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

[Matt Joyce]

So this isn't a ZOMG let's declare RFC 31337 and bind the world to our
protocol conversation.  At this point for me it's an exercise in automation,
which is... well it's fun.  Let's be honest.

So,  I figure John you are right on the same track I am.  You are thinking
well, what is the flow chart for accepted protocol used for providing access
to a foreign exchange hacker.... on a one off short term basis.

And what I am seeing is that the requirements for this range from the highly
awesome "hey come on in, why that's a lovely axe you have there, is that red
paint?"  to  "don't answer that... he didn't knock with the secret sequence
of knocks."   We can't really work around that.  People are going to decide
their own level of security thresholds.  That's up to them.

What I do however take away from this thought process is that, hackerspaces
are organizations defined by their members.  And the sort of security /
non-security requirements that exist for any social group will be of course
of their own design.

Fine.  So maybe the solution to the passport question isn't defining a
protocol of "use" but defining a method of establishing identity quickly and
cleanly while affording everyone who participates the highest possible level
of self determination in use of their own data as well as security.

And the reason at this point I get even a little excited, is because a
system of that nature is directly applicable to security and privacy
oriented social networking.  And if you can establish a simple protocol for
defining trust relationships and pushing simple contact info...

It could be pretty huge.  Digital business card sharing.  Integration to
well... anything you want.  +open hardware would equal some pretty sick
integration all over.

Maybe I am nuts.  But if it was tied to gpg... you could use it to gpg the
world's email finally.

Just pondering.


So imagine... a small mcu with some sort of simple active interface ( rfid?
pin contact? ) hell... maybe just use cell phones and an app.  Or maybe
both.  Define the spec to work in soft or hard deployment.  Let people
establish their own social orgs and members of those orgs.  Let people
basically assign their trust to people.  Then allow people to view their
trust keychain... or just look for intersections in their social network and
display those only.

It's pretty cool dynamic trust implementation stuff.   If you got it down to
a tiny physical token / cell app it could be damned useful.  Especially
since there is no central authority.

-Matt

On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 11:41 AM, john arclight <arclight at gmail.com> wrote:

> There seems to be a de-facto process, at least with us.
>
> 1. We get an e-mail that says "Hi! I'm a hacker from out of town. I'm
> going to be in <your city> on <this date>. Can I come hang out?
>
> 2. We get an e-mail that says "Hi! I'm a hacker from out of town.
> <Person that you know> said you guys are cool and that I should come
> by your space. Can I come hang out?
>
> 3. We get an e-mail that says "Hi! I'm <person you know from mailing
> list X>. Can I come hang out?
>
> Yes, we're talking unauthenticated SMTP communication and unverified
> references. But we have yet to experience a problem from someone
> referred here by any of these ways.  I'm probably more open to letting
> folks crash here overnight if I already know them or have good
> authority on them, but I can't see any situation where I'm going to
> turn them away from hanging out with us.
>
>
> Arclight
>
> On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 5:55 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.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Discuss mailing list
> > Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
> > http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> >
> >
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