TKE-HAAAI eNEWSLETTER

HOUSTON, TEXAS
JUNE 2005

HAAAI IS SENDING TWO TO CONCLAVE IN NEW ORLEANS

Frater Scott Early, HAAAI BOD, Treasurer and Chairman of the EO Alumni 50 Year Anniversary Committee, is driving to New Orleans as the HAAAI Delegate to the 2005 TKE Conclave in New Orleans. Expected to ride "shotgun" with Frater Scott is Frater Charles H. Tankersley, HAAAI BOD, Newsletter Editor, and temporary Webmaster/Web Administrator. Frater Tank's will attend the Conclave, contingent on his wife's condition following replacement of her crippled left knee schedule for June 27, as the official observer and newsletter reporter.

Frater Early has reserved a room sufficient that any other Fraters who wish to drop in for a day or two will have a place to lay down to clear their heads. Both Tank and Scott are looking forward to meeting many of the Frater they only know from the listserv. Also do not forget our great GC and their staff, it is hoped that both Fraters can shake each hand.

The next Newsletter will feature much of the action and ideas presented during the Conclave. Frater Tank intends to report on the progress of all the Alumni Training Manuals and the possibility of a series of Alumni Retreats and/or Seminars for help further the Teke for Life ideal. TKE-HAAAI will continue its mission while researching better ways to bring about more Alumni retention and involvement at all levels. The Area Alumni Association concept seems to be working to gather a strong core of leaders, but the general alumni participation is slow at best. It is hoped this Newsletter and the New web site can go a long way to improving the situation.

THE HOUSTON AREA ALUMNI ASSOCIATION ACQUIRES A DOMAIN

The Houston Area Alumni Association acquires its own domain, www.tke-haaai.org, effective February 27, 2005, to better serve it membership and Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity. At the request of several members of TKE-HAAAI and with the approval of the Board of Directors, Frater Charles Tankersley, the current Newsletter editor and acting Web Master, was directed to research and purchase the domain www.tke-haaai.org, to replace the domain www.orderofthedagger.com. It was the feeling of the BOD that the new domain name would better exemplify the Principles of Tau Kappa Epsilon. After some research to find a "best deal" available and within budget, Frater Tank selected the "Business Plan" package offered by http://www.be-hosted.com/ at the annual cost of $12.95 for the Domain and $143.40 for the host. The total expenditure for the start-up paid was $152.86, tax included.

The primary purpose of the domain is to give the Alumni Association a domain name that identifies Home Page and Newsletter by the TKE-HAAAI actual name. The Home Page, http://www.tke-haaai.org, and the latest Newsletter(s) have been partially move from http://www.orderofthedagger.com and a redirect has been applied to the orderofthedagger page to the tke-haaai page. However, many of the remaining pages are to remain stored on the orderofthedagger site at least until a new Web Master can be located and as long as Frater Valentine continues to allow its use. Frater Tank tells us that he has HTML down rather pat, and can handle CSS rather well, too, but beyond that, he is somewhat lacking in knowledge and experience. He will gladly administrate while assisting anyone who is well trained in the full management and operations of a Web Server. Frater Tank also tells us he is changing the format of the Newsletter, moving the Classified advertising, the Member Profiles, and the Chapter and Alumni Association listings from the Newsletter to the Home page sections.

Although the primary purpose of the new domain is for the Home Page and the Newsletter, the new Host for the domain has included a great deal more bang for our buck than was originally thought. The link to the Be-Hosted Business Plan chosen gives a complete run-down of all Web Services that are available to the HAAAI Membership. For the less technical minded here is a list of the most important Web Services and the benefit it can mean to the all active Tekes. This will also demonstrate why Tank is asking for qualified help, remember, he is an old dog and it is hard to teach old dogs new tricks:

This is one small step for the internet, but one giant step for TKE. One can see how many real and tangible benefits it can provide for our active alumni, our Chapters, and for all the Alumni Associations throughout the United States and Canada. It is also one more link in the proposed TKE-NET initiative. The several servers already owned by TKE can be linked into one large Network, regardless of what type of server. With the proper protocol, Microsoft 2000, 2003, IIS, Unix, Mac OSX, and Linux-Apache servers can be interlinked and providing those services listed above for all of TKE as a benefit for all active Fraters, thus encouraging all to remain active "Tekes for LIFE". For those who wish to become active alumni and take advantage of this service, the dues for HAAAI are currently set at $15/year. With the tke-haaai.org and the Internet it is easy to be a part of the TKE-NET initiative from anywhere. You do not have to be in the Houston Area to contribute your ideas. In future, we will have IRC set up so we can hold the BOD meetings in private on the Internet. This is already being done quite successfully by other organizations, so WHY NOT TKE!

HOUSTON CHAT ROOM STING GOES NATION WIDE
(Editorial by Charles H. Tankersley)

For those of us who have been taking in Houston's channel 2 - 10pm news knows that KPRC has been running a sting pretending to be a 13 year old girl in a chat room. This sting is aimed at catching child predators. With the evening news of May 24, 2005, it was announced that law local enforcement and the FBI are now running the sting to seek out these low life characters who prey upon our children. It is the hope of the Houston Area Alumni Association that no Tekes anywhere on earth or in space, too, are so fowl as to be caught in such a sting.

As HAAAI and TKE move into the TKE-NET initiative, some of the Web Services to be offered is IRC chat and Instant Messaging. Both IRC and Instant Messaging are the tools used by our children. It is impossible to know who you are talking with in these rooms. Anyone can be a rocket scientist, a Doctor, a policeman, or a 13 year old girl just turned 21. The child predator knows this, too, and is a past master at luring children into dangerous situations. Microsoft's NetMeeting can and is being used for this, however it is not as popular at this time, with few users available to prey upon.

Frater Tankersley states that he is well aware of these problems and from his position with deepspace.org can offer security in IRC for the children and family. When TKE begins offering these tools it is important that the Teke Network Administrators and the whole of TKE stand guard to keep TKE-NET secure and cleaned of both the child predator and any cyber-sexual activity what so ever. Frater Tankersley is Web Master and IRC Network Administrator and knows this is achieved successfully with the Deepspace IRC Network.

No matter how good the administrative staff is and how closely the network is watched, it is impossible to police private chat rooms. The only one who can legally police the chat room is the "founder" and any "chat room operator" the founder might assign "access" (chanop) in the chat room. The Network Administration can, if warranted, remove any chat room or user from the network. When TKE or HAAAI creates such a service it becomes imperative that all Teke's police any chat rooms owned or used by Tekes or their family. If a Teke is using the services through Deepspace.org, then he may report any violations to either Frater Tank, Frater Chuck Haines, or to the staff of Deepspace, and the matter will be handled. It is suggested that all parents monitor everything their child does on the Internet and Deepspace does cooperate with law enforcement in keeping predators at bay in its Network. Tau Kappa Epsilon and the Houston Area Alumni Association will do the same!

There are still other problems in keeping a network safe from the Predator that must be met, too. Not only does IRC find fertile ground for the perverted, but the "Home Pages" for AOL, ICQ, Yahoo, Netscape, MSN, and many of the other Web Service corporations commonly used by many of our Fraters have in plain view "dating services". These are direct, unguarded links into adult content web sites. Not even the many "parental content filters" filters are fully effective in keeping our children out of these adult sites and sex networks. Also, once a person enters into these sites, spyware is usually placed on machine, e-mail addresses are copied, and it is almost impossible to stop the SPAM mailing that follow. Until enough pressure is put on the Web Services to voluntarily remove access to adult dating services and any sexually oriented type services from their web sites then the predator and child porn distributor will continue to flourish. Our Constitution does not allow us to force them to remove the stuff, but they can do it voluntarily and force the bad guys to move to their own little world which already exists. I am sure that adult who wants this services can find it so let's not make it easy for our children, too.

The real concern for IRC is that most of our Fraters who use IRC were introduced to it while in college, primarily they are on UnderNet, Dal-Net, MSN, AOL Chat, to name a few. None of these are policed and both warez (illegal software including worm and virus creating tools) and strong sexually oriented chat room channel exist openly in abundance, allowing anyone to access them. With such an assault on our young men, it is no wonder that many fear using IRC at all. When Dal-Net attempted to clean up its act a while back, the hackers actually shut them down for a while. It is uncertain to this author whether they are back in full operation or not.

IRC is not the only problem with chat rooms. Any of the Instant Messaging, aka IM, services allow chatrooms. IM is not in any way policed. It can be easily used to hack into unknowing's machine, transmit viruses to the unwary, and join in private sex chats with children or adults. Many of our Fraters do use IM. If anyone uses any type of messaging service, i.e., NetMeeting, IRC, or IM, be sure to police its uses by your family. You would not allow the criminal to walk freely into you home, so why let them in through your computer?