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From: sjackson@tic.com (Steve Jackson) To: eff-a@tic.com Subject: Minutes of 2-12 meeting MINUTES OF AUSTIN EFF DIRECTORS' MEETING - Feb. 12, 1992 Held 7:30pm at Matt Lawrence's. Directors present were Jon Lebkowsky, Matt Lawrence, Ed Cavazos, John Quarterman, Steve Jackson. Observing: Nancy Loomis, Jon Boede, Bruce Sterling. As usual, minutes taken by SJ, who is solely at fault for any omissions or errors. Minutes of the last meeting were approved w/o reading. Recommendations on organization and our official status - Smoot and Jon worked on this and sent a letter to Mitch Kapor. His reply was favorable. We have a GO to write organizational bylaws. Ed Cavazos will prepare a draft, keeping it to the bare bones that will satisfy Texas law if we later attempt to register as a nonprofit corporation. We discussed directors, officers, etc., briefly. Local dues - Tentative approval of $10/year, or $5 per students, or $50 for corporations. That does NOT have to be specified in the bylaws - but it needs to be in our membership material. Final decision to be made next meeting. (It was suggested that these rates might be too low.) Meetings and publicity - General agreement that it's time to find a site and hold a general meeting. SJ has talked repeatedly to a Dell representative about their Arboretum site, and sent information about the EFF, but has never gotten any commitment from him. Jon thinks that he can get permission to use the excellent MCC auditorium. An Austin Community College facility near Highland Mall was also mentioned; this won't be as pretty but is more central. SJ will draft a membership package for the local group, in time for the March meeting. Smoot will take care of postage. We have had an increasing demand for literature, as various Austin EFFectives make public appearances. Steve now has a stock of literature at his office. Rita Rouvalis at the Cambridge office continues to be very helpful in sending more as needed. We still need, and do not have, a volunteer for local distribution of this material The ACLU show TAKING LIBERTIES, with Steve Jackson as interviewee, will rerun part 1 on March 6 and part 2 on March 13. Local activities since the last meeting: Steve Jackson addressed the monthly meeting of the Central Texas Civil Liberties Union. It went well. Questions afterward ranged from exactly-on-point to out-in-left-field, which indicates that we were not just preaching to the choir this time - some of these people were not yet aware of the issues, but they were interested! Steve Jackson also went to San Marcos to speak to the SWT chapter of the ACM on February 5. This also went well. Audience about 30. Bruce Sterling gave away 300 copies of EFFECTOR during his promotional tour for DIFFERENCE ENGINE. Today was the first day of the Government & Technology Conference. Unanimous acclaim for Jon's excellent job of organizing our participa- tion. The booth looked good, was well stocked with a variety of EFF literature, and was staffed at all times. Lots of people stopped to ask questions, and many signed up for more information. Bruce will appear on a panel later in the conference. Improvements needed for next time: a more prominent banner, sign or booth-back. For tomorrow and Friday, John Quarterman is working on a supergraphic illustrating the growth of the Net over the last few years and projections for the next few. Local activities, upcoming or proposed: SJ will appear this weekend at OrcCon, a very large gaming convention in Los Angeles, and will take literature and discuss the EFF in his main presentation. The UT College of Communication is interested in having an EFF speaker at their Communications Week, April 1-4. They're talking with SJ. Mike Godwin is interested in coming down from Cambridge. SJ has been invited to participate in a debate at the yearly ACM meeting in Kansas City. The debate will concern licensing of computer professionals. Mike Godwin will be on hand for that one, too. When Bruce's HACKER CRACKDOWN book is published, EFF-Austin should sponsor a signing. Maybe at a local bookstore . . . maybe at a computer store. Bruce is willing. The book will be released in September. See the note from Bruce below. Mailing list - Nothing new on this. Jon will discuss again with Earl Cooley. He may be waiting on some further go-ahead from us - not clear. If he is able and willing to write the database, we need something by next meeting. We discussed whether we should fulfill, or block, requests for our mailing list when it is created. Decision: There should be a flag in the database so people can indicate that they're willing to have their names given out, but the default is NO. As for the online list, we will not share or redistribute it. Local conference: It has been pointed out that there may be a conflict, though not a direct one, with the name BBScon. Nobody loves that name anyway, it seems. The name CyberTex was suggested, and met with general glee. Ed Cavazos notes: "I have gathered a group of active Austin modem users who are willing to help with the conference and any other EFF activities. They could prove invaluable when it comes time to publicize meetings, organize membership drives, etc." We definitely want a dealer room and a flea market. We definitely want some video, visual or VR-type activities. We definitely want some good speakers. Date: probably late in the year, at this point. Austin is a very pleasant place even in November. Jon and Ed will start holding convention committee meetings and will announce them to eff-a. Computer display program - No progress. Logo - we now have a working graphics file of the star, cannon and "Come And Take It" image. NEW BUSINESS It's been proposed that we start feeding files to local BBSs which are interested in carrying EFF material. Everyone thought this was a reasonable thing to do. Ed Cavazos is already posting lots of EFF files on his own BBS - the rest of the Board will just start sending him any files that seem worthwhile. On a related issue, Bruce Sterling writes: "HACKER CRACKDOWN will be out in September. I visited my editor's office in NYC two days ago and the Bantam crew seemed quite pleased with the book and determined to promote it vigorously. One of their promotional schemes is to give away a free floppy containing the electronic text of the book and "other interesting material." Perhaps the fertile imaginations of the EFF-A B.O.D. can conjure up some possibilities for this "other material." The COME AND TAKE IT graphic file leaps to mind, but what else? Perhaps a complete run of EFFector Online? WELL log-on procedures? The mind boggles...." Other suggested additions: Crime & Puzzlement, of course - see if Barlow wants to update anything. Ten False Facts about the Cybergate Raid. The Hacker Test. Material for law enforcement. The Tribe amendment. Bibliography! Not discussed - held over till next meeting: We've been sent an "Interactive University" proposal from Dick Cutler at UT. Is this something we are able and willing to support in any way? There's a report of a phreak bust in Houston - a kid going by the handle of "Archaic Illume." Do we have any information about this? Do we want to research further? Until further notice, directors' meetings will be held on the second Tuesday of each month, at 7:30 pm, at Matt Lawrence's. That makes the next two meetings March 10 and April 14.