Redbrick?

andrew163 · 10-06-2008 11:05pm

a.nonymus wrote: »

I wasn't going to post to this thread but after reading the below along with some other posts, I felt the need to do so.

I find these comments quite amusing. Your opinion is Robby was a fairly bad chair and that the admins are very technically capable and should not resign. The same admins who left a world readable dump of the full LDAP database in a world accessible /root directory for a prolonged period of time and then swept the issue under the carpet without notifying Redbrick members after they had been informed of this "issue".

So Robby was a fairly bad chair because he didn't organize a meeting or send a text message, yet these "very technically capable" people who keep users in the dark about sensitive information leaks caused by basic mistakes that they are responsible for are doing a great job and would cause Redbrick to suffer if they resign......

I fail to understand that logic.

You make it sound like we left that LDAP dump there knowing about it. We weren't, until it was brought to our attention by a member. At which point, if I remember correctly, the file was deleted.

Rugbug - the file contained a complete dump of redbrick's LDAP database, a few months old at the time it was caught. That contained usernames of redbrick members, student numbers and encrypted password hashes, which while were secure to the industry standard, could have been decrypted with a large amount of effort. Root passwords and other system passwords were not included in this. This did not contain anybody's DCU username or password, or anything that could have been used to derive their DCU password.

And yes, I do think redbrick would suffer if they resign. Partly because if they go, the remaining rootholders won't have time to deal with day to day issues and the rebuild (there's still a hell of a lot left to do, even if basic services are running on the surface). However, I also do respect reasons that members have for wanting them to resign.

I wonder what the formal procedure is to demand that the whole committee has to be re-elected...? This is not me having a go at cmte, but based on the events it might be heathier for Redbrick members to see this happening and to create a sense of a fresh start.

As far as I'm aware there is no set down procedure.

However, given the amount of abuse being thrown at the committee, last years committee, and people associated with them (I came online this evening to find someone calling my girlfriend a dog, lovely), I can't see anyone jumping at the chance to replace us either.

Suaimhneach · 10-06-2008 11:09pm

Which andrew are you? Werdz or Recieve?

andrew163 · 10-06-2008 11:16pm

werdz.

a.nonymus · 10-06-2008 11:39pm

andrew163 wrote: »

You make it sound like we left that LDAP dump there knowing about it. We weren't, until it was brought to our attention by a member. At which point, if I remember correctly, the file was deleted.

No, that was exactly the point I was making. They left it there without noticing it was available for any user to see.

andrew163 wrote: »

Rugbug - the file contained a complete dump of redbrick's LDAP database, a few months old at the time it was caught.

But it had been there for a few months before it was noticed, who knows how many other people noticed it without saying anything.

andrew163 wrote: »

That contained usernames of redbrick members, student numbers and encrypted password hashes, which while were secure to the industry standard, could have been decrypted with a large amount of effort.

I think you'll find that DES is NOT the industry standard and can be decrypted with a SMALL amount of effort.

andrew163 wrote: »

And yes, I do think redbrick would suffer if they resign. Partly because if they go, the remaining rootholders won't have time to deal with day to day issues and the rebuild (there's still a hell of a lot left to do, even if basic services are running on the surface).

So for that reason the whole society should be left in the hands of incompetant admins who have severe ego issues. Good call.

andrew163 · 10-06-2008 11:47pm

a.nonymus wrote: »

No, that was exactly the point I was making. They left it there without noticing it was available for any user to see.

But it had been there for a few months before it was noticed, who knows how many other people noticed it without saying anything.

I think you'll find that DES is NOT the industry standard and can be decrypted with a SMALL amount of effort.

So for that reason the whole society should be left in the hands of incompetant admins who have severe ego issues. Good call.

At the time, we were grateful to the person who tipped us off about it. Unfortunately we're not omniscient, and things do go unnoticed. I've heard of far greater security breaches in the real world. However, if you're a member and you'd like to contribute to making things more secure, you're welcome to join admin-discuss and post suggestions. Or if you're interested, run for admin yourself the next time an opening becomes available.

Hauk · 10-06-2008 11:59pm

I'll be honest here,

All this crap aside, to anyone reading this. A lot of you already know, but to those who don't, werdz is ****ing awesome admin.

One person I would not view as in any way incompetent. Yes, a mistake was made in leaving that LDAP database, it happens. The admins were alerted and remedied the problem.

Now please, stop going around in circles.

Harping on about industry standards in a thread that has to do with the resignation and events leading up to the resignation of the chair, seems a little off topic to me.

