MF/PL Takes Major Step Toward Internet Autonomy

In partnership with the Calyx Institute, May First/People Link now has our own block of Internet addresses, allowing us greater freedom and flexibility when responding to denial of service attacks and legal take down notices from corporations trying to stifle political speech.

The partnership with the Calyx Institute offers many political benefits. It is the first Internet organization to resist a National Security Letter and is a leader in the movement for a free and private Internet and its work dovetails with several of May First’s objectives and campaigns. The most immediate benefit, however, is our security and flexibility.

Up to now, MF/PL’s IP addresses have been owned by the companies that provide our organization with our Internet connection. As a result, we have been beholden to them when one of these addresses is attacked or identified in a legal take down notice. Once we have transferred to our own IP addresses we will have the ability to re-route our traffic to different up steam providers, giving us and our members more control and power.

This change brings several critical implications to May First/People Link members.

First, the Leadership Committee has voted to combine our two existing facilities that house our servers to one facility, to both save money and ensure that all members can benefit from this new development.

That means all members currently on servers in our XO location will be moved to our Telehouse location. We will plan these moves to reduce down time to at most a few hours during the middle of the night in the US and Mexico, with advance warning to all affected members.

We plan to complete the transfer of all servers to the Telehouse location by April 21.

Second, while the vast majority of MF/PL members use our domain name servers, and therefore do not need to take any action as we make this change, a small number of members manage their domain names elsewhere. If you are part if this small minority, please open a ticket at https://support.mayfirst.org/ to let us know. We will need to plan the transition of your sites carefully to avoid down time.

We look forward to strengthening our relationship with the Calyx Institute through additional collaborations in the future.