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Hi Christopher, <br>
I totally recognize your enthusiasm for this kind of problem
solving. I recognize in myself that same drive to solve problems
with technology or, as they say, "dude, put a cryptography on it". I
don't want to quash that enthusiasm in a new member, but I'm going
to offer my perspective on the door issue- which is a unique problem
because the way we implement it is a direct expression of who we are
as a community. <br>
<br>
There are some circumstances where your A->B->C model would
work very well, but I think Noisebridge needs something simpler. We
want unknown people to be able to access the space, and we want
people who don't know how to use cryptography to enter the space,
and we want people who have heard of Noisebridge but have no other
point of contact to enter the space. In addition to all that, the
community is sort of nebulous and difficult to organize around one
standard way of doing anything. <br>
<br>
The issue isn't really that bad people can gain entry. It's that
we're not good at kicking them out. Part of that is a side effect of
anarchistic philosophies, part is that people don't like
confrontation. But anarchists have to be good neighbors, and good
neighbors sometimes need to lay the smack down on bad neighbors. Or
put another way, we as a community need to enforce a code of
conduct.<br>
<br>
What I think we need to do is: <br>
- Keep the gate shut. An open gate attracts people who just want an
open gate, indifferent to the community behind it. <br>
- Pass out simple keys to dues paying members and other people who
are vetted through a voting process. <br>
- Make sure people know about alternate ways of entry like gatebot
(which I hear is getting fixed)<br>
- Make sure the door chime can be heard. Give people a hard time if
they buzz someone in without staying to greet them. <br>
- Have an institutionalized way to identify and remove people who
are not playing nice with others. Present a unified front to make
them leave. <br>
<br>
I'm totally into cryptographic ID and web of trust stuff, and if you
want to work on that stuff with me let's get together. Leif is
working on a cryptographic voting system involving blind signing
that would be great to package for wider consumption. And man, we
need a better way to manage OTR and PGP keys... <br>
Welcome to Noisebridge!<br>
--D<br>
<br>
<br>
On 2/8/12 2:46 AM, Christopher Maujean wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAFx+HAt+n0pnNte3Zz-M=LtBa5dpkw6o_FWq7zFZtw_VL5csDA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<p>Hello folks,</p>
<p>Last night was my first time at Noisebridge and I'm glad I
picked a meeting night. I had already done my homework and read
the wiki. Having experienced the prepared rhetoric, and the
direct, in person culture, I can say that I intend to come often
from this point forward. </p>
<p>That said, I would like to volunteer to assist with the
implementation of a key system similar to the one proposed by (I
think?)Kelly. </p>
<p>The background as I see it:</p>
<p>In order to maintain the open access that seems to me to be a
core part of the Noisebridge culture, there needs to be a way to
allow free admittance to all, while enabling the banning of the
few bad apples. Paraphrasing Neal Stephenson perhaps, As hire As
and Bs, and Bs hire Cs... If we map this to the Noisebridge
culture: Excellent people bring both Excellent people, and Good
people. Good people bring both Good people and possibly not so
good people, the not so good people are likely to inundate the
space with people who are, with out a doubt, absolutely not what
Noisebridge is about. </p>
<p>It makes sense to optimize access control as a filtering system
to distill the As and Bs, while keeping the Cs engaged, but not
in charge, as the Cs do provide benefit by feeding the system
via association to previously undiscovered or unaffiliated Bs
and As. Of primary importance, is to float the As and Bs to the
top, while keeping the Ds and friends out in the Mission. </p>
<p>The proposal (or Mapping swingers hot tub access to
hackerspace):</p>
<p>An application that can generate, validate and revoke access
keys, has an appropriate web api and can open the gate, given an
un-revoked key.</p>
<p>
"Can generate, validate and revoke access keys" is pretty much
covered by a (probably trivial) integration of one or more of
many implementations of open source public key systems. "Can
open the gate" is something I would certainly like to learn and
I'm certain multiple people in the space can implement while I
ask stupid questions. "Has an appropriate web api" is something
I can help with on multiple levels.</p>
<p>The basic process as I think would be cool, is that members
would be able to use the api to generate keys. Those keys could
be given out and virally passed along to potentially like minded
people to allow access to the space. In a nutshell an un-revoked
key == access to the space.</p>
<p>Members would have the privilege of revoking any public keys
that were used in a particular time period, perhaps within a
given hour. As a member, if your only key were revoked in this
way, you would merely fire up your handy dandy key generation
app, and make you a new one. Any non-member who was existing in
the space only on keys that happened to be revoked, would have
to contact members to get new keys. This could be done by
pressing the button and mooning the camera, email, telephony,
telepathy, whatever. </p>
<p>This system will allow As and Bs to hand keys out, with
reasonable assurance that if a D or worse does get a key, it can
be revoked, the name and picture posted, and the relevant A or B
who made the original key notified that their key ended up in
the hands of the C or D in question that turned out to be a "bad
apple". Perhaps some timing can be implemented so that stale
keys can't be written in chalk in Thieves Cant on the sidewalk
and remain active for long. Social engineering can help with
this, as a member who consistently has keys revoked can be
spoken to, ostracized or whatever is necessary to solve the
problem. </p>
<p>The painless, "happy path" transition to this system will
probably require some period where keys are being made and
revoked daily or even more often. I believe that this would
settle down quickly into a more steady, flat pattern.</p>
<p>Obviously, this is not a completely specced out idea, but I
think it has potential.</p>
<p>I propose the api be implemented in erlang, as this will allow
me to learn the language, assuming I'm involved in the making.
It could be built quite quickly in ruby, but I think erlang
would be more fun.</p>
<p>Is anyone interested in discussing this further?</p>
<p>--Christopher</p>
<br>
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