TomCo · 11-06-2008 12:01am

a.nonymus wrote: »

I think you'll find that DES is NOT the industry standard and can be decrypted with a SMALL amount of effort.

lol, DES.

a.nonymus · 11-06-2008 12:41am

Hauk wrote: »

I'll be honest here,

All this crap aside, to anyone reading this. A lot of you already know, but to those who don't, werdz is ****ing awesome admin.

One person I would not view as in any way incompetent.

Isn't he the webmaster?

Hauk wrote: »

Harping on about industry standards in a thread that has to do with the resignation and events leading up to the resignation of the chair, seems a little off topic to me.

The thread is not called 'Events leading up to the resignation of the chair' last time I checked. Anyway, I just wanted to make the point of how ironic it was that certain people could brand Robby as being "sh1t" when their own performance could possibly be branded with the same tag.

Pot. Kettle. Black. and all that.

Zyox · 11-06-2008 12:44am

Hauk wrote: »

I'll be honest here,

All this crap aside, to anyone reading this. A lot of you already know, but to those who don't, werdz is ****ing awesome admin.

One person I would not view as in any way incompetent. Yes, a mistake was made in leaving that LDAP database, it happens. The admins were alerted and remedied the problem.

Now please, stop going around in circles.

Harping on about industry standards in a thread that has to do with the resignation and events leading up to the resignation of the chair, seems a little off topic to me.

Er no, sorry. This could be argued as off topic, but I think this is a bang on perfect example of how the admins and certain cmte are handling this.
They are selectively replying to certain posts only. People are challenging them with serious questions and issues and they respond to only the minor parts, mostly by challenging them again.
Then they get disproven, as in the case of the LDAP issue, and just go quiet. Now I'm sure they'll reply with something _now_ in regard to this after being provoked, and try another angle to take the spotlight off them temporarily, but I think for once that people are fed up of these temp distractions. They are starting to see through the admins pulling the wool over the eyes of the members and finally stand up for something.

This is not unfair on the admins. This never had to be brought up in previous years. Why? Oh well I'll say it so, the quality of the admins has slid soooo dramatically. Possibly not in technical terms, but it mainly to me seems that their personality and their wanton need to be seen as a holier-than-thou, we merit a seperate committee, status is what is triggering most of this. This makes them loved in their select group of friends, and highly resented among those who have a problem with it.

This never happened 3+ years ago. Every admin was in place for the good of the society, and acted accordingly. Now it just seems admins want to be admins so they can up their nerd status. Maybe pull some "dogs" in the process. Pretty sad.

Take a look at yourself lads. What are you doing?

And when people ask you a question, man the fuuck up. Don't selectively reply. Answer the whole question. You may be getting through your degree with 54% and calling it an honour, but in the real world that crap will not fly.

11-06-2008 1:12am

robby^5 wrote: »

[I edited the logs to remove shíte]

I've attached the logs from #rbcommittee, I feel that there is some material in there that many of the members might be interested in, and given there seems to be no issue with revealing private information from emails there should be no problem with me doing this...

What does half of this log have to do with anything? Evidently you didn't edit them well enough.

andrew163 wrote:

Rugbug - the file contained a complete dump of redbrick's LDAP database, a few months old at the time it was caught. That contained usernames of redbrick members, student numbers and encrypted password hashes, which while were secure to the industry standard, could have been decrypted with a large amount of effort. Root passwords and other system passwords were not included in this. This did not contain anybody's DCU username or password, or anything that could have been used to derive their DCU password.

Maybe I'm wrong but if someone decrypted a rootholder's password couldn't they just sudo su or something? I haven't really been paying much attention to the situation, just wondering.

ornat · 11-06-2008 1:16am

andrew163 wrote: »

I came online this evening to find someone calling my girlfriend a dog, lovely

Can I just ask why no one seemed to cause a fuss when last year's committee got so much abuse (Kat and "failchair" in particular).

The whole point of running for committee is to actually make a difference within the society - because you care about it, right? Where was everyone at the AGM while running for the positions? I personally wouldn't go for it because of the hassle that committee got last year for trying to make Redbrick a first year friendly place. Isn't that what all these hard feelings really are about? I'm sick of the constant bickering and bitchiness to be honest and I don't even know why the committee would stay to keep a society running for so many members who seem to constantly insult them...

There are so many feelings that have been hurt over the year that I believe has spawned these rather... hostile feelings between some redbrick members and the committee. Robby being elected as chair was quite a controversy to begin with... mainly because it appeared (from what I was told) that he decided to run for chair last minute, urged by many of the failchair lobbyists, also the anti-Kat campaign who were mainly eager to see someone besides Kat as chair. I don't doubt Robby's ability as a chair of a society, and I'm sure he'll make a good job of Gamesoc this year, as he has been involved since day one.

