Great question to think about for our long term sustainability. I think we already have a universal "plan B" however? It's providing all content under free licenses and regularly distributing complete dumps of our content. Many larger and more well-funded technology organizations (Google, Facebook, etc.) regularly do disaster recovery scenarios that account for not just governmental disruption or civil unrest but events such as a major earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area. The movement doesn't really have the resources to do this effectively in the same manner. It seems like decentralizing our ability to recover from a disruption is the most effective defense we have, *especially *in the scenario involving government intervention because the Foundation's infrastructural and legal presence in the United States is actually one of the more brittle pieces within our movement. On Tue, Jan 8, 2019 at 9:18 AM Fæ &lt;faewik(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Hi Fae, I'm curious what nation you have in mind for your stable Plan B. Is it Brexit Britain? France of the Yellow Vests and Front National? Perhaps Orban's Hungary, Putin's Russia, or Germany with its recent right-wing resurgence? Maybe you'd prefer Jair Bolsonaro's Brazil? I suppose in Italy we'd worry about Beppe and criminal libel statutes, while BJP would hardly seem welcoming in India and I can't imagine you'd suggest a home on the other side of the Great Firewall. Maybe you're hinting at Canada, but otherwise, I'd love to understand what island of liberal stability and legal safeguards you think is safe from the vagaries of electoral politics or rigid authoritarianism. The countries I list above have their own flaws (although in each case, I believe, many desirable traits as well) as does any other alternative. Anyone could reasonably argue it's unfair to stigmatize any of them by glaringly public flaws. To my mind Steve Walling has it right - the very nature of Wikipedia is maybe the best protection there could be, even against the absurdly unlikely circumstance of a United States government takeover of Wikipedia. Nathan On Tue, Jan 8, 2019 at 12:17 PM Fæ &lt;faewik(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: https://www.cnet.com/news/obama-signs-order-outlining-emergency-internet-co… https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/01/presidential-emergency… _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Why not just officially support Wikipedia on IPFS, which has been hosting the Turkish Wikipedia in Turkey, unlike the Foundation, for almost two years now? https://blog.ipfs.io/24-uncensorable-wikipedia/ https://github.com/ipfs/distributed-wikipedia-mirror On Tue, Jan 8, 2019 at 3:10 PM Philippe Beaudette &lt;philippe(a)beaudette.me&gt; wrote: Wikipedia", three had backup and worry other what from the case, I Wikipedia. alarming not Plan published more https://www.cnet.com/news/obama-signs-order-outlining-emergency-internet-co… https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/01/presidential-emergency… https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Location: This is a tangent, one that has been raised before as a /non-answer/ to the issue of actually getting on with contingency planning. Realistically I would start by looking at the potential matches of Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands (where servers already are used for WMF operations), or lastly and for very different reasons, Peru. What I find weird, or bizarro, is that the responses so far are vague dismissals for non-good fantastic reasons, at the level of "let magic blockchain technology solve it for free", rather than taking on board that preparing a hot switch for Wikimedia operations in a welcoming host country, is a highly cost effective disaster contingency plan, whether due to natural disasters in San Fran / Florida / Amsterdam, or due to national government using its legal authority to freeze, switch off or tamper with content due to politically inflated "security" or "emergency" issues. The risks are real and predictable, and as a globally recognized charity with plenty of money in the bank, the WMF should have contingency plans to ensure its continued existence, as any professional business actuary would advise. As a past IT auditor, what also made the hairs prick up on the back of my neck, was David Gerard's sensible question "So ... when did someone last test putting up a copy of the sites from the backups" - Could someone give a real answer to that please? If it's never, then wow, we all have to ask some hard questions of the WMF Board of exactly how they hold senior management to account. Thanks, Fae -- faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae On Tue, 8 Jan 2019 at 23:05, Nathan &lt;nawrich(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: > > Hi Fae, > > I'm curious what nation you have in mind for your stable Plan B. Is it > Brexit Britain? France of the Yellow Vests and Front National? Perhaps > Orban's Hungary, Putin's Russia, or Germany with its recent right-wing > resurgence? > > Maybe you'd prefer Jair Bolsonaro's Brazil? I suppose in Italy we'd > worry > about Beppe and criminal libel