Noisebridge Explained

Noisebridge
Formation:2007
Purpose:Hacking, Making
Location:San Francisco, California
Founder:Volunteers, including Mitch Altman, Jacob Appelbaum and many other hackers
Affiliations:Pumping Station: One, Chaos Computer Club, Metalab, e.a.
Budget:$140K
Num Staff:3 (unpaid)
Num Volunteers:200+

Noisebridge is an anarchistic maker and hackerspace located in San Francisco. It is inspired by the European hackerspaces Metalab in Vienna and c-base in Berlin. Noisebridge describes itself as "a space for sharing, creation, collaboration, research, development, mentoring, and learning".[1] Outside of its headquarters, Noisebridge forms a wider international community.[2] It was organized in 2007 and has had permanent facilities since 2008.[3]

History

Locations

In 2007 and 2008, Noisebridge functioned as a nomadic group, holding meetings at various locations. In October 2008, the group secured a small commercial property in San Francisco's Mission District. However, this location soon proved insufficient for the growing community. By 2009, Noisebridge relocated to a 5,200 square foot space on the third floor of 2169 Mission Street. During that year, the organization had approximately 100 members..[4]

By 2018, the organization was looking for a new space as its lease was under threat.[5] A large donation in 2020 kicked off a new search.[6] [7]

Activities and projects

Many meetups, workshops, and classes are held at the space, including the long running Circuit Hacking Monday, San Francisco Writers Workshop, Wikipedia meetups, Hack Comedy, Five Minutes of Fame, game development groups and classes, Free Code Camp, Code Day, and the Stupid Hackathon.[8]

Past workspaces prior to June 2018 included: an optics lab, bycology lab, biotech lab, bitchen, digital audio workstation, photo development darkroom, book scanning workshop, photo booth, and a lights-out cloud computing lab[9] with more than 100 computer cores and contributed resources to several open source projects, including the GCC compile farm.

Noisebridge members have been involved with research projects that won the best paper awards from top tier academic conferences Usenix Security Conference[10] [11] and CRYPTO.[12] [13]

Spacebridge

Noisebridge had a near space exploration program in 2010, which launched weather-balloon probes exploring altitudes of nearly 70,000 feet, carrying a variety of smartphones and digital cameras for imaging and altitude sensing using a GPS system.[14] [15] [16] [17] Altitudes reached have exceeded the operational limits of consumer level GPS systems.[18]

NoiseTor

NoiseTor (or Noisebridge Tor Project) was a Noisebridge initiative to create and operate additional Tor relays.[19] The project accepted financial donations to sponsor additional nodes.[20] [21] The project was shut down officially by 2022.[22]

Awards and honors

Controversies

As of 2013, many women have reported instances of being sexually harassed and assaulted at Noisebridge.[25] Co-founder Jacob Appelbaum was accused of multiple instances of sexual harassment.[26] In June 2016, amid an uptick in accusations against Appelbaum and statements from various other groups banning him from their spaces, Noisebridge did the same, stating in an official blog post that "Jacob is no longer welcome in our community, either in its physical or online spaces".[27] In their statement, they explained that his alleged actions (as well as those of other Noisebridge participants accused of harassement), although they had occurred before its instating in 2014, were in violation of their Anti-Harassment policy.

On 24 September 2018, co-founder Mitch Altman announced that he had quietly left Noisebridge in the month of May.[28]

Cultural references

The video game Watch Dogs 2 was reportedly influenced by Noisebridge.[29]

