Presidential Ramblings

 

Issue 1.0

May 2003

 

DACS is organized like a corporation in that the membership elects a board of directors and then the directors elect the officers. At the April board meeting, all of the current DACS officers were re-elected which means that I get to be your president for another year. Now I don’t want this to sound like an Academy Awards acceptance speech, but I would like to thank the directors, the SIG leaders, our general meeting speakers and everyone who worked this past year to make DACS successful. This year’s accomplishments include:

  1. A new SIG concentrating on microprocessors.
  2. Revised the club bylaws to reflect current practice for director terms.
  3. Reviewed the club’s liability insurance.Added a disclaimer and changed the reprint policy for the newsletter and the web site.
  4. Implemented permanent email addresses for all club offices and personal email addresses for all officers and directors (e.g.: treasurer@dacs.org and bkeane@dacs.org).
  5. Found really great replacements for three directors who resigned or did not want to run for re-election.
  6. Many truly excellent home-grown general meeting presentations.
    These accomplishments don’t belong to me but to the many people who helped throughout the year.

Some goals that are still on the to-do list:

  • Reactivate the MAC SIG.
  • Start a gamers SIG.
  • Offer dacs.org email addresses to any member who wants one. Email would forward to the member’s “real” email address. This would make members independent of their ISP.
  • Implement some an online message board facility as part of our web site where members can network on topics from hardware and software to job postings by employers and recruiters.
  • Gradually move DACS toward a more business-like structure where jobs are spread out among more members giving more people a chance to participate and build our club.
    If any of these interest you, communicate!!!

Trenton Computer Festival

One of my favorite computer-related events of the year happens the first weekend in May. The Trenton Computer Festival (www.tcf-nj.org) dates back to 1976 and the very beginning of the personal computer industry. It isn’t even in Trenton anymore, but the outdoor flea market remains the most fun you can have shopping for computer bargains anywhere. Go early on Saturday for the most variety or go on Sunday and wait for the vendors to start giving stuff away rather than pack it up to take home. Either way you’ll have a blast. A couple of years ago the festival moved to the Raritan Convention Center in Edison, NJ—several exits closer and easier to get to. Here’s my big hint to enjoying TCF—I wear a backpack to carry my purchases. It leaves your hands free to play with more stuff!

Oh yes, there is also a regular indoor “computer fair” like the one at West Conn and elsewhere around the state, but TCF is much larger. With more vendors there is more competition and hence lower prices. And if you have time, there are educational conferences running all weekend. The talks range from how to back up your hard drive to “The Cognitive Question: Human and Computer Thought”. Trenton is an experience you just can’t miss.

Hardware Hacking

With the Microprocessor SIG off to a good start, is there interest in a SIG on hardware hacking? This would include such fun things as running Linux on a Microsoft X-box game machine, or adding a hard drive to an I-Opener to turn an Internet appliance into a complete PC. I’ve been toying (no play on words here!) with both projects and I’d like to hear from anyone with similar interests. If there is enough people respond this could become another SIG..

Rumors of “Anti-VPN” Laws

During Random Access at the April general meeting there was some brief discussion about laws that would prohibit the use of VPN (Virtual Private Network) technology on the Internet. I did a little searching on Google as I could not believe that TPTB (the powers that be) would allow the primary security tool (millions of dollars in savings) to become outlawed. Well, it seems that could be the side effect of a law in Michigan that is intended to protect the interests of service providers like cable companies. This law and similar legislation in other states seems to be aimed at activities that could be interpreted as “theft of services” or activities that could endanger the national security— take your pick. Some of these laws increase the penalties if encryption is used and thus apply to VPNs. It appears that plugging in a hardware router to protect your computer(s) from the bad guys may be a crime in some states that could put you in jail. How could this be when the FBI was just here telling us to protect ourselves and our families online? The increasingly broad language used in these bills (legislative attempts to stay ahead of new technology and the threat of terrorism) bans the use of NAT (network address translation) as a technique “to conceal… from any communication service provider ... the existence or place of origin or destination of any communication.” (Additional legalese removed for the sake of brevity.) [quoted from SlashDot.org]. I’ll include some links in the electronic version of this column on www.dacs.org.

These laws are the product of over zealous state legislators who want to “do something”. Unfortunately they (like Congress?) often don’t understand the ramifications of their actions when technology is involved. Unfortunately there is a group of “interests” who do understand the side effects of these laws and still encourage their enactment—Hollywood and the Music Industry. So we (yes, us) need to remain vigilant and write to our legislators and Congress people when these issues arise. Legislators and their staffs don’t take the time to understand the unintended effects these bills can have. We need to help them understand before the damage is done.

Jim Scheef
dacsprez@dacs.org


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