own machine only use a web cafe machine and pay cash for the use.

Several ALF people have already been nicked as a result of the Indy logging of IP details, stay safe.

Details are here of the logging being recorded.


http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail...y/0210-1k.html


You're just repeating shit now without even thinking it through.
>What the fuck is a great deal of effort? At no national gathering
>since I announced I'd not double report has anyone raised this
>issue. A few weeks ago phunkee wrote in the admin notice board,
>ben please report your hides after I had written a similar note
>about somebody turning on/off the IP log without reporting it.
>Nobody wrote to process or london lists proposing I should get
>in line and nobody wrote to me personally to discuss it."


For some time people in activist and AR circles have been unsure how the police managed to track down people when they had posted to Indymedia because Indy has always stated it does not record IP details of those posting. To be blunt a lot us simply didn't believe that and today the truth has been revealed by mistake.

At present the admins are having one of their periodical arguments and this time it's because long time admin Ben has had his admin account disabled by Sheffield 9/11 troofer Chris (a member of the "special admin" group - ever thought there were no inner circles in Indy LOL !) As a result Ben has complained and in passing mentioned the turning on and off of the IP log.

At least now we know why the cops were able to arrest the AR activists recenty and why the Indy server was seized.

Will imc admit this ?
Will they take actions to rectifiy the error ?
Will they offer an apology to those people who thought they were posting without record ?
Will they hide this post and try to pretend it never happened ?

My money is on the last one


The details below show the orginal email from Ben and the exact words he used in case it gets "lost" as the other AR information .


http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail...y/0210-1k.html

A few weeks ago phunkee wrote in the admin notice board,
>ben please report your hides after I had written a similar note
>about somebody turning on/off the IP log without reporting it.

[Nostalgia]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Despite claiming to never do it Indy UK logs your IP details when you post a comment or file a story. Never, never, never use your own machine only use a web cafe machine and pay cash for the use.

Several ALF people have already been nicked as a result of the Indy logging of IP details, stay safe.

Details are here of the logging being recorded.


http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail...y/0210-1k.html


You're just repeating shit now without even thinking it through.
>What the fuck is a great deal of effort? At no national gathering
>since I announced I'd not double report has anyone raised this
>issue. A few weeks ago phunkee wrote in the admin notice board,
>ben please report your hides after I had written a similar note
>about somebody turning on/off the IP log without reporting it.
>Nobody wrote to process or london lists proposing I should get
>in line and nobody wrote to me personally to discuss it."


For some time people in activist and AR circles have been unsure how the police managed to track down people when they had posted to Indymedia because Indy has always stated it does not record IP details of those posting. To be blunt a lot us simply didn't believe that and today the truth has been revealed by mistake.

At present the admins are having one of their periodical arguments and this time it's because long time admin Ben has had his admin account disabled by Sheffield 9/11 troofer Chris (a member of the "special admin" group - ever thought there were no inner circles in Indy LOL !) As a result Ben has complained and in passing mentioned the turning on and off of the IP log.

At least now we know why the cops were able to arrest the AR activists recenty and why the Indy server was seized.

Will imc admit this ?
Will they take actions to rectifiy the error ?
Will they offer an apology to those people who thought they were posting without record ?
Will they hide this post and try to pretend it never happened ?

My money is on the last one


The details below show the orginal email from Ben and the exact words he used in case it gets "lost" as the other AR information .


http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail...y/0210-1k.html

A few weeks ago phunkee wrote in the admin notice board,
>ben please report your hides after I had written a similar note
>about somebody turning on/off the IP log without reporting it.

http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail...y/0210-1k.html

Not Found

The requested URL /imc-uk-moderation/2009-February/0210-1k.html was not found on this server.

Do we have anymore proof of this than what is written in this post?
When I go to the link above I get the not found message, then when I do a google search I find only this story linked to RINF.
Then when I click on the google links to the police taking the server I get an error message. (Secure Connection Failed).
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en...=Google+Search
I also find it suspicious that the story deliberately makes mention of (admin troofer Chris) why did you feel that you had to mention that he is a "troofer" why not just say Chris of the admin? It is like a deliberate attempt to throw even more suspicion towards members of the 9/11 truth campaign.
I have no doubt that there will be members of 9/11 truth that cannot be trusted, this happens within any group, but to verify this story, could you please supply us with more proof, espescially as this forum also claims that it does not log IP addresses (an attempt to throw suspicion our way?) and as a mod here I can assure you all that I have no way of seeing any bodies IP address.
More proof please.

