Minutes from Grex Board of Directors Meeting, September 26, 2006

Sep 27 04:02 UTC 2006

Grex Board of Directors Meeting: September 26, 2006

Board Members in Attendance: Mark Conger, Lynne Fremont, Joe Gelinas,
Bruce Howard (by phone), Larry Kestenbaum, John Remmers, and Jan Wolter.

Non Board Members in attendance: Steve Andre, Mary Remmers, Marcus
Watts, drew


OPENING GAVEL TAP

1. Treasurer s Report: 

In August we took in $240 and spent $150. We had two new members in
August. So far in September, we have taken in $680 mostly because one
user who has been a big donor in the past purchased a 10-year
membership. There are currently 52 members with 40 paid up. Mark passed
around some State of Michigan paperwork to be filled out by board
members with full names and addresses. 

2. Staff Report

We have had a lot of up time lately and mostly Grex has been up. There
are users who are using pearl and C programs to attack other sites. They
often use a program called UDP.PL. It is a program that works on port 80
to attack other sites. It may be necessary to disallow access on port
80. There also continue to be many attempts to break into Grex. We are
off the KVM at provide.net. We may want to consider getting a monitor
and keyboard to keep at provide.net After recent crash, Grex came up all
on its own or maybe with intervention from provide.net staff. 

3. Root-granting policy and staff initiatives

Steve reports that he was online and noticed that staff member mic was
editing a ulist so he went to staff.cf and discovered that user cross
was in the ulist for that conference. Then he saw that mic put cross in
the wheel so that cross could work on the password file. At that point
Steve took root access away from both mic and cross. Mic told Steve that
giving cross root access was something discussed in the garage.cf. 

The board generally agrees that the main issue is mic giving cross root
access when our policy is to give root only in emergencies

Mark Conger suggested that we should give mic root access back after
further clarifying the policy to him. Mark is pleased to see people
taking initiative. 

Some concerns were expressed about the risks involved with working on
the password files. Jan Wolter said that he believed that cross is very
capable and has the technical expertise to take on that task. However,
working on the password files is not an emergency. 

There was some discussion about what the board should do about this
situation. Generally the board wishes to encourage initiative but with
caution. The board reviewed the root policy and believes that the policy
is adequate as written. 

MOTION: The board values mic and his many contributions to Grex over the
years. The board appoints Mark Conger to discuss policy with mic. The
board gives Mark Conger the authority to re-enable mic s root access. 
Moved by Jan Wolter. Seconded by John Remmers. Passed unanimously

4. Old Business

The web contest has a winner. Since there was only one entry there will
be no vote. Slynne will announce winner in agora.cf and will email
samples of web pages to staff. A prize of one year s membership will be
awarded. 

5. Next Meeting - 8p Thursday, October 26 at Zingerman s or Mark
Conger s house if Zingerman s is unable to reserve a private room for us
or is not open late enough. 

6. New Business

Steve says that we recently had an attack on port 80 that caused
provide.net to take us off the network. Peter at provide.net told Steve
that he was able to stop the attack by black holing packets destined for
Grex. Staff are reviewing many different possible solutions to this
potential future problem. Steve is going to talk to John at provide.net
about this issue. He will also talk to him about some issues we have
with outbound access on port 80

There have been a lot of outbound attacks on port 80. We may have to
consider limiting access to port 80 either by eliminating all access to
newusers or limiting the number of outbound packets. 


Mark Conger read the following from coop item 364 response 28:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------ nharmon Nathan Harmon    response 28 of 41:
          Sep 25 19:53 EDT 2006

I just think that more and more people fall into this "I am just a
volunteer" mentality because of the present way staff is organized. And
this is usually helped by instituting order on a professional level so
that instead of being "just a volunteer" you become an "unpaid
professional".

