The maybe-monthly newsletter of:

HACKERS FOR CHARITY August 2009 Issue 01 http://hackersforcharity.org

Hackers For Charity

connects the hacker

Welcome to the first ever HFC community with

empowerment

newsletter from Uganda, Africa! opportunities

worldwide.

INSIDE THIS NEWSLETTER

HFC FIELD TEAM MAKES A SPLASH

Tim and Dwight from White Wolf Security
come to Uganda. They made a real difference,
and have a ton of fun in the process!
Continued on Page 2

HFC ON-SITE IN KENYA

Where does the money from Informer and No- Class Fives on the Nile. This is work?!?
Tech Hacking end up? We show you.
Continued on Page 4

FUTURE PROJECT: RIS

It’s been years in the making, but our Rehaboth
High School project’s not quite ready yet.
Continued on Page 6

HFC Food Drive - Kenya HFC’s “Tight Security”

DEFCON
Vegas, Baby! Check out what’s going on with Hackers For
Continued on Page 8
Charity

THE HFC BBS PREMIERS

It’s where the action is. The HFC BBS will
connect need with skill. It’s what we’re about.
Continued on Page 10
Hackers For Charity, Inc | http://hackersforcharity.org | johnny@hackersforcharity.org
TEAM WHITE WOLF!
Tim and Dwight tour the source of the Nile with crazy Mzungu kids.
WELCOME WHITE WOLF!
We welcomed our first HFC "field team" to
our home in August! Tim Rosenberg and
Dwight Hobbs from White Wolf Security
(www.whitewolfsecurity.com) brought nearly
50 laptops as checked baggage (mailing the
batteries in a separate shipment) and
installed our upgraded classroom at
AOET's Rehaboth Primary School in
Bugembe, Uganda. Some of you may
remember this as the classroom we set up as
a family back in 2007. In 2007, the
classroom contained a dozen used laptops.
Now, the classroom sports thirty new
laptops (costing $6000, paid for by HFC
donors) and power strips, keyboards, mice
and power regulators (costing over $500,
paid for by White Wolf Security). The
updated classroom is impressive to look at,
but the real value lies in the education the
students will receive.
Many Ugandan college and university
Infor mation and Communication
Technology (ICT) graduates have never
touched a computer. Thanks to financial
donations and the sweat equity provided by
Hackers For Charity, Inc | http://hackersforcharity.org | johnny@hackersforcharity.org
PAGE 2
Tim and Jackie, the computer teacher.
teams like this one, Rehaboth's young
students in poverty-stricken Bugembe will
receive a computer education rivaling most
Universities.
FREEZE!
Team White Wolf spent a lot of time
imaging the machines for the classrooms. As
a result, the systems are well-prepared for
the onslaught of knowledge-hungry kids. Thanks to financial
Each machine has been “frozen” with donations and the
DeepFreeze software meaning that the sweat equity provided
machines return to their installed state after by teams like this one,
every reboot. A virus will only last until the Rehaboth's young
machine is rebooted, and even the Windows students in poverty-
system directories can be deleted without stricken Bugembe will
causing permanent problems. Net Support receive a computer
School has also been installed, which allows education rivaling
the teacher to control all student machines most Universities.
simultaneously.
ALL WORK, NO PLAY?
Of course, HFC trips are not all work. In
addition to the boat ride to the Source of
the Nile River, Tim and Dwight paid for a
rafting excursion on the more rough and
tumble parts of said Nile River.
TEAM WHITE WOLF, CONTINUED! PAGE 3

Rehaboth Primary School Computer Classroom, Version 2.0

Dwight
Tim

Johnny
Girl overboard!
“Silverback,” One of the wicked Class Five rapids on the Nile
Dwight working hard

Hackers For Charity, Inc | http://hackersforcharity.org | johnny@hackersforcharity.org

HFC KENYA “FOOD FOR WORK PROGRAM”! PAGE 4

AOET Kenya staff joined local government officials at the opening of the Hackers For Charity food distribution. Abel at the HFC food drive

WHAT IS THE FOOD FOR WORK PROGRAM?
AOET's program in Webuye Kenya is
growing rapidly. Their child sponsorship
program is starting to take off
(www.aoet.org/AOETCS1) and even
unsponsored children's medical needs are
being taken care of. However, many
unsponsored children are still suffering
because their medication is not effective
without proper nutrition. AOET can simply
not afford to feed every unsponsored child.
That's where the Hackers For Charity food
program comes in. Proceeds from every
Informer subscription and all the royalties
from sales of my No-Tech Hacking book
support the "Food for Work" program in
Webuye, Kenya. Under this program,
orphaned and at-risk children receive maize
and cooking fat as well as vegetables and
seedlings which they plant in their own
gardens.
THE PROGRAM IN ACTION
We had an opportunity to visit an HFC
food distribution in Webuye last month, and
it was overwhelming to see hundreds of
children and their guardians show up for
the food distribution. When we pulled up,
the crowd started singing, dancing and
cheering for us. I didn't realize that Hackers
for Charity is the sole source of funds for
“...many
this program, but it is! We skipped a unsponsored
payment in June and July (due to lack of children are still
funds, and the confusion of our move to suffering because
Uganda) and children went without food! their medication is
This really encouraged us to keep at it. not effective without
proper nutrition.”
We're dedicated to finding a stream of
income to keep this and our other programs
running. Lives are depending on our
programs. It's just that simple.
Support the Food for Work program!
Join the Informer, buy books, or make a
donation at http://hackersforcharity.org!

