Protopiper is a computer aided, hand-held fabrication device that allows users to sketch room-sized objects at actual scale. The key idea behind protopiper is that it forms adhesive tape into tubes as its main building material, rather than extruded plastic or photopolymer lines. Since the resulting tubes are hollow they offer excellent strength-to-weight ratio, thus scale well to large structures.
Source: Paper Bits — prostheticknowledge: Protopiper Fabrication…
Earlier this year, someone noticed that the Washington Post had published a story with the following picture:
Once that photo was noticed, a few intrepid hackers began a search for higher resolution photos, which weren’t long in coming. From those photos, they reverse-engineered CAD files of the keys, and the results are STL files for the 7 Master Keys that the TSA has for luggage locks in the US. Here are two different Github repos with the downloadable files.
On Saturday, Oct 17 2015, while testing the setup of a new 3D printer, I decided to see how easy it would be to use one of these keys on a TSA approved lock. There happened to be a luggage lock laying around the Berkman Fellows room that no one knew the combination of, so I had a test subject within easy reach. Within about 15 minutes, I had a key printed. I spent about 2-3 minutes cleaning it (smoothing edges and picking off rough spots in the printing). Maybe 2 minutes after that, I had the lock open.
This is the perfect illustration of why security that has backdoors for law enforcement isn’t actually security. Once there is an intentionally created hole in your security strategy, you should assume that anyone that you are attempting to prevent accessing your luggage/email/passwords will ALSO have access to your intentionally created security hole. This is the same concept that Cory Doctorow uses in his condemnation of DRM (you can’t lock something up with a key and then give the key to the person you are trying to prevent accessing your thing) as well as the argument against giving backdoor access keys for encryption algorithms to governmental agencies. It is simply impossible to have security, whether that term is used for physical objects, communication, storage of information, or anything else, and also to have holes intentionally added to the system for the benefit of “the good guys”. Once the key exists, anyone can make their own copy of it.
With government around the world arguing for technology companies to build in “golden keys” for encryption used on phones and other digital devices, we need to be wary of anyone that believes that such access would only be used for good, or only by the right groups.
Why is strong and reliable encryption so important? I think Bruce Schneier said it most plainly:
If we only use encryption when we’re working with important data, then encryption signals that data’s importance. If only dissidents use encryption in a country, that country’s authorities have an easy way of identifying them. But if everyone uses it all of the time, encryption ceases to be a signal. No one can distinguish simple chatting from deeply private conversation. The government can’t tell the dissidents from the rest of the population. Every time you use encryption, you’re protecting someone who needs to use it to stay alive.
This is why the Library Freedom Project and their work to put Tor Nodes in Libraries is so important. It’s why libraries should be moving all of their services to encrypted channels. In many ways, this isn’t just about protecting our patron’s information (although that is a good and sufficient reason to use these services and to be worried about electronic security).
Encryption is like vaccination…we shouldn’t be driven to do it because it helps us. We should be driven to do it because it helps the world.
There is also an argument for libraries to use and support strong encryption for free speech reasons, but that will take another post and a more subtle argument.
Here is the video of my talk as a part of the Luncheon Series from the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Titled When Online is Offline: The Case for Hyperlocal Webservers and Networks, it’s a look at the LibraryBox project, what it is, why I think it’s important, and what impact it has had on the world.
The full abstract for the talk is:
The LibraryBox Project (along with other emerging projects like PirateBox, occupy.here, IdeasBox, and others) is an attempt at bridging the divide in delivery of digital information in areas where there is a lack of communications infrastructure or where that infrastructure has been damaged or is overly monitored or controlled. As self-contained, non-connected portable servers, these devices can be used to circumvent governmental firewalls, distribute information in areas of political upheaval, reach the most remote areas to deliver healthcare information, and help recovery efforts after natural disasters.
In this presentation Jason Griffey — founder and principal at Evenly Distributed a technology consulting and creation firm for libraries, museums, education, and other non-profits — gives an overview of the LibraryBox project and its current state, goals and development roadmap, and a discussion of possible next directions and needs.
I was honored today to be a part of the LLAMA Thought Leader Series for Libraries, talking about innovation. I focused on my own career in libraries, and the aspects of things I’ve done that I considered innovative…efforts and projects that I thought were interesting. The conclusion of the presentation was talking through what the commonalities are in those projects, what I think is necessary for innovation in libraries, and how leadership can support said innovation. If you’re interested in downloading the video or slides, you can find those on the LLAMA website, or watch below.
