NOTE: REALLY SHORT NOTICE...
      BUT YOU WERE WARNED TO EXPECT THIS 2 WEEKS AGO...

===========================================
UNIGROUP OF NEW YORK MAY 2003 ANNOUNCEMENTS
===========================================

   --------------------------------------------------
1. UNIGROUP'S MAY 2003 GENERAL MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT
   --------------------------------------------------

      When:  Thursday, May 15th, 2003

     Where:  The Chase Manhattan Bank
             One Chase Manhattan Plaza (1CMP)  <==(Our New Location!)
             Conference Center, 28th Floor
             Downtown, NYC
             **********************************************
             YOU MUST RSVP TO GET PAST SECURITY, SEE BELOW!
             **********************************************

      Time:  6:15 PM - 6:30 PM  Registration
             6:30 PM - 6:40 PM  Ask the Wizard,
                                Questions, Answers and Current Events
             6:40 PM - 6:50 PM  Unigroup Business
             6:50 PM - 9:30 PM  Main Presentation

             ---------------------------------------------------
     Topic:  SECURITY: Log Collection, Auditing and Preservation
             ---------------------------------------------------

   Speaker:  Manos Megagiannis,
             President (and Founder),
             Totally Secure Inc.


   Introduction:
   -------------

   Please RSVP right away, the deadline is real short.

   -------------------------------------------------------------------

   SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS:
   ---------------------

   * IN ORDER TO PASS THROUGH SECURITY AT CHASE, WE NEED YOU TO RSVP
   * PRIOR TO THE MEETING DAY, SO WE CAN GET YOUR NAME ON THE ATTENDEE
   * LIST.  ADVANCE REGISTRATION AND PHOTO ID ARE REQUIRED!
   * RSVP DEADLINE 14-MAY-2003 16:00.  <<<< PAY ATTENTION, DEADLINE!
   * Keep an eye out on the deadline date and time, as it may change.

   Please RSVP if you know you are attending or if you think you may
   be attending.  This will help us arrange for a letter to security
   for all of Unigroup.  It will also help us to determine the correct
   amount of food and refreshments.

   To REGISTER for this event, please RSVP by:

   a) If at all possible, please use the Unigroup Registration Page:
         http://www.unigroup.org/unigroup-rsvp.html
      This will allow us to have some automation in the RSVP process.

   b) If you must Email us, send an EMail containing the FIRST and
      LAST NAMEs of the persons attending to the Unigroup RSVP
      address:
         unigroup-rsvp@unigroup.org
      The Email subject should start with "RSVP".
      You may optionally include your contact phone number (that
      day) or other current information.

      DO NOT simply reply to this Email, sending us back the entire
      announcement (we already have it); leaving the subject as it
      was, and NOT containing the phrase "RSVP" as requested.  In
      that case, your message just looks like failed mail and it
      makes it impossible to automate the RSVP process and get
      you registered for our event.

      ALSO: Do NOT give us an Email address which is over quota
      and cannot receive any new Email.  This causes us to receive
      bounces from your address when we send out the RSVP-ACKs.
      You must have a working and valid Email address in order
      to get on the Unigroup Meeting Attendee List which will
      grant you access to our meetings.  Be sure to proof-read
      your Email address before submitting the RSVP request.

   Please continue to check the Unigroup web site:
        http://www.unigroup.org
   for any last minute updates concerning this meeting.  Please
   check your Email for any last minute announcements prior to the
   meeting.  Note that only the Attendee First and Last Names will
   be provided to Chase Security.

   -------------------------------------------------------------------

   Description of Talk:
   --------------------

   This presentation will be on:
     "Log Collection, Auditing and Preservation."   

   Synopsys: The use of log data to improve detection,
             identification, countermeasures, and eventually
             prosecution of security breaches.

   More details to follow.  Keep an eye on our meeting page.

   The basic idea of this talk will be:
       - You are being hacked!
       - How can you tell?
       - What does the hack look like?
       - What can you do to stop it?
       - What do you need to do, now!


   Web Resources:
   --------------

   (to-be-announced)


   Giveaways:
   ----------

   O'Reilly has been kind enough to provide us with some of their
   books, which we will raffle off as giveaways at our meetings.


   Speaker Biography:
   ------------------

   Manos E. Megagiannis is the President and Founder of Totally
   Secure Inc., a company dedicated to providing quality solutions
   and services for today's critical computer security market.
   He is responsible for the conceptualization, design and
   implementation of security software, as well as senior level
   consulting services.

   Mr. Megagiannis has over 15 years of professional experience
   with Information Systems in several key areas, including
   LAN/WAN architecture, voice and data communications, security,
   and commercial Internet solutions. He has consulted with many
   Fortune and Global 500 companies, pioneering technologies such
   as micro-payment systems, network storage, search engines,
   commercial video and audio broadcast, network security tools,
   and operating systems' internal components.

