Visitors

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Visitors are welcome at Noisebridge! Here's some advice to help you understand what you're getting into. You can find directions for Getting Here to our location, Getting In when you arrive, and Community Standards to observe while you're here.
Click for a guided tour of Noisebridge

Who is welcome[edit]

Everyone is welcome and encouraged to visit Noisebridge. We ask that visitors follow our guiding rule "to be excellent to each other" in the best spirit they can; please see our access policy. New visitors can drop by anytime unannounced and do not necessarily need an invitation for a tour or for attending a scheduled event like a class. It may be wise to follow our suggested advice below on the best times to visit, to ensure there are people there who can let you in.

Noisebridge is wheelchair accessible though people who use wheelchairs may need help with the heavy manual elevator doors.

Come with an open mind[edit]

Noisebridge is largely about learning and exploring, and there's lots to see and learn here! Activities at Noisebridge include hanging out, working on personal or group projects, and scheduled or improptu workshops and classes on a range of topics, from foreign languages to photography, lockpicking, woodworking, computer programming and mathematics.

Some times are better than others[edit]

We have many scheduled activities in the space, and many of us have day jobs. You can coordinate the time of your visit to ensure that you can find people to talk with (and especially to let you into the building in the first place!)

  • Are you new? Wondering when to drop by? Come by any evening - you don't necessarily have to wait for a class, an event or a meeting. Any night there will generally be people hanging out, and you're welcome to just show up, to say "I'm new!" and then get a tour, or to just relax and work on your laptop until a conversation of interest comes up.
  • If you're interested in particular activities, check out our schedule, posted on the main page of this site.
  • If you'd like to come during unstructured time and talk with lots of people, after hours are generally best.
  • If you'd prefer a quieter environment, come earlier in the day.
  • If you'd like to see the anarco-syndicalist factory of how a long-living hackspace is maintaining, tag along to our Tuesday 8pm meetings, where affairs are often excitingly hashed out.
  • You're unlikely to find many people in the space before noon on most days.
  • This is discussed in painful detail at Hours
  • The people around you may not know you well, but they might love you a bit more if you fix a random thing. Even if its just cleaning plates of dishes, helping to organize the parts bins, or tidying an obviously dirty desk.

Who's in charge?[edit]

YOU ARE! (with the consent of the folks around you!) Noisebridge attempts to be as leaderless and as non-hierarchical and unruly as we can get. We encourage anyone in the space to be as responsible as anyone else. If you're a new visitor, that means the member or vouchsafed guest who you first meet is as good as anyone else to ask questions of.

Our code of conduct[edit]

Our chief guiding principle is to "be excellent to one another". Please respect the other people you meet at Noisebridge and the Noisebridge space itself. We welcome visitors because we believe in our community and want to share the things we're working on with everyone. We also have community standards.

Other people's stuff[edit]

Please try to be careful with the things you find at Noisebridge, and recognize that the things on shelves are other people's stuff.

Not "child-safe"[edit]

We have not limited what we like to explore or discuss according to anyone's notions of "appropriateness" for children. Thus, anyone entering the space can be exposed to ideas, concepts, language and items which some would consider "adult-themed". We also have some tools and materials that can be hazardous for children or adults if used improperly. Children are as welcome in the space as any other person - just be prepared for what they may encounter.

  • Kids: We have some guidelines for parents and kids in the space.

Hostile network[edit]

The network at Noisebridge - like any public network - should be regarded as potentially hostile. This means that you should assume that any unencrypted communications over the network could be (and most likely are) monitored by others. Examples of vulnerable communications include POP3/IMAP email clients, most web browsing, IRC/AIM and similar chat protocols that are often not encrypted. While no issues have come up to date, and our code of conduct opposes malicious monitoring of others, it is wise to be aware of the potential. Stick to using SSL or secure tunnels or VPNs for anything that uses a password or that you otherwise wouldn't want other people to read. If you don't know how to protect your communications with encryption, many people at Noisebridge would be glad to help you out!

Attempt at a Semi Decent Guide[edit]

The most secure option you have is to set up an SSH tunnel to a remote server, and then use a proxy server like Polipo to forward all your HTTP through that server. Done properly, this will encrypt all your traffic without any further worries. If you do not have SSH access to a remote server, then you can use Tor or similar to encrypt your traffic without exposing it to the Noisebridge network.


The fallback position is to ensure that as many services as possible use HTTPS by default (especially webmail) and at least have browser based solution to protect against CRSF/XSS attacks for everything else. This may happen even if the website itself is solid -- if you're on a compromised internal network, the attacker can inject content into any HTML page that you're reading.

Recommended Firefox Addons:

Recommended Chrome Extensions:

Recommended General Security:

  • If you use Google, two factor authentication is vastly more secure than just a password.
  • Although coming up with a good password is nice, you're far more secure if you use a password manager like LastPass, KeyPass or 1Password. The best password is one you don't remember.
  • Using more secure search engines that don't track you (DuckDuckGo is a great option) you won't have google tracking you everywhere you go.
  • If someone gets their hands on the physical machine, all bets are off. Try to avoid strange USB sticks and CDs, even if they look shiny. Also, encrypting your drive protects you from these attacks pretty well(as long as you don't leave your machine laying around unencrypted, see links below)

Further Reading: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/tor-signal-and-beyond-a-law-abiding-citizens-guide-to-privacy-1a593f2104c3/ https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/avoiding-internet-surveillance-complete-guide/


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