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HelpNet News No. 2, December 2000 This second edition of the HelpNet News highlights some of the issues HelpNet members have been dealing with over the last month. ********NEXT HELPNET MEETING******** WHEN: 12:00 - 1:00,
Thursday January 18 (bring your lunch) ******************************** Note that we're skipping this month's meeting because of the holiday rush, and we're going to try a brown-bag lunch meeting in January. I've scheduled it for one hour, but I'll be happy to stay around longer with people who don't need to get back to work. ******************************** IN THIS ISSUE:
MAINE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FUNDS HELPNET Pine Tree Folk School has received a $5,000 grant from the Maine Community Foundation to support the development of HelpNet. I believe that MCF saw the value of dealing with technological challenges through a collaborative effort of grassroots organizations. With this vote of confidence from MCF, it seemed like it was time to further establish our identity through our own PTFOLKSCHOOL.ORG domain name, which gives us a www.ptfolkschool.org Web site URL, and "@ptfolkschool.org" mailing addresses. WHERE ARE THE ARCHIVED MESSAGES?
The Mail Archive is a resource I wish I had known about earlier. It provides free, ad-free, non-commercial archiving of any Internet mailing list. It's an example of what a group of volunteers can do on the Web. SECURITY AND CONFIDENTIALITY 1: VIRUSES
SECURITY AND CONFIDENTIALITY 2: NOSY E-MAIL AND WEB BUGS An item I posted on the list about "Nosy E-mail" (http://www.mint.net/folkschool/list-archive/msg00520.html) generated a discussion about ways in which mail and Web pages can be used to gather information about you. The basic point here is that using the Internet involves 2-way communication. When we receive information in the form of E-mail or Web pages, we are also providing information about ourselves. Much of what we provide is very general, and is used to make our Internet use work better for us. But some of the information gathering goes well beyond this, and people are rarely informed or asked to give their permission. If we're going to be using the Web, we need to educate ourselves, learn how to keep our personal information private, and make sure our laws and public policies (which have not caught up with the realities of the Internet) protect our right to privacy. I think this would be a good subject for a future HelpNet meeting. Here's how "nosy E-mail" and "Web Bugs" work. <Geek Alert - If you don't care about any of the details skip to the beginning of the next section.> It's easy to put together an HTML-formatted E-mail message that, when opened, tries to connect to a Web server to get a file, such as a graphic, to display in the message. Whenever a file is requested from a Web server, the server records that request, as well as certain other basic information, like the IP address the request came from. If I understand this right, it's also possible to code the E-mail message so that when it requests a graphic from a remote Web server (assuming you're reading the message while connected to the Internet), it tells the Web server not only your IP address (e.g. 216.227.128.33) but also the E-mail address the message was sent to (e.g. jonf@ptfolkschool.org). Now someone knows both that you've opened the E-mail, and where you opened it. Likewise, if you forward the message to someone else, when they open the message this will be logged, and someone reading the log can tell that the same message is now being opened at a second address. A similar approach is used on many Web pages. For instance, on pages that display banner ads, the ads are usually retrieved from a different server than the body of the page. Many of these ads use "cookies," small files that the Web page places on your computer, which provide additional information to the Web server which provides the ad, such as the Web page that the ad is part of. This information is used to calculate advertising fees, among other things. There has been considerable concern about how much other information about you can be collected by Web pages you visit. Taking things one step further, it's possible to use invisible images to do all this without you being able to see anything on the Web page you're viewing. Web designers often use "single-pixel gif" files to control spacing and page layout. These tiny graphic files have their color set to "transparent," so you really can't tell they are there without looking at the page's HTML code. Other than their size, though, they can have all the attributes of a banner ad, or any other image, and they can be used to gather information in the same way. These little invisible graphics have been called "Web-Bugs." The fact that Web designers are using them to hide what they are doing is cause for concern, whatever their actual purpose. </End Geek Alert> SMALL OFFICE NETWORKING: JUST DO IT! One of the things I did in the last month was to help the MaineShare office in Augusta set up a new(er) computer and network it with their existing computer, so they can share files and a printer. I've put together several of these small Windows Ethernet "peer networks" in the last year, and I highly recommend it to any organization with more than one computer in a worksite. The first time you put a network together it's scary, but it quickly becomes an easy job. Unlike the larger client-server networks that bigger organizations have, these small peer networks are relatively simple and inexpensive to establish. If you have 2 computers running Windows 95, 98, ME, or 2000, you can buy 2 new network cards and a "crossover cable" and establish the network for $50 or less. All the software you need is already included in Windows. If you have more than 2 computers, you'll need a network hub and additional cabling, but you still won't be out that much money. I think you'll find that the time and money you save by sharing a printer and files will quickly pay for the expense of putting the network together. It's also relatively easy to share an Internet connection, so that 2 or more users can be accessing the Internet simultaneously through a single phone line and modem. If one of your computers has Windows 98 2nd Edition or Windows ME, then you've already got Internet Connection Sharing software in Windows which you can use. If not, there is 3rd party software available -- I like Sygate Home Network (www.sygate.com), $40 for a 3-user license.
SMALL OFFICE NETWORKING: MORE SECURITY CONCERNS Whether or not you have multiple computers tied together in your home or office, when you connect to the Internet you become part of a network, in this case a huge, worldwide one. And if you can see "out" to the Internet, it may be possible for bad guys to see "in" to your computer. I bet some of you have computers which are wide-open to the Internet when you're on-line. (This is something we've touched on before in the Folkschool-list.) Basically, the simplest fix is to make sure that Windows file and printer sharing is not installed, for a stand-alone computer, and for a network (where you will be using file and print sharing) to make sure that there is no connection between the networking protocol used between your computers and the TCP/IP Internet protocol.
These measures should be more than adequate to protect computers or small networks on dial-up Internet connections, provided that you do not use the TCP/IP protocol to share files and printers within your local network. If you do, or if you have an always-on Cable or DSL Internet connection, then you should probably have some sort of hardware or software "firewall" to provide additional security. (A firewall restricts the flow of information between the local computer or network and the Internet.) I've been trying out ZoneAlarm (www.zonelabs.com), a firewall program that is free for home and non-profit use, and I'll plan to say more about this subject next month. DOES YOUR ORGANIZATION NEED ITS OWN TECH PERSON? A week or two ago this question was asked on the national technology circuit riders list: "At what point does a non-profit organization need a full-time tech staff position?" The answers ranged from when an organization has 10 employees and/or computers (which seems quite unrealistic to me) to 20-30 employees/computers. I'm sure that there is no one right answer, and that in addition to organizational size you have to consider the nature of what the organization is doing, and how it is using technology. But these answers from people with many years of diverse experience show that there is no free lunch. To get the benefits of using all this technology, you have to make a substantial, ongoing investment of staff time. Some of this can be provided by outside vendors, but I think the more that can be done in-house the better. WEB AUTHORING: WHAT WOULD BE MOST USEFUL TO HELPNET MEMBERS? Questions keep coming up about Web authoring, in the form of "How do I do this-or-that with a Web page?" This seems like a fertile area for developing some HelpNet resources, and also a place for collaboration between BairnNet and HelpNet. So where is the best place to start? Please post your ideas on the list. That's all for this issue. Enjoy whichever of the holidays you celebrate over the next few weeks. Jon
HelpNet is a project of Pine Tree Folk School, and is co-sponsored by Bairnet (the Bangor Area Information Resources Network) and by the Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine.
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