Yesterday, around 1,200 people tipped up at XCom 2002, otherwise known as The Extreme Computing festival, in London's sunny Kings Cross.

There was laughter, there were tears (from cigarette smoke mostly), there was lots of alchohol, edgy art manifestos, t-shirts (black, typically), a surprising number of retro-Spectrum games players, a crappy sound system. Just like Town Bloody Hall but different.

Now it's a site for "those who want to play a part defining digital freedoms in the UK and beyond. Our secret plan: to collate in one place all the information you need to understand and fight the groups and laws that - deliberately or not - could foul up what, until now, has been a rather successful Internet".

The new site at STAND.org.uk is pretty barebones right now, but some of the UK's best-known Internet activists are giving their support. It kicks off with an good piece from NTK's always-interesting Danny O'Brien, noting the vast array of organisations, including for chrissake the Post Office, which will, under new Home Office proposals, have powers to obtain Internet 'traffic data' without judicial warrants.

Outraged? Wanna know more? Wanna do something about it? Then take the STAND. ®

And on a lighter note: some XCom 2002 Blogs

The Plastic Bag Man
Boing Boing
The guy from The Guardian
The unfeasibly tall Ben Hammersley
Not a blog but a directory/email list called Haddock