04/09/96 RMIUG Meeting Minutes - Web Fest '96

The 25th meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet User Group started as 7:00 with Dan Murray as moderator. There were between 100-125 people in attendance.

Dan first introduced Alek Komarnitsky. Alek showed the Taco Bell full page ad in the Wall Street Journal from April 1st, showing how Taco Bell was buying the Liberty Bell and renaming it the "Liberty Taco Bell" Alek mentioned how the Internet has a long history of April Fools Pranks (ex: The April 1st, 1984 annoncement about "kremvax" joining the Internet) and hoped that everyone enjoyed our good-natured posting.

Carroll Blend, the RMIUG librarian, announced the availability of books and solicited ideas on how to be books back which have been loaned out earlier. Anyone with ideas should contact Carroll at cblend@tde.com.

Dan performed the normal audience survey, with the following results:

• about 1/2 the people were there for the first time
• all were using the world-wide-web
• most were using NetScape 2.0 or newer
• some indicated they were impacted by hackers on the net
• a fair number were shopping on the net
• a slightly fewer number actually bought something on the net
• a larger number indicated they will use credit cards on the net

Some announcements from the floor:

Phil Dubois, a lawyer who previously represented Phil Zimmerman of PGP fame and who spoke earlier at the RMIUG, is now representing Eric Robinson on the issue of retaining domain names. Robinson has had the domain clue.com and it is being retracted by the InterNic and given to a large board game manufacturer. Phil asked for anyone who has experience or expertice in this area to contact him at dubois@dubois.com.

Tom Westermann, RMII, is looking for a sales associate to market Internet services in Boulder. Contact him at jobs@rmii.net.

Al Gardner of E. Central, an ISP in Denver, is setting up an on-line community for denver at www.ecentral.com and is offering discounts for web developers from the RMIUG. Contact him at alf@ecentral.com.

Barbara Zigman announced an "Internet Security" seminar at the Sun Office in Englewood on April 23rd at 7:30 am. Contact her at bzigman@virtual.com.

Randall, a volunteer with KVDI Channel 12, explained there would be an Internet Day during the pledge drive. He will be looking for volunteers to help on the phone bank for a 5 hour shift. He will have more information upcoming. Contact him at lightbnder@aol.com.

Jay Wiser offered free copies of a new Windows product which can be used to replace Program Manager on the desktop.

Spike Ilacqua of Indra's Net now has ISDN connections available and operating. Contact him at ISDN@indra.com.

The evening's speaker was Greg Ching (greg.ching@sun.com) who works with SunSoft, the software subsidiary of Sun MicroSystems.

Greg discussed some of the issues related to Internet Security, where companies are interested in participating in the Internet, but are concerned about the risks associated with being online. He referenced security items ranging from evaluating the risks, looking at potential loss of customers, revenue or confidential data; assessing the potentials for theft of data; or opening up the risk of "corporate" sabotage. Greg emphasized the need for a corporate security policy, putting it as the foundation for implementing levels of security: access control, authentication, privacy and audits.

Greg next spoke about 4 Sun Security products:

• Solstice FireWall-1
• NetScape Proxy Server for Solaris
• Solstice SunScreen
• NetScape Commerce Server for Solaris.

He discussed in some detail the Solstice FireWall product which provides a GUI interface for implementing a corporate-wide security policy. The OEM software product focuses on using hardware authentication and compartmentalizes applications, building "fire ridges" between departments. He showed samples of the user interface and how it could be used to handle IP address translation for authentication. He commented on how it could be used to implement Virtual Private Networks, over leased lines, with ISP encrypting packets going to other ISPs.

Greg also review the three other Sun products, describing their function for serving web pages (NetScape Proxy Server for Solaris), hardware firewall turnkey solutions (Solstice SunScreen) and managing secure web applications (NetScape Commerce Server for Solaris.)

The meeting adjourned at 9:00.

RMIUG wishes to thank Internet One of Boulder for sponsoring the refreshments, NIST for the use of their meeting room, and XOR Network Engineering for maintenance of RMIUG's WWW site and email lists.

Suggestions/comments/feedback are always welcome - please email these to rmiug-comm@rmiug.org.

RMIUG has 3 email lists for its members. Send an Email to rmiug@rmiug.org for an auto-reply message with more information or check out our Web Site at http://www.rmiug.org/rmiug/