Bay Area Linux Users Group (BALUG)

About BALUG

BALUG is the Bay Area Linux Users Group.
We generally meet monthly in San Francisco (generally in the Chinatown area, near downtown). We also operate several mailing lists.

BALUG meetings

BALUG generally meets the third Tuesday of each month. We talk about Linux and related topics, and we generally share large portions of Chinese food.

We typically have a speaker/presentation for our meetings (generally starting around the tail end of dinner or immediately following dinner). In any case, with or without a speaker/presentation arranged and scheduled, our meetings include good people, interesting conversations, and good food at a relatively bargain price. And if we haven't announced/posted a speaker/presentation, don't let that fool you - sometimes we manage to score an excellent speaker/presentation (e.g. at the last minute) without our having managed to get it posted onto the web site and an announcement sent out in advance.

Please RSVP if you're planning to attend.
Meeting kicks off at 6:30 P.M. - we start near the restaurant's bar for meet and greet and chat and such, then move to our restaurant seating around 7:00 P.M. for dinner - $13.00* USD per person for dinner (meeting itself is free) - please arrive before 7:00 P.M. if you want to be assured of being able to join us for dinner.

We generally meet at:
Four Seas Restaurant (directions)
731 Grant Ave. (between Clay and Sacramento)
San Francisco, CA 94108-2113
USA
1-415-989-8188 (restaurant number)

RSVP

Please RSVP if you're planning to attend. To do so please e-mail us a note at
rsvp@balug.org
indicating meeting date. If you'll be bringing additional guest(s) please let us know total number of folks you're RSVPing for. Also please let us know any special requirements or concerns you may have (e.g. if you have any particular dietary considerations, so that we might possibly be able to accommodate you, or if you won't be joining our typical family/buffet style dining arrangement but do wish to otherwise join our meeting).

Next meetings:

Be sure to note future meetings on your calendar:

• Please RSVP (including indicating date) for meetings you plan to attend - Thank You
• 2013-05-21 Seth David Schoen (Wikipedia entry), Senior Staff Technologist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF):

  For our 2013-05-21 meeting, Seth will be giving a presentation/talk about HTTPS deployment and EFF's HTTPS Everywhere and SSL Observatory projects.

  HTTPS Everywhere is a Firefox and Chrome extension that encrypts your communications with many major websites, making your browsing more secure.

  SSL Observatory is a project to investigate the certificates used to secure all of the sites encrypted with HTTPS on the Web. We have downloaded datasets of all of the publicly-visible SSL certificates on the IPv4 Internet, in order to search for vulnerabilities, document the practices of Certificate Authorities, and aid researchers interested the web's encryption infrastructure.

  Seth has been actively involved in discussing digital copyright law and encryption since the 1990s. He is an expert in trusted computing. In 2008, Seth collaborated with a Princeton research group led by Edward Felten that discovered a vulnerability of DRAM that undermined the basic assumptions of computer encryption security. In 2005, Schoen led a small research team at EFF to decode the tiny tracking dots hidden in the printouts of some laser printers.

  EFF was founded in 1990 and continues to confront cutting-edge issues defending free speech, privacy, innovation, and consumer rights today. Blending the expertise of lawyers, policy analysts, activists, and technologists, EFF achieves significant victories on behalf of consumers and the general public. EFF fights for freedom primarily in the courts, bringing and defending lawsuits even when that means taking on the US government or large corporations. From the beginning, EFF has championed the public interest in every critical battle affecting digital rights. EFF is a donor-funded nonprofit and depends on your support to continue successfully defending your digital rights.

• 2013-06-18
• 2013-07-16
• 2013-08-20
• 2013-09-17
• 2013-10-15
• 2013-11-19
• ... BALUG generally meets the third Tuesday of each month. Subscribe to our "announce" list to learn of upcoming meetings and speakers/presentations.

BALUG Mailing Lists

BALUG Mailing Lists:

• "announce" - low-volume announce-only (non-discussion) mailing list (e.g. important announcements about meeting programs and other BALUG newsy/noteworthy items; if you subscribe to any of our lists, you'll want to include this one)
• "talk" general public BALUG, Linux and related discussion (see the URL for policies)
• "admin" - administrivia (for those interested in the inner workings of the BALUG group)

CABAL

• Need details?
• Let us know if you're bringing a computer and monitor (what kinds?) or joining as a helper.
• Check out the CABAL InstallFest Schedule.

Volunteering and helping BALUG

We could also always use more volunteers to make BALUG even better! Some of the tasks which could use more volunteers include:

• help arrange speakers/presentations for our meetings (help refer to us, coordinate schedules, etc.)
• publicity (helping us get information out in as timely a manner as feasible, and in as many places as appropriate)
• website: webmaster and/or assistance with routine updates/additions
• writing up meeting "minutes" (brief summaries of meeting highlights - e.g. information on presentations, interesting/noteworthy discussions/topics, etc.; suitable for web use, or even just rough notes on the relevant items)
• mailing list maintenance

If you're at all interested in helping with any and/or all of the above, please contact BALUG contact.