During an appearance on the LITA Top Technology Trends panel in 2014, I was discussing privacy of patron data, and mentioned that I thought it was a good idea for libraries to run Tor nodes on library servers. So when the Library Freedom Project launched their Tor in Libraries project, I was totally behind them…I even did a Tor workshop for Librarians for their workshop at ALA Annual in San Francisco.
If you aren’t familiar with Tor, I recommend reading the Wikipedia article. The TL:DR version is that Tor is a protocol and a network that is currently the best mechanism that we have for accessing information on the Internet anonymously. There are a few ways that one can use Tor, ranging from using an operating system that routes all your Internet traffic over the Tor network to just using the Tor browser, which just anonymizes your web traffic.
The way that Tor anonymizes your traffic is through a combination of encryption and blind routing, When you initially connect to the Tor network, the connection is encrypted in much the same way that the connection to your bank would be, via a public key encryption system. When you make a request for a website through the network, the Tor protocol bounces the request from one network node to the next, encrypting the traffic at every hop. Once the traffic gets a couple of hops away from the originating computer, it’s impossible to know where the request came from. Eventually the traffic exits the Tor network, back onto the regular old Internet, and gathers what you asked for, then reverses the process to get back to you.
The result is that, under ideal conditions, it is completely impossible to track or trace what’s being transmitted via Tor. For Tor to continue to operate, it needs two sorts of nodes….relay nodes that act as the “bouncing” nodes for inside the network, and exit nodes that are the places where the traffic goes out of the encrypted Tor network and back onto the regular Internet. You need both, although a ratio of more relay nodes to fewer exit nodes is fine. The traffic that goes across relay nodes is completely anonymous…from the perspective of both the network and the individual server, it is just a random string of binary code. Only at the exit nodes does the traffic decrypt, and thus exit nodes bear the brunt of all of the requests going across the network. The traffic for the broader network all has to squeeze itself through exit nodes, and the fewer exit nodes there are, the easier it is for them to be monitored…although you can’t tell where the requests for the information came from without advanced knowledge.
So why am I talking about Tor? Because I wanted to set up the story that broke last week about the first library in the US to publicly go live with a Tor relay (a middle relay) getting pressured by their local police to turn it off. The police were, in turn, pressured by the US Department of Homeland Security. From the original article on the event:
In July, the Kilton Public Library in Lebanon, New Hampshire, was the first library in the country to become part of the anonymous Web surfing service Tor. The library allowed Tor users around the world to bounce their Internet traffic through the library, thus masking users’ locations.
Soon after state authorities received an email about it from an agent at the Department of Homeland Security.
“The Department of Homeland Security got in touch with our Police Department,” said Sean Fleming, the library director of the Lebanon Public Libraries.
After a meeting at which local police and city officials discussed how Tor could be exploited by criminals, the library pulled the plug on the project.
“Right now we’re on pause,” said Fleming. “We really weren’t anticipating that there would be any controversy at all.”
He said that the library board of trustees will vote on whether to turn the service back on at its meeting on Sept. 15.
That’s tomorrow, for those keeping track at home.
Why do I think that libraries should be running Tor nodes? I had a long discussion about this on Twitter recently, but let me use the freedom of more than 140 characters to try and talk through my thinking on this. Tor is, currently, the best option that people have for anonymous speech on the Internet. It is possible to create accounts without using your real name, it’s possible to use wifi at coffeeshops and your local library to prevent your IP from being recorded…but for real anonymity of network traffic, nothing beats using Tor.
Anonymous speech is important because it is a necessary component of the freedom of speech. The US Supreme Court has ruled again and again that the right to anonymous speech is a protected part of the First Amendment, saying in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission:
Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority…It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation…at the hand of an intolerant society.
Libraries have been concerned over time with the Freedom to Read, but to doubt the role of the library in the Freedom of Speech in the US is to fundamentally misunderstand the Library (and possibly speech itself). Speech is a necessary precursor to Reading, as creation is a necessary precursor to consumption. Libraries are and should be cornerstones of free expression in the United States, and have worked to provide access to the tools of speech for years and years.
For the Department of Homeland Security to use the boogie-man of “bad things happen on Tor” as a lever to get the relay turned off is the worst sort of fear mongering. Any tool can be a weapon, and any communications mechanism can and probably will be used to enable illegal activity. There is enormously more illegal activity on the open Internet, and yet libraries everywhere provide open and robust access to the Internet via both terminal and wifi. To paint Tor as a haven for thieves and drugs and child pornography is to misunderstand not only the Tor network but to, in my opinion, to mistake the forest for the trees. Yes, tools can be used for immoral and illegal things. But that does not make the tool either immoral nor illegal.
