Minutes of the SIPB Meeting of 03/10/97 The meeting was called to order at 19:30.03 by kretch. In attendance were Voting members: nathanw, foley, pipa, gutnik, yoav, fubob, jmmikkel, klmitch, beaners, jered, amu, sit, amsmith, dkk, fastcart, djib, nygren Associate members: ghudson, mhpowers, mycroft, jweiss, marc, eichin, jis, jhawk Non-voting members: Prospectives: jmorzins, jfmurphy, cmceniry, jdaniel, sjens, tivol Guests: thomas@gnu, Martyn Peck(cc001227@mindspring.com) Treasurer's Report: sit: I am here. Chairman's Report: kretch: Discussing 575A machine room movement. Wants Sipb to be communications between IS and student Body. Set up meeting next week with Jim Bruce to make SIPB become a communications point. Cite fishbowl as reason why. ghudson: Administration does solicit student body on smaller scale, but error on Fishbowl due to advisory committee not meeting. Administration might have own ideas about this. sit: Want us to solicit opinion of student body? kretch: cites polls and web site for information. jis: IS not responsible for removal of fishbowl. Explains miscommunications between planning office and IS. ghudson: Want to talk to Jim Bruce because he gets information first. In position to make things public before final. jis: Suggests Ross Williams. thomas: In addition to formal channels, go to informal channels as well. Second front of attack, stress role of advisory committees. Can cause pressure on the Institute. amsmith: Suggests new office/duty to deal with this relation proposed. ghudson: Supports chair talking to Jim Bruce. On related note, there is advisory committee on build 37 issue, talk to sly. SIPB might want to be represented. thomas: Suggest filter person (representative) should not be employee of IS. jis: Representing for Registrar's Office, to talk about online registration for next term. Registrar's Office wants student input, because students are mad about Fishbowl. Wants to ask SIPB on behalf of Registrar's Office about student input. Passwords for registering like extra password for SAS. Wnat to use secure Web server, proposed certificates to run on server as secure as Kerberos. Should we have two, one secure one insecure. How does SIPB feel about having one certificate, server is running as of three hours ago. Asks for name passwd and MIT id, to get certificate. What if people dont want someone to know Kerberos ticket? Check box, check if you want to use secure password to get certificates. https://bozo.mit.edu/cert.html to see idea. thomas: What is reason for not using kerberos passwords? Wanted WEB interface. kretch: Needed separate password for grades to it make more secure. jis: Wanted to make sure noone could get grades with regular kerberos tickets. mhpower: Use on any web browser? jis: Just Netscape Navigator. Don't want to support every client, therefore decided to use WEB (universal). As far as Security, Navigator has sufficient encryption to deal with passwords. jered: AFS is not encrypted. jis: Documentss urge people to set up password on certificates. jered: point on checkbox... what if someone get to it first; can I revoke previous certificates when change password jis: Not built in but not inconcievable to be done. jered: stressed importance. beaners: Issue of someone getting there first, and checking the box, others can get your grades. nathanw: Is there documentation on this that we can use? jis: Will write something up. What email list should this be send to? yonah: Send to sipb-members. kretch: May need to create new list. Office Report: jweiss: I talked with jane about bying new coatracks (we now have 1.5). I don't remember prices, but they're in the $150-$200 range, but we'll probably get a bit of a discount. I might be off by a factor of 2. If people are interested, they should talk to me. fastcart: I don't understand why we need coatracks if we can use the back of our chairs [various comments] ghudson: The MCC couldn't fill the sparc memory upgrade order w/o doubling the price on memory. I ordered third party memory from Falcon instead. MIT Computing Report: jis: Increasing pressure in MIT because people expect to get MIT homepage at www.mit.edu. Discussion has been that SIPB does www and IS runs web. People have problems that a student group has www not the Institute. Need to merge two serves... but don't want to break URL's. Pressure point is the page that you get. Told to take name away but refused. If we leave things the way they are, this will eentually happen, and explaining that URL's will break will not have affect. Propose to aviod this by dealing with this now. Perhaps right thing to do is have www root page be identical to web.mit.edu. To aviod confusion. Already have sipb.mit.edu might want to make sipb-www.mit.edu to work. Instead of waiting to inevitable. marc: How would they react to the SIPB asking if MIT front door can be less stuffy? ghudson: Inappropriate to discuss this without webmasters. mkgray does not want to change scheme. Interaction with MIT administration cannot turn into a shouting match. jis: Not expecting vote. Wanted to present this in person. This is something that the organization needs to decide. There is no person plotting this now, but many think it is inappropriate. Situation not sustainable. www.mit.edu needs to go to the front door of MIT. jered: Can mail be sent out to the SIPB that was sent to webmasters? krecth: Should do mail to sipb-members and may move to other list at a later date. mhpowers: Approves of idea, wants to talk to mkgray. Thinks that some developments on web would assume that this problem might go away on its own. pipa: Contact me about using OLCR as a volunteer and/or consultant. kretch: You should be interested in being a volunteer consultant. Computer Services: mhpower: Email sent by professor wanting software to be installed in sipb locker. Suggests someone to volunteer to do it or we should decide that this is too much work to do. Need to respond either way. kretch: In terms of maitenence course locker might be more appropriate. nygren: SIPB locker not right place to install personal requests. If we start responding to software instaling, we can get more requests, which would assume support for the software we install. beaners: We have done this before. course specific software is not appropriate, but if it is generally useful software, than might be reasonable for us to support. nathanw: Agree with beaners about programs. We need to make clear the level of support. Make a point of directing them to faculty liasons if want support. SIPB Backup Report: amsmith: Objection to do occasional backups on SIPB drive for ATIC lab? kretch: You can use it as long as someone else isn't doing a SIPB related backup. ghuson: The policy is on the tapedrive. beaners: Wasn't there an attempt to discourage users to make regular backups? kretch: It is a user service just like the scanner. yonah: AFS is happening now. ghudson: There are problems with backup software; Sam plans working on them tomorrow. sit: anxiety-closet was done. Populating service backups locker. Publications Report: jhawk: We are out of Inessentail Linux-Athena and Inessentail Zephyr onesheets and Inessential matlab. Move to approve $20.00 worth of Inessential matlab. [Seconded. White balloted.] amsmith: Writing document about what Atic Lab is, wonders if SIPB wants to have copies here. R/O Report: ()' IAP Report: ()' CokeComm Report: amsmith: We have coke. Cokecomm might want to by handtruck to cart soda. Wondering if can be stored in office. jhawk: What about using the APO cart? amsmith: It is a hassle to get that due to availability and other people using it. kretch: Depends on size, we need to see it it will be too big to put in office. Other: sit: There is meeting tomorrow involving Pilot PDA in 3-133. mhpower: Late last week two students announce a security hole in Internet Explorer. kretch: I will be attending the ASA meeting tomorrow. jhawk: Draft released as red manifesto. Other Other: fastcart: Return of Jedi will be in theatres on Friday. mycroft: Ralph Opie passed away last week. Flame about Laverde's, rotten food. jered: Internet graph is now existing. fastcart: Selling CD player. monty: (via kretch) email message...needing developers and other people for full time and summer internships. jhawk: Gencomm is happening in rm 491. The meeting was adjourned at 8:20. Minutes taken and submitted by pipa.