The Rotary Club of
Lebanon, NH, USA
 
Chartered 1923
Riverside Park Clean-up
November 6, 2020 
________________________________________________________________________
Currents
November 12, 2020
 
Editor: Marilyn Bedell and note taker, Bruce Pacht...Again...Thanks for the help!
Upcoming Programs/Speakers
 
November 19, 2020:  Tony Abbate speaking on What's Going On with the Stock Market
 
From the https://seekingalpha.com/ web page: Tony Abbate, CFA is founder and Managing Director of Granite Value Capital, a Hanover, NH based investment management firm. Tony received his BBA in Finance and Business Economics from University of Notre Dame in 1992. He received his Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 1997. Prior to starting Granite Value Capital, he worked for nine years as a Portfolio Manager in Fleet/Bank of America's Private Wealth Management division.
 
  • Meeting Schedule for December…NOTE CHANGE IN TIME AND DAY OF WEEK FOR TWO MEETINGS — Ron Bedell
We do not have a scheduled zoom meeting between December 10th and January 7th, almost a month.  So, this would be a good time to try some different days of the week and times to see if we can get better attendance.  We therefore are adding Wednesday December 16 at 7:30 A.M. and Tuesday December 29th at NOON to our zoom schedule.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Stories
Program for November 12, 2020 - Willian Nisen - Associate Director, Institute for Security, Technology and Society
Willian Nisen - Associate Director, Institute for Security, Technology and Society - What we need to know about Cybersecurity?
 
The Institute grew from a grant secured by Sen. Judd Gregg years ago.  Unlike many other computer science departments, Dartmouth’s is more focused on the background of computer science than creation of apps.
 
SLIDE PRESENTATION (Bill gave citations for his facts; I didn’t copy them.)
 
“Securing our digital lives”
It has been said that “Our lives are floating on a digital sea.”  Health records, electricity to our homes, internet, etc.
 
Are we secure?  How pervasive are Cybersecurity vulnerabilities?
Breaches – hacker attacks occur every 39 seconds; 43% of breach victims are small to medium-sized businesses.
 
Factoids:
  • Worldwide if trends continue, we’ll be spending $113+ billion/year by 2022 just to protect ourselves
  • During the first 6 months of 2019, 4.1 billion records were exposed.
 
2 Types of Vulnerabilities: 
 
Corporate vulnerabilities
  • Ransomware:  I kidnap your data and return it after you pay a ransom.
  • City of Atlanta – hackers wanted $51,000 in bitcoin which Atlanta didn’t pay.  It then cost them $13 million to repair the damage
  • Maersk – This company sustained collateral damage costing them over $300 million to repair.
  • Malware:  code with nefarious purpose; UVM hospital network is still recovering from a malware attack.
  • Phishing:  seeking to obtain secure information from you to unlock your digital key to more info.
  • Man-in-the-middle attacks:  mostly on nation-states; like old-fashioned telephone party lines -- they listen in and you don’t know they are there.
  • Denial-of-Service:  more of an “I hate you” attack; overloading your capacity to respond to customer requests through a deluge of email, requests, queries to your system.
  • SQL (Structured Query Language) injection – stick in a trigger or a piece of malware.
  • Zero-Day Exploit:  A discovered unknown vulnerability.  Feds collected these vulnerabilities until the question arose as to whether it’s ethical for NSA to keep the knowledge from the vulnerable companies.  Lately, they’ve decided to let the companies know so they can repair the holes.  Stuxnet is an example.  It was a way to infect the industrial controls of Iranian nuclear facilities by screwing around with their the controls of their uranium centrifuges’ ability to run properly.  It was never found it until it ‘cyber-escaped’.
  • DNS (Domain Name System) tunneling – how to corrupt networks.
 
Personal vulnerabilities
  • Identity theft
  • Ransomware – “Please send $$ to this account or we’ll destroy your data.”
  • Phishing – With COVID-19, this example began:  “Hi, I’m from doing contact tracing; please provide name address and license number or social security number.”  Looks official.  Last month, phishers were all about voter registration.
  • Scams – The Nigerian Prince make-you-a-millionaire scam.
 
 
Are security and privacy twins or cousins?
Jan 26, 1999 Scott McNeely, CEO Sun Microsystems said, “You have zero privacy anyway; get over it.”  He was right.
The Christian Science Monitor reported (12/17/19) that GOP officials said they’ve invested over $300 MM into their data operations, collecting roughly 3,000 data points on every voter in the country in a system jointly owned by the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee.
 
