BarnCamp 2013 ideas scratchpad

A page to gather together ideas for the next BarnCamp in June 2013.

Overall themes

Overall ideas for theming the event, such as current trends, emerging technologies, etc.

Microslots (5-10mins)

Oxford Geek Nights do these 5 minute things called microslots. Propose to have these once, or maybe twice, during the event. Format would be: stand up for 5 (poss 10) mins with slides if you wish and tell us about your self/project/org/thoughts/need for cash.

Workshops (1-2 hours)

These are workshops/talks of between one and two hours in length.

Domain names and email addresses: how do they work?

Proposer

adelayde

Duration

60 mins

Level of technical skill

Begginner to intermediate

Nerd factor

medium, but useful

Required

minimum laptop and project, though could do it with just a white board. Maximum, guess it would be fun to be able to use the BW suite so that people can play with whois, dig, etc.

In my day job as well as doing support stuff for social projects, I find that there is a lot of confusion out there about these two essential parts of the Internet. People seem to 'get' what a web site is and that you can have it designed by someone and hosted by someone, and you might have to pay for this. People also get that they can register domains, but domains and web sites don't mean email addresses, and what is a domain anyway?

DNS and email are interesting because they require openness and collaboration on the part of hundreds or thousands of sys admins throughout the world; it's very much a web of trust, with the exception of the TLDs being controlled by corporates and governments, but that's not the point here; this is about how it works and the fact that it works, not about corporate power over the TLDs, though it's worth mentioning.

• Definition: separating out domain names, email addresses, web sites and web addresses.
  • Here I fear we're going to have to cover ports and protocols
• Domain names and DNS
  • IP addresses and domain names: their relationship - This is the key thing without it the internet would suck!
  • How it was in the beginning (why the need?)
  • How it is now
  • Registrars and registering domains (choice, TLDs, anonymity, privacy)
• Email
  • The format of email addresses
  • Email servers and how it works
  • Different ways to get your email (webmail, GUI-based clients, Elm and that kind of thing)
  • A look at the headers of a typical email message
  • SPAM
  • How to have your own email address on your own domain
  • Pros and cons of paying for it, verses free commercial, verses free hacktivist-provided
• Web sites (cover for completeness)
  • What are they? (web servers are file servers / HTML)
  • Different types: static vs dynamic
  • CMS's
  • Hosting pros and cons: activist-run vs corporate free vs paid for
• All the above in the context of "Cloud" hosting

Introduction to Aquaponics

Proposer

China (to fill in)

Duration

Level of technical skill

beginner?

Nerd factor

low

Required

CiviCRM

Proposer

China (to fill in)

Duration

Level of technical skill

Nerd factor

Required

Why Drupal is the bane of my web development life

Proposer

adelayde/haystack

Format

rant

Duration

15-20 mins

Level of technical skill

intermediate, although it's a rant

Nerd factor

medium/high/danger

Required

projector for some slides

Home brewing

Details to follow ....

Proposer

Duration

Level of technical skill

Nerd factor

Required

Mapping Online Organising Tools

Proposer

Mick Fuzz

Duration

60 mins

Level of technical skill

none

Nerd factor

low

Required

wall & projector & net connection

This quick workshops maps the online organising and networking tools people are using, and begins discussions of easy of use, inclusiveness, security and data ownership issues in an accessible way designed to encourage us to try out new tools and share knowledge of well trusted ones.

Possible resources=== techtoolsforactivism.org & leaftlet hacktionlab.org https://www.tacticaltech.org/ - security in a box aktivix.org

Android Device Hacking

Proposer

acesabe

Duration

60 mins

Level of technical skill

Beginner to advanced

Nerd factor

medium

Required

Projector (ideally) laptop and Android device to play with (optional for attendees)

Loads of us have Android devices now so lets find out a bit more about maximizing their potential, limiting the security pitfalls that come with them and learn more about just what useful things we can get these mini computers to do! It is unlikely we will do much physical rooting/flashing of devices as each device requires different methods/tools and needs careful reading up about first, but the theory and demonstration should be helpful.

• Rooting your device to enable full control and install all those useful apps that require it
• Installing ROMs like AOSP, CyanogenMod
• De-google'ing your Android
• Recovery
• Share which useful apps people are using
• ADB the Android debug bridge
• Flash? brick? ROM? Kang? WTF?! Explanation of terms

Linux Command Line (Beginners)

Proposer

Woodsy

Duration

60 mins

Level of technical skill

beginner

Nerd factor

medium

Required

laptop (for attendees)

Mark & myself did this as a two-hander a couple of yours ago and I was thinking of repeating the workshop along very similar lines.

• Basic navigation
• Finding help (man pages)
• File/directory management
• An introduction to command line programs, including:
  • Web browsing
  • Document/text editing
  • IRC
  • Command line media players
  • Command line games

Cryptoparty

Proposer

Martin

Duration

Depends on needs, We could do an hour or possibly a longer session, will discuss

Level of technical skill

beginner

Nerd factor

medium

Required

laptop + net connection

A workshop based on cryptopartys that have been going on around the world. The idea is to make people aware and comfortable with the various encryption technologies we can use to protect ourselves from monitoring. The format is more of a discussion of the needs of people there and how to best use privicy tools for their needs

Longer, half-day hack sessions (3-5 hours)

Sessions to be held on the Thursday or Friday that are 3-5 hours in length.

• Anyone want to do an Android and/or Raspberry Pi hacking session? The latter may be more accessible. Perhaps up to 4 hours.
• Mike could wheel out the old audio, streaming and internet radio workshops; but are there any takers?

Events and entertainment ideas

Stuff to do in the evenings. Llanos is co-ordinating organising the events. Current plan:

• We'll have the fireside and poetry: story telling and acoustic music most welcome.
• Thursday night: round the camp fire.
• Friday night: film night in the main Barn. Please get in touch with Llanos if you'd like to play any short films or documentaries that night. It can be anything not necessarily political as long as we agree on it to be relevant or worth showing.
• Saturday night: open-mic, stand-up, DJs in the main Barn: DJ Marcus (Village Disco, Dubrovnik..) confirmed. Please get in touch for any requirement you might have if you are thinking on performing and we'll do our best to get you setup.
• Table tennis table, bats a balls confirmed from Thursday to Sunday courtesy of Bristol ping pong Parlour.

Anything else

Anything else you can think of.

Areas for production aspects

(adelayde)

Areas that need sorting I can think are:

• workshop spaces (acesabe): tables, chairs, pens, flip charts, plug sockets, projectors, screens, laptops, structures
• toilets (farm): straw bales, tarps, structures, lighting, loo roll.
• kitchen (becky/sam): food, tea and coffee, structure, cooking equipment, washing up facilities, crokery and cutlery
• fire (woodsy): fire pit, wood, fire extinguishers, etc.
• site (farm): flat land for camping, proximity to toilets, fire precautions, sign-posting, transport
• welcome desk (adelayde/patrice): table, chairs, pens, booking system, finance and payments, contact telephone numbers, volunteers
• workshop/barncamp/hack session planning (m3shrom)
• ents (gorditazz): stage or no stage, sound system, DJs, campfire entertainment, etc.
• bar (higgsy/marsbard): beer, cider, soft drinks, float, cashbox, physical bar space, staffing.
• infrastructure (acesabe): on-site internet and wifi, ethernet cabling, mains cabling
• promotion: (adeladye/m3shrom) graphic design and concept, flyers and posters, web site, distribution of materials, mailing to lists, promotion at other events, getting the word out there generally.