Hello comrades!
I want to outline a few potential projects the Lemmygrad community could benefit from and expand its reach. I think they could foster real growth and be not only of help, but actively create counter-spaces to the Right in various domains.
FOSS in this case means free and open source. For more information, check out this.
Privacy Guide
I’m personally interested in tech privacy. The biggest places around are r/privacy, and PrivacyGuides, the de facto flagship website for privacy and security advice.
The sub-Reddit is known to be overtly against China and non-western FOSS communities. It’s mostly a circlejerk of Westerners screaming “We don’t want to be like 1984 China!” without any kind of material analysis. Besides, Reddit is Reddit and we know how that goes.
Now, PrivacyGuides. It is definitely a helpful resource, but there are a few issues with it. First off, the administrators frequently promote Apple products on their forum, one of them, Jonathan, even being an Apple fanboy. Apple products are non-FOSS and shouldn’t be trusted, especially since they’re in PRISM and collaborate with the NSA. This leaves out all the drama they’ve been through since they split with privacytools.io, the latter claiming PrivacyGuides stole thousands of euros from them.
What I’m saying is that I think there’s a need for a more community-based approach, with a strong Marxist tendency to counter liberals and conservatives (and sometimes ancaps) in the privacy field. This has the potential to educate people, even radicalize perhaps. This is related to the second project.
edit: We could also add an Internet etiquette guide for Lemmygrad members. This could include safety procedures while posting, general privacy advice and more, in order to not get targeted by the US.
Hosted Services
Lemmygrad can expand itself and offer hosted services for its members. They can include a Git forge, e-mail (although this one is debatable if it’s worth it because of security practices), PeerTube, and any other service that is deemed useful by the community. I think the format outlined below could be useful.
I’m tying up my idea here with the concept of public access unix systems, or short for “pubnixes”. They’ve recently had a revival, the tradition dating back to the '80s. In a nutshell, someone provides a Linux/BSD server and gives user accounts to people who request them. It has a strong focus on using the shell, and anti-corporate service alternatives. Sadly, it’s dominated by either conservatives or anarcho-capitalists, rarely seeing a ML on there. I think this can be improved a lot upon, because Marxists have missed this opportunity to radicalize people in the “Small Web” communities. We need a healthier and better overall version of the Web, and I think it can provide a useful outlet for not only radicalizing new comrades, but educating everyone on technology and how to use it safely and in a healthy manner. If you’re interested in checking out the Small Web movement, check out this manifesto. Gopher and Gemini, being the two most popular non-WWW protocols, are completely dominated by conservatives and such. A ML presence there could help turn the tide in the small/sustainable computing sphere.
I’m also thinking of setting up a mechanism of democratically run services, trying to destroy the “benevolent dictator” mechanism the software administrators have. I’m only aware of one attempt so far at this, here.
Healthy Computing
Speaking of healthy, this could be a potential third project, a mental wellness guide for technology. Of course, with a strong focus on FOSS projects. I think we need better structured resources for people to access, more “polished”, in order to garner attention as viable alternatives to what liberals and conservatives are pushing online. There is a lot of pseudo-science regarding mental health in general, and especially regarding computing, so it could be a fully featured guide to say the least.
This could tie in with other resources written from a ML standpoint for people, perhaps countering the whole “self improvement” movement with diverse explanations and such.
Zine
I think Lemmygrad could publish a Zine. ML-themed findings from the Web, personal essays, stories, and anything fitting. Then it can be easily printed. Monthly releases would be neat. Could also include the news of that month, and so on. Could make a fitting alternative for paid Leftist monthly newspapers and such.
Contributing
I want this to be up for public debate so everyone can contribute with ideas! I’m personally versed in hosting things, but additional help is very much needed. If you want to contribute with an idea, or are skilled in contributing directly to any of these projects, let’s get in touch. Perhaps we could get the Revolutionary Technical Committee involved in this if they’re willing to contribute to a Marxist technological “front”.
What do you think of what I’ve outlined above? Let’s discuss.
I more meant like putting a gps tracker in your car, that kind of surveillance, not infiltration
They don’t need to put GPS trackers on cars anymore. Phones are more accurate and don’t require physical contact with the phone nor person. The government can simply order companies to provide the tracking data directly, and companies are compelled to comply. If the company doesn’t have the data, they can instead request the IMEI. With the IMEI governments can use various technologies provided by defense engineering firms to intercept cell information and track you that way. Using the second method I just described, they can also intercept and monitor all signals sent to and from your device in real time, which means all texts, calls, internet usage, every single bit. Ofc some of this can be overcome with good encryption, but tracking data and most metadata will still be intact.