I just feel like some members have been rather cruel about the entire situation. I don't think it is fit to have called someone failchair all year and then all of a sudden call someone else winchair because they're happy it isn't the other person who's chair... There's far too much bad vibes going on.

The behaviour of the admins was unacceptable, but if you went through what they went through this year with the constant downers people put on them, and all of a sudden glorifying someone who has yet to show their commitment to the society, you would probably have done the same... if you think about it. I don't think any other committee in DCU have ever gotten as much stick as they have.

It'd be rightly done if they had sat on their asses all day and let servers stay broken, and let hackers continue to hack... but they try their best and isn't it the effort that matters? People make mistakes as they're only human, and these people don't have their degrees yet and are putting so much into the server administration.

I honestly don't think I'll be joining redbrick again next year. I'm absolutely sick of hearing all of these constant insults as if people didn't have feelings. We all get carried away with emotions from time to time, and it's as if some members in Redbrick feel like the committee don't have any feelings. It's disgraceful how people feel so much bolder behind a terminal and think it's funny insulting someone is funny because of how they react but they never stop to think that the other person might just have been really hurt by what they said... It just makes me angry... and I don't get angry very much, except for last night... which is when all of this really started to bother me.

Also there have never been problems like this before because of the fact that no committee has ever been as hated as much before... Redbrick is getting older and the amount of members are growing and it's much harder to look after, especially for a couple students.

The admins are admins because they're nerdy, they want more servers to play with... it's hard for a student to afford what the server room has! Please go through logs and find examples of the admins trying to be almighty ops on IRC... when they're NOT taking the piss.

Anyways, rant over. I hope some of you will grow up a bit. I think the committee next year (whether current or newly elected) should really look into some kind of anti-bullying bit to add to the constitution, because Redbrick is just infested with it... I think the behaviour of some of the members this year has been completely uncalled for and has definitely provoked some of the outgoing committee.

It's just gotten messier and messier. If anything, this entire situation should be learnt from, moved on and Robby given another chance (if he wants it, but only if he wants it, which is a choice that he'll have to make, not his winchair campaigners - chairing 2 societies is a lot of work)

sorry for the long rant, but it just had to be said.

TomCo · 11-06-2008 1:33am

ornat wrote: »

Also there have never been problems like this before because of the fact that no committee has ever been as hated as much before... Redbrick is getting older and the amount of members are growing and it's much harder to look after, especially for a couple students.

I thought membership was stagnant/declining?
It would be interesting as an aside to see the figures on that.

ornat · 11-06-2008 1:36am

I more of meant that there are increasing numbers of members as people graduate every year and tend to stick around for redbrick services such as sites and to keep in touch with college friends. They were a lot more passionate about it in those days. In a good way. Less bitchiness, I think, seeing as everyone keeps saying how great it was a few years ago.

By the looks of it (judging from this thread) there will be definitely a decrease in overall members next year though.

Z? · 11-06-2008 1:50am

I could be wrong, but I feel that some of the animosity that is shown towards the committee this and last year, is more due to personal dislike of the people, than their abilities/beliefs. I know I dislike a few.Less so this year than last year.
These people seem to have come together to want to be the people in charge of redbrick. Which is unlucky.

On the other hand, A lot of the people who bitch are doing it to troll to some extent. As they feel that things were better in the past. Halcyon Days or what have you. These people are all a group of mates with is also a main problem.

The thing is you will always have a group of people who disagree with the committee. It just happens that the current group is more vocal.

Now when it comes down to the nitty gritty, Yes the people who bitched at robby were wrong, but robby ran as a pisstake. We all know this. There is no point denying it. I would say he got elected on the basis that he was not Kat. This may sound bad, but it is the consensus of many people. And i know for some that some of the committee seriously objected to robby being made chair.

If anyone should resign it should be Cian for his idiotic remarks. But Robby has quit. And I doubt he would return. I know I would if i was in his place. That sort of animosity cannot be ignored.

That is my 2cents

robby^5 · 11-06-2008 2:40am

Z? wrote: »

Now when it comes down to the nitty gritty, Yes the people who bitched at robby were wrong, but robby ran as a pisstake. We all know this. There is no point denying it.

Actually I didn't consider it a pisstake at all (although I hadn't really fully decided to run until the last minute because I didn't think anyone would vote for me), some people may have voted to take the piss out of redbrick but I didn't run as a pisstake... why would I have bothered to stay on if I did it as a pisstake? I'd have resigned the next day. I fully accept people voted for me simply because I wasn't kat, it's called having a choice.

