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Would You Open Your Home To a Hacker – For Free?
coondoggie writes "What do you get when you mix access to Google's ultra-fast fiber network and old fashioned grass roots business ideas? Well, in this case you'd get someone living on your couch for free for three months. This week a group calling itself the 'Kansas City Hacker Homes' launched a program that calls on the good folks of Kansas City to open up their homes to entrepreneurs and developers who would live and work there for a period of three months, rent and utility free. They have to buy their own food."
However, if I had some type of mother in law house/suite not being used then maybe.
Beware of those who profit off the docile and persecute the unbelievers.
for bootstrapping kansas city's high tech industry
Someone tell them what the "board" in room & board means, I don't think they know.
I've been wanting a different basement to spend my winters at.
Every claim in that article has already been discredited repeatedly by every party involved except two people. It was all the work of a liberal arts student trying to start a movement. "Hackers" are no different from any other group in the world.
This is America, chukco. We know what "Room and Board" is - that's what happens when they lock you up at Gitmo.
Really, please try and keep up.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
So, care to tell me who pays the lawyers fees when said "entrepreneur" injures themselves on your private property and decides to sue?
This is one example. You think anyone is gonna step right on up to the plate on all the other bullshit we have to thank our litigious society for?
Sure, I'll allow them in my home...as soon as they "innovate" a way around my liability.
Yes, yet again, litigation stifles innovation...even before it can start.
While I can admire the idealism behind this concept, from a practical viewpoint it leaves much to be desired.
For example, will Kansas City Hacker Homes bond and insure the hackers, so as to indemnify the homeowners against theft or lawsuits from their "guests"? Very doubtful, which means the burden falls on the homeowner (and his/her insurance policy).
What happens to the homeowner if the hacker decides to skirt the law (e.g. breaking into someone's network, taking drugs, or downloading copyrighted material) while living in the house? What if he runs up hundreds of dollars on your cable bill watching pay-per-view movies? How do you get your money back? Can you even evict him on the spot, or will local laws give him "squatter's rights" for a limited time, as they often do for non-paying renters?
You wouldn't really know anything about this person in your house, besides what he told you. Will Kansas City Hacker Homes provide you with a background check of the hacker's criminal and civil record? Again, highly unlikely.
So basically you're rolling the dice with some total stranger, taking all the risk, and with no promise of getting anything in return. Not a smart move for any homeowner.
It means you'll be required to listen to the hacker droning on about his amazing Instagram clone and his love of Star Wars.
Why do you always have to knock my Leiagram project?!
Should also have a Bathing Clause.
Why would anyone do this? Why would I invite a stranger to live in my house for free?
Also, what kind of startup are you doing where you need incredibly high download speeds? Seriously. There is nothing you could do which would be using such large files that this is an issue and be processable on a laptop.
I get to meet the renter before they sign and get them to sign all sorts of other stuff and I have various legal protections (and responsibilities) as a land lord.
As a real land lord I also get *paid* to take on the risk of having someone live in my property as well as first & last month's rent to cover cleaning and normal damages.
The only thing you got right was the food situation options.
Free would be a huge step up! Since I use Windows I am, in fact, inviting hackers into my system every day and paying for the privilege.
Isn't this what parents are for?
This program is supposed to get entrepreneurs and developers access to high speed fiber, I understand that; but why do they have to live there? Not that I'd allow anyone onto my network either way, but if the end result is getting some of these awesome startups on the net with a good connection, I'd be a lot more willing to let them put a server in an out-of-the-way place in my house. I don't ask to set up a bed in my data co-location center, why do they need a bed in these houses? They can even have access to their hardware whenever they want, provided it's supervised and at an appropriate time. Also, my electricity isn't free. I'd sure like some small kind of cut from the profits (assuming they make a profit sometime).
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try." -Homer Simpson
Why would I want to move from NYC to Kansas City? To hang out with a bunch of moron Republicans in the middle of no where? Yeah, I'm gonna pass, thanks tho.