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Noisebridge website's Vision page . 3 December 2010 . Noisebridge.
  2. Web site: Building circuits, code, community at Noisebridge hacker space . Mills . Elinor . . 30 November 2009 . https://web.archive.org/web/20121026051219/http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10405255-245.html . 26 October 2012 . dead . 14 October 2022.
  3. Web site: Hackers need space to innovate. Danny . O'Brien. Irish Times. 24 October 2008. 3 December 2010.
  4. Web site: Mills . Elinor . 30 November 2009 . Building circuits, code, community at Noisebridge hacker space . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20121026051219/http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10405255-245.html . 26 October 2012 . 14 October 2022 . CNET News.
  5. Web site: 2017-12-21 . Facing Displacement, 'Noisebridge' Hackerspace Seeks New Home . 2022-11-19 . hoodline.com . en.
  6. Web site: Feldberg . Sarah . 2020-03-02 . Iconic hackerspace Noisebridge is saved by donation of $150K bitcoin . 2022-11-19 . San Francisco Chronicle . en-US.
  7. Web site: Feldberg . Sarah . 2020-03-05 . After 11 years on Mission Street, hackerspace Noisebridge searching for new home . 2022-11-19 . San Francisco Chronicle . en-US.
  8. Web site: protected . email . 2015-05-11 . The Stupid S**t No One Needs hackathon was the best tech event ever . 2022-11-19 . The Daily Dot . en-US.
  9. Web site: Noisecloud. Noisebridge . 13 December 2010.
  10. Web site: Lest We Remember: Cold Boot Attacks on Encryption Keys. USENIX Security. 30 November 2015. 2008.
  11. Web site: Lest We Remember: Cold Boot Attacks on Encryption Keys . https://web.archive.org/web/20080223173317/http://citp.princeton.edu/memory/ . dead . 23 February 2008 . Princeton University . Proc. 17th USENIX Security Symposium (Sec ‘08), San Jose, CA . July 2008 . 2017-12-31 . dmy-all .
  12. Web site: CRYPTO 2009: Program: Best-paper award for Short Chosen-Prefix Collisions for MD5 and the Creation of a Rogue CA Certificate . International Association for Cryptologic Research . iacr.org . 16 August 2009.
  13. Web site: MD5 considered harmful today: Creating a rogue CA certificate . 25th Annual Chaos Communication Congress. Berlin . 30 December 2008 . 3 December 2010.
  14. Web site: DIY Group Sends $25 Balloon to 70,000 Feet . Priya . Ganapati . Wired.com . 12 February 2010 . 4 December 2010.
  15. Web site: Amateurs Fling Their Gadgets to Edge of Space . Priya . Ganapati . Wired.com . 12 August 2010.
  16. Web site: Hackspaces get closer to home. Jamillah . Knowles. BBC. 19 August 2010. 3 December 2010.
  17. Web site: Spacebridge . Noisebridge . 3 December 2010.
  18. Web site: Spacebridge Alpha Launch . Noisebridge . 4 December 2010.
  19. Web site: About Noisebridge Tor. 5 January 2017. noisebridge.net. en. 2018-06-17.
  20. Web site: Tor at the Heart: torservers.net. Steele. Sharon. 3 December 2016. blog.torproject.org. en. 2018-06-17. [..] covers legal costs for exit operators when needed.
  21. Web site: 2014 FOSS Donations. 12 March 2014. DuckDuckGo Blog. en. 2018-06-17.
  22. Web site: Noisebridge Tor - Noisebridge . 2022-11-19 . www.noisebridge.net.
  23. Web site: Best Open Source Playpen . . 27 July 2010 . 5 December 2010 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20100731043055/http://www.sfbg.com/specials/best-bay-2010-editors-picks-city-living . 31 July 2010 .
  24. Web site: Best Hacker Hangout – 2011 – Noisebridge . SF Weekly. 19 May 2011 . 19 May 2011.
  25. News: Montgomery . Kevin . Claims of Sexism and Sexual Assault Plague Noisebridge Hackerspace . 25 July 2019 . Uptown Almanac . October 1, 2013.
  26. News: Loll . Anna Catherin . Power, secrecy and cypherpunks: how Jacob Appelbaum ripped Tor apart . 25 July 2019 . The Guardian . October 11, 2016.
  27. Web site: Noisebridge Statement on Jacob Appelbaum . 2022-09-29 . Noisebridge Blog . en.
  28. Web site: 24 September 2018 . I quietly left Noisebridge in May. I am no longer part of Noisebridge. The decision and outcome were difficult for me. I wish everyone well. . X.
  29. Web site: Gomez . Jocelyn Hernandez . Underground computer culture welcomed by Noisebridge hackerspace . 2022-11-19 . Golden Gate Xpress.

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