I would suggest Iceland. But there are several other possibilities, Ireland
and New Zealand for starters.
But Iceland is a nice green location for server farms. Cheap cooling, green
electricity a small enough economy that they wouldn't want to upset the WMF
if it located there, and a government that doesn't hesitate to defend its
economic interests even if technically they don't have armed forces.
As others have pointed out there are worse choices we could make than the
US, but there are also much better choices.
WSC
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2019 09:52:41 -0500
From: Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com>
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] America may go bizarro, but Wikipedia has a
choice to make
Message-ID:
<CAPXs8yTYzmCVLxaF4iH=9Ht1j4e5MeniHqBLe==
n6p1y9xSkSA(a)mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
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 <faewik(a)gmail.com> wrote:
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 <nawrich(a)gmail.com> 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 <faewik(a)gmail.com> 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:
,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
_______________________________________________
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------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2019 17:00:18 +0200
From: Ariel Glenn WMF <ariel(a)wikimedia.org>
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] America may go bizarro, but Wikipedia has a
choice to make
Message-ID:
<CALCvg_4ALsMBSE_STWKo7-Dh1O41XAuDt09wByt_2f+-kx=
8Yg(a)mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
The files made available as 'Wikimedia dumps' are not intended to be a full
backup. And indeed that is not their purpose. People do set up mirrors
using these dumps from time to time, though I have not done so recently.
Actual honest-to-goodness backups (database snapshots) are another thing
altogether and one of the Wikimedia DBAs may want to talk about that.
Ariel
On Wed, Jan 9, 2019 at 4:52 PM Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
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 <faewik(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> 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 <nawrich(a)gmail.com> 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 <faewik(a)gmail.com> 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
> > >