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Past UMLUG Meetings

When: Wednesday, October 28
Where: Angell Hall, Classroom 444B (In the fishbowl)
Topic: Re-submitting the constitution
Details: We will change and submit the constitution and start planning future meetings.


When: Wednesday, March 28th, 6pm - 8pm
Where: 1003 EECS (1st floor of the EECS building)
Topic: Snoopy
Details: Marius Eriksen will give a talk titled "snoopy: past, present and future". As part of a greater conspiracy, Marius and one of his friends created Snoopy, a ridiculously simple piece of software that can have ridiculously large side effects. Snoopy is a basic command logger that exists in userspace. It reveals large weak points of any shared-library based Unix-like system. From the inspiration of Snoopy, Marius continues his research in the area of computer security; in particular, he is currently working on a process inspection system designed to counter things like Snoopy. Attend this talk for an eye-opener.


When: Wednesday, March 14th, 6pm - 8pm
Where: 1003 EECS (1st floor of the EECS building)
Topic: Public key cryptography and RSA
Details: Bruce Fields will give a talk on public key cryptography and RSA, explaining the connection between number theory, cryptography, and on-line security. By the end of the talk, you will finally understand what the big deal is about factoring large integers. Some connection will be made with tools commonly used under Linux, but this will not be a practical security talk; rather, it will be an elementary introduction to some of the mathematics that these tools use under the hood. Bring a laptop with Perl and an ethernet card, if you can.


When: February 21st, 6 pm - 8 pm
Where: 3427 EECS (3rd floor of the EECS building)
Topic: We will hold the ESR discussion that was planned for last week, please see below


When: February 7, 2001, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Where: 1005 EECS Building
Topic: The Cathedral, the Bazaar, and Beyond: the Writings of Eric Raymond
Details: Read below

Eric S. Raymond has written a number of influential papers on the "open source" movement, including the four below which provided the material for his January 18th talk at the university (audio files of which are available from our News page):

The Cathedral and the Bazaar
Homesteading the Noosphere
The Magic Cauldron
The Revenge of the Hackers

We will discuss these papers, with a particular focus on the third. To promote the best possible discussion, anyone attending should have read at least "The Magic Cauldron". (All four papers are interesting and well-written, so this shouldn't be a great burden.)

People looking for further background and commentary may also wish to dig around Raymond's site, at tuxedo.org.

As usual, anyone is welcomed to stay after the meeting for general Linux-related discussion.


Eric S. Raymond : The Open Source Revolution

Who: Eric S. Raymond
When: January 18, 2001, 8 p.m.
Where: Pendleton Room, Michigan Union, Ann Arbor, MI
Directions: http://www.umich.edu/~munion/catering/directions.html

Topic: "The Open Source Revolution" Open-source development is a method that is producing dramatic gains in software reliability and quality. In this talk, one of the open-source movement's principal theorists and spokespepeople will explain where it comes from, how it works, and some of its implications for the future.

Organizer: Tracy Worcester (tracy@linuxbox.nu, (734) 761-4689)
Transporation Assistance: The Linux Box
Space Courtesy of: UMLUG (University of Michigan Linux Users Group)