[Noisebridge-discuss] New Android app: Noisegate

[D J Capelis]

On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 4:55 PM, Josh Juran <jjuran at gmail.com> wrote:
> We can treat requests differently when they come from Noisebridge's own wifi
> network.

>From what I saw, for things like accessing pony.noise/gate or making a
call to gate/open, that's already treated differently coming from the
wifi vs. the internet.  (On the internet, it's denied.)

The mobile key is different.  It's okay with a GET from anywhere on
the Internet instead of a POST to open.  I don't have an account on
pony to check on how things are actually working, so I'm not sure if
this is the only key that can be used this way, just the only one I
found to use on an iPhone[1] when I recently moved to SF part-time and
decided to start dropping by the space to work and get a feel for it
and see if I wanted to do so more regularly and really join the
community. :)

Basically the mobile key is a purposefully opened hole as far as I can
tell.  Issuing keys accountable to an individual or an alias seems
like it would be something that would make a lot of sense.  The apps
could easily remember a key and issue requests to open the gate using
a person's own accountable key after it learned it once.  Then keys
could be revoked for people who aren't being excellent.

I think it would be cool if there was a decent and simple way for a
new user to submit a little form online giving a little context to who
they are and request access to a key easily so new people can see the
community even if they're new to the area and/or shy and/or don't know
a whole lot of people in the community yet.  As a new person, I'd feel
shiny if I could access the gate in a way where I had an API key that
allowed me to be accountable to my use of my gate open requests but
not also require that I immediately navigate (haha, gate, get it?) a
confusing community I'm not yet used to interacting with.

The code seems mostly trivial, I'd be happy to write it and extend the
API that exists if someone wanted to give me the access I'd need to
pony and the community judges the idea an excellent one.

~DJ

[1] Funny the thing I use on my iphone is also called noisegate and
does exactly the same thing as your new android app.