mtl3p

I haven’t said anything about this publicly so far, but the story is out.

Du WiFi jusque dans les parcs
“Un projet de partenariat financier entre la Ville de Montréal et l’organisme Île sans fil fait son chemin dans les couloirs de l’hôtel de ville.”

Front page of La Press. Middle of the page. Who ever thought it would come to this.

We’re proposing a project to the city for a 5 year community / public partnership worth one meeelion dollars. (really). The new board was elected with this project in mind and they’re doing a great job. Hopefully it goes through.

UPDATE: Those numbers are just initial numbers that came from a working document. I don’t want to get in trouble from the guys doing the heavy lifting on this project if the final proposal ends up being for different amounts.

And I signed on to Patrick and Dan’s coworking project to be an anchor tenant. I don’t really enjoy all the hype these days around the *camps and the Yul* ’s but I’m very attracted to the people that have committed so far. And Patrick and Dan say that they’re going to make a real effort to create a diverse team of co-workers. I’m counting on them following through with that. I’ll miss hanging out with mai kurent offizmaet, but that’s life.

it’s the sun.

I got them because 1) my shoes have been a major embarrassment for months, 2) they make me hurt because the support is gone, 3) these are hot looking shoes and 4) my presentation went super well (even though I actually ended up getting really nervous and trying to switch between the web and powerpoint really really didn’t work well).

The organizers came up to me and said that because I was a crowd favorite the next time they would put me the morning of the first day. I think they were just being sweeties, but it was nice of them.

Robson street is cool.

Time to head back now. I’ll have a post in draft that I’ll publish when I get back - but overall the conference was great *because* they didn’t just focus on wifi mesh. There was a lot of presentations that talked about licensed spectrum, wimax and mixed wireline / wireless deployments. It was surprisingly good.

that was a blast. I gave a pretty kick-ass cultural infrastructure talk. I’ve only presented once before on infrastructure (at the Toronto Muniwireless conference) and it didn’t go anywhere near as well as that. I’m really happy that they recorded it. Tobias is a fairly critical guy and he gave me a big thumbs up and said he wanted to see my notes.

(my notes were made 30 minutes before the presentation. on the back of a few scrap pieces of paper. but I’ve been thinking through this stuff for 2-3 years with some people like Tracey).

anyways, next up…

roadtriiiiip!!

I’m really happy to be speaking next week at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference. It will be for the session “Hot Spots are Chilly for Free Speech” moderated by Nicole Ozer from the ACLU and I’ll be with Professors Leslie Regan Shade and Andrew Clement (who I’ve been working with through CRACIN and CWIRP). It’s going to be about what’s happening within the MuniWireless market and what that means for internet freedoms (lame term, but i mean anonymity/privacy, etc).

What will I be talking about?

Instead of looking at how regulation is effecting wireless networks I’ll be asking how does the current wireless environment impact regulation including privacy/security laws? The whole lawrence lessig thing of technology and practice influencing laws, not only the other way around as well as the power of the default design by sandvig (default design of wireless routers being unsecured). Specifically I’ll look at how CWN’s have practiced privacy in the 7 years because it’s an important history/context to consider when thinking through these issues for the Muniwireless market. And even more specifically, looking at how ISF has practiced privacy over the last 3 1/2 years, considering that we’re one of the top CWNs. Hint - it’s because we centralized through creating the wifidog architecture (unlike earlier CWN’s that envisioned decentralized networks) that we’ve had most of our success. Not a good sign for privacy and a direct repudiation - intentional or not - of much of the earlier CWN ideology (both European and NA) which about building to ensure anonymity and lack of centralized control.

relevant articles:

Network must protect privacy

My man JRS talks about the recent swell of non-profits being in some ways detrimental to democracy in as much as they are ignoring the idea of making change through voting. It’s very interesting to think of ISF as being profoundly un-democratic and possibly anti-democratic in that we are trying to create change in our society through infrastructural influence. In many ways we are not seeking the informed participation or consent of our fellow citizens. But it’s just as un-democratic as any other form of philanthropy.

