Show me the Money

[Kurt Cockrum]

In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.96.990126221219.23520A-100000 at scn>

James said:
>[...]
>	Another matter of concern was the treatment of volunteers.  In the
>	past few year, we have had an excellent selection of volunteer
>	committees.
>	A committee that was really comes to mind, as far as excellence, was
>	the fund-raising committee.  They were very competent, and these
>	highly skilled volunteers drafted an exciting fund-raising proposal,
>	presented it to the board to have it disappointingly dismissed.  After this discouragement, the committee disbanded.
>[...]

I don't know why this spammish-looking thing was cc'ed to hardware and
me, but here's what *my* money (only 2 copper-plated zinc slugs) looks
like:

I've heard 2nd-hand rumors of this before, over the years.  The
overwhelming impression I've gotten was that they were a bunch of
high-flying thin-skinned prima-donnas who weren't willing to
participate in the essentially iterative fine-tuning process, but
instead flounced off in a high dudgeon after the first round, when
their proposal didn't get the reception they were hoping for.  This
makes me think they weren't really interested in the proposal per se,
but were fishing for kudos and strokes, and left when it became
apparent this wasn't immediately forthcoming, i. e. they were really
spoiled brats.  In turn, this makes me think that their departure
might've really been a Good Thing.  But maybe that's just me
Being Negative(TM) :) .

If there were/are really any merits to the proposal, well, maybe it
could be flown by the SCNA BOD once more.  After all, there's a whole
new set of incumbents, right?  Of course, somebody kept a copy of the
content, right? :)

James' .sig caught my eye:
>[...]
>PGP = Pretty Good Privacy    Coming Soon.
>jamesr at scn.org               scn.org=Seattle community network

I sure hope you've read the PGP FAQ's on the topic of storing private
keys on multi-user computers.  If you are serious about privacy and
security, you must realize there's NO WAY a private key is going to
STAY private on a public-access multi-user computer.  There doesn't
seem to be a pgp executable in the usual scn PATHs, so I assume that
hasn't yet been done.  Good.

Keep the private key on YOUR MACHINE ONLY.  Actually, it should be kept
on a floppy, not ON the machine.  And use a "wipe" program after using
PGP.  The PGP docs tell how to do this.  Of course, only you know how
much security you need.  But it's imperative that YOU do all your
homework, if you want to get the most out of PGP.  Otherwise, you may
as well use rot13.  It's best if you build from source rather than run
pre-packaged executables.  And follow the instructions to ensure that
you have an authentic copy of PGP and not just an unofficial CALEA
implementation :) .

Ordinarily I wouldn't say so much about this, but things seem to be
getting so demand-driven these days that it seems nearly obligatory,
sorry :( .
--kurt
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *  From the Listowner  * * * * * * * * * * * *
.	To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to:
majordomo at scn.org		In the body of the message, type:
unsubscribe scn
==== Messages posted on this list are also available on the web at: ====
* * * * * * *     http://www.scn.org/volunteers/scn-l/     * * * * * * *