I live in Kansas City although not in one of the first phase of fiber hoods. On a local forum we had a discussion about this site already and I brought up the terms of service for residential fiber service.
and hereis the page containing those rules. So without a written agreement you can't run a server. The "providing commercial services" part most likely means no sharing your gigabit connection, not "you can't work from home". I don't think google wants their residential fiber service to be used to start the next facebook.com. They want those entrepreneurs to pay a more for the business service. Whenever google fiber was first announced and what we heard on the local news was something to the effect of it's going to be an experiment by google to see what people will do with a giga-bit connection. At first that sounded like (to me anyway) that they would let us run our own web servers from home, but now it looks more like they just want to offer a web browsing only service for residential customers(like Time Warner).
My question to anyone who has an answer: How could someone use google fiber residential service to get their startup off the ground without breaking the terms of service?
"the fax machine is nothing but a waffle iron with a phone attached to it." - Grandpa Simpson
Hell NO! They'd slow down my legal ISO torrents, rip off my 5TB music collection on the SAN and, if history is any guide, they'd start to smell after 3 days!
Hell No!
If they want to pay for the ISP and let me have 50% of their bandwidth, access to all their games, pron, and sports car, perhaps we can talk.
I'd need to kick out my 22 yr old, CS major, son to make room. Thinking about this a little more, it sounds like a great idea - I might get more of my bandwidth back after that other slacker is finally gone.
Allow them in my house? Maybe. Allow them to use my internet connection, which I subscribe to under my own name? Hell no.
So you get a leech living in your house that should be able to get a job paying for an apartment, and get no personal benefit. No equity, no repayment, nothing. Who would be so daft as to sign this agreement?
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Mmmm. Chicken...
Three hots and a cot. Who could ask for more? Really, what kind of crap is this? Give Google free stuff, and get very little in return. Fucking companies are blackmailing the country into reducing their taxes to nothing with their constant threats of relocating.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I've been at one of the smaller hacker camps in Europe recently. There were literally stacks of notebooks lying around. Not a single one got stolen or damaged or whatever.
Of course I cannot speak for US hackers, I have read articles praising DRM in 2600, so it might be different there.
In Kansas, the hosts are autotrophs and damned well expect others to be too. If guests want to engage in unnecessary self-munificence, they can pay for it on their own.
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
If it's already open, they won't look into how to break in and lose interest!
No. Hackers hack. That doesn't mean it is bad. It sounds like you've redefined the tem, but a lot of people would disagree.
The common old terminology, where a programmer or writer were called 'hackers' is definitely replaced with the group of people that bypass security in pursuit of knowledge... but I don't agree that the common conception is that they are all doing bad things.
If we are talking about high-school exchange students who happen to be able to put that fiber to good use, or "get back on your feet" housing programs run by established non-profits who screen their clients and one of them happens to be a geek, well, maybe.
But in the case of college students and especially in the case of adults who could get a job and rent their own place or split the costs with a roommie, I'm going to charge market rates and make sure that's enough to cover my costs, including legal costs.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Well, try explaining the term "hacker" to the laymen. Their first impression of the term will be negative, thanks to the mass media/ culture.
I would be amenable to this, but require an ownership interest in any intellectual property developed, and an equity share in any business developed, commensurate with the importance to the development of the idea/business of having that place to use at such an early stage.
(In other words, I would be taking a big risk, that I gave free space and utilities, and receive nothing of monetary value, but if the business were successful, the amount due to me would be orders of magnitude more $$$ than a few months rent)
nice try but i dont want to live with stiffs either
H.A.G.S.S.
Hackers against geeks in snowmobile suits
Someone tell them what the "board" in room & board means, I don't think they know.
So they're saying there is room and board, as long as the guest pays for the food..
That could mean the boarder has to buy all the food, and someone in the household prepares it for those that live there and the boarder
If they aren't able to pay rent they deserve to starve and die.
The end.
I think it was Spring 2011 "Why I like E-Books".
There's also the case of hackers working for the military in the US. This is seen as something highly immoral in Germany. You just don't do that by accident or if you are a sociopath.
There's even the idea that if you have some, let's say IT security company, you're better off not having a customer than a governmental customer. Since when you are not having a customer you can at least search for customers, whereas if you have a governmental, perhaps even military customer, it will be much harder to get other customers.
Hackers are people who make furniture with an axe. Let's have none of these neological redefinitions!
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
That's really not what room and board means, though. The reality of it is the guy just didn't understand the meaning completely and thought it meant "a place to live" rather than "a place to live and meals" or revised his idea to exclude food and forgot to take the "board" out.