Hackers For Charity, Inc | http://hackersforcharity.org | johnny@hackersforcharity.org

HFC KENYA “FOOD FOR WORK PROGRAM”! PAGE 5

Parents and guardians thank Hackers For Charity in Webuye, Kenya

Students enjoy the HFC computer lab in Webuye, Kenya

Hackers For Charity, Inc | http://hackersforcharity.org | johnny@hackersforcharity.org

FUTURE PROJECT: RIS! PAGE 6

Future Project: AOET’s Rehaboth

Integrated
For nearly two years now, I've
been watching the construction
of RIS with great interest. RIS
is located up the hill from our
home in Njeru, next to the
AO E T c h i l d r e n ' s v i l l a g e
overlooking the Nile on one of
the most gorgeous pieces of
land I've ever seen.

From the beginning, the scope

of this school was massive, and
as the idea for Hackers For
Charity started percolating in
my brain, I felt drawn to do
something special for this
school. At the time, we had a
small computer lab at AOET's
Rehaboth Primary school in
AOET’s Rehaboth Integrated School (RIS) in Njeru, Uganda.
nearby Bugembe, and even
then I knew that once the high
school was completed, we should focus on the lab there. THE NEED

After rather lengthy discussion surrounding the needs of the

COMPUTER LAB AS A SHOWPIECE computer lab, we settled on the hardware list for the room:

I wanted to make the lab a showpiece for the efforts of the
hacker community. I wanted the computer lab there to just
plain rock. I knew that every penny we invested in it would
be amplified because AOET is a solid, well-thought-out
organization with it's finger on the pulse of the community
and a clear vision of what it takes to eradicate poverty:
empowerment.
• 16 Pentium 4 laptop computers ($8,000)
• 30 Pentium 4 desktop computers (Approx. $15,000)
• 1 Samsung P400 SVGA Projector ($600)
• 50 keyboards ($300)
• 50 mice ($250)
• 15 Power Strips ($300)
• 10 1000kVa power stabilizers ($450)
• Hand made tables, benches (Approx $4,000)

Continued on next page

Hackers For Charity, Inc | http://hackersforcharity.org | johnny@hackersforcharity.org

FUTURE PROJECT: RIS! PAGE 7

RIS...continued
Thanks to a very generous financial donation from Praxis
Engineering (http://www.praxiseng.com) and Proteus
Technologies (http://proteus-technologies.com), as well as
the transport provided by White Wolf in August, the 16
laptops are here and accounted for. The LED projector
was purchased using HFC funds, and is here as well.

WE NEED FINANCIAL SUPPORT

Even though the HFC bank account could bear the cost
of the peripherals, we're at a loss for how we're going to AOET’s Rehaboth Integrated School (RIS) in Njeru,
pay for the desktop computers and the furniture for the
room, which totals nearly $19,000. I am working on
creative means of reducing the cost of the furniture (using local carpentry
students), but the desktop price tag still remains, and construction of the
computer lab is on hold until we can find further funding. We are offering
branding rights to the classroom and the machines in exchange for corporate
funding. This school has already caught the eye of the Ugandan government,
and the school opening was attended by very prominent federal officials, so we're
hoping this branding option will be appealing to a generous corporation seeking “...We're hoping
this
to make a real difference in this world.
branding option will appeal
to a generous corporation
seeking to make a real
difference in this world.”

An empty computer lab for how long?

Hackers For Charity, Inc | http://hackersforcharity.org | johnny@hackersforcharity.org

