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Noisebridge

Coordinates: 37°45′45″N 122°25′10″W / 37.762413°N 122.419313°W / 37.762413; -122.419313
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Noisebridge
Formation2007
FounderVolunteers, including Mitch Altman, Jacob Appelbaum and many other hackers
PurposeHacking, Making
Location
AffiliationsPumping Station: One, Chaos Computer Club, Metalab, e.a.
Budget
$140K
Staff
3 (unpaid)
Volunteers
200+
Websitewww.noisebridge.net

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

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Locations

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During most of 2007 and 2008, Noisebridge was a group of people meeting in new locations weekly. In October 2008, the Noisebridge group began renting a small commercial property in San Francisco's Mission District but it quickly outgrew that location.

In 2009, the space moved into 2169 Mission St. – a 5,200 square foot space on the third floor of the building. Early in its history, in 2009, Noisebridge had around 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

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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,[2] 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]

Arduinos for beginners workshop, July 2011

Spacebridge

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The "Spacebridge" weather balloon probe above clouds, in February 2010

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

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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

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  • Noisebridge won the SF Bay Guardian 2010 Best of the Bay award as "Best Open Source Playground"; the review concluded, "the vibe is welcoming and smart."[23]
  • In 2011 the SF Weekly awarded Noisebridge Best of San Francisco as "Best Hacker Playground", describing it as "the ultimate in DIY ethic" and noting its "distinctive sense of humor."[24]

Controversies

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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,[28] 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.[29]

Cultural references

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The video game Watch Dogs 2 was reportedly influenced by Noisebridge.[30]

References

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  1. ^ "Noisebridge website's Vision page". Noisebridge. Retrieved 3 December 2010.
  2. ^ a b Mills, Elinor (30 November 2009). "Building circuits, code, community at Noisebridge hacker space". CNET News. Archived from the original on 26 October 2012. Retrieved 14 October 2022.
  3. ^ O'Brien, Danny (24 October 2008). "Hackers need space to innovate". Irish Times. Retrieved 3 December 2010.(subscription required)
  4. ^ Mills, Elinor (30 November 2009). "Building circuits, code, community at Noisebridge hacker space". CNET News. Archived from the original on 26 October 2012. Retrieved 14 October 2022.
  5. ^ "Facing Displacement, 'Noisebridge' Hackerspace Seeks New Home". hoodline.com. 21 December 2017. Retrieved 19 November 2022.
  6. ^ Feldberg, Sarah (2 March 2020). "Iconic hackerspace Noisebridge is saved by donation of $150K bitcoin". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 19 November 2022.
  7. ^ Feldberg, Sarah (5 March 2020). "After 11 years on Mission Street, hackerspace Noisebridge searching for new home". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 19 November 2022.
  8. ^ protected, email (11 May 2015). "The Stupid S**t No One Needs hackathon was the best tech event ever". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 19 November 2022.
  9. ^ "Noisecloud". Noisebridge. Retrieved 13 December 2010.
  10. ^ "Lest We Remember: Cold Boot Attacks on Encryption Keys". USENIX Security. 2008. Retrieved 30 November 2015.
  11. ^ "Lest We Remember: Cold Boot Attacks on Encryption Keys". Proc. 17th USENIX Security Symposium (Sec ‘08), San Jose, CA. Princeton University. July 2008. Archived from the original on 23 February 2008. Retrieved 31 December 2017.
  12. ^ "CRYPTO 2009: Program: Best-paper award for Short Chosen-Prefix Collisions for MD5 and the Creation of a Rogue CA Certificate". iacr.org. International Association for Cryptologic Research. 16 August 2009.
  13. ^ "MD5 considered harmful today: Creating a rogue CA certificate". 25th Annual Chaos Communication Congress. Berlin. 30 December 2008. Retrieved 3 December 2010.
  14. ^ Ganapati, Priya (12 February 2010). "DIY Group Sends $25 Balloon to 70,000 Feet". Wired.com. Retrieved 4 December 2010.
  15. ^ Ganapati, Priya (12 August 2010). "Amateurs Fling Their Gadgets to Edge of Space". Wired.com.
  16. ^ Knowles, Jamillah (19 August 2010). "Hackspaces get closer to home". BBC. Retrieved 3 December 2010.
  17. ^ "Spacebridge". Noisebridge. Retrieved 3 December 2010.
  18. ^ "Spacebridge Alpha Launch". Noisebridge. Retrieved 4 December 2010.
  19. ^ "About Noisebridge Tor". noisebridge.net. 5 January 2017. Retrieved 17 June 2018.
  20. ^ Steele, Sharon (3 December 2016). "Tor at the Heart: torservers.net". blog.torproject.org. Retrieved 17 June 2018. [..] covers legal costs for exit operators when needed
  21. ^ "2014 FOSS Donations". DuckDuckGo Blog. 12 March 2014. Retrieved 17 June 2018.
  22. ^ "Noisebridge Tor - Noisebridge". www.noisebridge.net. Retrieved 19 November 2022.
  23. ^ "Best Open Source Playpen". SF Bay Guardian. 27 July 2010. Archived from the original on 31 July 2010. Retrieved 5 December 2010.
  24. ^ "Best Hacker Hangout – 2011 – Noisebridge". SF Weekly. 19 May 2011. Retrieved 19 May 2011.
  25. ^ Montgomery, Kevin (1 October 2013). "Claims of Sexism and Sexual Assault Plague Noisebridge Hackerspace". Uptown Almanac. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
  26. ^ Loll, Anna Catherin (11 October 2016). "Power, secrecy and cypherpunks: how Jacob Appelbaum ripped Tor apart". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
  27. ^ "Noisebridge Statement on Jacob Appelbaum". Noisebridge Blog. Retrieved 29 September 2022.
  28. ^ noisebridge/deprecated-bureaucracy, Noisebridge, 20 June 2019, retrieved 29 September 2022
  29. ^ "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. 24 September 2018.
  30. ^ Gomez, Jocelyn Hernandez. "Underground computer culture welcomed by Noisebridge hackerspace". Golden Gate Xpress. Retrieved 19 November 2022.
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37°45′45″N 122°25′10″W / 37.762413°N 122.419313°W / 37.762413; -122.419313

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