Digital security must come first before digital privacy.  The “General Data Protection Act” in Europe is ahead of US actions.  We should take a lesson.
 
Am I at Risk?
Ask yourself:  Do you have a cellphone, shop on line, receive paperless statements, use a credit card?
 
What to do?
Exercise common sense
  • Never give up personally identifiable information unless you are 100% certain of the individual’s identity.  Scammers and phishers are professionals so you must be hypervigilant, especially when emotions are called into play.
  • Use a full-service internet suite such as Sophos or Norton.  They protect against low-level, unintelligent attacks.
  • Keep your software updated!!
  • Use strong passwords or a password manager.  Make a list you can look up, but don’t keep it on line – print it out.
  • We used to say, “Trust but verify”; now we say, “Never Trust, Always Verify”.
 
Bright future or dystopia?
Hackers come in all different shapes:
  • Nation-state hackers such as took down the Ukrainian power grid.  When the power grid went down, the phone system went down 35 seconds later.  Only a nation-state could have pulled off such an attack. Was this an attack or a dress rehearsal?  Although Ukraine was without power for only 6 hours, they still had myriad manual circuit breakers to repair.
  • “Adversarial machine-learning threat matrix”:  We have to design machines to learn and detect these attacks; “It takes a machine to break a machine.”  We are using artificial intelligence to try and predict such attacks. 
  • Cyberwarfare:  The “battlefield of the future” will not be on a physical battlefield – it will be fought by taking out the opponent’s command cyberstructures.  Defending against such attacks has become top priority in defense work.
  • IoT (Internet of Things) pervasiveness:  Unfortunately IoT is one of the broadest forms of vulnerability we have – in-home sensors, thermostats, cameras, etc. 
 
Bill’s final advice comes from the old police drama, “Hill Street Blues” – “Let’s be careful out there”
 
Questions:
Bill Secord:  Why do you have no smart phone?
Nisen: Apps are not secure; we sign away lots of rights to privacy by agreeing to the conditions of use.  If you don’t like the terms and conditions, you can’t use the app.  I’ve had a life for 14 years without a smart phone but that may soon be ending. 
 
Steve W:  Unified ID?
Nisen: I’m skeptical of over-arching solutions.  I ask, “Who will benefit from this “solution?”  If it’s not me, I’m skeptical.  I think it’s important for younger people to put security rings around their information.  I think bio-scans would be secure and I don’t know why the delay continues in their practical development.  Another factoid:  Google is making something like $2.5 B in profit each MONTH from their model.
 
Cindy Jerome:  What about face ID?
Nisen: For your device, it’s really quite secure.  It relies on a deep-learning model.  But you and I are part of the test group; for African-Americans, the chance of being recognized is less than 40%.  We have to be very cognizant of the data.
 
Ernst Oidtmann – Concern ransomware and hospitals and paying in bitcoin.  Any move to deal with bitcoin issue?  Transactions are untraceable.
Nisen: It is absolutely a concern to law enforcement agencies around the world.  But, I don’t think we’ll see anything changing in the short term because Citicorp is trying to come up with their own bitcoin analogy.  I think the technology will be with us – not sure which version will survive, but right now it’s a thorn in the side of the “follow the money” adage for law enforcement.
 
William Nisen is the Associate Director, Institute For Security, technology and Society, Dartmouth College
 
Brief Biographical Sketch:
 
Nisen has been involved with a series of educational and entrepreneurial initiatives in the United States, Europe and Africa. As the Associate Director of the Institute for Security, Technology and Society at Dartmouth College, Nisen is repositioning the institute as a leader in disruptive learning technologies and experiential learning within the field of cybersecurity. Outside of his work at Dartmouth, most of his recent efforts have been focused on encouraging a grassroots approach to innovation and entrepreneurship specifically in the Balkans and Africa. Nisen is heavily involved in assisting non-profit groups to adopt information and communication technologies as a means of increasing their efficiency and effectiveness. Nisen also mentors start-up companies, primarily in the education, mobile communications and information technology sectors.
 
 
 
Book being donated to the Kilton Library Children's collection in honor of our William Nisan is:
 
Facts vs. Opinion vs. Robots
by Michael Rex
 
 
 
Do you know the difference between a fact and an opinion? It can be a hard thing to understand. Some things are facts--like the number of robots in this book. Other things are opinions--like which robot would make the best friend, or which robot dances best. And sometimes to tell the difference between a fact and an opinion, you need to wait to get more information--that's because facts can be proven true or false, and opinions are things you feel and believe--but that you can't prove. 
 
