The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group
In the Hot Seat
Dave Botherway
 daveb@melbpc.org.au

Besides running our User Group activities, your Management Committee has some extra obligations relating to our Internet Service Provider (ISP) role. Currently we are formulating some Internet and privacy policies, and welcome input from the membership on these matters. Let me share some of our thinking to date.

General Principles

  • We will uphold (and be seen to be upholding) both State and Federal laws.

  • We will protect the privacy of our User Group participants - be it membership details or information flowing through the ISP systems.

  • We will protect the reputation of Melbourne PC User Group, as a good ISP and a good corporate citizen.
Implications

While these principles seem fine, there are many conflicting issues and different scenarios as to how they might be implemented. As an example, the recent child pornography legislation calls on us to report (and remove) any Internet activity involving child pornography - with the legal requirement thus overriding the privacy principle. It may also force us to promptly judge on borderline cases on what is (or is not) child pornography. Similar conditions apply to content deemed offensive, under the Office of Film & Literature Classification (OFLC) regulations.

Occasionally we receive complaints where one of our members is seemingly the sender of SPAM e-mails. But, for many SPAM messages the sender address is often spoofed and/or the sending PC may have been hijacked; the report identifying the sender is then incorrect and investigation of these complaints often leads to a dead end. Conversely, where a member is sending many e-mail messages to multiple addresses (acting like a spammer), we run the risk that Melb PC could soon be blacklisted as a ISP permitting spammers - with degradation to all our E-mail traffic. We are experimenting with various methods and thresholds.

Complaints also arise regarding dubious activities such as port scanning - where an Internet user is "testing" multiple ports on target systems, looking for a non-obvious entry point. The activity can be intentional or caused by a virus or trojan and it's somewhat like walking down the street, testing every front door to find any that are unlocked. Such scanning is contrary to "netiquette" rules and we seek to minimize that type of activity, and preserve our good reputation.

One class that is difficult to handle is file sharing complaints, where members use programs such as KaZaa or eDonkey to share files. While these programs are in themselves completely legal, their use to offer copyrighted material such as music or software presents a number of issues - and a minefield for privacy and legal interpretation.

You can now see some of the conflicting issues that arise, and I welcome input from members who have strong thoughts on these matters.

NeverFail Protection

I mentioned this product last month, and testing so far has given mixed results as it failed the Format-C test. I suspect however, that it was never intended for the complexity of my "test bed", where I run multiple hard disks via a mobile rack with dual boot systems (Win98 / XP / Xandros). I am now looking to simplify the test bed for a more realistic evaluation, and welcome input from any others testing or using this "too-good-to-be-true" wonder.

New Member Orientation and Open House

As announced last month, we are continuing our Chadstone orientation session and office facilities tour, especially focussed on new members. The next session will be 9.00 am, Saturday 14 May. All members are invited, but so that we can plan for the numbers attending, we ask that you reserve a spot either by e-mail to
office@melbpc.org.au or phone the office at least a week earlier.

May Meeting - New Venue

For Our May 2005 meeting, we are trying a new location - the Burwood campus of Deakin University, where one of their larger tiered lecture theatres seems to offer better facilities than previous venues. Onsite parking is available at no charge after about 4.30 pm, and no doubt it will take time for us all to learn the site geography.

Besides the popular Q&A session, we will see a full demonstration of Xandros, a new Linux distribution (which I have already found to be surprisingly simple), and an update on the latest PDAs (Pocket PCs) from Hewlett Packard.

Overall, it promises to be a great night at a great venue. Note the start time - 7.00 pm, I suggest a 6.30 pm arrival to allow time to find our way around the new venue. I look forward to seeing you there, or at the follow-up WAFFLE session.

Reprinted from the May 2005 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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