In recognition of California’s recently released report
on their independent testing and successful hacking
of the same zero evidence Diebold computer election
systems which we are forced vote with here in Georgia…
Our ALE Central Meeting presentation for
Thursday, August 9th, 7:30pm will be:
“Invisible Ballots vs Open Voting:
The Challenge of Exposing Computerized
Election Fraud”
a Documentary Screening and Discussion
moderated by Aaron Ruscetta in association
with Defenders of Democracy
Synopsis:
. Â The presentation will use segments from the documentary
“Invisible Ballots” as discussion points for the various technical
and ethical concerns surrounding the electronic voting issues.
. Â Special focus will be given to Georgia’s corrupting influence
as the first State to allow a private corporation to monopolize
its entire public election process using costly, proprietary
computer voting systems that, by design, provide no public
means of exposing software failures or election fraud.
. Â For contrast and comparison, the presentation will consider
the options in legitimate and transparent election processes,
examining the importance of Open Source system software
and the work of the Open Voting Consortium, a group that
helped motivate the recent University of California “red team”
testing of computer voting systems.
Bio:
. Â Aaron Ruscetta has been a participating member of ALE
since migrating to the Linux platform in 1999. He regularly
contributes to the community as an Event Coordinator and
Central Meeting Moderator. Â He has been studying election
systems and voting rights issues extensively since January,
2003. As a founding member of the Defenders of Democracy
voter advocacy organization he has presented on the topic of
electronic voting for various events and for numerous groups
including the Atlanta Freethought Society, Electronic Frontiers
Georgia and the InterZ0ne computer security conference. As
a volunteer citizen lobbyist he has also provided professional
testimony on voting system issues at State election board
meetings and several Georgia Assembly committee hearings.
Related Links:
— Article on California Red Team Testing
— Defenders of Democracy
— VoterGA (lawsuit to stop zero evidence elections)
— Open Voting Consortium
============================
Meeting time frame is 7:30pm to ~9:30pm
Directions to Emory Law School are at the
Central Meeting link on the side bar.
** ROOM NOTE **
We will be meeting in room 5F (top floor
of Gambrel Hall) due to renovations of the
1st floor lecture rooms. The 1st floor east
side entry may be locked – use the 2nd floor
entry by the library.
============================
Our ALE Central Meeding presentation for
Thursday, July 12th, 7:30pm will be:
“Fun with Drupal 5:
Beyond Content Management”
Presented by Elmer Masters
Synopsis:
In the context of the current projects I’m working on, I’ll
talk about setting up Drupal multisites, sharing database
tables between sites, using external authentication, managing
content and users, customizing content-types, building
modules, and a bit of theming, time permitting.
Generally, I’ll expose that Drupal is not merely a content
management system, but functions well as a complete web
development framework and platform.
Bio:
By day Elmer Masters is the Director of Internet
Development for the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal
Instruction ( CALI, http://www.cali.org ) where
he is currently heading up a one-man project to move all of
CALI’s web resources to Drupal.
By night, he is also an admin of the Teknoids mailing list
and website ( http://www.teknoids.net ) and
occasionally blogs at http://www.content4.symphora.com/.
==============
Meeting time is 7:30pm to ~9:30pm
Directions to Emory Law School are at the
Central Meeting link on the side bar.
** ROOM NOTE **
We will be meeting in room 5F (top floor
of Gambrel Hall) due to renovations of the
first floor lecture rooms.
We have a special visiting guest speaker
from New York offering our ALE Central
presentation for Thursday, June 14th:
Virtual On Demand Hardware
Presented by Jamie McClelland,
ICT organizer for the USSF
Synopsis:
There was a time when a computer was a computer and
a hard drive was a hard drive. With new technologies like
Logical Volume Manager (LVM) and Xen, that time seems
to be passing rapidly. LVM provides us with new ways to
combine physical hard drives into pools that can be easily
and dynamically allocated, re-sized, and re-allocated. Xen
allows us to run multiple instances of linux on a single server,
migrate instances from one server to another, and easily
re-allocate memory and drive space between instances.
In short – these are dramatically powerful tools for separating
what you are doing from the physical constraints of the
machines you are doing it on.
During this presentation, we will take a step-by-step tour
demonstrating how to turn one server with one hard drive
into one server with multiple virtual instances all with multiple
virtual hard drives. The demo will be carried out on a Debian
Etch system featuring lvm2, xen and xen-tools.
Bio:
Jamie is a co-director of May First/People link, a unionized,
membership-based Internet hosting organization. In addition
to the expected duties of system administration, support, and
programming projects, he’s actively involved in organizing
technologists around the US Social Forum (being hosted in
Atlanta June 27 through July 1). In one capacity or
another, Jamie has spent the last eight years providing
technology support to nonprofits and activists organizations.
Prior to technology work, Jamie has worked in a variety of
organizations and movements, including Libraries for the
Future, Act Up!, and ACORN.
==============
Meeting time is 7:30pm to ~9:30pm
Directions to Emory Law School are at the
Central Meeting link on the side bar.
With apologies, our regular Emory Law School venue is
unavailable for our May ALE Central meeting.
As an alternative for the evening we are offering another
informal ALE social hour (with optional ale consumption)
at a familiar Emory vicinity pub —
All friends of ALE are invited to be “on tap” from 7:30pm
to 9:30pm on Thursday, May 10th, at Melton’s App and
Tap, to entertain all topically relevant and potentially
irreverent discussions of Linux, OSS, ALE, pub cuisine
and, of course, ale.
MELTON’S APP & TAP is located just about a mile east
of the Emory University campus at 2500 North Decatur
Road at its intersection with Scott Blvd
Google Map for Meltons
Melton’s has a full menu of appetizers and dinners in the
$6 to $12 range in addition to their very respectable list
of tasty ale offerings.
We hope you can join us for a little casual Linux community
comradere!
With appreciation to Preston Ladds for coordinating
contacts with the Atlanta Asterisk User Group, the
ALE Central presentation for Thursday, April 12th
will be:
A Linux Enthusiast’s View of the
Asterisk Open Source IP-PBX
Presented by Steven Henke
Synopsis:
This presentation approaches VoIP and the Asterisk
IP-PBX telecommunications project from its Linux
heritage and foundations. It will show how Asterisk
and its related packages are now become some of
the most useful and popular Linux projects.
Special Note:
Steve’s talk for ALE is also a prelude to a full presentation
and demonstration of an Asterisk based, converged and
interoperable wireless communications system he will
be offering at the Asterisk Install Fest and Conference:
— Saturday, April 28, 2007, 9:00AM to 2:00PM at the
— Georgia Tech Klaus Advanced Computing Building,
— 266 Ferst Drive, Atlanta, Georgia.
The event is being hosted and sponsored by the
Atlanta Asterisk Users Group (ATLAUG). Additional
information and RSVP registration can be found at:
http://atlaug.com/blog/?page_id=30
Bio:
Steven Henke is a developer of wireless communications
equipment and systems with a personal and professional
interest in the Asterisk Open Source IP-PBX.