When I explain complex facts to laymen, I don't try, I do it fully. I carefully walk them through the facts from their current knowledge to the new knowledge. Given clear communication and rational argument, most people are receptive and learn - fundamentalism is largely to blame for one not accepting the knowledge.
I've heard that all hackers are filthy!
So Freetards want me to work so stuff can be "Free'?
When will you Freetards understand that someone has to pay?
Buy your own food, candles and generate your own electricity and you're welcome. There's a bucket in the yard for washing if you know what that is.
People have a lot of space they scarcely/ever use. But why just hackers? When we start doing good, let's extend it to other professions. In no time, you will have two attorneys in the attic, a group of gangsters in the garage, a Romanian refugee in the refrigerator, an established loan-shark in the lounge, few pick-pockets in the patio, a visionary in the vestibule, and maybe even a killer in the kitchen.
But what if those people start interacting with each other?
...to: Would you open your house to a homeless person?
I wouldn't even share a hotel room with a total stranger, let alone my entire house. I've given food and money to homeless persons, but there is where my "openness" ends. Letting someone you don't know into your life, 24-hours-a-day, is a HUGE risk, no matter how well educated they are, people are still people...and knowing people as I do, I know most people have at least ONE dark secret, and you may not want that secret to be a part of your life, I know I wouldn't.
People do the weirdest stuff in their privacy, believe me - you don't really want to know, we're talking spitting on the floor, peeing fetiches, shooting boogers here and there, messing around with your stuff, stealing little by little, lying about not having broken stuff, and that's just the Safe-For-Work stuff.
Watch the program "The worlds worst tenants" for some happy inspiration, also - watch caught on the job, and you'll see what people are. These are also the people we consider good, the only tolerable people to have in my home (for me) would be close friends, and family - and yes...they too have these weird habits, admit it...you have at least one too.
Think about that before you open your door, sweet dreams ;)
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
That has to be the worst ideas I've read. Namecalling and threats of violence, treating it like some kind of 'party foul'? The people who are going to be persuaded by cards aren't likely to be the kind of person who gropes someone from behind. Get security to throw them out and make sure they stay out, or call the damn cops.
We don't mind that language evolves. We just wish that you would follow suit!
Hint: Language doesn't necessarily discard valid definitions when it evolves, and it certainly didn't in this case.
Sure, you can use the word to refer to crackers, but it remains a subset definition. Just as Jack The Ripper is believed to have been both a surgeon and a serial killer, referring to him as a surgeon doesn't mean that all surgeons are serial killers.
When people say a hacker broke into a system, that hacker is also a cracker. Just because the general populous doesn't understand this doesn't mean that we don't.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Mention Windows to the layman and he will think it is the only OS in the world. What is your point?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Isn't that called their mother's basement?
I totally understand free usable work spaces but lodging too? If you don't have your shit together to take care of yourself what would make me even come close to thinking you can manage your own project?
i'd let one of them stay... in exchange for finding all the security holes in my network and server
Your niavety would be endearing if you weren't so arrogant and intolerant.
I'd only do it for stock options.
...ass, gas, or grass. Though perhaps they don't say that any more.
I thought this was about finding a place for RMS to stay during a conference. If so, they should have a bathing clause in the contract. I sat next to the guy once at a conference, and it takes more than a couple hours for your nose to get used to that.
In exchange for a fiber run I'll let someone live in my trailer. Down by the river.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Coward stalker troll. Lol.
This is just long-term couchsurfing. Nothing to see, move along now.
As jabbing as the post is, he/she does make a good point. Many of us hackers like to ramble about our works. This could be a great opportunity for people to take advantage of that to learn about things they've had an interest in but couldn't figure out where to start. Not only would such a person be learning about that stuff, they'd be learning it from the type of person that has a keen sense of detail, thus learning aspects that others would deem meaningless or irrelevant yet have strong implications.
She's my girlfriend.
Anyone else? No way. (Also see: a slightly unorthodox invoking of that Law of Headlines everyone keeps linking.)
no way -- GET OF MY LAWN!! damn hippies. if your hippy girlfriend has free love, then i've got a free room. she has to use the bucket first tho
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT