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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 110 responses total. |
davel
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response 50 of 110:
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Feb 3 17:10 UTC 1996 |
Roto-rooter, STeve.
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adbarr
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response 51 of 110:
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Feb 3 22:52 UTC 1996 |
<trying to be completely neutral:> STeve, is is really that simple? I think
there is much more to what staff does than just clean up problems. I have
never been "root" on a Unix system, but I understand the power of "supervisor"
on Netware. The authority carries profound responsibility, in my opinion.
I have seen predatory "supervisors". Is Unix different?
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mdw
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response 52 of 110:
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Feb 4 06:42 UTC 1996 |
Having root is a profound responsibility, & there certainly are
predatory "roots". That is why we've made every effort to recruit
non-predatory roots. That is also why we've made an effort to make a
distinction between having root & being on the board - we absolutely
don't want people thinking they can get root by campaigning to get onto
the board.
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rcurl
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response 53 of 110:
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Feb 4 08:21 UTC 1996 |
I have the opposite opinion from kerouac. I think it would be useful
to redefine "staff" to be everyone that has a named/defined volunteer
position with Grex, among whom are the subset with root for dealing
with matters that require root. This would then make *most* staff
member non-board members (though staff should still then have to right
to run for the board, as any member does). I would even go a little further,
a make the officers an "executive board" that are not members of the
board of directors....they really are staff (in the broadened sense)
since they work to maintain the functioning of Grex. This would have
one advantage (of several) that the officers and staff could work more
closely together without making it a "board matter". For example,
dealing with impersonations could be handled by staff and the "president"
together, as a public relations and policy matter within their
jurisdiction.
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janc
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response 54 of 110:
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Feb 4 20:13 UTC 1996 |
Yes, staff does decide how to handle incidents like the "morgayn" thing.
Staff is at the front line, dealing with problems day-to-day. The first
time someone complained of a forged account, we needed to find a sensible
thing to do, and we needed it fast. SRW came up with a solution consistant
with past practices, and the general philosophy that Grex has toward the
difficult issue of user identity on an unvalidated system. After he took
action, he informed staff and board via Email of what he had done and why
he had done it. If any board member had a problem, they could have said so,
and probably a discussion in coop would have been started to get a sense of
the users on how future incidents of this type should be handled. It might
even have eventually gone to a board vote with a real policy.
As it happens, everyone thought treating such incidents as "lost password"
cases made perfect sense. When the "morgayn" incident happened, we just
did the same thing again.
This works well. All bureaucracies work like this. You don't have written
policies to cover every possible circumstance. The people on the front have
to make judgement calls from time to time. If things go wrong, the bosses
may make some formal policy changes, but mostly a tradition of standard
solutions to common problems develops, helping to ensure uniformity and
fairness, but still leaving room for common sense and judgement in unusual
circumstances. More rules do not necessarily make a better bureaucracy.
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steve
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response 55 of 110:
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Feb 4 23:06 UTC 1996 |
Heh. More rules usually lead to more rules. If anyone doubts that
look at the federal bureaucracy.
Arnold, did Marcus and others answer your question? He is certainly
right that there are things that roots shouldn't do--I wasn't even thinking
along those lines. But for most things, we clean stuff up (Thanks Dave,
for the concept of roto-rooting!). The next major thing is essentially
building the sets in the theater and adjusting the lights for the
performers...
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janc
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response 56 of 110:
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Feb 5 05:59 UTC 1996 |
Well, this has kind of drifted.
Do we want a "garage" conference? I'd be willing to fw it. I'm not the fw
of anything.
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kerouac
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response 57 of 110:
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Feb 5 20:42 UTC 1996 |
One interesting point. I was reading the system information menu
last night, and under staff, it said "staff information unavailable"
Is there not a public file listing exactly which logins are on staff and
which have root? It seems like this information should be public,
even though anyone using grex for any length of time can get a pretty
good idea of who staff are. Would a complete listing of all logins
who have root and are on staff be a security risk? Is it somehow
safer to have a few "roots" that nobody knows about?
By the way, this is an important item and I think it ought to be linked
to the new coop so it doesnt die so quickly.
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robh
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response 58 of 110:
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Feb 5 23:03 UTC 1996 |
Actually, there is a command to do that, named (not surprisingly)
"staff". "board" shows you the current Board members. (Put a !
in front if yadda yadda yadda.) I'm genuinely surprised that
we don't have that available. Where did you find that, kerouac?
