Board Present: TS, Kent, Ryan
Time: 2/23/2013 7pm Eastern
We have a quorum.  This was a teleconference meeting.

-Minutes from Dec 2012 meeting were approved.

-TS elected treasurer.

-The board agreed to wait to elect the other officers until there are
more board members present at the next meeting.

-TS said the 501c3 status was ok

-Kent said that the domains (grex.org, cyberspace.org) had been renewed 

-The Board reviewed the policy on user verification to see if a verified
PayPal payment for membership was sufficent.

-Discussed 2 member proposals (1- Make all validated users members, 2-
Modify (eliminate) term limits for board members)

-Discussion about board involvement

-Discussion on cleaning up the cyberspace Gmail group

-Discussion on gathering contact info for all current board members, to
ensure better attendance at meetings.

-Treasurer Report (TS):
Federal tax documents are in progress, but not complete yet.  TS is working on
it. State forms are up to date and not due until October.

-Kent suggested that we need to send a letter of acknowledgement to
people who donate large items.

Financial Report: 
Balances
TCF bank $  564.53 
Paypal   $ 1071.34
-----------------
Total    $ 1635.87

-Staff Report: (Kent)
-Grex is running pretty good - Been up 66 days
-No security break-ins
-Discussion about images on web pages (our FAQ says to link to images on
another site) -Discussion about possibly relaxing Robocop limits if we get new
hardware

-Next meeting to be April 13th, 2013, 7pm Eastern.

Adjourned 8:30p.

Regrets after the meeting: Jonathan (internet outage) and Andy (illness). 

-Ryan

31 responses total.

Images on web pages?  They've been allowed for years; whatever the FAQ says,
they work just fine.

There are potential issues with that, including legal ones.  The
reason about wasting space is probably no longer an issue, though.

*shrug*  If they were going to show up, I imagine they would have by now.

And you're sure they haven't? Are you monitoring user files?

resp:4 No.  But no one has complained about it, either...since like, 2007.

I don't expect we'll have any complaints right up until the moment the 
authorities ask to speak to the person in charge. ;-) Maybe things have 
changed enough that this is a non-issue.  

In the past it was thought Grex was an easy place to be anonymous.  
Between our low profile, minimal threshold for identification, proxy 
servers and such, anyone could keep whatever files they wanted here 
without a lot of blow-back if discovered.  Also, we have a policy of not 
monitoring the content of users' files. And to top it off, if we did 
have to answer to any law enforcement agency, we're on our own as we 
couldn't even afford the initial consultation with a good attorney.  We 
have to deal with most other files, but photos?  It was thought we 
didn't need that exposure, hence allowing links to digital images but 
those files couldn't live on Grex.

Now, if the Board is okay with this change, I'm okay too.  But the Board 
should know about it.

Beats me, man.  This isn't a change.  Well, it was six years ago, when it was
introduced.  So I'm not sure which non-problem we're trying to address here:
the one that hasn't been an issue for six years, or the other one that hasn't
been an issue for Grex's lifetime?

There is protection for GREX under the DMCA for user generated
and uploaded content.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/01/dmca-copyright-policies-staying-safe
-har
bors-while

I know I don't want to be part of any issue with the police, FBI, etc.
over images.  It's not that there is protection, per se, it's the amount
of time and money it takes to convince a court it's okay (even if the
EFF would ever jump in to defend us).

Sigh.  This hasn't been an issue for years.  Let me repeat, years.  Images
have worked on Grex since circa 2007 with not a peep out of, well, anyone.

Probably only because our user web pages are essentially a vast
wasteland.

So ... what do people want to do?  Go back to restricting images?  That seems
silly.

It seems to be a non-issue currently.  It could become an issue later.
As was said earlier, monitoring would be one thing to do, but nothing we
want to do.

More than likely, we'll hear about it from the authorities when they
come to investigate a crime (and not necessarily a DMCA take down
request, although that could occur, as well).  A lot depends on the
images that are posted and who (if anyone) notices.  Assuming no one
will notice or care is a risk for the corporation.

So I ask again, what do people want to do?  It hasn't been an issue for *six
years*.

I'd not allow 'em.  Our (few) volunteer board members don't deserve any 
additional risk. 