I've volunteered in a lot of organizations, most of which simply did not
accept the answer of "look, I m just a volunteer". I mean, if my CAP
commander called for my availability for SAR sorties, what would I say..
"Gee Major, I don t really feel like flying today, uh, besides im justa
volunteer"? It'd be the last thing I said. Or when I was on a volunteer
fire fighter. Do you think those guys blew off their responsibility? No
way. Or when I taught CPR/First Aid/AED for the Red Cross...what if I
just said "nah, im just a volunteer, ill just not show up at that
class". Yes, you can fire a volunteer, and the Red Cross doesn't have
any problem with doing so.

Now you might say "Gee Nathan, thats different, we're just an
organization on the internet". And I say that is exactly the attitude
you should NOT have. Board of Directors, how many times do you sit down
and think "what is grex NOT doing to promote free speech and free access
on the internet that we COULD be doing right now?" I mean, looking at
the BoD minutes...(this is just my opinion, not trying to be
offensive)...the BoD spends WAAY too much time micromanaging Grex. I
mean, discussion of the PC weasel? You should be discussing
GOALS...planning on how you can better accomplish your mission
statement. Forming committees for initiatives. Need an
initiative?...here is one: What is Grex doing to help promote a neutral
internet?

I say you people need to THINK BIG. Not about becoming big in size, but
rather big in impact. Grex is supposed to be about much more than just
running a BBS.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Mark would like the board to consider this and perhaps spend some time
thinking about what we want Grex to be. What is the purpose of Grex? We
will discuss this at next meeting. 

CLOSING GAVEL TAP

response 2 of 61:

Sep 27 05:34 UTC 2006

Thanks for posting the minutes so quickly, Lynne.

I think the consensus of the board was that a staff member needs to be 
able to act in the best interests of Grex when he feels the system is 
threatened.

In the current case, the dust has now settled, and we can go about 
resolving the issue.  I have written to Mic about it, and we will sort it 
out.

response 4 of 61:

Sep 27 13:18 UTC 2006

If STeve had pulled cross' access, explained why to mic, and asked mic
not to re-extend that access without discussion, and if mic had been
intransigent about it, I would understand STeve's action in pulling
mic's access. It is a judgement STeve had to make about the threat to
Grex.  I think policy is a good guide to judgement in just such a
situation, and there is no policy that says basically "because we have
set up a system to very carefully select trustworthy persons to be
staff, do not revoke another staff member's access unless they are doing
something immediately harmful to Grex which can only be stopped by
removal of that access, or if they otherwise demonstrate that they have
gained staff privileges under false pretenses and harbor ill intent
towards Grex.  Also, in the event staff privileges are revoked in a
judgement call, should that judgement be shown to be either incorrect or
over-harsh, privileges should be restored as soon as possible in order
to retain the good will of all of the qualified volunteers of whom we
have asked service in a staff capacity."

response 6 of 61:

Sep 27 15:09 UTC 2006

I would sure like to see everyone take a break from this issue for a few
days.  Maybe it'll settle down a bit and everyone can treat it in a more
reasonable manner.  It seems to me like a series of overreactions, with
each person pushing things just a little further away from where they
should be.

I am happy Mark will be talking with Mic about what happened.  I expect
and hope he'll be able to smooth things over with Mic.

This all seems to me like an electronic pushing match between Dan and
STeve, more than anything.  Personally I respect and admire both of
these gentlemen.  I wish they felt that way about each other.

There is one discussion which has happened in 3 items now that I know
of, and maybe a couple more that I haven't been following.  That's not a
good way to get a reasonable settlement for a disagreement.

response 8 of 61:

Sep 27 17:37 UTC 2006

> I think it was a cop-out to ignore the fact that STeve yanked mic's 
> access without explanation

cronyism.....pure and simple.

response 10 of 61:

Sep 27 20:47 UTC 2006

I was not treated perfectly, but the world is not a perfect place (and I 
am far from perfect).  

STeve: if you can apologise, it would be appreciated - I believe your 
intentions were not sinister, but I did not appreciate your rashness 
(and, more so, lack of communication since the episode).  

