Minutes of the SIPB Meeting of 11/30/1998 The meeting was called to order at 19:30 by elliot. In attendance were Voting members: elliot, hartmans, sepherke, nathanw, jfmurphy, amu, sly Associate members: rjbarbal, eichen, marc, mhpower, kcr, jhawk | jis Non-voting members: Prospectives: locutus, ocschwar, ansbergc, golem, lyudmila, justom, cfox, zacheiss, lockhart, int18, devnull, gamache, eniels | belmonte Guests: Treasurer's Report: nathanw: About as much money as last week. In the operating budget about $9500; we have other money in other categories. Network fees do not come out of the $9500. Chairman's Report: zacheiss: About two weeks ago, I left myself logged in on mkc. The next day I sshed to a machine in e40 and some zephyrs popped up. Later next week kcr noticed my finger information had changed. Someone had used my sms bits, tried to change things. They then logged in as root on the console, deleted wtmp and messages. This was Nov 15. jhawk: Is jis's presence coincidental? [no] elliot: I would like it if the person or member responsible for this came to me and talked to me about it. This is really disappointing and troubling. Whoever did this should really think about what they've done and come see me. Keeping quiet about it just makes SIPB look bad. marc: I am not that person. I would be concerned if I were that person and came forward about potential consequences. elliot: If someone comes to me and talks to me, I will not give out their name. If I know their situation, I can talk to IS or the EC. What happens depends on the person's circumstances and how they feel. I will not give out the name without permission. kcr: As a SIPB member. If I found out who they were, I wouldn't suggest more than handing them a wrist rest if they understood why what they did was wrong. elliot: At the least I would like a written apology. Perhaps they would feel doing more would be important. zacheiss: I left at the same time that kcr and jweiss did; mycroft was the only person here when I left. mhpower: Do you think it could be conceivable that the names of the Moira entries could be revealed privately, as that might help identify who was involved. elliot: Lots of things could happen to track this down, but would rather wait and see if someone comes forward. marc: Why did this take so long to get back to SIPB? kcr: We noticed and sent mail, but not time to decide what to do before last Monday. zacheiss: We didn't know about Moira until about last week. rjbarbal: Any reason to think other accounts were compromised? zacheiss: Not really. kcr: If only zacheiss's bits were compromised and only zacheiss's bits used, then no logs could be changed. jis: jweiss and I have been discussing our position. At this point we don't have a formal position. I'm not prepared to tell you what IS's position is. I will tell you how we feel. We feel that the SIPB is an organization and as individuals that we could generally trust. This event demonstrates that maybe the organization is allowing people to become members or have access to the office who cannot be trusted or do not exhibit good judgment. We want a demonstration that this trust was not misplaced. We may want to know who did it. I work with the COD from time to time. The COD has given out severe punishment for similar behavior in the past. Someone did something they shouldn't have done; they should come forward and face consequences. We want this trust not to be misplaced. hartmans: What should SIPB do? jis: I think this kind of behavior should not be tolerated. If they come forward and admit a clear lack of judgment, that's one thing. The organization should not have tolerance for this type of thing. If the person could not convey that they are not going to do it again, the organization should think about throwing the person out. You might argue that they didn't do a lot of damage. If zacheiss had more access, then the situation would have been worse. [jis also hinted that some of the commands that were executed would have been malicious had they been successful; don't remember exact wording.] hartmans: Should SIPB do anything to help with the investigation? jis: If no one comes forward, there is an issue about how to deal with investigation. I'm really hoping the person comes forward. marc: Can you [elliot] send out mail to sipb-office? [He will.] Office Report: marc: Has anyone looked at chair prices yet? amu: I looked a bit online. Possibly in the $300 range for Steelcase. jhawk: Lately people were re-grumbling about the lack of a couch, and ghudson has offered his love seat/ comfy chair, I move that we accept. kcr: It's not clear to me that we ever had room for a couch. hartmans: I'm not sure that a comfy chair would really satisfy our needs. amu: It's not clear that anything called a love seat would help SIPB's image. rjbarbal: If people are really interested in having a couch, they should be unlame about researching pricing. I object to getting this by default. jhawk: I think that having somewhere to read is useful. A chair doesn't serve al the purposes as a couch, but better than nothing. I think it is a fine interim phase; I think the chair is in good shape. kcr: I believe that the chair is very new and in good condition. mhpower: I think it would fit right here. marc: We could try to take it on a 30 day trial basis. jhawk: I think ghudson was always willing to take it back. rjbarbal: Given how lame people have been about getting a couch, I think they will be even more unlame about getting rid of one. [Motion passes 7-5-4.] [It was unclear to the secretary and perhaps others that jhawk was moving to get the love seat not the chair. As such, I was not careful to distinguish when people were referring to the love seat, and when they were referring to the chair. I certainly referred to the chair; jhawk to the love seat--YMMV with others.] rjbarbal: I move that ghudson's thing be automatically removed by the end of the first week in January unless we have a concrete proposal for a permanent couch. [second by kcr] jhawk: Two practical considerations. First, I'm not sure that xiphmont's services are available to install automatic couch removal. Secondly, there aren't many people around the first week in January. jdaniel: Your phrasing suggests that the [minisofa] would not be a permanent solution we should consider adopting. rjbarbal: I will deal with removal myself if I have to. I think keeping the love seat thing on a permanent basis should be fine if we decide to do so. I don't want us getting stuck with a couch that we don't really want. jis: The motion is a bad idea because what will happen is that if someone forgets to make the motion to keep, you may encounter pissed off people. [Motion fails 2-9-5.] Office Cleaning Report: sly: I was in the office again and people are leaving half-empty bottles around. Stop it! jhawk: There was some cleaning Friday. Despite Rose's efforts, the office is not being regularly vacuumed. I nominate elliot to send her mail. MIT Computing Report: jhawk: 18.3.0.2 has a name. Computer Services: zacheiss: I installed lyx and a new xmcd in outland. Mail was sent to bug-outland. I'm working on an Irix wrapper for xmcd. jered: I installed Shockwave Flash plugin for Linux and Solaris. sly: I added the rest of the webmasters. SIPB Backup Report: marc: kretch thinks AFS is happening. jweiss did many backups. Publications Report: kcr thinks we are OK. Orientation Report: marc: There are orange things all over campus. IAP Report: belmonte: Still looking for anyone interested in helping with CCC. CokeComm Report: jhawk: We have lots of stuff. Other: mhpower: There was a message about minutes and y2k compliance. Objections to symlinks from old names? hartmans: Show something breaks first, please. Other Other: jered: sly is not a piece of wood. rjbarbal: xiphmont is engaged. elliot: I have 76lbs of RadioLAN equipment in my office. elliot: I may be looking to hire a UROP to do some network-research related coding, and other hacking. jhawk: xcb's keyboard is still sticky. The meeting was adjourned at 20:09. Minutes taken and submitted by hartmans.