I've been eager to talk about this, but had to wait until the public announcement- three HackerSpaces have launched the The Warzone Project. From the announcement:
"CCCCKC, Pumping Station: One and HacDC announced at the DEFCON Podcaster’s Meetup of the creation of the Warzone Project... The CCCKC network has a separate area dedicated to security research…both attack and defense. This separate section of the network was created so that members had a sandbox to attack and defend without worrying about compromising their own or someone else’s systems and information. The premise is that of assumed risk, neighborliness and numerous disclaimers to users looking to participate that they should know exactly what they are doing (or at least getting themselves into) by connecting to the network.
We were ecstatic when we were contacted by the Astaro corporation who loved the idea so much, they not only wanted their hardware on the network but that they wanted to help expand the Project nationwide by donating appliances to each of us."
I am especially pleased with Astaro's involvement (I may have had a little to do with that), here's an excerpt from the press release:
“Hacker spaces and the Warzone project are helping to combat the negative image hackers have acquired by demonstrating that most hackers are not engaged in criminal activity and are more interested in finding and sharing information; including possible network vulnerabilities,” said David Rogers, Vice President, Americas, Astaro Corporation. “Astaro is proud to be a part of initiatives like the Hackerspace Warzone project because they will help network administrators and security vendors create more secure environments.”
Jack
