| 09/13/94 RMIUG
Meeting Minutes - Cryptology Fest
The eighth meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet User's Group was held September
13, 1994. 100+ people were in attendance
Will Clurman MC'ed the meeting.
General administrivia issues and announcements
of interest were presented:
- Randy Holt presented the plan for the
October meeting. The plan is for the members
of RMIUG to relate their experiences to
others in the group in a "User Panel"
type discussion. The panel will address
questions formulated by other members
in the group. The questions and experiences
will relate to "Software Packages" people
use to leave their computer and enter
"cyberspace."
- There was a somewhat protracted discussion,
much to the chagrin to Alek, about the
traffic on the "rmiug-list." The executive
committee took an action item to address
the possibility of alternate lists and
will have an announcement within the week.
This culminated in splitting the Email
lists into the following:
- rmiug-announce (moderated list
for announcements only)
- rmiug-disucss (un-moderated list
for discussion)
A full summary of the details were
posted to rmiug-list on Friday 16 Sept.
Note also that the "auto-reply" generated
by sending an Email to rmiug@rmiug.org
contains more info on what was related
in Friday's post.
- Greg Remington exclaimed his thanks
about help he received in gaining information
about "manual production."
- There was a poll taken as to the number
of people that would be the "Boulder Writers
Association" if we did not have our meeting
on the second Tuesday and three people
raised their hands.
- Dave Eislor (eislor@ix.netcom.com)
is looking for people that use MS Windows
and may want some tools that he has developed.
Drop an email if interested.
- The LOGO contest is in full swing.
Submit entries to rmiug-comm and we will
present all candidates during the next
RMIUG meeting for a vote. This LOGO will
become the official RMIUG emblem and will
adorn our set of "virtual" golf clubs.
The cryptofest started with Will introducing
Duane Thompson (ak351@freenet.hsc. colorado.edu).
Duane began the heart of the meeting "Cryptology."
This was a short conversation mainly discussing
his past, found in the bio below, and introduced
the first guest Michael Johnson.
Mike (mpj@csn.org) began his talk
with a quick history if Cryptology. Caesar
coined the word crypt for his secret writing.
The method Caesar used was to shift the
alphabet by a single character, and since
there was few people that knew the alphabet,
this was an effective method of Cryptology.
Today's experts consider a 15 letter shift
of the alphabet elementary cryptology.
Mike went on to discuss cyphers, their
use and their benefits. He described a cipher
usuing a pair of rods the exact size. A
strip of paper was wrapped around one rod,
and a message was written on it. It was
unwrapped from the rod and given to the
message receiver. The paper, with what appeared
to have a series of unrelated characters,
was wrapped around the identically sized
rod making the message readable by the receiver.
Mike explained public and discrete keys
along with Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) public
key cryptosystem to help make passing of
keys harder to decrypt. Mike then discussed
the reasons for encryption and how people
need not feel intimidated when questioned
as to the need for encryption.
Mike dedicated the last portion of his
talk to Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption.
He explained the benefits, how people can
gain access to PGP and on what platforms
it was tested. To get a copy of PGP, for
American distribution only, you can use
the following addresses:
- Viacrypt (800)536-2664 -- Commercially
available
- BBS (303)772-1062 / (303)938-9654
- FTP net-dist.mit.edu / ftp.csn.net/mpj
dubois@csn.org) about our rights as
citizens. Philip is the "legal eagle" Phil
Zimmermann, the creator of PGP, turned to
when he discovered the "Federales" were beginning
an investigation based on the international
distribution of his encryption product. Philip
walked us through the debacle of the investigation,
starting with the innocent posting of a new
encryption system, and brought us up to date
with the current state of the case.
It is hard to do Philip justice as it
was sometimes his side comments that usually
caught the attention of the crowd. According
to Philip, it is these same comments that
judges find less than humorous and sometimes
get him in hot water in the courtroom.
Duane stood up at the end and apologized
for the absence of Mr. Zimmermann, as it
seems Phil had a date with CNN and a panel
on encryption. Duane indicated that Mr.
Zimmermann would make an appearance at a
later meeting. As I understand, this appearance
will be something to see as Phil is an interesting
and animated speaker.
Suggestions/comments/feedback are always
welcome - pls Email these to rmiug-comm@rmiug.org
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