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kerouac
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response 59 of 110:
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Feb 5 23:59 UTC 1996 |
okay, !staff is excellent, it should be linked to the system info
menu under the staff heading. Or maybe only newusers and me (only
when Im bored) even read the menu screens)
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nephi
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response 60 of 110:
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Feb 7 07:19 UTC 1996 |
Co-op 7, Item 149 now linked to Co-op 8, Item 12.
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steve
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response 61 of 110:
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Feb 7 17:10 UTC 1996 |
So, are we going to try for the garage conference? I will help with
its administration, espically if there is a non-staff person willing to
do it too.
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rcurl
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response 62 of 110:
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Feb 7 18:35 UTC 1996 |
"Shop". Shoptalk is what you do there. Garagetalk?
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popcorn
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response 63 of 110:
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Feb 11 00:00 UTC 1996 |
Dunno how the menus got to be that way; I think the menus are older than the
"staff" command. I've changed that menu to run the "staff" command.
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popcorn
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response 64 of 110:
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Feb 11 00:02 UTC 1996 |
By the way -- I think the garage conference would be a fine idea.
It's sounding to me like it's OK with enough people that it's okay for
Davel or Scott, as cfadm, to go ahead and create the conference.
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scott
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response 65 of 110:
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Feb 11 00:53 UTC 1996 |
OK, I'm ready to create it. FW's will be janc and ???? Or somebody else?
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popcorn
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response 66 of 110:
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Feb 14 07:01 UTC 1996 |
I would think this would be fine with janc alone; no need for a second fw.
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janc
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response 67 of 110:
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Feb 14 17:07 UTC 1996 |
Since we don't have any other volunteer, I think we could start it that way.
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gregc
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response 68 of 110:
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Feb 16 08:24 UTC 1996 |
<sigh> I suppose this has to rank up there as one of the all time highs on
Grex in the "How Soon They Forget" Department:
In response #27 arthurp said:
"I suppose that since Wernher von Braun and Einstein had been
prominent in Rocket Science and Nuclear Theory for many years
before WWII, we should have not allowed them to help with the
Manhattan project? I shudder to think how many people wouldn't
be here now if they had not continued to contribute to stopping
the War."
Einstain may have helped, but when the Manhattan project was in full
swing, Wernher Von Braun was at Penemunde building V1 jets and V2 rockets
for Hitler. He was working for the OTHER side during that time period!
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yo
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response 69 of 110:
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Feb 16 10:26 UTC 1996 |
"lets see pass dat cpu down, wait hold on here this baby, yup we's got to move
to dah sun4" Steve your freindly garage mechanic, hanging in the dungeon.
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arianna
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response 70 of 110:
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Feb 26 22:16 UTC 1996 |
*laugh*
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kerouac
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response 71 of 110:
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May 7 02:38 UTC 1996 |
I just ran !staff and reading it, realized there are eleven roots now
(people with root access) This seems like an awfully high number of
roots...too many roots increases the likelihood of security problems. Has
staff ever considered limiting the number of roots? I wouldnt think,
unless grex was twice the size that it is, that it really needs four or five
people as actual roots.
Right now, of 12 staffers, only Nephi is non-root. I think it would be in
the interest of security if a few folks gave up root. It seems like
maybe half of staff could be root, and half non-root or something. Grex
probably has more roots than m-net right now!
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adbarr
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response 72 of 110:
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May 7 03:18 UTC 1996 |
Kerouac, relax. Michigan soil is ideal for growing roots. I have
great confidence in the judgment of the Grex staff/board on this question.
Grex roots teach people in high places about security issues. Frankly,
Grex probably has more serious volunteers than m-net, right now. M-net
needs to solve that problem. I have hope that they will. I would not
be too concerned about this, my friend.
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scg
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response 73 of 110:
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May 7 04:40 UTC 1996 |
Grex probably doesn't need that many root staffers, since not nearly as much
is breaking here as it was on the Sun 3, but there still is a fair amount of
stuff to be done. Since we've only got one root password, I don't think
having multiple roots diminishes security, as long as we trust those with root
not to try to break into the system. It does increase the number of people
who could screw something up, and makes communication among staff even more
important than it would be with a smaller number of people.
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arthurp
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response 74 of 110:
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May 7 07:35 UTC 1996 |
I doubt that any of the people on staff are out to screw the peple of grex
with their root access. Since these people are *volunteers* it takes several
of them to get the work done of one root at a *regular* site. I think things
are just fine. I like Ike, er I mean staff. ;)
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