Nevetheless, I'm not going to resign either way.  We all make mistakes, 
and can learn from them.  At the end of the day, if we care about Grex we 
will cooperate better as a team - this includes following procedure, 
encouraging initiative (within reasonable parameters), and interacting 
more civally and respectfully.

response 12 of 61:

Sep 27 22:09 UTC 2006

Regarding #5; The membership explicitly requested that Steve pulling Mic's
access be on the agenda.  I'm very disappointed that it wasn't really
addressed, paricularly since it wasn't immediately restored.

If Steve truly felt that grex was in danger, then he surely did the right
thing in the moment.  But then it surely became clear that the immediate
cause of the incident was a communication breakdown and a difference of
policy interpretation and not any malicious intent.  It is clear Mic
wouldn't have done the same thing again.  Now, the board has met and agreed
on an interpretation of the policy which clearly implies that both Mic and
myself were wrong with our interpretations.  (I do wish they'd update the
language a bit to be more explicit, but hey, you can't win 'em all.)  But no
where in this fiasco has *anyone* thought that anyone else was acting
maliciously, trying to hurt the system, or doing *anything* permanently
damaging.  Well, maybe that was Steve's initial reaction, but I hope he
quickly came to see that that wasn't the case.  Why, then, the delay?  This
is what has come to concern me more than anything else at this point.  And
actually, it's not even really about this episode: it's about the lack of a
generic policy around this matter.  If someone gets confused and sees
someone installing a new version of emacs, are they going to cut off their
access until the next board meeting?  I certainly hope not!

If Mic felt that Steve was purposely damaging the system, then yes, he'd be
justified in yanking his access.  If after the evidence was presented it was
clear that Mic had been wrong, then surely Steve's access should be
restored.  Any delay in that would be an insult.

I don't believe a hierarchy is necessary, and I certainly don't believe one
is desirable.  A liason position along the lines of that posed by eprom and
nharmon might not be a bad idea, but is somewhat different.  Certainly, a
policy along the lines of what Eric was proposing cannot but be a good
thing.

Regarding #6; I have plenty of respect and admiration for Steve.  I thought
I'd made that clear since this incident happened.  I just think he was
wrong.  It's nothig personal.  I do think Todd is right that it's a bit of a
cop-out not to discuss Steve's actions.

Besides, I'd say this episode is almost over.  But I do feel strongly that
the issue of when and under what circumstances staff can revoke the access
of other staff needs to be addressed.

Regarding #9; I agree.

Regarding #10; You are a bigger man than I.  I quit staff because I felt
insulted by a board member who makes little bones about having a personal
dislike for me.

response 14 of 61:

Sep 28 04:56 UTC 2006

Mic's access to root will be restored momentarily.

Dan: The delay in responding was because the board meeting was scheduled for
Tuesday, adn it was a lot easier to sort out what to do then.  So we waited
a couple of days until the meeting.

response 16 of 61:

Sep 28 08:50 UTC 2006

Mic wasn't aware of that..... but, Mic's not focusing on the rather poor 
handling of that historical episode.

response 18 of 61:

Sep 28 13:08 UTC 2006

Root the ones you love.

response 20 of 61:

Sep 28 18:44 UTC 2006

Root wart

response 22 of 61:

Sep 29 00:18 UTC 2006

A round of root beer for everyone!

response 24 of 61:

Oct 6 20:52 UTC 2006

re resp:12:
Dan said:

---
Regarding #5; The membership explicitly requested that Steve pulling Mic's
access be on the agenda.  I'm very disappointed that it wasn't really
addressed, paricularly since it wasn't immediately restored.
---

Ahem.  "The membership" speaks only through elections or user
initiatives.  Say "a member explicitly requested..." or "a couple of
members requested..." and that statement becomes accurate.  Otherwise
you have no right to speak for "the membership".  The Board does that.