Would You Open Your Home To a Hacker – For Free?

coondoggie writes "What do you get when you mix access to Google's ultra-fast fiber network and old fashioned grass roots business ideas? Well, in this case you'd get someone living on your couch for free for three months. This week a group calling itself the 'Kansas City Hacker Homes' launched a program that calls on the good folks of Kansas City to open up their homes to entrepreneurs and developers who would live and work there for a period of three months, rent and utility free. They have to buy their own food."

Not a very smart idea for the average homeowner

[timholman]

While I can admire the idealism behind this concept, from a practical viewpoint it leaves much to be desired.

For example, will Kansas City Hacker Homes bond and insure the hackers, so as to indemnify the homeowners against theft or lawsuits from their "guests"? Very doubtful, which means the burden falls on the homeowner (and his/her insurance policy).

What happens to the homeowner if the hacker decides to skirt the law (e.g. breaking into someone's network, taking drugs, or downloading copyrighted material) while living in the house? What if he runs up hundreds of dollars on your cable bill watching pay-per-view movies? How do you get your money back? Can you even evict him on the spot, or will local laws give him "squatter's rights" for a limited time, as they often do for non-paying renters?

You wouldn't really know anything about this person in your house, besides what he told you. Will Kansas City Hacker Homes provide you with a background check of the hacker's criminal and civil record? Again, highly unlikely.

So basically you're rolling the dice with some total stranger, taking all the risk, and with no promise of getting anything in return. Not a smart move for any homeowner.

Re:HAHAHAHA.....no

[timholman]

Also, what kind of startup are you doing where you need incredibly high download speeds? Seriously. There is nothing you could do which would be using such large files that this is an issue and be processable on a laptop.

Excellent point. Ultra-high bandwidth would certainly be useful for startups specializing in (for example) virtual / augmented reality applications, virtual environments, or remote sensing / control. But a guy sitting on your couch in his dirty underwear is not going to be doing stuff like that on his laptop.

On the other hand, there are many not-so-nice things he could do with that extra bandwidth, e.g. download/host lots of torrented movies/music/pr0n, manage attacks and exploits against remote systems, etc. And guess whose door the authorities will come knocking on if he chooses to do so?