... now wouldn't that be a great blog post!? Actually, it would probably take a dissertation to cover the topic adequately. For now, I decided that I might as well share/re-use/build-on a comment I just submitted in the g.d.o forum.

The informal "5 à 7" format of the last Drupal meetup in Montreal was really nice. I met new people and got to follow-up on some really interesting conversations with people I already knew and respected. Personally, the discussion that stands out was related to the dynamics surrounding the current patch review and the lack of a prioritisation process. Topic such as this are, IMO, ultimately political in nature and will be increasingly unavoidable in the context of a growing community.

The Tactical Technology Collective's aim is to advance the use of new technologies as a tactical tool for civil-society in developing and transition countries. We are a not-for-profit stichting (foundation) based in Amsterdam.

How might communities draw upon various Information and Communication Technologies to elaborate collaborative development practices, drawing on what we've learned from our experience with ICTs over the previous 10 years?
Guest: Currently we are in conversation with different people to be guests for the evening.

Communities are faced with decisions regarding ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies). This cafe aims to bring together community organisers, technologists and citizens to discuss the related opportunites and difficulties.

This is part of the University of the Streets Cafe series.

Le Carrefour Mondial de l'Internet Citoyen (CMIC) en collaboration avec l'Association Mondiale des Radiodiffuseurs Communautaires (AMARC) et la chaire Beaverbrook en éthique, média et communication de l'Université McGill vous invite à la conférence

Le Droit à Communiquer: pour une société de l'information démocratique

le mercredi 9 février à 19 h au Centre Saint-Pierre

La conférence du 9 février aura comme orateur principal Sean O Siochru, l'un des initiateurs de la « Campagne pour le Droit à Communiquer » (CRIS). Sean nous parlera de la convention sur la diversité culturelle de l'Unesco et de la campagne CRIS.

The most significant project that I am involved in at the moment is the creation and consolidation of an activist-geek-worker's-coop in Montreal called Koumbit. The ultimate goal is to have two legal entities: a non-profit that allows organisations and individuals to pool resources and influence the development of the communications technologies that we are all increasingly dependent on; and a worker's coop that enables geeks to make a living while working within a technologically sophisticated AND progressive context. So far, we probably have a dozen or so highly skilled geeks involved in the project (a hard core of a half-dozen at any given point in time) and we have legal status in Quebec as a non-profit.

So what is Koumbit? Well, it depends on who you ask, but one thing is for sure, it is a project worth watching.

Content Management Systems (CMSs) help create identity, community and collaboration, and Rich Site Summary (RSS) automates and fosters communication within and between these identities and communities. If CMS-based websites are like silos of knowledge on specialised issues, RSS is like the wind that blows between them, cross-polinating all the ideas, people and communities along the way. Aaaaaahh... sounds del.icio.us to me.

Anybody wanting to have "presence" online today should be looking into how they too can both use and provide RSS feeds such as del.icio.us does. Integrating web-based RSS generation services into personal or organisational websites is a simple and yet extremely powerful and combination which should be integrated into any all online communication strategies.

This debate has a lot of priceless tidbits for those of us interested in on-line campaigning, organising and activism.

See also:
Kos - Exley Debate

Here's an annoucement worthy of being included in my blog.

EFF Joins Forces with Tor Software Project -

Civil Liberties Group to Support Development of Anonymous Internet Communications System

A quote from Slashdot:

"[Tor] also allows you to install Tor-aware apps, such as an HTTP proxy (for private browsing), or maybe private P2P? Unlike Freenet, it doesn't use massive encryption (as far as I can tell) and relies more on something called onion routing to randomly bounce requests between other Tor proxies, thus obfuscating the IP of the original client. So it allows you to browse regular Internet sites! Maybe it should be considered more of an 'open-source' Anonymizer?"


Tor sounds neat to me, and I'm a big fan of the EFF, so I couldn't help but installing it.

However, I'd love to get some feedback from a few security specialists. Is Tor the right direction for EFF to take or is it "just another tool"? What is the most distinguishing feature of Tor?