   Mr. Megagiannis is an honorary chairman of the Business Advisory
   Council, for which he received a Gold Medal.  Also serves in the
   Presidential Business Commission.

   In addition to his position in Totally Secure, Mr. Megagiannis
   serves on advisory boards for a number of other companies,
   including Sunteg Energy, MicroSecure, TeKnowledge Industries.

   As an active member of many not-for profit associations, he has
   contributed to the community and helped set industry standards
   for computer networks.  His work has received commendations from
   state and local governments.  Prior to founding Totally Secure,
   Mr. Megagiannis held the position of Vice President and Chief
   Technical Officer for a number of successful startups.

   Mr. Megagiannis holds a master's degree in Computer Science from
   the City University of New York.  

   Mr. Megagiannis has been interviewed and quoted in a number of
   national and International media and publications, including
   Forbes, Wired, WBAI radio, The Wall Street Journal, and New
   York Newsday.


   Company Biography:
   ------------------

   More details to follow.  Keep an eye on our meeting page.


   -------------------------------------------------------------------

   Fee Schedule:
         Yearly Membership (includes all meetings):      $ 50.00
       * Non-Member Single Meeting:                      $ 20.00
         Student Yearly Membership:                      $ 20.00
         Non-Member Student Single Meeting (with ID):    $  5.00
         Payment Methods: Cash, Check, American Express.

       * Employees of JPM/Chase (with ID) can attend general
         meetings at NO CHARGE.

    ==>  Unigroup is the Greater NYC Regional Area Affiliate
         of UniForum - an International Unix Users Group.
         Our Joint Membership Program with UniForum is currently
         on hold due to circumstances at UniForum.  For information
         about UniForum visit http://www.uniforum.org.

   -------------------------------------------------------------------

   Complimentary Food and Refreshments will be served.  This includes
   sandwiches such as turkey, roast beef, chicken, tuna and grilled
   eggplant as well as brownies, cookies, bottled water and assorted
   beverages.

   -------------------------------------------------------------------

   Directions:

     The 1CMP building is situated: South of Liberty Street, North
     of Pine Street, East of Broad/Nassau Street and West of William
     Street.  The building is one block east of Broadway, right
     behind 140 Broadway.

     The closest entrance to the conference center is from Nassau
     Street, first elevator bank from the Nassau Street entrance.

     The building is on a raised platform.  Walk up the outside
     stairs at Nassau Street and head for the guard's station at the
     south-west corner of the building.  Tell the guards you are
     heading for Unigroup.

     They will inspect your ID and carry-ins and direct you to the
     meeting facility assuming you are on the Unigroup RSVP list.

     Once you get upstairs, enter the conference facility through
     its main doors.  There is a bank of large monitors to the left
     of the entrance which should direct you to the Unigroup meeting
     room (the room may vary from month to month).  To the right of
     the main entrance is the concierge's desk, ask for help there
     if you need anything.  The conference facility has two levels,
     keep in mind that the Unigroup meeting may be up the staircase
     on its upper level.  Thus far, our meeting room has been
     upstairs, on the south side of the building.

     As always, also look out for Unigroup signs marking the path
     to the meeting room.  Also note, if you come early, we may not
     have our own signs in place yet (we have to commute there too).

     Transit By Train:  Take the J/M/Z to Broad Street and walk one
     block North to Pine St.  Take the 4/5 to Wall Street and walk
     North to Pine St., then East to Broad St.  Take the 2/3 to Wall
     Street, the North West exit is inside the Chase complex, else
     you will need to walk a block North and West.  See the MTA
     Downtown NYC Map (pdf) for detailed mass transit information:
       http://www.mta.nyc.ny.us/nyct/maps/mapdown.pdf

   -----

   Please mark this meeting on your calendar and join us!
   Please tell your friends about Unigroup!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   -----------------
2. UPCOMING MEETINGS
   -----------------

   We have a series of meetings in the works:

   - Zope (Web Page Development)
   - Unix Clusters and Clustered Databases
   - High Performance Internet Servers / Web Acceleration
   - Unix 30th Birthday Celebration
   - IPsec and IPv6
   - Linux Clustering Part 3: Beowulf version 2
   - Building a Firewall using FreeBSD and Linux
   - Unix Office Tools: Word Processors, Spreadsheets, Accounting Packages.
   - Emacs
   - Tex
   - PKI
   - GNU Development Environments
   - Meetings on a variety of Sun/Solaris/Java topics

   Please let us know about any other meeting topics that you may be
   interested in.  Potential speakers on Unix related technology topics
   should contact the Unigroup board at uniboard@unigroup.org.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   --------------
3. PRIOR MEETINGS
   --------------

