30/11/00
Hi, this is David Barrett; acting chairperson of MiNDS>
This is what happened.
The Department of Finance sent a letter of official protest to the Computer Center, accusing the user sargon on the Minds system of instigating a Denial of Service attack on the Department itself. This letter was then passed on to both Dr WJ Smyth, President of the NUI; and to the acting head of the department of Computer Science, Mr Stephen Brown. This letter arrived this morning via the HEA.
On receipt of this letter Stephen Brown ordered taken down indefinitely; pending an official investigation by the Computer Science department.
Therefore we have had to take action to protect the society. We, the committee, in conjunction with the SU's Societies officer Bart Busschots; held an emergency meeting this afternoon at 2pm in the Callan Foyer. At this meeting it was unanimously agreed to initiate impeachment proceedings against the then Chairperson Darragh Sherwin, who originally wrote the script; and to remove access rights from David Bolger [ Sargon ]. At the meeting, Darragh unofficially resigned, and his letter of resignation will be tendered to us as soon as possible. David Bolger is sending letters of apology to James Cotter, Stephen Brown, the Computer Center, Dr Smyth, the HEA network and the Department of Finance... almost certainly to the minister. Darragh is sending letters of apology to James Cotter, Stephen Brown, the Computer Center, and possibly Dr Smyth.
The best we can do is hope that the society get our machine back and resume our normal services that we have always offered to our members and other clubs and societies in Maynooth.
As Darragh stepped down, I am now the Acting Chairperson and Aidan Delaney has taken over his previous role as Acting Vice Chairperson. I have to write a letter to the Department apologising for our machine being used for this purpose and that this was actually against our own rules as we use the HEA system and we have operate under their regulations.
I'll post this letter to the mailing list every day for the next three days to ensure that people who haven't signed up yet will receive this. I will also post it up at this pace if and when we let our members join this newsgroup.
An EGM will be set up in the next few days, provisianally for next Wednesday, to discuss what has happened with the members.
Regards,
David Barrett