[Nostalgia]

Ok, when I use this google search I can access stories to the servers being seized which seem relate to animal rights.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en...ng&btnG=Search

But I think we still need more on the original post of this thread.

UK indymedia has been going downhill for some time now. this is just another stepping stone towards its death.

what do you expect when you let a truther with connections to mi5 start administering the site?

Indymedia admins are trying to shut down all discussion on this and have even been hiding the admin emails that talk about it (which is why the links don't work anymore).

Seems that this is far worse than anybody thought and that the SHAC arrests might have been linked to Indy keeping IP logs after all despite saying they did not.

[Nostalgia]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Indymedia admins are trying to shut down all discussion on this and have even been hiding the admin emails that talk about it (which is why the links don't work anymore).

Seems that this is far worse than anybody thought and that the SHAC arrests might have been linked to Indy keeping IP logs after all despite saying they did not.

If you do find any information regarding this matter, posting it here with any relative links that do work would be appreciated, thanks.

This report was hidden on the indymedia website.


On 22 January 2009 an Indymedia server was seized by the police in Manchester on the behest of Kent police who claimed to be investigating a post about the recent Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty trial. The police stated that they wanted the IP addresses relating to specific posters but Indymedia assured them and the sites readers that no such data was ever retained. The assurances did little to quell unease among some site users and it quickly became apparent that while such assurances were effectively correct there was pertinent information being kept secret.


The strap line on the top of this sites web pages asserts that Indymedia is a "network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues." The line used on the UK site leaves out part of the messaging included on some other sites in the Indymedia network which assures readers that indymedia is a "democratic media outlet for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of truth."

That passion for the truth appears to be missing from the IMC UK 'united kollectives' as anymore following the various threads covering this story can attest. Repeatedly over the last few days, comments containing vital information, warnings and advice regarding security for the sites users have been hidden by the sites admins in a totally unaccountable fashion.

When an article is hidden from the UK newswire, the act is meant to be reported to a publicly archived mailing list called imc-uk-moderation. If you visit the archive you can in theory see what has been hidden and why but recently at least one admin admitted he'd not been bothering to do this and it was also revealed that automatic filters set up by admins were responsible for over 800 hidden articles last year alone with no notification to the list.

According to documentation on site policy on the docs.indymedia.org site, moderation of comments is also meant to be reported to the list but there is a kind of "unwritten consensus on some types of comment which probably don't need notification". Such exclusions include "mindless abuse, e.g. one-liners with "Kill all the ***", or "Indymedia sucks" and "spam comments unrelated to the actual content of the article". However when you check the comments that are being hidden without notification (the vast majority by a long shot) many certainly don't fall into those categories.

The policy document goes on to give the following advice to admins, "It's important you don't give in to the temptation of hiding comments that you violently disagree with, but don't really breach the editorial guidelines. Before hiding a comment, it's a good idea to ask yourself 'is this really against the guidelines, or am I just angry at the author for saying something so stupid?' We don't have the right to censor comments simply because we disagree with them."

IMC UK claims the following among the principles in its mission statement: a focus on grassroots politics, actions and campaigns; to reject all systems of domination and discrimination; and to work on a non-hierarchical basis. However among the posts the current admins have been hiding were call outs to the users to get involved in re-domocrasising the project by attending what should be open meetings of the collectives. And how open are these meetings, if you can even find information on where and when they met? Another (hidden) post revealed that the London collective was closing ranks and making it's meeting even more private.

What is this dark secret that must be hidden at any costs? Apparently it is nothing more than the fact that the admin interface provides a feature that allows IP addresses of recent posts to captured for the purpose of creating filters against unwanted posters. Is it so important that this should be hidden even if it means sacrificing transparency and the trust of the site users? So important that it is worth the astonishingly extreme of purging information from indymedias public archives going back almost six years in a futile attempt at a coverup?