   - PYTHON and TWISTED

     Unigroup would like to thank Itamar Shtull-Trauring from Zoteca,
     Inc., for his highly informative talk on Python and Twisted.  We
     learned that Python is a rich language with many features and
     one "fatal flaw"... when using Python YOU *MUST*NOT* mix spaces
     and tabs when indenting.  Standard newsgroup and mailing list
     conventions seem to indicate to *ALWAYS* use FOUR SPACES for
     indentation levels and NEVER USE TABS.  Python users in our
     audience confirmed this fact, it seems everything Python
     goes much easier if only spaces are used for indentation.
     We also learned that the Twisted Framework makes building
     network servers and clients a relatively simple task.
     For giveaways, we raffled off some O'Reilly books, provided
     to us from our friends at O'Reilly's User Group Program.

   - UNIX TECHNOLOGY UPDATE: 64-bit Hardware and Operating Systems

     Unigroup would like to thank HP's Marty Poniatowski and his
     colleagues: Tom Mendolia, Frank Chen, Andrea Sullivan,
     Karen Sullivan, Lynne Hummel and Maryann Husby who helped us
     put together a great field trip meeting at HP's NYC Facility.
     Our members and guests were able to tour HP's System Demo Room
     and Marty gave us a great presentation on the latest in
     64-bit Unix/Linux/Hardware technology.  HP also sponsored a
     great spread of food and refreshments.  For giveaways, we
     were able to raffle off some of Marty's books, as well as
     some of the Python books that O'Reilly had provided to us
     (Thanks Marty and O'Reilly!).

     Here is one of the best Thank You's that we have ever received
     from one of our speakers:

     # In my 16 years of presenting HP technology I have never
     # presented to such an enjoyable audience as UNIGROUP.  Your
     # UNIX users group members had insightful comments on every
     # slide which resulted in fascinating technical discussions.
     # I know that your members enjoyed the presentation as well
     # because I've never presented for 2 1/2 hours and then had
     # people say to me "why didn't you keep going!"  The
     # dedication of your members to spend an evening at HP until
     # after 9:00PM is most admirable.
     # 
     # I'm happy that I was able to share my enthusiasm of our
     # great HP products and partnerships with your group.  I
     # would like to work with my HP colleagues on helping to
     # plan future events at HP.
     # 
     # I hope that your members get good use out of my books
     # and please forward this message to them.
     # 
     # Thanks,
     # Marty Poniatowski
     # http://www.hp.com/hpbooks/authors/poniatowski.html

     Thanks again Marty, from what I saw, most, if not all of our
     members and guests enjoyed themselves and learned quite a bit
     that evening.  Unigroup is known as "NYC's Technical Unix
     Group," so I'm glad that we lived up to our reputation! :-)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   --------------------
4. UNIGROUP INFORMATION
   --------------------

   Unigroup is one of the oldest and largest Unix User's Groups serving
   the Greater New York City Regional Area since the early 1980s.  Unigroup
   is a not-for-profit, vendor-neutral and member funded volunteer
   organization.  Unigroup holds regular and special event meetings
   throughout the year on technical topics relating to Unix and the Unix
   User Community.  Unigroup is also the Greater NYC Regional Area Affiliate
   of UniForum - an International Unix Users Group.

   Thanks to Chase, Unigroup holds regular meetings planned for the Third
   THURSDAY of Odd Months at The Chase Manhattan Bank, 1CMP, NYC.
   Chase has been a long time sponsor of Unigroup, allowing us the use of
   a meeting room and presentation equipment.

   Planned meeting dates are: 5/15/2003, 7/17/2003, 9/18/2003...
   Watch for our Special Event meetings at the various trade shows in NYC
   as well as "field trips" to the facilities of local hardware and
   software vendors.

   =========================================================================
   = For Unigroup Information, Events and Meeting Announcements be sure to =
   = visit our World Wide Web Home Page:                                   =
   =       http://www.unigroup.org                                         =
   =========================================================================

   For further information or to get on the Unigroup Electronic Mail Mailing
   List send an EMail message to:
        unilist@unigroup.org

   To contact the Board of Directors of Unigroup, send an EMail message to:
        uniboard@unigroup.org

   To contact the Newsletter Editor, send an EMail message to:
        editor@unigroup.org

   If you have recently attended a meeting and you are not receiving
   Email announcements, please send us an Email and we will make
   corrections to our lists.

   Please Email the Board with any suggestions, especially potential
   meeting topics and speakers.  Unigroup welcomes contributions and
   content suggestions for our newsletter.  Unigroup is a volunteer
   organization and we need your assistance!  Please let us know if you
   can help!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope to see you all at our next meeting!

-Rob Weiner
 Unigroup Executive Director
 unilist@unigroup.org
 http://www.unigroup.org

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