Changes between Version 5 and Version 6 of ussf_book_chapter

Timestamp:

Sep 22, 2008, 5:44:47 AM (16 years ago)

Author:

alfredo

Comment:

--

ussf_book_chapter

@@ -114 +114 @@
 There was no shortage of work and our job of assigning people in an organized way was made easier by the willingness of dozens of technologists -- some of whom had actually hitchhiked across the country -- to do whatever was necessary. They improved software, tested computers, wired rooms and always participated in the planning and evaluation discussions that are always a major component of any wiring project of this size.
 
-These "volunteers" ranged from progressive techie veterans like Michelle Murain -- "...mostly I volunteered at the Forum, primarily helping to set up the servers for the Media Center" -- to young techies from as far away as Hawaii.
+These "volunteers" ranged from progressive techie veterans like Michelle Murrain -- "...mostly I volunteered at the Forum, primarily helping to set up the servers for the Media Center" -- to young techies from as far away as Hawaii.
 
 Thanks to these people, we got everything ready.
 
-During the days before the Social Forum (with Jamie McClelland, MF/PL co-director, now on the scene) team members met, divided tasks, discussed eventualities and felt we were ready for anything. We also noticed a potential problem.
+During the days before the Social Forum (with Jamie McClelland now on the scene) team members met, divided tasks, discussed eventualities and felt we were ready for anything. We also noticed a potential problem.
 
 A couple of days before the Forum was to launch, we noticed that the website had slowed down appreciably under pre-event registration and began a discussion of what that meant. This site would crash under the load it was about to take on.
@@ -134 +134 @@
 Jamie McClelland realized that a router operated by Bell South, which was handling traffic between the social forum and the Internet server running the registration system in New York, was misconfigured or malfunctioning and was dropping all traffic. In short, the computer networks at the Forum were effectively blocked by Bell South from reaching the registration system.
 
-While we have no evidence about why this happened, at least some of us noted the coincidence of a huge problem arising right before the event occurred, seemingly caused by a giant corporation. While we'll never know if this was intentional or incompetence, it was clear that something had to be done and we couldn't rely on this corporation to do it.
+While we'll never know if this was intentional or incompetence, it was clear that something had to be done and we couldn't rely on this corporation to do it.
 
-Working with techie Daniel Kahn Gilmor, Jamie came with a radical idea: why not reroute all Internet traffic around the faulty Bell South router?  MF/PL had a server in Delaware that was reachable without going through the broken Bell South router, but the question was how to do it? Not only is it something none of us had ever seen done but it's downright heretical to try it: effectively it's creating an error to make connection possible.
+Working with techie Daniel Kahn Gillmor, Jamie came with a radical idea: why not reroute all Internet traffic around the faulty Bell South router?  MF/PL had a server in Delaware that was reachable without going through the broken Bell South router, but the question was how to do it? It was something none of us had seen before: effectively we would be creating an error to make connection possible.
 
 Daniel came up with the solution and worked, under intense pressure, for the next 15 minutes to make it happen.
 
-When they were finished all traffic to the Social Forum website stopped being sent directly to New York. Instead, it was rerouted to our Delaware server as if that server was hosting the site. That server, which wasn't hosting anything related to the Forum, transparently forwarded all requests from Delaware to New York where the site actually lived.
+When they were finished all traffic to the Social Forum website stopped being sent directly to New York. Instead, it was rerouted to our Delaware server as if that server was hosting the site. That server which wasn't hosting anything related to the Forum, transparently forwarded all requests from Delaware to New York where the site actually lived.
 
-So, during the first hour and a half of the Social Forum, registration staff in Atlanta were going to the wrong server looking for the website and being bounced from that remote location to NYC to get the site. We circumvented Bell South completely.
+So, during the first hour and a half of the Social Forum, registration staff in Atlanta were going to the wrong server looking for the website and being bounced from that remote location to NYC to get the site. We circumvented Bell South's troublesome router.
 
-I dwell on this because this was, for me, a moment of great pride in the ICT team. We were there to make sure that event could use the Internet and, when confronted with the power of a corporate system effectively blocking that, our people figured out a way around it.
+I dwell on this because this was, for me, a moment of great pride in the ITC team. We were there to make sure that event could use the Internet and, when confronted with the power of a corporate system effectively blocking that, our people figured out a way around it.
 
 Registration opened and proceeded flawlessly and, after 90 minutes of that, Bell South's router suddenly reconfigured and we returned to normal functioning.
@@ -168 +168 @@
 This was no small task because our movements' culture in the U.S. continues to rely on the face to face work that has been the mainstay of organizing for this country's entire history. In that culture, it's easy to view the Internet as just another tool and to take it for granted. Nobody who worked on the USSF will even take it for granted again. 
 
-Says Daniel Kahn Gilmor: "Initially, the leadership seemed to want a typical "contractor" relationship to the tech -- the tech team saw it as more of an mutual organization activity.  Since the whole theory of the forum was "another world is possible," I was pleased that the leadership seemed to mostly come around to seeing the merits of approaching tech work like they'd approach any other communication opportunity.
+Says Daniel Kahn Gillmor: "Initially, the leadership seemed to want a typical "contractor" relationship to the tech -- the tech team saw it as more of a mutual organizing activity.  Since the whole theory of the forum was "another world is possible", i was pleased that the leadership seemed to mostly come around to seeing the merits of approaching tech work like they'd approach any other communication opportunity.
 
-"I felt that by the forum itself, the tech team got good respect from leadership and other forum participants, in spite of the tension and stress inherent in the process." 
+"I felt that by the start of the forum itself, the tech team got good respect from leadership and other forum participants, in spite of the tension and stress inherent in the process." 
 
 What It All Means
 
-The USSF was, of course, a phenomenal success in many ways. Its use of technology is certainly among those.
+The USSF was a phenomenal success in many ways. Its use of technology is certainly among those.
 
-An event of this type is part of history and part of the historical development of a movement, a country and, in the end, an entire humanity. Humanity is always moving forward. It's sometimes difficult to perceive that forward movement but, in the cracks and crevices of culture, in the fabric of social relations and in the often smokey environment of our movements...if you look close enough, it's there.
+An event of this type is part of history and part of the historical development of a movement, a country and, in the end, an entire humanity. Humanity is always moving forward. It's sometimes difficult to perceive that forward movement but, in the cracks and crevices of culture, in the fabric of social relations and in the often foggy environment of our movements...if you look close enough, it's there.
 
-Perhaps the greatest measure of success for an event of this type is how well it is able to perceive that forward movement, capture it and create an environment that rarifies its reality: that peels away those things that blind us to how well we are doing and brings our successes and our strengths into relief.
+Perhaps the greatest measure of success for an event of this type is how well it is able to perceive that forward movement, capture it and create an environment that peels away those things that blind us to how well we are doing and brings our successes and our strengths into relief.
 
 One of our greatest strengths is this thing we call the Internet, this remarkable movement we've created based using this simple and powerful technology and the USSF certainly demonstrated its power and importance.