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Tuesday, October 9, 2007
PDF Announcement
Download the Mp3 of the meeting
For our October meeting, we've got two awesome speakers lined up. Each an expert in their field. It should prove to be one of the best meetings yet. Read on for the details.
First Topic: Security
Our speaker is: David Schaefer
David will briefly discuss the scope of Information Assurance (IA), and how it relates to
our ever changing environment in Information Technologies (IT) and business. He will
lay down a foundation and stress the importance of how IA is all around us every day
and used to protect us, and our data. This will be a higher level presentation to point
out some of the various layers and obstacles we all need to look out for in order to
protect our data. David will then journey into the final frontier of host-based hardening
to discuss the common pitfalls and best practices that we can follow as hobbyists and
professionals in securing UNIX, and Microsoft Windows operating systems. During the
presentation, he will point out some free tools/procedures that can be used to help us
audit/benchmark, and lock down host-based systems to help your computers to live
long and prosperous lives while staying free of any bad cling-ons.
David Schaefer is a Desktop Support Supervisor at Oakland Community College. David
has over 9 years of experience in the education industry, and has held the roles from
Desktop Support Specialist to Network Information Systems Professional. David has an
MBA with a specialization of Information Assurance (IA) and a BBA with a concentration
in Computer Information Systems (CIS) from Walsh College.
Second Topic: DRM -- A Fiasco, Stuffed in a Debacle, and Wrapped up in a Blunder
Our speaker is: David J. Scholl
The Internet, as a collective machine composed of millions of
computers interconnected for high-speed data transfer, can copy and
distribute text, audio, and video on a scale that would have been
unimaginable even half a century ago. Thanks to this modern-day genie,
writers, musicians, and actors in even the narrowest of artistic
niches can maintain a world-wide fan base, making and distributing
digital copies of their work at negligible cost. Unfortunately, just
as wishes granted by genies in ancient fables had unintended
consequences, so too does this gift from the modern-day genie.
Copyright infringement, the making of an illegal copy of an artistic
work without payment to or permission from the owner, is now as easy
as a click-and-drag with a mouse. In fact, the ease and near-anonymity
of such copying has led to widespread tolerance toward copyright
infringement in our society. In response, the corporations who profit
from selling digital copies of artistic works are trying to use
technical measures known as Digital Rights Management (DRM) to put the
Internet genie halfway back into its bottle. The talk will review the
most spectacular DRM-related failure ever to occur in the recording
industry, the technical reasons why DRM has never worked and almost
certainly never will, and how the industry's current obsession with
DRM is actually hastening its deterioration in the entertainment
marketplace. Finally, there will be speculation about upcoming
developments in DRM, which might lead to either (unlikely) the
ultimate victory for DRM, or (probably) the end of DRM in our
lifetime.
Bio:
Dave Scholl holds a BA in Physics from Rice University, and an MA in
Chemistry from Stanford University. Mr. Scholl worked in Thin-film
physics at IBM Almaden Research Laboratory, and since 1991 has been at
Ford Scientific Research Laboratory working on surface physics,
nanotribology, combustion diagnostics, sound quality, and vehicle
emissions. He has been a Linux user since Red Hat 4.2, a decade ago,
and is an Open Source news junkie.
If you have topics for future meetings you would like us to cover please email the board, thanks.
Where:
The MUG meetings are held at:
Farmington Community Library - Main Branch
32737 W. 12 Mile Rd.
Farmington Hills, MI 48334-3302
Click here for a map of the area.
When:
the meetings are on the 2nd Tuesday of each month.
| 6:00pm | Doors open, registration | |
| 6:30pm | Meeting starts, Mug business |
| 6:45pm | Main presentation |
| 8:15pm | 2nd Presentation |
| 8:45pm | Meeting adjourns |
| 9:00pm | Dinner at a local establishment |
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Tuesday, November 13, 2007
PDF Announcement Flier
Main Topic: One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)
Ivan Krstić - Director of Security Architecture for the OLPC project
Ivan's Google Tech Talk from April 12, 2007
This month we have a fantastic opportunity to see what OLPC is all about from a member of the OLPC team.
Ivan is a software architect and researcher currently on leave from Harvard University. Prior to joining OLPC, he served as director of research at the Medical Informatics Laboratory at Zagreb Children's Hospital, developing software infrastructure for wide-scale digital healthcare. He is deeply involved in open-source and free software, notably as an administrator of the Ubuntu Server Team and co-author of the best-selling Official Ubuntu Book, and specializes in architecture and security of large distributed systems. He has consulted on both matters for some of the largest websites on the Internet.
Ivan will share with us insights into the OLPC project that you just can't get anywhere else. He's prepared to tell us about the technology, security, science and anything else we want to know about the project.
Ivan is traveling from Cambridge, MA to Detroit specifically to be at our meeting. This is our chance fill the auditorium and show Ivan how strong the open source community is in south east Michigan.
If you have topics for future meetings you would like us to cover please email the board, thanks.
Where:
The MUG meetings are held at:
Farmington Community Library - Main Branch
32737 W. 12 Mile Rd.
Farmington Hills, MI 48334-3302
Click here for a map of the area.
When:
the meetings are on the 2nd Tuesday of each month.
| 6:00pm | Doors open, registration | |
| 6:30pm | Meeting starts, Mug business |
| 6:45pm | Main presentation |
| 8:15pm | 2nd Presentation |
| 8:45pm | Meeting adjourns |
| 9:00pm | Dinner at a local establishment |
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