[hackerspaces] hacker passport, international hacker memberiship, resources sharing

[Eric Gerlach]

I think the concept of a hackerspaces passport is useful (and more
importantly awesome) in the following sense:

In the real world, a passport is issued by your country, tells someone
at a border where you're from, and is proof that you're a citizen
there.  It also (optionally) allows the authorities in that country to
put something in your passport saying you're allowed to be in the
country, but you get to keep it as proof that you visited there.  Each
destination country has their own rules about who they let in bearing
which passports and for what reasons.  The only real standard is the
format of the computer-readable information on the second page.

In the hackerspaces world, a passport would be issued by your space,
tells someone at another space where you're from, and that you're a
member there.  It also (optionally) allows the destination hackerspace
to put something in your passport saying you're allowed to be in their
space, and you get to keep it as proof that you visited there.  Each
hackerspace has its own rules about who they let in bearing which
passports and for what reasons.  The only real standard would be the
(ideally extensible) format of some computer-readable information on
some page of the passport.

So rather than using the passport as "automatic membership at other
spaces", use it as proof of membership to your home space, and let the
destination hackerspace determine what that means.  I personally love
the idea of going to another space and having them stamp/print
on/keysign my passport saying where I'd been and when.  If they want
to do that as proof that I'm allowed in as part of their security
process, fine!  If groups of hackerspaces want to make agreements to
automatically allow their members access to each others' spaces,
awesome!  We could have the "hacker NAFTA/Eurozone", or something.
Why not?

My personal idea is a passport issued that has a QR code on it that
links to a page on your home hackerspace's server that contains all
the information about you, and your current membership status, as well
as your personal public key.  The destination hackerspace would then
sign the visitor's passport (either the URL or the public key) with
some relevant information (date of visit, etc.).  This could then be
served up via a URL, which could then be printed as a QR code on a
sticker (or something) and then stuck in the person's passport.

I've started writing a specification here if people are interested:
http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Hackerspaces_Passport (Shouldn't propose
an idea without at least doing some work!)

What do people think?  This seems to be a solved problem in many areas
(state-to-state relations, fencing clubs/tournaments), why don't we
just copy what's proven to work?

Cheers,

Eric

On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 8:55 AM, Ross Smith <rsmith at i3detroit.com> wrote:
> The reason I would never support a hacker passport is that it would involve
> me refusing hacker guests who don't possess one.
>
> Seriously, unless someone is going to be in my space, consuming its
> resources at the expense of my membership for several weeks, I don't see any
> problem with a completely informal system.  If a visiting hacker will
> require the resources of my space in that way, we'll work out an ad hoc
> agreement.  It certainly doesn't happen often enough to be a systematic
> problem requiring a systematic solution.
>
> Rules are bad; we only need them when the problems are worse.  As such I
> rejoyce at the idea that hackers cooperate on the basis of being intelligent
> people rather than participants in a system.
>
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