Brandon Wiley invented an ATM machine this week for complementary currency using QR codes. Writing python code on Google App Engine, he wrote code which can generate a QR code using Google Chart API and an oauth consumer to allow someone to redeem the currency without giving the ATM site the username and password to their account. The transaction was made with the OSCurrency API. Some more API support needs to be done to make the transaction more resistant to counterfeiting, but it already makes a cool demo.

At One Web Day Austin on September 22, the idea was offered (see video in previous entry) that it would be relatively straightforward to build a complementary currency system on Insoshi. Shortly after that, Rich and I began a new project in github. The latest code can be found in the edge branch of Oscurrency.

Two weeks ago, the Austin Time Exchange made the switch to running this code. Most of the changes you see in github since then are the result of feedback from the members. This site runs on one 256M slice on slicehost.

[blip.tv http://blip.tv/play/Ac+DBY_Iaw]
We had the opportunity to talk about community currency at One Web Day. There is an archive of talks. It was neat to see Cafe Caffeine’s customers stop in for coffee throughout the evening and stay awhile to listen in on the compelling talks about privacy online and the war for peace. A big thanks to Jon Lebkowsky, Maggie Duval, Paul Walhus and Dusty Reagan for organizing a great event.

Comments

Author: mat

Date: 2008-11-08 15:14:00

The lunch for Lessig’s keynote at the Austin Convention Center yesterday (NN08) was the standard sandwich box. Each choice had a fancy name. I chose the Wellington. It was pretty good. I’m eating the apple as I blog.

Lessig spent most of the keynote describing the motivation for Change-Congress. On one of his early slides, Lessig noted the problem of socialized risk and privatized profit. In fact, on the day before at the subprime mortgage session, I asked the panel the question I submitted for Nancy Pelosi. Panelist Hale Stewart, who seems like a straight shooter, answered that there’s nothing Congress can do about the conflict of interest of the CEO of JP Morgan Chase making decisions on the Federal Reserve Board to make the public take the risk of the Bear Stearns acquisition.*

Last week, Rich and I gave a talk at OWASP Austin, the open web application security group. Social network security was the title. The main idea is how the health of social networks and communities can be compromised by attacking the identities - replacing identities known to the community with ones that are less functional. When identities are degraded or made more anonymous, then the community is at risk.

Of course, we talked about complementary currency and among RSnake’s several good questions was how does a complementary currency system keep someone from taking too much. Of course, we mentioned the idea of putting a credit limit for each person in the code, but as everybody knows, it is less about the code than it is about the people and if the community is healthy and all the transactions are transparent, then people will police it themselves. If the community is sick, they won’t. Even for the hackers at the OWASP meeting who are immersed in code every day, this idea seemed agreeable.

Participants earn time to receive services for their work building open source software to benefit the nonprofit community.

(Austin, TX) The Austin Time Exchange Network (ATEN) helps people trade an hour of work for another hour of work within a community. Instead of bartering between just two people and placing different values on the service, our network allows equal sharing of an hour for an hour within the whole community.

We are looking for nonprofits to attend, but also for technology professionals willing to present or just participate in sessions to add to the information presented.

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Penguin Day Comes To Austin
www.austinpenguinday.org

Popular One Day Conference Showcasing Open Source Technology Use For Nonprofits And Communities Makes Austin Debut

Austin, a city well known for its technology-centric offerings, festivals and a motto of keeping Austin “weird” can add one more item to its growing list–Penguin Days. The popular day long convening of software developers, activists and nonprofits will take place on April 28 from 9 am to 5 pm at Ventana del Soul.

CODEATHON 2.0

PRESENTED BY KNOWBILITY AND LEAGUE OF TECHNICAL VOTERS

Create open source software to benefit nonprofits. Two events! Two chances to participate! Free food, prizes, unique entertainment. All types and skill levels of designers needed. Collaborate on issues of usability and accessibility, graphical interface and high-level software architecture.

More info and to sign up:
http://codeathon.pbwiki.com/

Log in with password: codeon

Kick off party at Triumph Café
Friday, 4/13, 8 p.m. - 11 p.m.