BALUG: meeting: Tu 2019-11-19: Bay Area ISPs - Hosting at Home/SOHO and Democratization of The Internet; & other BALUG News

Fri Nov 15 04:55:17 PST 2019

BALUG: meeting: Tu 2019-11-19: Bay Area ISPs - Hosting at Home/SOHO  
and Democratization of The Internet; & other BALUG News

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items, details further below:
BALUG: meeting: Tu 2019-11-19: Bay Area ISPs - Hosting at Home/SOHO  
and Democratization of The Internet; & other BALUG News
No December meeting!
Meeting dates for 2020
giveaways (& wanted), hardware, CDs/DVDs, books/publications, ...
help BALUG! :-) - volunteering, venue, ...
Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/BALUG_org

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For our 2019-11-19 (3rd Tuesday) BALUG meeting:

discussion topic: Bay Area ISP[1]s - Hosting at Home/SOHO[2] and  
Democratization of The Internet[3]

We don't have a formal presentation lined up for this meeting, but
definitely have a discussion topic (and some current
research/information) - feel free too to bring your experiences,
(anti-)recommendations, suggestions, questions, etc.:

Bay Area ISPs - Hosting at Home/SOHO and Democratization of The Internet:

o Topical: I know of multiple among us in the San Francisco Bay Area
   looking at changing ISPs before 2019-12-20[4].
o (un-)Democratization of The Internet[3]?
   Among many other factors, the "promise" of The Internet: equality -
   anyone and everyone can equally be not only consumer, but also
   producer of information (and services, etc.). Is that promise (semi-)broken?
   Are we seeing most ISPs/carriers rolled up into a handful of huge
   ones?
   Most ISPs not making static IPs (generally necessary for
   hosting/"producing") available, or difficult to get, or very much
   limiting what can/can't go in and out via such (e.g.
   blocking/disallowing certain ports), etc.?
   ISPs mucking with traffic/privacy? Modifying in-flight HTML data?  Not
   respecting privacy regarding traffic, and even reselling that
   information?
   Everyone mostly being "pushed" toward Cloud[5], colo[6], or some other
   hosted "solution" ... all of which leave one under the thumb/mercy of
   some big "provider"?
   Internet "kill"/"my country only" switches?  Mandated firewalls?
o "Linux/BSD/Unix friendly" ISPs is a relatively recurrent, if not
   common, topic among Bay Area [L]UG lists and meetings - so much so
   that some [L]UGs have had(/have?) FAQs or web page(s) specifically
   addressing that topic. Time for bit of refresher on the topic?
   Though, nowadays, "Linux/BSD/Unix friendly" is almost a non-issue, as
   for most any ISP, "it just works" regardless of Operating System (OS)
   ... but mostly just expect almost no ISP will specifically support one
   on one's Linux/BSD/Unix of choice. (And sometimes, it's merely/mostly
   a matter of fibbing that one has a different operating system - e.g.
   temporarily setting a different User-Agent[7] string, and translating
   Microsoft Windows or MacOS specific configuration instructions into
   fitting OS agnostic information.)
o The promise of IPv6[8]? No shortage of
   (2^128=340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456) IPv6
   addresses, right?  Why don't we yet now all have absolutely no
   shortage of IP addresses readily available to us to host from and IPv4
   left to the pages of history where once upon a time there weren't
   enough IP addresses for everyone on the planet to have one or more?
o Democratic cooperative mesh networks?
o ...

Reference links:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_service_provider
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_office/home_office
3. https://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/31/47#subj26
4. http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/conspire/2019-November/009966.html
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colocation_centre
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6

Please RSVP if you're planning to attend.  To do so please
e-mail us a note to rsvp at 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 dining
with us but do wish to otherwise join our meeting).

    6:30pm Tuesday, November 19th, 2019 2019-11-19
    Henry's Hunan Restaurant
    110 Natoma St. (between 2nd & New Montgomery)
    San Francisco, CA 94105-3704
    1-415-546-4999
    http://henryshunan.com/
    Easy Transit/Parking Access: short walk from BART, MUNI, parking
       Trip planning:  http://www.511.org/

Delicious Hunan cuisine and reasonably priced.

Meeting Details...

Cost/Dining:
     The meetings are always free, but dinner is not (unless you are our
     guest speaker, in which case we also treat you to dinner).  For
     Henry's Hunan Restaurant, if folks are agreeable, we'll share and
     dine "family" style, and split up the costs, and typical cost per
     person including tax and tip (but not including beverages beyond
     complementary tea) would be in the $16.00 to $23.00 range, and
     commonly around $18.00 to $22.00.  Cash preferred to ease splitting
     up the check.  One can also specifically order the dish(es) one
     needs/prefers (e.g. for dietary considerations) - and we also
     commonly order some dish(es) that may meet various dietary
     considerations) (e.g. vegetarian, non-pork, ...).  Please arrive by
     7:00 P.M., we expect to order entrees at that time, and may order
     appetizer(s) and/or soup(s) anytime after 6:30 P.M.

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No December meeting!
Per usual, we'll skip and not meet in December.
Happy Holidays/Solstice/New Year/...!

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Meeting dates for 2020 (3rd Tuesdays)
Feel free to note on your calendar (may possibly be subject to change,
but at least thus far):
2020-01-21
2020-02-18
2020-03-17
2020-04-21
2020-05-19
2020-06-16
2020-07-21
2020-08-18
2020-09-15
2020-10-20
2020-11-17

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giveaways (& wanted), hardware, CDs/DVDs, books/publications, ...

We typically have various giveaway items at BALUG meetings.  We'll
likely have at least the below plus additional items.

CDs/DVDs/ISOs, etc. - have a look here:
https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:cds_and_images_etc
Donations of blank or +-RW media, USB flash, or funding thereof,
also appreciated.  See the above URL for details (and the inventory
(qty.) of what we specifically have "burned" and available on-hand does
also frequently change).

Hardware, etc. wanted/offered!

Got some (computer, etc.) hardware, etc. you're looking to give
away or acquire (or if not free, well below current fair market value),
and locally?  We have a wiki page to list that - so ... see what's
offered, wanted, etc.!
https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:offered_wanted_hardware_etc

Books and other titles!
have a peek here:
https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:books_and_publications

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help BALUG! :-) - volunteering, venue ...

You can do useful and cool stuff volunteering to help BALUG.

Quite a variety of opportunities to help BALUG.  Come talk to us at a
meeting and/or drop us a note at: balug-contact at balug.org
These opportunities may include, among other possibilities:
o assist or lead on speaker coordination/procurement, etc.
o venue arrangement (e.g. followup on potential leads,
   on-site coordination/preparations)
o chief/assistant cat herder
o assist on publicity
o Linux Systems Administration (e.g. do/assist/learn, with/under some
     quite experienced and skilled Linux systems administrator(s)).
o webmaster, assistant webmaster, designer, graphic artist
o archivist/history/retrieval/etc.
o and other various/miscellaneous tasks BALUG would like to be doing
     (also feel free to suggest ideas!)

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Twitter - you can also follow BALUG on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/#!/BALUG_org

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Feedback on our publicity/announcements (e.g. contacts or lists where we
should get our information out that we're not presently reaching, or
things we should do differently): publicity-feedback at balug.org