(that doesn’t mean that ISF functions “undemocratically” internally. it doesn’t, really, but that’s besides the point).

If you’re interested, see here for more about critical reflections on ISF because of it’s process. Just earlier posts in case you’re a new / occasional reader.

And yes, maybe one day I’ll get over the saul kick that I’m on. But it might take a while. Come back in a year or two if you don’t want to see any more JRS fanboy action. ;-)

CitySense - An Open, Urban-Scale Sensor Network Testbed

“CitySense will consist of 100 wireless sensors deployed on light poles around the city of Cambridge, MA. Each node will consist of an embedded PC, 802.11a/b/g interface, and various sensors for monitoring weather conditions and air pollutants. Most importantly, CitySense is intended to be an open testbed that researchers from all over the world can use to evaluate wireless networking and sensor network applications in a large-scale urban setting.”

via Tracey.

We are actually doing some of this stuff with our partners Mobile Digital Commons Network. But it’s still kinda in development (under Remote Sensors) and it’s obviously not on the same scale.

I helped out in drafting this. You can see my fingermarks on it. ;-) Before it was more centered on broadband accessibility.

I’m a co-organizer for this years summit. It hope that it means we get to have a panel related to community information ecosystems.

*** PLEASE FORWARD ***

CALL FOR PANELS — Due May 1, 2007
International Summit for Community Wireless Networks
May 18-20, 2007, Washington, DC
Register now online: http://www.cuwin.net/summit/registration

Since the first National Summit for Community Wireless Networks in 2004, hundreds of community Internet and municipal broadband projects have sprung up in the United States and around the globe. Broadband access is increasingly important to all facets of civil society, but many communities are being left out of this communications revolution. “High-speed broadband access is the electricity of the 21st century, yet many rural and poorer urban communities are
being left off the grid,” says Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, DC-based policy think-tank. “The innovators and organizers at the International Summit for Community Wireless Networks are blazing the trail to make broadband affordable and available to everyone.”

The Community Wireless Networking (CWN) movement has evolved since its beginnings in the 1990s. Although it has made impressive strides in the area of developing autonomous mesh networks, the larger success of the CWN movement has been the encouragement of citizens, small businesses, and local governments to get involved in local telecom infrastructure as important stakeholders. More than ever we are taking hands-on approaches to ensure that our communities have the telecommunications infrastructure necessary for an inclusive, dynamic and socially just future. Although there is still a focus on the “wireless”, CWN’s have served as rallying points for local movements for advocacy of the local public interest of telecom infrastructure. “Wireless networking is about far more than Internet connectivity,” states Sascha Meinrath, Summit Director. “It’s about building next-generation multi-media services for communities, fostering economic justice, and facilitating a vibrant arts and cultural scene.”

This year, Summit organizers are focused on the social and economic justice aspects of wireless technologies and the impacts of community broadband on civil societies worldwide. With this in mind, the Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (CUWiN) and the Center for Community Informatics (CCI) are hosting the International Summit for Community Wireless Networks from May 18-20, 2007 at Loyola College in Columbia, Maryland and are looking for panel ideas from throughout the wireless community to flesh out the Summit program.

The Summit focuses on how wireless networks can better serve their target populations, the policies needed to support broader deployment of community wireless systems, and the latest technological and software innovations in the field. We invite your submission and participation in this year’s International Summit for Community Wireless Networks to discuss and exchange ideas on how to make universal broadband access a reality. More information is available at:
http://www.wirelesssummit.org

The Summit serves as a space were citizens, creators of technologies, businesspeople, policy advocates can gather to learn from one another and develop new ideas on how to support telecommunications infrastructures that serve the needs of communities. Please join us in Washington, DC, May 18-20, 2007. Register now at: http://www.cuwin.net/summit/registration

CALL FOR PANELS:

Interested presenters are encouraged to propose innovative panels focusing on the three themes for the Summit: technology, policy, and implementation. The International Summit for Community Wireless Networks distinguishes itself from typical technical and academic conferences by engaging all participants in an ongoing dialog that encourages a strategic approach to community wireless network development and telecommunications policy reform. Panelists will not simply present their own work and opinions — they will also serve as facilitators of a process that records lessons learned and help produce a comprehensive “to-do list” of action items for the coming months and years. While three days is not long enough to develop a truly comprehensive strategic plan, panels at the Summit represent a significant opportunity for thinkers, developers, and stakeholders to produce substantial recommendations to support the development of community wireless networks. The Summit is, in essence, a
gathering of leaders in the field and an opportunity to shape the future of this movement. Past panels can be reviewed at: http://www.cuwin.net/2006summit/2006schedule

Panel ideas will be accepted on a rolling basis and must be received no later than May 1, 2007. Please send panel proposals and questions to: summit@cuwin.net

Travel stipends are available for speakers with financial need.

heart it.
http://www.strindbergandhelium.com/home.html
via Mir.

i just did an interview with CBC for homerun. in studio. live radio is scary. They wanted to talk about Montreal’s telecom/wireless situation vs. other canadian cities.

local information ecosystems. i think I’m actually going to use the acronym lies. People will laugh at it, but it’s memorable.

Participatory Urbanism:
empowering citizens to collectively author, share, and remix
measurments from their environment from Eric Paulos on the Intel Urban Atmospheres list.

I’m trying to put together a panel on this for the upcoming community wireless summit in Maryland. I’m one of the co-organizers. The panel would be about LIE’s and the local information infrastructure that supports and influences them. Because I find that CWN geeks forget that the goal is to have a better community. They remember when you remind them, but they only see the (wireless) pipes. I look at people like Patrick(for supporting yulblog) and Patricia Bergeron (ONF’s Citoyen Parole project) and admire them for their tremendous positive influences on my community’s IE. They are making positive interventions in the same way that CWN’s are.

Right now, two of the groups having the best impact on our community’s IE is Koumbit and Miriam. Both of them are setting up local organizations, provincial political parties and local projects with Drupal sites left, right and center. Very recent examples: Mir transfered University of the Streets from a static site to a Drupal install. And Koumbit hooked up the Montreal Volunteer Bureau with a drupal site (to be launched this spring). Those organizations are both precious sources of information in Montreal. And now the information that they hold is becoming more dynamic, more accessible, more fluid, thanks to those two. This means that ISF is closer to being able to do stuff like show users the volunteer possibilities in their neighborhoods. Which would be lovely. and which would make our IE better. Which has effects like making us more informed and more cognizant of our communities.

Also an example of a having an effect on LIEs is the Terminus1525 project that I started. The goal behind it was to use small amounts of money to encourage cash-starved CWN’s to incorporate diffusing art as part of their mandate.
Both WT and now ZAP quebec are now showing art on their portal pages.

wireless toronto portal page
zapquebec portal page

I don’t claim to have “tricked” the groups into doing this work- both of them were already interested in this goal (Gabe was before I ever heard about locative art). But the project really worked in using small amounts of cash to make sure that something easy was done and once it was done, it becomes a (stronger) part of that groups identity and mission. Hopefully it had an effect on the norms or protocols of that infrastructure.

and btw I’m switching the name of my org from civic sense. it is too close to civic access and it doesn’t make any sense to use both of them. So I’m moving to oppidan.org

Oppidan means “relating to the inhabitants of a town”. And the focus is going to be specifically on helping communities improve their own LIE’s. with the involvement of their local technical communities.

okay, maybe I do need a better acronym than LIEs if I ever want to get a contract.

in the mcgill daily.

This is the message I was trying to put forward in this interview. The journalist dug it.

“Community-led, not-for-profit providers are sparking a debate over whether this new form of internet should be a public utility or a commodity. ”

We tried to get Ben Crulli in this article because he is our only volunteer at McGill, but for length reasons his interview got cut. Bummer.

also, apparently, there’s an article on ISF in the Metro journal today. check it out if you take the subway.

I don’t do most of the press these days. And I haven’t for over a year. But every once in a while someone ask to talk to one of the founders, or Richard Lussier (current press contact) sometimes sends some of the anglophone media requests to me.