Deleted User wrote: »

What does half of this log have to do with anything? Evidently you didn't edit them well enough.

The cmte decided to cite events in these logs in some detail and I think it acceptable that the members should be shown a source, as if they were minutes of a meeting. Anyway its done now.

Attol · 11-06-2008 2:48am

The amount of b!tching is getting insane at this point. I was very reluctant to take a position on committee this year and at this stage I'm very much wondering why the hell I ended up doing it. The reason why I was initially reluctant to take it was because I was told of this kind of sh!t that went on. I now realise that the accounts I got off people were far tamer than the reality. It seems like a rule that the entire committee is hated. There have been comments such as the committee should be re-elected etc. At the AGM there were so few people running that most of the positions were uncontested, bar chair and PRO and Z? summarised the whole chair position pretty accurately, which is a shame IMO. If people are going to drag personal things into committee issues then I'm not sure I want any part of this in case I ever do anything wrong. Dragging people's girlfriends/boyfriends/personal lives into committee issues is just wrong and immature.

Grow the f*ck up already.

tnkrbell · 11-06-2008 9:03am

Deleted User wrote: »

What does half of this log have to do with anything? Evidently you didn't edit them well enough.

I think half the logs do have to do with this.It shows how nice committee members can be one minute and how they can change in the blink of an eye to be abusive to a fellow committee member.

Everyone is going on about how abusive members of RB are to committee members anyone ever think about the abuse some committee members have given to members (abuse is probably too strong of a word).I for one remember one such incident were one particular member (they were on the committee when this incident occurred) were in a certain channel which would have members from other colleges said quite a malicious comment with regard to a member and a member who i would have put as being respected by a lot of members both current and associate.When I asked this member who the comment was made about it turned out to be lies.
I just think that people who are saying that omg its terrible committee are being abused etc etc really need to step back and have a look at some of the insults that committee members past and present have made to members both on IRC and off

cooker3 wrote: »

Omg there are 2 tnkrbells!

Its either your lucky day or unlucky day

shadow4798 · 11-06-2008 11:14am

Slightly off-topic, but someone was looking for membership numbers:

http://www.redbrick.dcu.ie/~shadow/actmay08.jpg

That shows how many different people have been active each month for the last 8 years. Hopefully something can be done this coming year about the downward trend.

Will · 11-06-2008 11:23am

Shadow comes through once again.

dregin · 11-06-2008 6:34pm

Right. This has gone completely off the point.

Robby is not the person who should be resigning. In my opinion lil_cain and receive are the people who should be gone. Their attitude in not only this incident, but in general is extrememly damaging to the society.

P.S. In any dealings I've had with werdz he has been extremely helpful and has never once given me any reason to doubt that he's one of the best admins redbrick has had to date. I don't know Johan at all and I've never had any dealings with him.

dregin · 11-06-2008 6:59pm

P.P.S. Stop PMing me. Please.

a.nonymus · 11-06-2008 7:52pm

dregin wrote: »

Robby is not the person who should be resigning. In my opinion lil_cain and receive are the people who should be gone. Their attitude in not only this incident, but in general is extrememly damaging to the society.

Seconded.

Dregin for chair.

Merchelo_ · 11-06-2008 10:11pm

Ok, from what I am gathering from the tone of this thread, is that people are unhappy with the recent actions, and running of redbrick as a whole.

There has been a decrease in the number of memberships in redbrick for the past few years. This cannot be down to the members or associates of the society, but more on the committee. These are the people who the members put their trust in to run the society and maintain the continuity of the society over the past few years. As per shadows graph, we can see that this has decreased in recent years.

It has taken a flashpoint by the parts of the current committee in fibbers, for the current thread and angry posts and even a resignation, of a current chairperson of another society as well as ours to resign.
Is it not true that redbrick had one of the best christmas parties for their members in years past, but recently they've been secluded gatherings along with the DCU Games Society in the local pub. I find it very ironic then, for members of the current committee to turn around to the current chairperson of games soc, and say that he's not fit for the job, and that he should resign, and then go and organise a christmas party with that society.

It's my opinion that the committees failures over the past years is not to run with the socio-techno ideologies of current times, like that of social networking (facebook, bebo), and even updating the internal redbrick forums, known as the boards, to incorporate a web based forum (such as this, is this why people prefer to post here than on redbrick boards?). This will need to be addressed in the coming semester to help stop the downward trend of memberships dropping, one shining light in this is the current Events secretary who is making promising noises of events for the new year, if they are realised, it would be a shame not to join redbrick, and miss out on these for new and current members not to join redbrick.
This is the kind of attitude which redbrick has to promote. Promoting IRC as one of the main points of redbrick, will attract some people but not a lot, and the first time they sign in, they won't be very impressed. The committee need to, as zyox said, "Man up", and realise what is happening, and do something to stop it.

