Sudo Room

Mesh/29 January 2019

People's Open Network Weekly Meeting - Tues 29 January 2019 7:30pm-9pm

Agenda

  • Introductions and Meeting Roles (10 mins)
  • Check in on previous action items (5 mins)
  • Updates & Reportbacks (20 mins)
  • Next Sunday (5 mins)
  • Proposal: Contract Jenny for Bookkeeping/Admin Labor (15 mins)
  • Action Items (5 mins)

Introductions

Introduce yourself: Name; Preferred Pronoun; Icebreaker Response; BRIEF Announcements

  • Icebreaker question: Who do you want for the next president of the US?
  • Benny (afk getting pizza)
  • seth-he/they - mumia.
    • announcement - knows a guy who would give away a 80ft tower a block away from Broadway on 40th St.
  • Eve- she/her - Jenny - for mayor. President - I don't know, but I have a little counter on my phone, and counting down the days. 643 days to the next election.
  • Rob- he/him Sanders
  • Mai - she/her/they - Warren
  • Lesley - they/xyr/she/he - Barbara Lee
  • Ned - he/him - probably Sanders
  • Null - he/him - Bernie Sanders, doesn't really know competition
  • Jenny - she/her - herself for president! Not Kamala Harris. yes mumia!

Announcements

Jenny - Berkeley Marina would be willing to have a tower

Meeting Roles

Check in on previous action items

Check previous meeting minutes at https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Mesh/Minutes and past action items below:

  • Look for list of stewards @iamai
    • Mai: I just found it! Seems like we emailed the whole list and not many people responded
    • Jenny: Five for consensus is what it is
      • Maybe tell them they're deleted if they don't respond? @iamai
  • Ping Chuck re: connection @iamai @eenblam
    • benny did, he responded. said he would check tonight. follow-up action item
    • HE exit node issue
      • robb: juul tunneled in; it won't boot. probably need to reformat and reassemble the mirror from the other drive. doesn't have grub which is the primary issue.
      • null: "failed array"
      • Rob - only thing I can think of is go in with usb, reformat first partition and install grub on it. One is borked, one doesn't have grub. I don't know if you can install grub after its already been mirrored. Reseeded SATA cable, but this is a RAID error not a drive error. Reseeding might have repaired it? Running smartl didn't reveal any errors other than a fan error
      • null: how long would it take to just recreate the image? maybe a hour or two
  • Finalize details of node mount specs with Jonah @bennlich
    • got some safety gear - heavy duty clips mainly - borrowing a lot of gear from @eenblam (thank you @eenblam!)
    • Heading over sometime in the afternoon this Thurs with Grant, Robb, Lesley and whoever else is interested. I think Pam also wants to come and help document. Jenny, can we use your car and do you want to come?
    • Went to Grainger in San Leandro to get safety lanyards on Monday
    • Still have some preparation work Todo. See https://trello.com/b/wBKTQKDs/active-projects if you want to help.
    • Priority is airfiber mount but would be cool if we can do both at once.(~48V)
      • need to find the PoE injectors for the AirFibers -
        • Maybe use the poe on the roof and buy another later
    • mai: probably want to do it earlier than 3 - closer to 2. (because of sunlight)
  • WD mynet N600 router order (post-checkin to oakstop) - @tunabananas
    • Jenny - Marc is in NYC, hasn't been immediately available for questions for a bit.
  • Tablet for AssetTiger @null
    • robb: we have some android tablets in the harry potter room. Will look after this meeting.

Updates & Reportbacks

Bugs/Technical

Priority bugs we need help with are located at: http://peoplesopen.net/helpwanted - For a high-level overview of recent Github activity, see the Trello: https://trello.com/invite/b/r9l5ouQ4/3b2eecd83bb9e7a57a339cf1ee038288/sudo-mesh-github-repos

  • HE exit node being down affecting all the nodes that used it as an exit node
    • Does it make sense to use a server at HE to be an exit node?
      • Benny: I think it probably does make sense to have it there. Useful to be close to backbone for speed, tho others may know more.
      • null: they're a real data center, that's especially good for streaming services
    • Jenny: they don't issue take down notices, or haven't yet
    • Lesley: they're a reseller to other ISPs, right? so the same consumer dmca laws don't apply, or something like that
    • Benny: we could use domain names instead of IP addresses to direct exit nodes to other ips if that happens
    • Mai: Just raising the question because we took so long to fix it and we were not ready to deal with the outage. We need other solutions to make sure we can handle outages like this in the future.
    • Lesley: we need as robust and distributed a network as possible - we should have many exit nodes as possible. No need to arbitrarily give up individual ones - if the problem is that it's going down, we just need more.
    • What other ways can we make our exit node infrastructure less prone to outages and more easily fixable?
      • Benny: use domain names e.g. exit.sudomesh.org in home node config instead of hardcoded ip addresses.
      • Null: you can use domain redirection, we could use something like that? If one domain fails, it goes on to the next one. It can give you a list of the servers it would try just by searching one domain. E.g. google does it.
  • Benny: Discovered with Seth that the walkthrough page linked to a broken version of the firmware. I fixed the link, but the firmware build process could use some tidying up and documenting. Would be nice if someone wanted to take this on. I can share what notes I have.
    • jenny: Do you mean the walkthrough page? or technical overview?
    • benny: walkthrough page.
    • lesley: i need editing permissions for the wiki walkthrough page