The only rational explanation for the DHS pressuring the library to shut down their Tor relay node is that the DHS doesn’t want individuals, including US citizens, to have more robust mechanisms for anonymous speech. Per the US Supreme Court’s rulings on the links between anonymity and freedom of speech, this indicates to me that the DHS is actively attempting to prevent free and open speech on the Internet.
That is not ok with me, and it absolutely should not be ok with libraries.
If you have made it this far, please visit the EFF’s Take Action page on this effort and sign.
This was my first week as a Berkman Fellow, and there were a couple of articles that came out about my time here. The first was a very kind article by my Alma Mater, the University of North Carolina School of Information and Library Science. The second was from Berkman themselves, an interview with me about what I’m working on while here.
From the UNC-SILS article:
“I’m most excited about connecting with the people associated with the Berkman Center, and by extension the library community in the Boston area,” Griffey said. “Berkman has a history of supporting the mission of libraries, but I’m really excited about the opportunity to spread the word about the amazing work that libraries are doing and make connections between them and the other fellows. I’m also looking forward to finding people to collaborate with on my own project, and see what new voices and minds can bring to it.”
and from Berkman:
“I am interested in the rise over the last several years of what I am calling the “hyperlocal webserver”. A number of projects are attempting to provide access to digital resources to users through the use of inexpensive, low-powered offgrid and offline webservers, including my own open source project LibraryBox. Others in this space include PirateBox, the RACHEL project servers, occupy.here, The IDEAS Box project, the OLPC project’s School Server, and many more. These projects have in common that all are designed to allow for local connectivity without access to the broader Internet. The power of localized digital delivery is only now being realized, especially in areas where there is insufficient infrastructure to support the demand for information access.
My interest is in the potential for these technologies (and possibly others) to allow for shadow networks to arise quickly where needed and wanted. The ever-shrinking costs of hardware capable of supporting these sorts of hyperlocal micronetworks drive the overhead for building one down to trivial amounts, but the technical knowledge needed to set up and manage one is still more than the average Internet user can handle. I want to reach out to the projects above, hardware makers, UX designers, and network engineers to try and develop a process and project that makes it as easy as possible for anyone to create or assist in community-based networks that allow for digital sharing and communication even when offline or offgrid. I am interested in what happens when communities are given the tools that can allow for unmediated and uncontrolled sharing and communication, and what sort of emergent behaviors and services might arise from those tools.”
On Wednesday, Sept 16, I will be doing a webinar for the Library Leadership & Management Association, known in library circles as LLAMA. This particular webinar is part of a series called the LLAMA Thought Leaders, which has been host to a ton of amazing librarians that I look up to: Ben Bizzle, Susan Hildreth, Barbara Stripling, Sari Feldman, with fantastic upcoming episodes with Rebecca Smith Aldrich, Steve Teeri, Tod Colegrove and Tara Radniecki. I’m honored to be included in such brilliant company.
I will be talking about innovation in library technology and leadership, and how I’ve managed to carve out the career I’ve had, from leading the technology team at at academic library, running a successful open source project like LibraryBox, building a new way to understand how our patrons use our buildings and resources with Measure the Future, and now as a Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. I’ll be taking questions from the audience and I hope to have a great conversation with the attendees. Come and ask me questions!
Register and join me! 12noon until 1pm Central Daylight Time (1pm Eastern, 10am Pacific) on September 16th.
Fantastic guide and video showing how to break apart a TP-Link MR3020 and rewire it to be able to fit, battery and all, into a Moleskine style book from the gang over at NODE. Really neat hack, I haven’t done it yet but it’s totally on my list now.
The original v1.0 of LibraryBox used a book as its case, but that was a large hardback with the MR3020 still in its own case and everything. This is much more elegant. I particularly like the use of a MicroSD adapter as a USB source for the install. Clever!
I was listening to an episode of Accidental Tech Podcast, Not a Cactus in Sight, (one of my favorite podcasts, mostly because I’m a total John Siracusa fanboy), and during their discussion of the Reddit community John mentioned two tweets by Laurie Voss that totally made my brain explode with thought:
The tragedy of all online community spaces is that the goals of “inclusive” and “safe” are, at the extreme, mutually exclusive goals.
