[Noisebridge-discuss] missing IBM model M keyboard from my shelf

Andy Isaacson adi at hexapodia.org
Sun Sep 18 20:29:30 UTC 2011


On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 12:58:29PM -0700, Snail wrote:
> Putting a locked box on a member's shelf is kind of silly when there's
> a shelf full of lockpicks in plain view, labeled as such on the front
> row, in a community that's open to teaching lockpicking to anyone.

Seems legit to me.  My member shelf has a cardboard box with my name on
it; the purpose is to keep stuff organized and free of dust, and as a
side effect it keeps random passersby from scoping the goods, whether
it's a hacker going "oooh what's that interesting gadget" or a thief
looking to bankroll his next high.


(I have been that hacker.  I *think* I've put everything back the times
I've picked it up, but I can't swear to that.)

> It's like having
> a password-protected computer with the password written on the side of the
> monitor in a space full of hackers. I mean, we could try it as an
> experiment, but really ....

So actually, I do exactly that, all the time.  I think every single
computer I've installed at Noisebridge has a 16 or 20 character randomly
generated root password, written on tape on the front or side.

(Hmmm, no, there was that one time where I installed a laptop as a kiosk
display for a few months; it was set up to display a series of videos,
so I passworded it up as an appliance rather than a computer for
hacking.  Eventually somebody got annoyed at the droning audio and
unplugged it.)

I do the "root password on the front" trick to implement a specific set
of security properties and to encourage some specific social phenomena,
and it does what I want pretty well.  I can enumerate them if you'd
like, but this is getting pretty far afield from the point of this
thread...

-andy



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