Resp:14 If they've not caused a problem for over half a decade, why make
a  change that will break some users' functionality, which has at best 
marginal benefits, to solve a very low-likelihood risk? Let images
remain,  and commit to complying with all lawful takedown orders. 

resp:15 You mean like the risk that hasn't been an issue for the last six
years?

resp:16 That too.  I personally think it is more important that
users have something they are actually interested in using than
that we may, again *may*, eventually get a take-down notice for an
image file.  Turning off a working service because of a microscopic
risk seems misguided to me.

I don't really understand all the excitement about images; Grex
never prohibited other types of media files (PDF, newer image and
video formats), or archive files (zip, tarballs, etc), or even
executable files (Windows .exe files and so on).  Any of them could
be used to hold content that might be "an issue"; probably more so
than images.  Should we prohibit users from hosting those, as well?

What happnens when people start hosting images wrapped in text
encodings?  Should we ban text files?  How about an HTML file with
embedded javascript that translates inline text-encoded data to an
image on the fly?  Should we ban Javascript?  How?  What about use
of the HTML5 canvas widget?  Should we ban HTML5?  How about banning
HTML in general?  If we're so worried about user content, why are
we allowing users to post content at all?  Why not just turn off
user web sites?

I'm serious: if we want to ban image files, what's the point of
letting users use the web server?  In 1993, that might have made
sense: images were big and expensive in terms of bandwidth, which
was something Grex didn't have a lot of.  In 2013, providing a "web
server" that doesn't let users host image files is just weird.

How do we know that users won't move content between Grex and other
sites using FTP, or some file transfer thing running over SSH?

Maybe we just shouldn't let users log in to Grex at all.

Resp:18 but haven't you noticed? The only functionality that counts is
the  Agora forum; anything else is only if it doesn't bother the
half-dozen  originals. When the Agora dies, they will take the server
offline. Or the  half-dozen originals will croak it, and their heirs
will have no idea what  Grex is, that it existed, or that they need to
pay the power and DSL for  it, and it will be unceremoniously cut off. 

There is always the risk that people read this and decided to see how
far they can push the situation.  "Watch me do this!  Are you going
to do anything about?"

I suspect the chance of anyone posting illegal photos or video here is 
small. Can the board be comfortable with a small risk?  I'd be happy to 
let them decide. 

There may already be illegal material present here.  I suspect there 
aren't a lot of off-the-map sites where it's possible to anonymously 
store and share images.  And, really, if we allow such image content the 
most we can say is we haven't become aware they are here, not that they 
aren't here. And yes, common carrier laws give us some protection, and 
our attorney will help us sort it all out.  You know, the attorney we 
have on retainer.

If we are vigilant, looking at files to check all is well, then we have 
an obligation to continuously monitor such activity.  Good luck with 
that.  

If we aren't checking then we are crossing fingers all is well.  Good 
luck with that too.

But we've had this discussion before.  I'm good with whatever the board 
decides but they really should come to a decision.

resp:20 Indeed.  So what's your solution, given that they can push the
limits with *any* postable content?

resp:21 Umm, didn't you post classified information a few agora's back just
to prove a point?

Yep, that same point was made by the NYT's and scads of other sites 
around the world. Good point, too.

resp:21 Mary doesn't think the VOLUNTEER BOARD MEMBERS deserve any 
additional risk. But volunteer system administrators deserve as much risk 
as is necessary for her to prove her "good point".

I don't know why Mary's opinion on anything involving Grex's governance 
should even be considered.

resp:24 So it's okay when you do it, but we should ban images, and only
images, because at some point some one may post something that ... what again?

Resp:#25  That's the way it works.  If you think my opinion is whacked you 
say so and/or feel free to disregard my comments.  I expect nothing else.

Resp:#26 There is a reason an all-text Playboy magazine has never caught 
on.  We disagree, Dan.  That's okay.  As I've said multiple times now - 
the board should decide this one.

resp:27 It's called the Penthouse Forum.

By all means keep posting.  You are the existence proof for how silly this
whole issue is.

  
conference call started .. it works

  
instant paypal balance == $1282.07  
  

(518) 649-9882 .... at (almost immediate) 'bleep' ... type  999 and you will
be involved 
  
TCF bank balance == $564.53

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