— Laurie Voss (@seldo) July 13, 2015
At some point you have to exclude someone. You get to pick if it’s the people feeling unsafe, or the people making them feel unsafe. — Laurie Voss (@seldo) July 13, 2015
(here I think Voss is using “inclusive” in a legalistic/law oriented way, not in a norm or cultural sense…inclusion means “the ability to be a part of a community regardless of any aspect of your identity”…a lack of exclusion of any type)
Prior to the World Wide Web, I was an avid Usenet user, falling deeply into any number of alt. and rec. subgroups. Usenet was, in retrospect, where I learned so many things about “being online”, including tone, behavior, expectation….the entire culture of many parts of the social web were preceded and predicted by Usenet. Reddit is one of these spaces, as the concept and execution of a site that’s basically many user-driven bulletin boards is, in abstraction, just a modern execution of Usenet.
Reddit has been in the tech news a lot lately, and while I’m not interested in debating the pro and con of the decisions that have been made there, I think it’s fairly obvious that there’s a lot of terrible things on Reddit and that the response to said terrible things has been horribly blundered. I agree with the ATP guys above in their analysis…if you want to build a horrible place, keep doing what you’re doing Reddit…but that’s not a place that non-horrible people will choose to continue to hang out. I think there are lots and lots of other online communities that have been ran very well and have managed to be smart and useful places to have discussions online…the premiere example of this is probably Metafilter. It isn’t clear if Twitter and Facebook will do as well over time dealing with their respective issues.
There is, however, another social space that includes text based information resources that I am very attached to and fond of: the library. And in thinking about the axes of “inclusion” and “safety”, I realized that the rhetoric of the library world is very much the same rhetoric that is often used in the online spaces to justify what is usually horrific behavior. The oft-used quotation is Jo Godwin’s fantastic turn of phrase “A good library contains something in it to offend everyone.” Library collections are constrained by collection development policies that are driven by their local boards and communities, while calling back to the ALA Library Bill of Rights:
In a way, a library collection is a conversation between the librarians and the community, written not letter by letter or word by word, but book by book over the course of decades or even centuries. That conversation is under the same tensions that online conversations are as it relates to safety and inclusivity. When someone challenges a book, they are in effect saying “this is a kind of speech that makes me feel unsafe.” And as Voss notes, the library gets to decide who to side with: those that feel unsafe, or those that make them feel unsafe. In the library, that answer is almost always the latter.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t limits…each library draws its own limits of the things they are willing to collect. In my personal opinion, not collecting particular items is not problematic; for example, I would have no trouble as a librarian not purchasing nor shelving anything published by the KKK.
I’m intentionally trying to frame this in the most difficult way, because I think it’s a difficult thing to navigate. Let me state my own position, straightforwardly: I think that the Library Bill of Rights is a positive document, and that the library providing access to material that the majority of their patrons would disagree with is absolutely fine. I also think that individuals deserve to be protected and feel safe in their activities and surroundings. The tension between these two positions puts me in a disharmony…I dislike being contradictory in my positions.
It has been pointed out by those much smarter about these things than I that librarianship has inclusivity issues written deep in its core. While our collection development statements tend towards inclusivity of multiple perspectives on social issues, once purchased those collections are often described and presented to the community using a grammar that is anything but. For many public libraries, the Dewey classification system is massively problematic, and Library of Congress subject headings are no better. We have inclusivity issues baked into our classifications (indeed, it’s likely epistemologically impossible to categorize without exclusion of some sort).
I don’t know how these issues get reconciled. How do you square inclusion and safety of spaces, both real and virtual? What are your thoughts on that dichotomy? Is it a false one? I’d love to hear from the library community about these seemingly opposing perspectives.
Attention Library (and Library-friendly or Library-adjacent) people!
If you’ll be in the Boston area on September 15th at Noon, I’ll be doing a talk as part of the Berkman Luncheon series at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University entitled “When online is offline: the case for hyperlocal webservers and networks.” I’ll be talking about LibraryBox (and other similar projects) and why I think they are interesting. The formal description is:
The LibraryBox Project (along with other emerging projects like PirateBox, occupy.here, IdeasBox, and others) is an attempt at bridging the divide in delivery of digital information in areas where there is a lack of communications infrastructure or where that infrastructure has been damaged or is overly monitored or controlled. As self-contained, non-connected portable servers, these devices can be used to circumvent governmental firewalls, distribute information in areas of political upheaval, reach the most remote areas to deliver healthcare information, and help recovery efforts after natural disasters. This presentation will be an overview of the LibraryBox project and its current state, goals and development roadmap, and a discussion of possible next directions and needs.
If you want to attend in person, you can register at the Berkman site, the talk will be on the Harvard Law School campus, Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East B. If you aren’t in the area it will be webcast at that same link the day of, and archived for later viewing. But if you’re a library type, I’d love to see you there…would mean a lot to have some friendly faces in the audience.