That such a facility exists is no surprise, it's pretty much essential to maintaining the integrity of publishing platform, especially one which operates without user registration. What is surprising is that an organisation proporting to care about user security would go to such lengths to keep their users in the dark, especially surprising from an organsation which aspires to openness and horizontality.

We need to trust indymedia, not to be infallible but at least to tell the truth. We can cope with security risks when we are aware of them but to be placated with half truths and be cut down from discussing the issues, that's just not on.

Quoting a hidden comment, "Lets defend indymedia, defend ourselves - against not just the intimidation and threats of the state against our infrastructure but also against those among us who are bring shame down on all of us. We urgently need to hold these people to account as our enemies are having a field day and the long it festers the longer it will take to heal the rifts."

Born on the streets of Seattle in 1999, the indymedia project is approaching it's tenth anniversary. It would seem that this year would be a good time to assess its strengths and weaknesses, before either reinvigorating the project or building something stronger and better in its ashes as we move into what premisses to be the most significant period of social struggle this planet has ever seen.


Man arrested in Indymedia animal extremism probe: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/...703.html?c=all

Police bail sysadmin in animal rights extremism probe : http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/...827.html?c=all

Hosting Indymedia Servers is Illegal? : http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/...839.html?c=all

Proof of the IP logging feature is in the public record
11.02.2009 01:49

That email that the above poster refers to on the IMC-UK-MODERATION list has now been removed from the public archives which doesn't exactly inspire confidence. I'm confused about what those responsible so worried about revealing as it's already in the public record that the indymedia software has this feature and obvious that it is used.

A google search for INDYMEDIA MIR "IP LOG" returns many hits for publicly archived posts from indymedia collectives around the world which use the same software as the UK and many posts in the indymedia documentation project and the MIR development site.

The feature was publicly announced in some detail during October 2003 on the IMC-UK-FEATURES list in following a previous thread about blocking the IP of a specific poster.

More of that discussion can be seen in a log of an IRC meeting which was posted to the IMC-TECH list. A further google search reveals that most of the people who took part of that discussion are still active in indymedia collectives. Below are some extracts:

yossarian i am for blocking Rockwell
...
bunny_ it can easily be bypassed especially if person knows they are being blocked
....
yossarian i am hoping that Rockwell is a shithead who is not technically
savvy
....
bunny_ I think blocking should be decided by a secret comminite in private that we sety up at sheff
bunny_ which report general critia
bunny_ in open but not specifics
....
bunny_ The problem with Blocking is it depends on switching IP log on
bunny_ which we shoudl no do if we can aviod
Tom secret committe - not really in the sprit of the Indymedia collective IMHO
zak i'm rather nervous about starting to take decisions in private -- it kind of goes against our princple of accountability and openness
yossarian bunny_ that is very bakunin of you
bunny_ but it is nature of the tool of blocking
bunny_ if one chooses to use it
bunny_ I say it should be used rarely
Tom what's the issue with IP logging?
...
yossarian i am not for secrecy in this case either
....
bunny_ then yossarian you must be against blocking
....
yossarian no i am not against blocking, i just think we should be open about why we are doing it and who we are doing it to

Other people in that meeting include GDM, Maqui and Chrisc who've all been engaged in the arguments over transparency on the IMC-UK-MODERATION list over the last week since the expulsion of admin Ben who's email which mentioned the IP log. That email has now been deleted from the public archive by the list admins.

It seem that some indymedia admins are hoping to rely on what is know as security through obscurity
which basically means you know that you have vulnerabilities but hope that by not talking about it then nobody will discover them for themselves. This approach is generally considered highly flawed but there are arguments for it but in this case it's certainly a case of shutting the barn door after the horses have bolted since the codebase MIR is open source and the features actively publicised by the developers.

