January 2012 Meeting Details
The meeting of the “Indian Libre User Group” was successfully held on January 22nd 2012.
Date: 22-01-2012
Time: 2:00pm – 5.30pm
Venue: Internet Club, IInd Floor, AMI Trust Building,
Broadway Enclave, Broadway, Ernakulam
2.30pm – 2.45pm
Customary Self Introduction.
People shared their experience with Free Software
2.45pm – 4.30pm – Session by G. Venkit Subramanian
The main session started with the introduction to Nmap.Nmap (Network Mapper) is a security scanner originally written by Gordon Lyon (also known by his pseudonym Fyodor Vaskovich) used to discover hosts and services on a computer network, thus creating a “map” of the network. To accomplish its goal, Nmap sends specially crafted packets to the target host and then analyzes the responses. Unlike many simple port scanners that just send packets at some predefined constant rate, Nmap accounts for the network conditions (latency fluctuations, network congestion, the target interference with the scan) during the run.
4.30pm – 5.30pm
Tea break
Concluding Session
People were requested to handle small technical discussions for the next meeting.
Thanks to all the attendees for coming and they are requested to put their feedback on the mailing list so that we can improve future meetings.
Special Session with Richard Stallman from 5:30-7.30pm
Richard Stallman, the guru of the world-wide free software movement, reiterated here on Sunday that proprietary software inherently took away the people’s freedom and free software was not only efficient but also moral as it did not eat into people’s freedom. He was interacting with members of ILUG-Cochin as part of the 15th anniversary of Indian Libre User Group, established in 1997.
Dr. Stallman said that when he set himself on his mission in 1983 he was not so articulate in his comprehension of proprietary software. Any non-free software is evil, he said as he appealed to all to avoid using proprietary software.Use proprietary software only to help the cause of free software, he said. He also cautioned about the privacy threat, the facebook users are exposed to.He was also of the opinion that the mobile phones are on proprietary software and then they are used as listening devices by their creators.He was also very concerned about the censorship brought in to control freedom of expression and speech in America (SOPA & PIPA) and India (Social Networking Sites).
Next meeting : 26 February 2012