THE
DEFCON!
COLLECTOR!
Volunteers made the HFC booth at DEFCON a reality
DEFCON BOOTH POSSIBLE THANKS TO HFC VOLUNTEERS!
I was on the fence about DEFCON and Blackhat
this year, but despite the 21.5 hour flight time and the
severe jet lag, I'm really glad I made it to Vegas.
HFC volunteers really pulled together, manning the
booth at DEFCON and getting the word out about our
work. My "Me to We" talk (the name inadvertently
borrowed from Craig Kielburger) seemed fairly well
received, and the community seems to be behind us. Just
like last year, we sold T-Shirts and vinyl provided by
Kelly at Trix Graphix (TrixGraphix.com). This year, we
also decided to follow up the successful Shmoocon silent
auction with another one. At the last minute, when we
realized our shipment of auction items wasn’t going to
make it in time, I headed into Jinja town and bought
local crafts to sell. Several members of the community
donated items to the auction, and I was amazed at the
response. Here are some highlights:
• Mac Powerbook laptop ($350)
• Signed books ($420)
• Ebony Mancala set ($100)
• Soapstone chess set ($100)
• TS-7300 FPGA ($200)
• Beagle board ($200)
• Prototype DEFCON 17 badge ($1000)
• Tribal arrow set ($80)
• Tribal spear ($100)
The Collector, 1234 Main Street, Any Town, State ZIP | 123-456-7890 | www.apple.com/iwork
88
PAGE
PAGE
David Jamming on the drums
• Tribal drum ($70)
• Lock Set ($100)
• SyncVue DEFCON 16 DVDs ($140)
• Signed WRT54G set ($85)
The stuff I brought from Jinja didn’t do very well
(considering the pain it took to buy and bring) but the
community stuff really took off ! Thanks to Charlie, Joe
Grand, Kevin Mitnick, John Callas, Pauldotcom, “book
dude” (and everyone else my aging brain has forgotten
about) for the donations and support! To sweeten the
deal, BigFix has promised to match those donations!
Rock on!
Making money is always encouraging, but talking to
people who are excited about what we're doing is even
more encouraging. If one percent of the ideas tossed
around in Vegas come to light, we'll be very successful as
an organization.
Every time a volunteer effort comes together like this,
I’m impressed and amazed. I shouldn’t be. After all, the
community has done incredible things (the PayPal
incident, for those of you that followed that, is one big
example).
Thanks, everyone for a great year in Vegas!
CURRENT PROJECT: PETER’S PRIMARY!
Local Computer Lab to get Linux Boost
LEGENDARY LAB NOT STACKING UP
Impressive, old, useless. Suns.
LOCAL LAB LEGEND
Peter's Primary school is located up the hill from our
home in Njeru. I had heard of Peter's from several
people, each of which mentioned their "computer lab
with more than forty computers". Through a crazy series
of events, I received two invitations to visit the school,
and when I did, I had to stifle a laugh. Of the "forty
computers," thirty were Sun Sparc computers that the
school had no idea what to do with. Because they didn't
run Windows, the machines were sitting unused. I
thought about finding a Sparc version of Linux to run on
the machines, and on my trip to Vegas for DEFCON, I
took advantage of the bandwidth and downloaded a few
(dozen) ISO's for Peter's school.
LINUX TO THE RESCUE
During his trip to Uganda, Dwight from White Wolf took
the initiative to try out a few of the ISO's and after quite
a bit of trial and error, he found success with Aurora
Linux on one of the Sparc 10 computers. I'm playing
with the installation now, and my plan is to install a ton of
useful applications so the machines can be used to train
Hackers For Charity, Inc | http://hackersforcharity.org | johnny@hackersforcharity.org
PAGE 9
students in math, science, spelling, art and the use of
basic office programs (via Open Office). Linux on Sparc
could expand the capacity of Peter's computer lab
threefold, which is impressive enough, but George, the
headmaster, has a bigger vision: he wants to open a
community center to provide low-cost or free computer
classes to children and adults in the local community.
COMMUNITY CENTERS
I've become quite interested in the concept of
community centers because this model makes the
computers and training materials available to a larger
community. This maximizes the investment in the center
and creates a larger impact in the community. Computer
training is essential for students seeking advanced
education, but the vision of a lab in every school becomes
expensive very quickly. A centralized center can time-
share the computers to many area schools. Computer
training is also essential to entrepreneurs seeking to start
just about any business.
Continued on next page
CURRENT PROJECT: PETER’S PRIMARY, CONT...! PAGE 10

Currently, this type of training is expensive

(equivalent to several months average
salary) putting the training far out of reach
from the people that need it and could
benefit from it the most.

THE NEED
So, I've got my eye on Peter's Primary
as the first Hackers For Charity computer-
based community center. (HFC-CCC?
Hrmm... has a certain "Chaos Computer
Club" old-school ring to it...) I'll continue to
work on the Sun computers, but we've got a
few obstacles. First, there's more to training
than computers. We need:
HFC volunteer Dwight + Linux + SPARC = “Easy!”

