Burlington's Community HackerSpace
Nothing super awesome happen at Laboratory B last week, lot’s of little things did.
Also we applied for a tech soup account so hopefully that will come through soon too!
It’s a new month and that means new events with Laboratory B.
Laboratory B is currently working to organize a crypto party right in Burlington. This party will be your chance to learn about cryptography, information security and operational security. How to reduce some of the harmed caused by mass surveillance too. Learn about TOR, PGP/GPG, Pseudo-anonymity, TAILS and other super geeky privacy topics.
We are still organizing a location and time but stay tuned because it is coming soon!
2/7/2014: 2600 Meeting
Laboratory B is the primary supporter of the local 2600 meeting if you are interested in hacking and security related events in Vermont, check out the 2600 meeting held the first Friday of every month at 5 o’clock at the Food Court at Burlington Town Square Mall.
2/10/2014: What the Hack? How hackathons & makerspaces are sparking innovation in Vermont
In the past few years we’ve seen hackathons and makerspaces spread across the state as creative ways to solve community problems and catalyze collaborations across sectors. Join Burlington NetSquared and leaders of these hackathons and makerspaces for an evening of learning, idea generation and reflection on how we can foster lasting multi-sectoral collaborations–and innovations– through these kinds of events.
If you’ve participated in one of these events, come share your experiences! And if you want to get involved in one of the upcoming hacks or new makerspaces, here’s your chance to ask questions.
Panelists include:
Bradley Holt, Code for BTV
Rebecca Roose, HackVT and My Web Grocer
Jesse Krembs, Laboratory B
Nate Herzog, StoryHack
2/12/2014, 7-9pm: Crypto-Currency Night.
A semi-regular gathering of Burlington crypto-currency enthusiasts (Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Litecoin, etc.). Feel free to brings thoughts, schemes, snacks and/or beverages to share… RSVP on Facebook
2/18/2014, 7-9 PM: Learn to solder with us at the Lab.
We’ll teach you the basics of through hole soldering with kits from Sparkfun!. If you interested in learning to solder microelectronics please RSVP us at [email protected]
2/26/2014, 7-9 PM: Lock Sport Wednesday:
Generally speaking on the last Wednesday of the month we sponsor Lock Sport Wednesday from 6pm to 8pm. This event is a place for folks who are interested in physical security and locksports to get together. We adhere to the idea of better security through education, and we also follow the law in this matter. Learning how locks works and don’t work is not a crime.
On Saturday, February 1st, Senator Sanders will be facilitating a public forum in Montpelier entitled “NSA: Out of Control.” It will feature Professor David Cole from Georgetown Law School , and Heidi Boghosian, the Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild, and, as of the time writing, almost 100 people have RSVPed to the Facebook event.
The event certainly seems like it will be a good opportunity to learn more about the NSA privacy abuses that have flooded the media in the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations, but, beyond that, it offers an ideal opportunity to widely distribute user-friendly privacy tools that allow people to opt-out of the NSA drag-net immediately while Congress figures out how to appropriately respond to the revelations of abuse. The best suite I’ve found which is easily usable by folks with limited computer literacy is TAILS Linux, a live OS based on Debian that, among numerous other features, is preconfigured to route all internet connections through TOR.
As such, in the next week I will be assembling a few hundred burned DVD copies of the latest TAILS release to hand out to the attendees of Saturday’s event. If anyone would like to help defray the cost of DVDs and jewel cases, Bitcoin donations can be sent here: 13qaGsVRjoGHmYnV4RZcugnfxpTXxRkAsL
Additionally, I’ll be working on burning and assembling copies at the Lab during public hours on Thursday from 7-9pm; if you want to help with production or with distribution at the event itself, stop in!
To follow up on the great gathering of crypto-currency enthusiasts at the Lab that was recently featured in Seven Days, the Lab will host a “Satoshi Square” this coming Tuesday, January 28th from 7-9pm. The goal is to bring together the community of Bitcoin/ Litecoin/ Dogecoin/ Coinye devotees to get to know each other, truck and barter, and discuss the latest news and opportunities that the emergence of crypto-currencies present for Burlington.
Feel free to bring a beverage and/or snack to share, share the Facebook event with any friends who might be interested, and vintage 2011 Bitcoin t-shirts will be for sale with all proceeds benefiting the Lab!
Finally, the Lab now accepts Bitcoin donations! 1E8Pr5CY5Me74UeYhsfXfoTrwYm4Qnqz7Y
The BTV Web App Group meets several times a month for presentations and networking. Laboratory B, the local hackerspace, holds regular events. The sustainability-focused Green Drinks meets twice monthly, once in Burlington and one in Montpelier. CodeForBTV, a civic hacking group that meets weekly, enjoys support from Code for America, and they’ve produced several improvements to local systems and organizations. The meetup groupBurlington Net Squared also hosts regular meetups that cover many different tech angles. Tech Jam Vermont is a well-attended annual event sponsored by Dealer.com, which is headquartered in Burlington.
More at http://techie.com/techie-coms-most-promising-tech-hubs-to-watch-in-2014/
Laboratory B was profiled on VPR the local public radio and NPR affiliate by Jon Kalish. Woot!
It’s cold outside and the weather is frightful. But the Lab is warm, snug and dry so it’s a good place to hangout this time of year!
2600 Meeting January 3rd 5-8 at the Burlington Town Square Mall, we’ve moved location and we’re going old school!
The Generator is holding “Build a Makerspace Party” January 4th from 10am to 5pm at the Memorial Auditorium’s Annex!
We’ve adjust our open drop in hours to 7-9PM EST on Thursdays
Look for more events coming soon!
As is keenly obvious Laboratory B is center of cutting edge fashion (j/k). Seriously though, we do spend a fair amount of time thinking about high tech fashion either in the wearable way or in a materials way. We are pretty excited by the rise of techninja fashion, which I quipped in just” a monochromatic Vermonter just back from hike!”
Though the pricing is outrageous (isn’t it always in the fashion world) it present some interesting looks (straight out of a William Gibson novel!)
Laboratory B hosted a bit of coin meetup last week and the local alt weekly (more like just awesome weekly) did a write up about it!
In Vermont, Users of “Cryptocurrency” Bitcoin Are Few But Committed
Last week, in a small, subterranean workspace near downtown Burlington, a group of tech-savvy Vermonters held an open forum on a topic that’s attracted a great deal of attention lately: Bitcoin. Early adopters of the “cryptocurrency” believe it has the potential to upend the entire global economy…..
It’s been an exciting last few weeks with plenty of cool addition to the Lab. One of these if your new full sized server cabinet! Friend of the Lab Pat new a guy who knew a guy. Working with Pat we picked it up and brougth it back to the lab. It a Dell model and it’s super awesome. We are currently in the process of cramming servers into it. Thanks Pat!