Mike Rex introduces young readers to the very important distinction between facts and opinions, and he reminds us that it is nice to listen to one another's opinions, and to stand up for the facts! 
Read more...
Moorings
 
Our speaker, Bill Nisen joined us for the banter before the start of the meeting.  Many minutes were spent on the evolution of computer technology and moving from punch card (according to Bill the perfect note cards...correct thickness, sturdy and the fit into a pocket) to terabytes. 
 
  • 5:32 PM – Bell rung; Ron Bedell called meetin to order.
 
  • Welcome from Ron Bedell
Several guests joined us for this meeting:  Sharmila and Dipak Neroula, Steve Taylor, Rachel Brooks (our Rotary Peace Scholar), Bill Maloney.
 
  • Ron Bedell recited the Four Way Test
 
John Yacavone introduced our speaker:  Willian “Bill” Nisen, Associate Director, Institute for Security, Technology and Society at Dartmouth College: What we need to know About Cybersecurity
An interesting topic...but a little scary too.
 
Happy Thoughts/Concerns
 
Marilyn — Rachel Brooks our Peace Scholar has invited all of us to attend part or all of the University of Bradford Rotary Peace Centre Bill Huntley Memorial Peace Center Seminar. It is being virtually hosted by Rachel's class. If you'd like to join the Bradford Rotary Peace Centre Bill Huntley Memorial Seminar online November 27-28, the sign up is here.  Each fellow will be giving short presentations and we will have a few department and alumni speakers (program here) if you'd like to join! Rachel is speaking on the 28th.
From the University's web page: 

This year our annual seminar is titled 'Many Peaces'. The event is devised, organised and delivered by our Peace Fellows. The seminar will take place on 27 - 28 November 2020 and will be delivered as an online webinar via Zoom. 

We are delighted to be joined at the seminar by two guest speakers, as well as colleagues from the Department of Peace Studies and International Development. Class XVIII Peace Fellows will also deliver individual presentations on a number of topics. Many of the sessions will be interactive with attendees having the opportunity to submit questions to our speakers.

Registration for the seminar is now open via Eventbrite. 

Please note joining instructions will be sent to attendees the week of the seminar.

 
Marilyn — Jane Mason is going to take over as speaker-finder (YAY!!) beginning in January.  John will get a speaker for ONE date in
December
 
Will — Three happy dollars:  He shot his low round of the year -- 83!  Dug out his Pirates hat once he saw John Yacavone in his Philly's hat.  Most important – his dog’s been really sick, in doggie hospital and seeing vets, but she appears to be on the road to recovery and tonight she actually wanted to play with her duckie.  Aw!  Will will send his happy dollars along with dues and TRF contribution tomorrow.
 
Members at the meeting:
Dan Affeldt
Bill Babineau
Marilyn Bedell
Ron Bedell
Hank Clarke
Dave Crandall
Ed Friedman
Garlan Hoskin
Cindy Jerome
Willie Koppenheffer
Ernst Oidtmann
Bruce Pacht
Bill Secord
Paul Tierney
Steve Whitman
John Yacavone
 
Prospective Members:
Dipak Niroula
Sharmila Niroula
 
Guests:
Rachel Brooks (Our Rotary Peace Scholar)
Bill Chabot
Bryan Davis
Speaker -- William Nisen
Steve Taylor
 
Meeting adjourned at 6:27 PM.
 
“Stay safe, stay distant, and wear masks.”
 
Club Updates/Announcements
 
  • Rotary Foundation — Ron Bedell
Remember to make your contribution to the Rotary Foundation by November 19th.  All Rotarians who make their $100 donations will receive 100 points towards their next Paul Harris Fellowship.  You can just make out you check to THE ROTARY FOUNDTION and send it to Ron Bedell 35 Lily Lane, West Lebanon, NH, 03784, or Rotarians can drop-off their checks at Phillips office at the Service Credit Union (It would be best if Rotarians put their check in an envelope marked Philip Rentz/Rotary Foundation).  If you prefer to pay by credit card you can go to rotary.org, click on DONATE and then click on ANNUAL FUND. (Make sure you sign into MyRotary first to set up an account before making the donation, so the donation is recorded as a donation for our Club.  Once you sign in, a lot of the donation form will self-populate.)
  • Meeting Schedule for December…NOTE CHANGE IN TIME AND DAY OF WEEK — Ron Bedell
We do not have a scheduled zoom meeting between December 10th and January 7th, almost a month.  So, this would be a good time to try some different days of the week and times to see if we can get better attendance.  We therefore are adding Wednesday December 16 at 7:30 A.M. and Tuesday December 29th at NOON to our zoom schedule.
  • Holiday Basket Helpers — Angela Nelson
Marilyn for Angela Nelson:  We are looking for cash donations to go to LISTEN as they aren’t accepting physical donations this year.  Write your checks to “Lebanon Rotary Charities”, PO Box 132, Lebanon, NH  03766-0132.  Angela will then write a single check to LISTEN. The club will add $450  from our Charities Account in addition to your donations.
  • Drive-thru Flu Clinic - Letter of Thanks
 