• Curriculum (CBT's, CD's, DVD's,

e-books)
• an Internet connection ($150 +
$40/month for a cheesy EDGE 20Kb
“Linux on Sparc
connection, or a volunteer team to could expand the
blast a signal from Kampala which capacity of Peter's
boasts a shiny new fiber connection, computer lab
thanks to Seacom. See the forum for threefold, which is
upcoming trips) impressive enough,
• A license for Deep-Freeze or but George [...] has
something similar to lock down these
a bigger vision: he
public-use computers
• A low-cost way to provide
wants to open a
keyboards and mice to the 20 Sparc community center
machines that are missing them (see the to provide low-cost
forums on our site) or free computer
classes to children
Jump on our bulletin board if you’re and adults in the
interested in helping realize this vision for
local community.”
the HFC Community Center!

Stack -o- Suns = no love.

Hackers For Charity, Inc | http://hackersforcharity.org | johnny@hackersforcharity.org

THE HFC “BULLETIN BOARD”! PAGE 11

The HFC “Bulletin Board”

AN EXPERIMENT
Thanks to the work of our volunteer community and Zate Berg, we have
what I'm calling a "bulletin board" (http://johnny.ihackstuff.com/forums).
This board is designed to connect need with skill. Charities that have a need
can post to the board, and anyone with skill can reply. This is the heart and “This is the heart
soul of what we're trying to do, but so far the traffic on the board has been and soul of what
pretty slow. Are you interested in starting a local HFC group? Do you have we're trying to do,
spare gear that’s too old / heavy / smelly to ship anywhere? Do you feel the but so far the traffic
pull to "do something" but don't know where to start? Do you know of a on the board has
local charity or non-profit that needs some help? Well then, get on the board!
been pretty slow.”
Seriously! It's a work in progress, but it's a start. Go ahead, jump in! Send us
your feedback as well! We would love to improve the system!

Hackers For Charity, Inc | http://hackersforcharity.org | johnny@hackersforcharity.org

THE LONG JOURNEY TO AFRICA! PAGE 12

The Long
Journey To
Africa
It’s hard to believe it’s been two months since we
left our home to relocate to Uganda to focus on the
work of Hackers For Charity. Here’s a recap of the
past few months of our personal lives.

FAMILY HEALTH AND LOSS One last family photo from home before our journey

Trevor fought off a stomach bug and Jen fights

regular nausea (possibly linked to her Thyroid levels) but
other than that, we have been healthy and safe so far. The
kitten Makenna took in was killed in an accident in the
compound, and on the same night, I saw a man die on the
road from injuries he received in an accident. This
combination was very hard on all of us, but
thankfully, that's been the extent of the
"drama" for our family.

OUR HOME

We live in Njeru, about a five minute drive

across the Nile from Jinja. Our home is a
real decompression zone thanks to the quiet
neighborhood and the large compound, but
even still we have been encouraged to keep
a guard despite the unexpected expense
($150/month). Our Ugandan friend Dennis
stays in the guest house behind our home
and has been a great help to us in so many
ways. Our home is spacious, comfortable,
and nicely appointed (too rich for our
blood) yet we still pay less than the average
rental for a one-bedroom apartment in the
U.S. Still, this makes us extremely wealthy The view of the Nile from our upper balcony is spectacular!
by Ugandan standards, a "stigma" we are
constantly aware of.
Continued on next page

Hackers For Charity, Inc | http://hackersforcharity.org | johnny@hackersforcharity.org

THE LONG JOURNEY TO AFRICA! PAGE 13

PERSONAL FINANCES

Living off of donations is difficult. Thankfully, one-time and

recurring donations to the "Long Journey to Africa" (see the
website) cover approximately 65% of our total living
expenses. This is great news, but every month we
struggle to find the remaining 35% of our
required expenses. So far, we have dipped into
our personal "nest egg", but unforeseen housing
expenses crept in and that money is gone. We'll
run into financial problems fairly soon, unless we
find more donors, or I manage to land some paid
speaking gigs (preferably in Europe or Africa).

THE HFC TRUCK

Our first month was a challenge without a

vehicle. Our Ugandan friends were very gracious
with their time and even loaned us a vehicle for a
short stretch, but we hated being a burden. So
after a long search, and lots of great advice from
local friends we found a vehicle that was durable The kids obviously hate it here.
enough to handle the rough terrain: a 1993
Toyota Prado Land Cruiser. We got a
good price on the vehicle but after
a good deal of maintenance (two
new tires, brakes, balancing, and
more) we found ourselves way over
our vehicle budget. This was the
right vehicle for us and it's already
proven to be a good choice over the
"all-wheel drive" cars, I just hope
we get less nervous about the (~
$12,000!) price tag over time.

Hackers For Charity, Inc | http://hackersforcharity.org | johnny@hackersforcharity.org

THE LONG JOURNEY TO AFRICA! PAGE 14

Trevor’s cat, Sim-sim, eats cockroaches. SWEEET!

King of th
e hill

The long road home

My first ever HFC office!

s as ever!
As good with kid

Joseph, our guard!

Dennis: our helper and friend.

Hackers For Charity, Inc | http://hackersforcharity.org | johnny@hackersforcharity.org