Challenges for the Next Generation

Thursday, Feb. 6, 2014, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

Note: We are meeting one hour earlier!

This month, we are starting a new theme, Challenges for the Next Generation. In the first meeting we will take the broad view by looking at the next generation as a demographic group known as The Millennials. We will be show excerpts from the following videos:

• Gen Y acting entitled? New facts. You decide.
• Young Americans Are the Dumbest Generation
• Generation jobless
• Millennials Will Change the World
• Millennials: The Most Diverse Generation
• How To Sell To Millennials
• RSA Millennials Debate

For those the want more background, here is the study of the Millennials by the Pew Research Center.

Please come with suggestions on topics about the next generation topics we can cover for the remainder of February. This can include but not limited to:

1. The failed education system
2. Lack of job prospects
3. Increased health issues
4. Living in technology vs the real world
5. Inheriting our problems
6. The performance of boys vs girls
7. Lack of interaction between generations

Zoom-In on CyberCrime

Thursday, Jan. 30, 2014, 9am to 10:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

Starting in February we will be meeting One hour later, 10am to 11:30

By now we should know what the four kinds of cyber attacks in CHEW are. We talked about the last three kinds, Hackivism, Espionage and War. This week we will focus on the first kind, Cyber-Crime, the part of CHEW that might affects us most personally.

The meeting will show excerpts from the following videos:

• Mikko Hypponen: Fighting viruses, defending the net
• Misha Glenny: Hire the hackers!
• Extreme Identity: Jeff Carter at TEDxKC

Also note the poll on the upper right of this page. The poll will close on Feb. 3 at 9am. This is an experiment so please email me if you have technical difficulties.

Afghanistan Rescheduled

Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014, 9am to 10:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

Meeting Cancelled due to weather

Skye will give her presentation on her experience in Afghanistan. This is a rescheduling of the 1/9/14 meeting. You can check on the previous post for related videos and comments.

Starting in February, we will meet and hour later. So our time slot will be from 10am to 11:30. Hopefully, this will allow more people to attend our meetings. For the remainder of January, we will meet at the same time, 9am to 10:30.

As reminder here are the themes for January to March. In February we will start the theme, Challenges for the next generation. You can add comments below if you have suggestions for topics we could cover which apply to the next generation. You can also add suggestions for future themes and topics for April and beyond.

Cyber CHEW (Crime, Hacktivism, Espionage and War)

Thursday, Jan. 16, 2014, 9am to 10:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

In our meeting on Cyber Privacy, Ron pointed out that Cyber Espionage was a much more serious problem. Certainly it is a serious problem, as well as Cyber Crime, Hacktivism and War.  We can argue if any of these are more important than Privacy.

This presentation by Richard Clark about his book Cyber War, covers the four-headed Cyber monster a called CHEW. We will show Richard Clark's presentation at our meeting and use it to set up our discussions.

Here are seven short YouTube videos which provides some background on the topics covered by Clark. We will show these videos only if time permits.

1. Obama issue executive orders to improve Cyber Security
2. Action against China
3. Cyber Attacks by Iran
4. Stuxnet
5. Military Cyber Command
6. Internet of Things
7. Anonymous

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Update 1/15/14

Here is a link to the Economist article on Cyberwar.

Afghanistan Presentation

Thursday, Jan. 9, 2014, 9am to 10:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

This meeting has been rescheduled for Jan. 23 same time and place

This meeting will be rescheduled

For next week's meeting, we will take a break from the normal program. Skye will give a presentation on  her experience in Afghanistan. 

Here are some interesting TED Talks which are about the Afghan people. These talks are not central to our meeting, by they are interesting and may provide background to help in our discussion.

• Monika Bulaj: The hidden light of Afghanistan
• Shabana Basij-Rasikh: Dare to educate Afghan girls
• Alberto Cairo: There are no scraps of men

Security vs Privacy

Thursday, Jan. 2, 2014, 9am to 10:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

In January, we will explore the good and the bad of new technology. We will start the month with a discussion of how data mining used to increase our security has cost us our privacy. Here the two TED Talks that will be used as a basis for our discussion:

• Mikko Hypponen: How the NSA betrayed the world's trust -- time to act  - which explains what we knew was possible with current technologies has actually happened
• Alessandro Acquisti: Why privacy matters - which shows how much more is possible as current technologies are improved and combined

These videos will be shown at the meeting, but the speakers provide a lot of information so seeing they videos before the meeting will help.

Please come with suggestions on other fearful technologies that you would like to discuss in January.

Schedule for 2014Q1

We will try something different in 2014. Instead of spending two weeks on a topic, we will dedicate each month to a theme. That way we can announce the theme in advance but have some flexibility to change the topic as we go along. Here is what I am proposing for the first three months of 2014.

• January - New Technology, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
• February - Challenges for the next generation
• March - "A Republic, if you can keep it"

January has five Thursdays, so we could let Skye give her presentation on Afghanistan on one of the Thursdays that meets her schedule. Certainly one of other topics covered in January will be on how the new technologies affect privacy.

Vince wanted a discussion to help of understand what the kids today are interested in. We certainly can cover that during one of our meetings in February. Remember, I will be away on the third week in February, so I am looking for a volunteer to lead the discussion, on Feb. 20.

I will also be away on the first week in March. Tim will lead the discussion that week. He will be looking for topics on how we have strayed from our Democratic principles. This would be the time for Bill's topic on gun control, Ken's topic on local politics and Al's topic on religion in politics.

As for the topic of Education, it fits nicely under all three themes. So we may have several sessions on Education.

If I missed any of your favored topics please let me know.