One example can be seen here and gives a little insight into what the admin interface for indymedia might look like. It is a list of string names and values for the localization of the interface, given in english in this case. It clearly shows a host of functions relating to an IP log and IP filtering.

abuse.htmltitle = anti-abuse measures
....
abuse.disableopenpostings=Turn off open posting
abuse.openpostingpassword=Require a password for open postings
abuse.logpostings=Log IPs for open postings
abuse.logsize=Logging buffer size
abuse.cookies=Use cookies for blocked users
abuse.articleaction=Action for blocked article
abuse.commentaction=Action for blocked comment
....
abuse.showlog=Show the IP log
abuse.showfilters=Manage filters
....
abuse.log.time=Time
abuse.log.address=IP number
abuse.log.object=Object
abuse.log.browser=Browser
abuse.log.filtertype=Filter type
abuse.log.filterexpression=Expression
....
abuse.filtertype.ip = IP Number
abuse.filtertype.regexp = Regular expression
....
abuse.filters.htmltitle = Anti-abuse filter rules
abuse.log.htmltitle = Anti-abuse open posting log

There is little to gain from continuing to hide these features while at the same time as encouraging users and spammers alike to use proxies to ensure their anonymity. The vast majority of determined spammers will already have been using such cloaking technology anyway.

In the meantime, attempting to hide all this from indymedia users is totally counterproductive at this time, especially while people are seeking reassurance and carification over the potential for police to obtain IP data relating to specific posts. Honestly would be reassuring and as stated in that October 2003 email, "the data collected is held in memory, not on any hard disk space and is gone once the log is switched off again - so if anyone ever wanted to raid the server no information on posters can be obtained."

Indymedia are acting like the chinese government censors, hiding all comments on this and even going so far as to purge the history books of references they dont like. The revisionistas have deleted from their own PUBLIC mailing list archives all the emails mentioned by an earlier poster who ironically was pointing out that you cant gain security by sweeping issues under the carpet.

DELETED http://archives.lists.indymedia.org/...er/004250.html

but still cached by google as I type ( http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:...ient=firefox-a)

[Imc-uk-features] IP address
andi andi at syndicate.org.uk
Thu Oct 23 13:11:05 PDT 2003

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hi all,

it is possible to log ip addresses in the new codebase. this can be
switched on and off, and is by default switched off.

the data collected is held in memory, not on any hard disk space and
is gone once the log is switched off again - so if anyone ever wanted
to raid the server no information on posters can be obtained.

but we as imcistas have the option to track trolls. we have not used
ip blocking yet but were near doing it - i for one have hunted for
ram's ip, see
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail...ptember/004459.
html

anyhow we never made firm decisions on this.

a question would be as well for how long a block is supposed to be...

cheers andi

DELETED http://archives.lists.indymedia.org/...er/001187.html

but also still cached as I type ( http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:...ient=firefox-a)

Here's another one they'll have to delete if they want to continue to revise history:
http://archives.lists.indymedia.org/...er/003929.html

I don't know how they think they can eradicate this from our memories or from web sites they dont control which also record this info.

They hide this shortly to but it can all be read here http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/...703.html?c=all at least until they stoop to deleting rather than hiding the comments they don't like.

The truth shouldn't hurt!!!




You can't revise history simple by delete one email you don't like!

This is an outrage.

I notice the UK Indymedia newswire now contains many 'hints' on how to hide your IP. Too late Indymedia.

You should have protected us from the start, not wait until your users where arrested.

Indymedia has ALWAYS claimed it does not log IPs, we were lied to. Now please tells us what is the difference between Indymedia and the corporate media?

Since he became admin Chrisc has removed the foundations of Indymedia brick by brick. He and his co-horts should be removed asap, they have destroyed a great site.

The bigger issue here is how it seems the IP logs that IndyMedia keeps have been used in the recent arrest and subsequent convictions of Animal Rights activist, a fact that Indy admins have kept quiet and worse hidden reference to.

It doesn't matter if you agree with AR people or not the problem is that ANY post to Indy on ANY subject is now compromised. I agree that Chris and his 9/11 truth campaign friends have been the biggest problem but when we take into account the damage done to the Indy reputaiton last suummer of masses of anti semitic posts being allowed on the newswire by another admin FTP (aka freethepees or Roy Bard) it seems clear that adminstration at Indy UK is a mess that requires a clean up.

A few more people getting involved would be a start as power seems to be held within a small elite who keep out those they don't like.