We want to see more women in the tech world. We know hella women with mad skills who don’t wanna deal with a scene in which male dominance is the status quo. Yeah, no wonder. We don’t either.

We want to encourage your interest in technology and provide a way for all of us to exercise our radical politics.  We'd love to be working with more awesome women who feel comfortable expressing their geeky, playful, intellectually-curious side. We play around with servers and software and programming and robotics and building stuff. We teach people and create infrastructure for the radical community.

If you’ve ever soldered something and enjoyed it, or if you’ve ever learned a programming language and felt brilliant, or if you’ve ever designed something that worked perfectly, we'd like to share more of that with you in an environment where men, women, and trans folks can connect.

UBEW provides mutual support to anti-authoritarian groups making radical social change through direct action, community involvement, and education. We are a geek collective with roots in the anarchist tradition, so we are explicitly opposed to all forms of domination, including sexism, racism, and classism. We strive to learn from each other and focus our skills toward creative goals, to explore and research liberating uses of technology, and to work to create a new and better world.

We host regular Free Skool Hacktivism classes at SubRosa and a once-a-month Meet & Geek social the last Thursday of the month at 730pm at Bocci’s Cellar. We’d love to meet you and make cool stuff.

An Evening of Extraordinary Proportions

On December 11th, we will be hosting a joint benefit for Riseup, a 10 year old tech collective that provides email and list hosting for much of the activist community, and UBEW, our local radical tech collective.

You are invited. It will, we believe, be quite an extraordinary affair.

Our goal is to raise between $2000 and $4000 for Riseup. This will also support UBEW's modest budget in the next year.


Here is a small sample of some of the Types of Items that will be Auctioned-Off at the Semi-Silent Auction:

• Steam-punk Jewelry
• Stimulating Geek Dates
• The Work of Talented Local Artists
• Open Source Software Bundles
• Exciting Adventures
• Tantalizing Libations

Back doors for the government to spy on us
----------------------------------------
The Obama administration is drafting a law that would make  all internet communications services in the US come with a "back door" -- a way in for them to surveil all information, when requested. This would effectively end legal secure encrypted communication in the US.

We're hoping it doesn't go into law, but it is a reminder of how the powers that be want all access passes to all your information.

More detailed information from our friends at the Electronic Frontier Foundation: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/09/government-seeks

(thanks to our friends at riseup for passing on the news) 

Things we have determined today:

1. Dodge trusts Muirkat emotionally enough to be honest about checking Facebook during a work meeting
2. New intern Doctor is a good worker
3. Our groupie Annie is easily frustrated
4. The guy at the next table WENT TO MESA VERDE and is more than willing to tell everyone within earshot about his extensive knowledge of southwest archeological sites
5. If Annie had brought a laptop we could chat with her rather than have to talk
6. Cyrus gets up late, but has a lot of spirit
7. It would be good to set up a free skool alpha drupal instances
8. Our barrista is cute in an apron
9. git is confusing but powerful
10. Dodge observes that when you are doing work and are about 27 sub-tasks deep, it is difficult to remember what you were doing originally 
11. If you thought talking loudly on a cell phone in a cafe was irritating, wait until the guy next to you Skypes someone, talking loudly to a small (but loud) tinny voice. "Can you see me?!"  **waves and smiles broadly**

SubRosa, 703 Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz
Thu Nov 4th, 18th, Dec 2nd, 16th, 30th, Jan 13th, 27th - 5-7:30pm

The second class in the hacktivism series.
Wikipedia says that "Hacktivism . . . is the nonviolent use of illegal or legally ambiguous digital tools in pursuit of political ends." The goal of this class is to learn and use these tools in order to create the technical infrastructures needed for radical endeavors. If you have ideas for projects, skills to share, or simply an interest, join us! From programming to electronics to social/network engineering. Let's create opensource projects and knowledgebases that our widespread communities can use.

Circuit Hacking
Thursday, Sept. 16 at 5pm
Subrosa - 703 Pacific Ave.

Never built an electronic circuit before? Come learn the basic skills necessary for soldering. Instruction is free but for $15 you can build and take home a TV-B-Gone kit. With it, you can turn off almost any TV up to 50 yards away.

Hackbloc Santa Cruz
Bocci's Cellar, 140 Encinal Street, Santa Cruz
Last Thursday of every month 6pm

This is our monthly, open meeting for tech-minded people who have an interest in software and hardware projects that benefit the community. We'll share ideas, help each other with projects, geek out in an egalitarian format, and consume mugs of frothy fermented grain beverage in the process (optional). Note: There may be Bocce involved. A background or an interest in computer programming or building computing hardware or electronics.

Hacktivism 101: Practicing Electronic Civil Disobediance
SubRosa, 703 Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz
Thu July 8th, 22nd, Aug 5th, 19th, Sep 2nd, 16th - 5-7:30pm

Wikipedia says that "Hacktivism . . . is the nonviolent use of illegal or legally ambiguous digital tools in pursuit of political ends." The goal of this class is to learn and use these tools in order to create the technical infrastructures needed for radical endeavors. If you have ideas for projects, skills to share, or simply an interest, join us! From programming to electronics to social/network engineering. Let's create opensource projects and knowledgebases that our widespread communities can use.



For Contact email: ubew000@gmail.com

From the hackbloc.org site whose tagline is "Exploit code, not people:"

Our mission is to research, create and disseminate information, tools, and tactics that empower people to use technology in a way that is liberating. We support and strengthen our local communities through education and action. We strive to learn from each other and focus our skills toward creative goals, to explore and research positive hacktivism, and to defend a free internet and free society!

We're down with that.