 
 
FORUM -- November 8, 2020
 
A collaborative Upper Valley effort to protect everyone against the flu
This fall in the Upper Valley there have been many opportunities for residents to get seasonal flu vaccine.
This year, getting vaccinated against the flu is more important than ever. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we cannot afford to overburden the health care system with flu-related hospitalizations. Also, because the symptoms of flu and COVID-19 are similar, it is difficult to distinguish the two infections and health care providers may use scarce resources assuming cases are COVID-19 when they are not.
 
Fortunately, it appears many Upper Valley residents have heeded the warning and gotten their vaccine.
Dartmouth-Hitchcock and the Vermont Department of Health both report higher numbers of vaccines given this year compared with recent years. The Public Health Council is proud to have been part of this effort, providing more than 1,350 free flu vaccines in five community drive-thru clinics during the month of October.
 
This was a true collaborative effort, and we want to thank the partners who made these clinics possible, including the 99 students from the Geisel School of Medicine who volunteered to administer vaccines; Dr. Annika Brown, who trained the students and recruited 11 of her colleagues from Dartmouth-Hitchcock to supervise the clinics; Dartmouth-Hitchcock, for donating vaccines and clinical supplies; Novo Nordisk and the Lebanon Rotary Club, for providing grants to cover expenses of setting up outdoor clinics, and volunteers to help with many registration and traffic control tasks; and the community partners who helped coordinate and staff the clinics. There are others who deserve our gratitude. Our oversight in naming you does not diminish our gratitude.
May the seasonal flu vaccine effort next year be less complicated by other factors. But may we never forget how fortunate we are in the Upper Valley to have so many partners working together to protect our community’s health.
 
ALICE ELY
Grantham
RUDY FEDRIZZI
Lebanon
 
The writers are executive director and board chair, respectively, of the Public Health Council.
 
  • Masks  — Marilyn Bedell
We received another 1,000 disposable face masks from the Million Mask Drive.  The Mascoma School district was delighted to be the recipient of all of these masks.  Our thanks to Bruce Pacht how delivered them to the School District Office.
 
  
Bruce Pacht and Amanda Isabelle, Superintendent of SAU #62
  • Youth Services — Bruce Pacht
  • Interact clubs are struggling due to COVID schedule upheavals and the inability to perform group activities.  Joy and Bruce continue serving as our liaisons to clubs at LHS and MVRHS.
  • Phil Rentz will handle Lebanon’s participation in Round 1 of the 2021 speech contest along with assistance from Joy Gobin.  We will have to come up with a virtual version of the speech contest
  • The committee is expanding our scholarship awards to add two, $1,000 awards at Ledyard Charter School.  Joy and Tim are heading up this effort.  We hope everyone noticed the full page ad in the Valley News this week for HACTC’s students-of-the-month program – Rotary received prominent recognition.
  • RYLA – If the club is to participate in the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards program, virtual though it may be, we will need someone to step forward and work with the District RYLA chair to help figure out how to keep this youth leadership program alive in our district. 
  • Anyone wishing to get in on the fun by joining in shaping the Club’s youth service efforts (Remember – youth service is the avowed strategic service focus of our club!), drop Bruce a note:  brucepacht67@gmail.com.
This announcement was placed in the Valley News.  We are supporting the Student of the month program. Our club i listed in the orange section of the add under HACTC.
 
 
  • Update on Poker Room — John Yacavone
History:  We have been scheduled by the State of NH to participate in the new law requiring that 35% of earnings from 6 poker rooms in the state must go to charity.  Last year, we were allocated 10 days to receive 35% of the Lebanon poker room’s profits.  We earned $17,00 from this. 
This year, on March 1-6 and March 8-11, we will be the recipients of the 35% from the Lebanon Poker Room.  In December, John will get a background check and fingerprints and paperwork.  
 
