Kalen and I have an announcement to make. (Creeped out yet? Hahahaha.)
Seriously though, as all of you Ginger-loving people are no doubt aware, being able to securely share secret information is quite the boon. We are able to circumvent certain omnipresent wiretap technology by keeping everything subtle and encrypted. Now, it's time to broaden the scope.
The Chantry has a library. Many of us have our own personal libraries. We recently picked up the memoirs of an Archmage. This is the kind of thing Kalen and I would like to see shared, not just in Denver, but to other places as well. We've built a machine capable of digitizing books -- essentially taking a high-resolution picture of each page. OCR technology will enable us to convert the images to indexable, searchable text. We can bring the power of Google to your dead trees. We can also set up a distributed, encrypted network through which to share your dead trees.
For those concerned about safety, with the protocol I have in mind, the more people sign up, the more secure the system becomes. No one person or location would be responsible for storing a whole book. Think of it as storing your library by shredding it, mixing it, and then mailing bags of shred around the country -- only you can still read your books at the end. Even if a particular person's computer were compromised, the attacker would not be able to put together the data to reconstruct even a single sentence, even if they were capable of cracking the encryption on the files. It's also designed with redundancy in mind, such that the compromise of a location (or even up to half of all locations) would not cause the loss of a single book. Imagine if your store of physical books were to catch fire. Wouldn't it be a relief to know that copies exist, even if they were digital?
The more we can spread this idea, the more we stand to gain, both in security and knowledge. However, we would like to set up a beta test in Denver first, just to start. I currently have a cyber-stalker who I'm uncertain about (friend or foe?) with the ability to do a lot of damage. And knowing what I know about hacker communities, it means if we do set up a system like this, about 50 people will instantly make it their life's work to break it. This is a good thing. I want to invite my new friends to try, so that I can fix the vulnerabilities they will inevitably expose. Expect strangeness.
There is also a second option available, for those who would like the convenience of a digital library without exposing it to the potential dangers of a distributed network. We can digitize your library, and make it available offline at the Chantry, or wherever you would like it stored. This, obviously, also goes for the Chantry library itself. We can implement indexing, searching, translating -- many things are possible when the data is digital. So even if you don't want to opt in for the beta test, you may want to take up this opportunity.
The Chantry library does not belong to myself or Kalen, so we can't make the decision on what happens to its books. That's up to everyone, and the library admins in particular. I'd like to see us at least get the thing digitized and stored locally, with a selection of books available on the shared network.
Also, since this is a group effort, and not everybody has access to Ginger, it's up to us Gingered folks to get the word around. I know Pan doesn't have a phone, Jim I've never seen, there's a bunch of new people in Denver who just don't have access yet -- get the word out. Just don't do so via text, phone, or email. Remember why we have Ginger in the first place.
Thanks for reading all those words!
Seriously though, as all of you Ginger-loving people are no doubt aware, being able to securely share secret information is quite the boon. We are able to circumvent certain omnipresent wiretap technology by keeping everything subtle and encrypted. Now, it's time to broaden the scope.
The Chantry has a library. Many of us have our own personal libraries. We recently picked up the memoirs of an Archmage. This is the kind of thing Kalen and I would like to see shared, not just in Denver, but to other places as well. We've built a machine capable of digitizing books -- essentially taking a high-resolution picture of each page. OCR technology will enable us to convert the images to indexable, searchable text. We can bring the power of Google to your dead trees. We can also set up a distributed, encrypted network through which to share your dead trees.
For those concerned about safety, with the protocol I have in mind, the more people sign up, the more secure the system becomes. No one person or location would be responsible for storing a whole book. Think of it as storing your library by shredding it, mixing it, and then mailing bags of shred around the country -- only you can still read your books at the end. Even if a particular person's computer were compromised, the attacker would not be able to put together the data to reconstruct even a single sentence, even if they were capable of cracking the encryption on the files. It's also designed with redundancy in mind, such that the compromise of a location (or even up to half of all locations) would not cause the loss of a single book. Imagine if your store of physical books were to catch fire. Wouldn't it be a relief to know that copies exist, even if they were digital?
The more we can spread this idea, the more we stand to gain, both in security and knowledge. However, we would like to set up a beta test in Denver first, just to start. I currently have a cyber-stalker who I'm uncertain about (friend or foe?) with the ability to do a lot of damage. And knowing what I know about hacker communities, it means if we do set up a system like this, about 50 people will instantly make it their life's work to break it. This is a good thing. I want to invite my new friends to try, so that I can fix the vulnerabilities they will inevitably expose. Expect strangeness.
There is also a second option available, for those who would like the convenience of a digital library without exposing it to the potential dangers of a distributed network. We can digitize your library, and make it available offline at the Chantry, or wherever you would like it stored. This, obviously, also goes for the Chantry library itself. We can implement indexing, searching, translating -- many things are possible when the data is digital. So even if you don't want to opt in for the beta test, you may want to take up this opportunity.
The Chantry library does not belong to myself or Kalen, so we can't make the decision on what happens to its books. That's up to everyone, and the library admins in particular. I'd like to see us at least get the thing digitized and stored locally, with a selection of books available on the shared network.
Also, since this is a group effort, and not everybody has access to Ginger, it's up to us Gingered folks to get the word around. I know Pan doesn't have a phone, Jim I've never seen, there's a bunch of new people in Denver who just don't have access yet -- get the word out. Just don't do so via text, phone, or email. Remember why we have Ginger in the first place.
Thanks for reading all those words!