statutes, while BJP would hardly seem > welcoming in India and I can't imagine you'd suggest a home on the > other > side of the Great Firewall. > > Maybe you're hinting at Canada, but otherwise, I'd love to understand > what > island of liberal stability and legal safeguards you think is safe > from the > vagaries of electoral politics or rigid authoritarianism. > > The countries I list above have their own flaws (although in each > case, I > believe, many desirable traits as well) as does any other alternative. > Anyone could reasonably argue it's unfair to stigmatize any of them by > glaringly public flaws. > > To my mind Steve Walling has it right - the very nature of Wikipedia > is > maybe the best protection there could be, even against the absurdly > unlikely circumstance of a United States government takeover of > Wikipedia. > > Nathan > > On Tue, Jan 8, 2019 at 12:17 PM Fæ &lt;faewik(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: > > > Dear fellow Wikimedians, please sit back for a moment and ponder the > > following, > > > > For those of us not resident in the US, it has been genuinely alarming > > to see highly respected US government archives vanish overnight, > > reference websites go down, and US legislation appear to drift to > > whatever commercial interests have the loudest current political > > voices. Sadly "populism" is happening now, and dominates American > > politics, driving changes of all sorts in response to politically > > inflated and vague rhetoric about "security" and "fakenews". It is not > > inconceivable that a popularist current or future US Government could > > decide to introduce emergency controls over websites like Wikipedia, > > virtually overnight.[1][2][3][4] > > > > The question of whether the Wikimedia Foundation should have a hot > > switch option, so that if a "disaster" strikes in America, we could > > continue running Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons from other countries > > has been raised on this list several times over many years. The WMF > > and its employees are heavily invested in staying in Silicon Valley, > > and that will stay true unless external risks become extreme. > > > > However, there has never been a rationale to avoid investing in a Plan > > B. A robust plan, where the WMF can switch operations over to a > > hosting country with a sufficiently welcoming with stable national > > government and legislation, that our projects could continue to meet > > our open knowledge goals virtually uninterrupted and without risk of > > political control. A Plan B would ensure that if the US Government > > started to discuss controlling Wikipedia, then at least that published > > plan would be a realistic response. If they tried doing it, we could > > simply power off our servers in the USA, rather than compromise our > > content. > > > > If anyone knows of committed investment in a practical WMF Plan B, it > > would be reassuring to share it more widely at this time. If not, more > > of us should be asking about it, politely, persistently but perhaps > > less patiently than indefinitely. :-) > > > > Links: > > 1. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46739180 > > 2. http://www.lse.ac.uk/ideas/research/updates/populism > > 3. > > https://www.cnet.com/news/obama-signs-order-outlining-emergency-internet-co… > > "... this order was designed to empower certain governmental agencies > > with control over telecommunications and the Web during natural > > disasters and security emergencies." > > 4. > > https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/01/presidential-emergency… > > "The president could seize control of U.S. internet traffic, impeding > > access to certain websites and ensuring that internet searches return > > pro-Trump content as the top results." > > 5. Bizarro, as used in the title of this email: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizarro_World > > > > Thanks, > > Fae > > -- > > faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae > > > > ________faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae________________________________… > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Without in any way suggesting that David's and Fae's question is inappropriate....I suspect that the people most likely to have used/tested the backups are not people who follow this list; they're much more likely to participate on technical lists. It's actually a pretty good question, and Ariel Glenn of the WMF may be the best person to ask since they seem to be managing the process of making the files available. Risker/Anne On Wed, 9 Jan 2019 at 06:44, Fæ &lt;faewik(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: worry other case, I alarming not Plan published more https://www.cnet.com/news/obama-signs-order-outlining-emergency-internet-co… https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/01/presidential-emergency… https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae________________________________… https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

I would suggest Iceland. But there are several other possibilities, Ireland and New Zealand for starters.

about Beppe and criminal libel statutes,