Meeting Notes 2011 11 08

Agenda

The 186th Meeting of Noisebridge

Note-taker: [User:Malaclyps|Danny]

Moderator: Tom

Introduction and Names

• What Noisebridge is about: "Noisebridge is a 501c3 nonprofit that provides a space for creation, collaboration, and learning about technology and creative projects. Noisebridge provides space, power tools, and infrastructure to help the public learn new skills and create cool things. Noisebridge continues to exist through and depends entirely on membership fees and donations. Our code of conduct is 'Be excellent to each other'."

• Round of introductions: What's your name, what do you do, and if you are new, how did you hear about Noisebridge? Start with the moderator and go left.

Tom -- Fights for the user Zephyrus -- like the wind Carl -- he's alive Marco -- he's new to a meeting. Visiting to Toronto Shannon -- subject to a MYSTERY INQUIRY Leif -- he explained Noisebridge tonight Liz -- made the photowall, have people with names they chose to identify themselves, come to her if you want your name up on the wall. I work for Blogher, and a writer and blogger, translator and poet. Rachel H. -- she isn't at this meeting Rubin -- he drops ALL THE THINGS Jake -- is remote sensing as we speak Aestetix -- he really hates tear gas Kaya -- she's losing her throat Jesse -- likes technology Danny - I'm writing this sentence Mct -- That's all Leah -- I am taking a sabbatical and learning Akien -- along for the ride

• A brief primer on consensus process: We agree and so should you! Only paid-up members can block consensus.

Short Announcements

No announcements

New or Stale Events

Shannon talks about Noisetent -- we have two tents at #occupysf. You can sleep there! Unlike here! We are part of the communications area. We are currently working on putting up more internet for the occupation. Jake and Rubin are working on this right now (see timestamp for exact moment of hacking).

Xephyr and three other NBers are doing algorithmic trading. We've made $150. The initial investment was $0. http://github.com/amexdlda/wearethe1percent

I REALLY LIKE THAT THESE TWO THINGS ARE RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER IN THE NOTES

Financial Report

Funds in bank: $21,231.08

Membership Binder

• Read off any names from the binder for the past month. Write a check on every open application.
• Anyone up for joining this week (ie have four checks by their name + have two sponsors) should introduce themselves then leave the area in search of gifts (traditionally beer and a lime) for the rest of the group. The rest of the meeting should consense on whether they may join.

Zephyrus is up for membership. Hilarity ensues.

Consensus items

(Add any new items for consensus to the Current Consensus Items page.)

Discussion Items

Danny says that there's an anthropologist group interested in studying Noisebridge. Danny suggested they come to a meeting and present their plans.

Shannon: two weeks ago tomorrow, October 26th, someone unnamed and unknown logged into the Whitehouse forums and posted a death-threat against the President over Tor. About an hour later Shannon received a message from the Secret Service, and it went to voicemail. Shannon called EFF as Torproject lawyer, and they left a message for the secret service. In the mean time, a member of the Secret Service visited Noisebridge looking for Shannon. Our EFF lawyer contacted the Secret Service agent, and phone tag ensued. Eventually, I got the opportunity to explain what Tor was to the agent. The agent provided the IP address of the threat, which proved to be a Noisetor Tor node. We had a conference call with the EFF lawyer, who would be interested in coming to Noisebridge and having a discussion about best practices with regard to visits from law enforcement.

Kaya says she didn't buzz them up, but they walked in the door nonetheless. Everyone agrees that there other ways for people to come in.

Ray asks do they have to announce themselves? People seems to think they do not.

Shannon says that usually people contact us through an abuse email.

Mct when we asked EFF at the time, EFF said don't disclose. Now the case is resolved,

Kaya asks what the should be the procedure in the future. No-one knew.

Some law-enforcement-detection methods are suggested and analysed without lawyers in the room. People were pointed to Jennifer Granick's video

Shannon adds that they probably worked out Shannon's name via the whois.

Liz doesn't think this should make us more paranoid. Any time the cops want to bust the space, there's not much we could do to prevent it. This event doesn't make me add to my worries. I hope that nobody thinks we have to do anything drastic just because of this event.

Aestetix points to the Know Your Rights info at the EFF.

Jesse asks if they had a subpoena, is there any info that the Tor people could provide. Mct says there's no information about the person on the Tor node. Leif says that the Tor node knows about the current connections, but that doesn't tell you anything about who those people are. Nothing is logged to disk, just to memory. What is in memory is unclear, but the most that could be there would be info to the next node, which would not reveal anything more than that.

Rubin says please give some money to the EFF, because they were awesome. And also NoiseTor, so we can continue to get Feds on our asses.

Shannon says just answering this question took 3-4 hours of laywyer time, which is $1000 or so.

Duncan asks if this was a repeated threat. Shannon says he doesn't think so. Rubin says it wouldn't go through our node repeatedly if they were using Tor.

---

Rubin says we have mice. If you meet any mice, tell them they can't sleep here.

End of Meeting

• PGP Key Signing could happen now, check the list to see who wants in on the action.
• Put back the membership binder in the black desk.
• Save the meeting notes to the wiki.
• Send a copy of the meeting notes to the discussion list.
• Copy the Meeting Notes Template for next week's agenda and update the main wiki page's link to it.
• Enjoy a cocktail with your fellow hacker or robot.