As for the current committee, I do believe robby was man enough to resign, and not to offer his resignation. Again, man up please, you feel you are at fault, but you need comfirmation by your friends, and committee members, so you offer your resignation, and by this you feel that you did nothing wrong in their eyes. This is not the case, it is the members who elect you, and by reading this thread, it is the members who have spoken, and by them it reads as if you have not done the right thing by offering your resignation. One could say that you bullied robby into his resignation, and now people are bullying you on the boards into your resignation (you know who you are).

The current findings about redbrick would say a lot about the security on redbrick, leaving a dump of LDAP world readable, and hackable, and then a hack occurs, and you are surprised by this, along with problems with the root password being used for accessing parts of the wiki, and then this same password being apparently mailed to robby does not surprise me, what concerns me most, is currently pub cookie, it's set up as a university template, but users are putting in their usernames and passwords which nothing is happing, where are these passwords and usernames being logged to, and is it as secure as we thought?
Users personal data, including their passwords should be at the forefront of the admins minds, if it doesn't work, don't let people use it, until you have tested it to death, and it does work. One simple ideology i use an awful lot.

This is probably why you don't see me praising the admins at every chance, admins are not there to be praised, but just to be the backroom staff, doing their job as normal, and making sure things run smoothly, and quickly fix things which have broken.

I just hope that these warnings are heeded by the current/changing committee before a society which we all loved/love should becoming another cog in the internet hate machine.

11-06-2008 10:20pm

Merchelo_ wrote:

There has been a decrease in the number of memberships in redbrick for the past few years. This cannot be down to the members or associates of the society, but more on the committee.

Oh really? So it's nothing to do with snobby members wanting to keep this society for themselves? Ask around to a few first years from this year who tried to get the best out of redbrick, and ask them was it the welcoming committee members that scared them away or was it the grumbling old fighting members telling them in some cases to **** off?

Also, this fighting has to stop. These divisions in the society. To put it blunt, they are very annoying and quite childish. They give redbrick and it's members a bad name so if you really do care about the society, try and end this first.

Fair enough, we get it, you don't like the committee. A few people don't like them but because of the noise they are making, it is giving out a worse image than ever...

Merchelo_ · 11-06-2008 10:29pm

Azariah Loose Semicircle wrote: »

Oh really? So it's nothing to do with snobby members wanting to keep this society for themselves?

Concerned members more like.

Azariah Loose Semicircle wrote: »

Fair enough, we get it, you don't like the committee. A few people don't like them but because of the noise they are making, it is giving out a worse image than ever...

Hated the committee so much that I wanted to be a part of it, at an EGM when the position of Helpdesk was up for grabs, only to be pipped to the post by a good friend, who I met through redbrick.

Shadowless · 12-06-2008 2:28am

lol at this thread

roflcopters at rb committee having picnics with society money

Defenestrate · 12-06-2008 9:28am

Merchelo_ wrote: »

It's my opinion that the committees failures over the past years is not to run with the socio-techno ideologies of current times, like that of social networking (facebook, bebo), and even updating the internal redbrick forums, known as the boards, to incorporate a web based forum (such as this, is this why people prefer to post here than on redbrick boards?).

I have to agree with this. I joined Redbrick back in first year, admittedly for the nightclub discount card but I was open minded. I installed the software, loaded it up, and after a couple of minutes of trying to get used to the dinosaur age interface I just uninstalled it. That pretty much sums up my 'activity' in the society!

Matthewthebig · 12-06-2008 10:52am

There have been ongoing attempts to make a web frontend for slrn.

Merchelo_ · 12-06-2008 11:17am

Matthewthebig wrote: »

There have been ongoing attempts to make a web frontend for slrn.

Why stop at this, and totally move to a new approach, and use a web board, with pub cookie login for users.
This makes a lot more sense, then trying to create a web 1.0 front end for a web 0.1 technology.

andrew163 · 12-06-2008 11:27am

I wasn't going to reply to this thread again, but just to answer that one question (a bit off topic)..

That's been debated at length between members and everyone else... a separate web board would split things worse then ever (smelly old people versus smelly new people). There is an attempt to build a proper web interface to them in progress though (if google can do it we can too).. it's just stalled a bit due to the whole hack thing.

Redbrick?

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