Tad Hirsch

We first heard about Tad years ago in the context of txtmob - software that allows organizers to send out text (SMS) messages to groups of people via their cell phones. Originally conceived as a way to send out demostration updates during a protest it has developed into a very flexible program with applications we haven’t even begun to develop.

Based on this experience, when Tad approached us through another member (Interactivist), we were happy to respond. The project was Terminal Air: a user-driven database that tracks CIA rendition flights. Users sign up, indicating their location. Using public records, Termnal Air software determines when a flight matching characteristics of a CIA rendition flight (based on unusual flight path and times, type of aircraft, etc) and sends a txt message to everyone in the departing and arriving cities, asking those living close to the airport to attempt a visual identification of the plane. If successful, the user can login to the site and report what they saw.

For obvious reasons, this project was not one that could be hosted on your typical corporate hosting provider.

Tad, a PhD student at M.I.T, is still working on the theme of activism and mobile communications. His latest project, Dialup Radio, is designed to be used in countries with little telecommunications infrastructure except cellular phones as a radio system.

Other movements (most notably MFPL member Radio Insurgente - the EZLN Radio network) have developed extensive and mobile radion stations which feed content to web sites around the world. However, Tad mentions radio stations are relatively expensive to setup and difficult to hide.

As an alternative, he’s developing a phone system, based on all free software (using Asterisk) that is attached to a four port sim card reader. A sim card reader is a device that you can put a cell phone sim card in and it will behave just like a cell phone (with an incoming number and everything).

Therefore, with four sim cards, four people can simoultaneously call into the phone system. When you call, you get a automated greetting providing you with options for listening to recent headlines or for other specialized information.

The software can be installed on a very small form factor computer and the sim card reader is also relatively small. Since all communication happens via cell phone, the entire system can be packed up and moved where ever there’s a cell phone signal. In fact, with a battery pack, it could be truly mobile!

Tad’s work offers some very insights into communications. One interesting contrast he offered was between “independent” communications and “parasitic” communications. Radical media movements have often called for building infrastructure independent of corporate control. While that is and will always be an important goal, it’s not always the most strategic. Given the increased interdendence of technology, communications and capitalism, Tad suggested that a parasitic relationship is more strategic in many cases.

From May First/People Link’s perspective, that makes a lot of sense. Although we are committed to building our own infrastructure (via our own server racks), there’s nothing “independent” about the Internet. Our existence is interwined with coporate owned and controlled data pipes circling the globe. Rather than focusing on independence, perhaps we should work harder at being more intertwined in subtle and complex ways.

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