Noisebridge


Noisebridge is an anarchistic hackerspace located in San Francisco, inspired by European hackerspaces Metalab and c-base in Berlin. It is a registered non-profit California corporation, with IRS 501 charitable status. According to the Noisebridge website's Vision page, "Noisebridge is a space for sharing, creation, collaboration, research, development, mentoring, and learning. Noisebridge is also more than a physical space, it's a community with roots extending around the world." It was organized in 2007 and has had permanent facilities since 2008.

Membership

Noisebridge encourages participation by anyone who feels they can contribute, and non-members are welcome at the space at any time. All workshops and activities are free, with some exceptions for materials costs, and all are open to the public. Noisebridge members have been involved with research projects that won the best paper awards from top tier academic conferences such as Usenix Security Conference and CRYPTO.

Media coverage

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."
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."
Noisebridge has been covered by international media for a myriad of projects involving their membership, including NPR, the BBC, the BBC World Service, Wired, The New Yorker, The Guardian, CNET, Le Monde, Heise Online, ORF, Irish Times, Die Welt Online, Die Zeit Online, Der Standard, and elsewhere.
The hackerspace features prominently in Cory Doctorow's fictional 2013 novel Homeland, and influenced Annalee Newitz's novel Autonomous, which was partially written at Noisebridge.

Physical space

Noisebridge has been located at 2169 Mission Street, a 5200-square-foot commercial space in San Francisco's Mission District, since 2009. The current space has many workspaces, which change dynamically. As of June 2018 these include:
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
commercial property in San Francisco's Mission District but it quickly
outgrew that location.
Past workspaces prior to June 2018 include
Noisebridge members regularly speak at events around the world such as Defcon, Blackhat, The Chaos Computer Club's Chaos Communication Congress, CCC Camps, HOPE, and more, as well as present at local events such as Maker Faire, and contribute to the founding of hackerspaces elsewhere. It is well known for its Five Minutes Of Fame event as well as hosting the local San Francisco Dorkbot and monochrom's sex-tech conference Arse Elektronika. Furthermore, Noisebridge is a member of the torservers.net network, an organization of nonprofits which specializes in the general establishment of Tor anonymity network exit nodes via workshops and donations.

Spacebridge

Noisebridge had a near space exploration program, 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. Altitudes reached have exceeded the operational limits of consumer level GPS systems.

NoiseTor

NoiseTor is a Noisebridge initiative to create and operate additional Tor relays. The project accepts financial donations to sponsor additional nodes.

Controversies

Many women have reported instances of being sexually harassed and assaulted at Noisebridge. Co-founder Jacob Appelbaum admitted to multiple instances of sexual harassment and assault and is likely a serial offender. In 2016, he was banned from Noisebridge.