  • District 7850 — District Governor Jamie Milne and District Governor-elect Mike Carrier

Leadership Symposium

Saturday, November 14, 2020, 9:00 to 11:00 am

Green Room opens at 8:30 am for networking and fellowship

Normally, our District would be gathering at Northern Vermont University on November 14th for a Fall Training Event.  Since we are not able to meet in person, we have designed a virtual program which we think will provide an engaging opportunity for learning and sharing among Presidents, Presidents-Elect, New Generations Chairs, Membership Chairs, Foundation Chairs...heck, it's really meant for every Rotarian in District 7850!

Speakers:

Rachel Brooks - Rotary Peace Fellow

Billy Roberts - District Governor-elect will speak on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Registration is not required!  Everyone is welcome!

Time: Nov 14, 2020 open at 08:30 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Program starts at 9AM

Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 837 6540 0435
Passcode: 547079
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  • Community Services Updates — Will Koppenheffer
November 6th   Completed Riverside Park Clean-up 
 
Eight Rotarians cleaned up the park in less than 2 hours.
 
     
                        Ron Bedell                       Willie Koppenheffer & Cindy Jerome
 
Ernst Oidtmann and John Yacavone
 
Good Work Lebanon Rotarians!
 
 
 
2020 Holiday Service Project - Santa needs our help!
 
 
Listen Holiday Basket Helpers Gift Card Purchases.  We can't be on site for basket review this year and we can't purchase gifts for families.  Listen will only be able to give families in need gift cards.
 
Here is how you can help:
Lebanon Rotarians are asked to make donations to the Lebanon Rotary Charities.  Mail checks to Rotary Club of Lebanon, PO Box 132, Lebanon, NH 03766.
 
Angela will then cut a check with an addition donation of $450 from our charities account to Listen on behalf of the Club.
 
Here's hoping you can be and elf and help Santa make the holidays a little happier for those in need.
 
 
 
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Club Social Event
 
HOLIDAY DINNER AT THE QUECHEE INN
+/- Our Famous Yankee Swap
 
Email sent to club members about the plan for this dinner with social distancing. Twenty-two people plan to attend.  Menu choice to go out in November.
 
Keep or Swap?
 
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Rotary International News
 

SHARE this #GivingTuesday

 
 

By K.R Ravindran, Chair, The Rotary Foundation

Giving Tuesday has grown into a global movement of generosity. It is a giving day recognized around the world that empowers us all to give back to our communities through service, kindness and financial support – all beliefs that Rotary values deeply.

Every act of kindness makes a difference, and no gift is too small. This Giving Tuesday, I ask that we all find opportunities to help communities both close to home and around the globe. One easy way to take action is to make a gift to The Rotary Foundation’s Annual Fund SHARE, Rotary’s primary way of making sustainable projects possible both on a local and global level.

The Annual Fund’s SHARE system empowers Rotarians close to home and around the world to use these funds to create lasting change where our help is needed most. Last year, the Foundation awarded 490 district grants and 1,359 global grants as a result of Annual Fund SHARE contributions made by our generous donors during our Centennial year back in 2016-17. What will be possible in the future for communities around the world will be determined by the action you take right now. I would like to ask every member of a Rotary or Rotaract club to contribute a gift of any size to our Annual Fund SHARE this Giving Tuesday.

I thank you for being part of the Rotary family, for your service, and support. Let’s all take action this Giving Tuesday and together, we can keep Doing Good in the World.

View a video by clicking here

 
We are meeting via 
Zoom! 
 
We will be meeting every
Thursdays at 5:30 PM
Please join us if you can!!
 
Need to learn how to join a Zoom Meeting? Click Here
 
Links
Rotary District 7850
Rotary International
The Rotary Foundation
Upper Valley Business Alliance
Executives & Directors
President
Ron Bedell
 
President Elect
Hank Clarke
 
Vice President
Ed Friedman
 
Past President
Marion Steiner
 
Secretary
Marilyn Bedell
 
Treasurer
Angela Nelson
 
Charities Board Treasurer
Angela Nelson
 
Finance Committee
Steve Whitman
 
International Service
JoAnn Lemieux
 
Membership
Rich Wallace
 
Web Master
Rich Wallace
 
Youth Service
Steve Whitman
 
Sergeant at Arms
Dave Crandall
 
Service Projects
Bruce Bergeron
 
Rotary Foundation Chair
Ron Bedell
 
At Large Member
V. Bruce Pacht
 
Russell Hampton
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