Node Mounts & Outreach

Node Mounts Trello: https://trello.com/invite/b/DtzngKaM/49e1c21fc9da199fcdeceb8623b5117a/node-mounts

  • Dmitri sez there's someone at Berkeley Marina interested and experienced in setting up a tower for a mount! and evidently whatever Powers That Be are fully on board. Jenny will followup on the contact @ the Marina and work on a funding proposal
    • Benny: incredible

Communications & Events

Comms Trello: https://trello.com/invite/b/f3ugMPNU/94033ee6c2cef93fc1b1637b727c902a/sudo-mesh-communications // Events Trello: https://trello.com/invite/b/Y3XfDK85/2b6fcb4fa92788609692a53a96fb4614/peoples-open-events

  • Update on Paxio?
    • Benny: I think Marc was the contact here.
      • marc: "no, we should ping them again" PP is @juul - @iamai accountabilibuddy

Internal Logistics / Finance

Internal Logistics & Bureaucracy Trello: https://trello.com/invite/b/LzVQlW3X/1bb8bd543c8633688175365d2554c2c2/internal-logistics-bureaucracy-brainstorms

  • Jenny is moving us to a new quickbooks account so as to secure a $30/mo lifetime discount for QBO
  • Insurance broker sent us the following questions on Jan 25th:
    • Can you confirm whether the members/employees of Sudo Mesh have experience with the antenna installations? What is the total annual payroll/revenue of the installations?
      • Jehan: "Most of us have experience, but there is always the possibility that we're taking someone new up as well so they can get experience. "
    • Regarding the classes to educate the public about wireless networking technologies. What is average attendance?
      • Jehan: "On the classes, it varies, but usually around 20-50 attendees"
  • Accounting group met up today at sudo room
    • We revisited/cleared to do items that were no longer relevant, cleaned up the Accounting trello board, fixed the purchases request form to include the description
    • Benny, Jenny, and Mai will go to Unify credit union (where our account is) to order more checks and debit cards next week

Proposal: Contract Jenny for Bookkeeping/Admin Labor

via Jenny 1/27:

  • Benny: yessssssss
  • jenny: The premise is to start the ball rolling on people being responsible for specific roles and getting compensated for it.

I propose to do Sudo Mesh’s bookkeeping, legal due diligence and state filing work for hire (while still participating in additional volunteer capacity as I always have) on a 3-month trial basis at $30/hr - capped at 40hrs/month (but more likely to average 20hrs/month) unless an additional contract is agreed upon - with a reexamination of the agreement and contractual follow-up due diligence by a "proposal buddy" (Benny? Mai?) upon the start of the next fiscal quarter.

  • mai: I would be happy to be an accountability buddy :)
  • lesley: i volunteer to listen to stress venting

Summary of deliverables:

  • Monthly bank account reconciliations and bookkeeping;
   * Prepare and submit regular state filings (eg 990s, RRF-1s, SI-100s);
  • Monthly and annual reporting and documentation;
  • Update and maintain budget & business plan;
  • Maintain digital and analog filing system and legal contractual due diligence (eg; donor acknowledgement letters, fiscal sponsorship agreements, annual board meeting minutes)

Full proposal at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Y-tXdXqPgFIgOb6XJlHb-ljUzScVK6EX2FUIKlwEwF4

  • Consenso?
  • Lesley: This is awesome! I'm so happy about this. You've done all this work on a volunteer basis for years. I'm totally on board with this.
  • Lesley: I also think we should prioritize having income beyond grants--I think we can and should start getting donations in exchange for internet access. I also think we should prioritize (what was the second thing?)
  • Robb: I like the idea of having bounties for grant-writing (5, 7, 10% or something)
  • Mai: I want to do a bigger push on our patreon. I agree that not relying on grants is a good idea. There're plenty of people in the bay area who are able and willing to give $20/mo for something they believe in.

Next Sunday

We host office hours every Sunday from 1-3pm in Sudo Room, and often arrange a rooftop node mount.

Action Items

  • email stewards list to stay on/be a steward @iamai
  • follow up with chuck if he doesn't respond regarding checking config on his node @iamai
  • write language for new hang out + newcomer night. Put it on calendars: Omni, wiki, peoplesopen.net @iamai, @tunabananas
  • schedule hack session for APC application @tunabananas
  • ask eenblam about people who can dismantle towers re: seth's contact @mux
  • follow up w/ marc about using domain names for tunneldigger config @bennlich

Last Meeting Notes

End of Meeting

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