Felten: Some New Jersey voting machines can't add
A printed tape offered as evidence of the integrity of a Sequoia Voting Systems machine failed a very obvious test last week, as a Princeton professor noted a simple column of numbers actually added up to 105, not 106.
The Princeton University professor who has received national acclaim for his efforts to assess the true integrity of electronic voting machines, discovered one very simple error amid the evidence one manufacturer, Sequoia Voting Systems, had actually offered in its own defense. In recent weeks, Sequoia has found itself in hot water again for as many as sixty separate discrepancies reported in a single election in New Jersey last February 3.
Oracle adds systems management perq to Linux OS support
As a new perquisite for customers of its Linux OS or database support, Oracle today announced free downloads and support for Oracle Clusterware, a systems management package for both Red Hat Linux and Oracle's "Unbreakable Linux."
Up to now, Clusterware has only been offered to users of Oracle's RAC (Real Applications Clusters) database management solution, said Monica Kumar, Oracle's senior director for Linux and open source product marketing, in a briefing for BetaNews.
Maryland governor plans to drop electronic voting, buy optical scanners
Making good on a campaign promise to overhaul Maryland's suspect electronic voting system, the governor there proposed an initial outlay in the state budget toward the purchase of scanners to replace its $65 million touch-screen voting systems.
As the Baltimore Sun first reported on Saturday, in his state's budget officially submitted to the Maryland legislature this morning, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) has proposed an outlay of $6.8 million toward the purchase of optical-scan voting machines which utilize hard-copy paper ballots.
Switzerland: Superior Voting Security?
California Revokes Four Voting Machine Certifications
Following last week's report by University of California, Davis engineers on the integrity -- or lack thereof -- of electronic voting machines used in statewide elections, the California Secretary of State late last week revoked the approval of systems from Diebold, Hart InterCivic, Sequoia, and Elections Systems and Software, Inc. Manufacturers now each have 30 days to come up with a plan for how they intend to harden their systems' internal configuration security, and 45 days for a network security hardening plan, before their systems can be submitted for re-approval for use in next February's presidential primary.
Among the findings Sec. of State Debra Bowen cited in her proclamations this morning was this: "The Diebold Red Team members [from UC Davis], with access only to the Windows operating system on the Diebold GEMS election management server supplied to Diebold and without requiring access to Diebold source code, were able to access the Diebold voting system server software and to corrupt the election management system database, which could result in manipulated voter totals or the inability to read election results, rendering an election impossible to complete electronically."
Three E-Voting Systems Susceptible to Attack, California Team Finds
A report released this morning by the University of California, Davis, which was contracted by the State to investigate the security integrity of three brands of electronic voting machines which the State uses, concludes that all three are susceptible to compromise and tampering, using any number of tools including Trojan Horse programs and simple screwdrivers.
The final report, written by principal investigator Matt Bishop, took great pains to refrain from casting any kind of condemnatory or similar attitude against the three manufacturers whose devices were tested. In fact, it went out of its way to be fair, at one point stating that in many cases, the integrity of the voting machines' software may only be as strong as that of the underlying operating system - which, in all three cases was Windows.
AACS LA Versus Digg, Google in DMCA Showdown Over Leaked Key
Beginning two weeks ago, attorneys for the licensing authority for the Advanced Access Copy System used in both Blu-ray and HD DVD issued letters to multiple Web sites and services, including search engines, demanding they remove direct references to a 32-hexadecimal digit code they claim is a processing key that could be used to circumvent DRM protection in HD DVD discs.
"It is our understanding that you are providing to the public the above-identified tools and services at the above referenced URL," reads one letter sent by AACS LA's attorneys to a representative of Google, "and are thereby providing and offering to the public a technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof that is primarily designed, produced, or marketed for the purpose of circumventing the technological protection measures afforded by AACS (hereafter, the "circumvention offering"). Doing so constitutes a violation of the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act."
Reverse Engineering DRM on CDs Deemed Lawful
The US Librarian of Congress is recommending that Congress officially recognize that engineering intended to expose flaws in DRM schemes on audio CDs to be non-infringing.
Every three years, advisors to the US Library of Congress meet to determine whether certain technological measures that could be considered circumventions of copyright - and thus, running afoul of "fair use" provisions - are actually necessary in order to further the lawful use of copyrighted works.
Calculation 2006: Are the Voting Machines Doing Their Job?
UPDATED November 7, 2006 3:50 pm ET
12:00 pm ET As morning ended on Election Day in the US, voting precincts throughout the country are, as expected, reporting sporadic problems with newly installed electronic voting equipment. There are no outright disasters reported just yet, though heavier-than-normal turnout for a mid-term election may be increasing pressure on volunteers to make certain systems work flawlessly.
Could Crypto Resolve the Voting Machine Controversy?
In a detailed analysis paper and video that are continuing to make waves, a trio of Princeton University Dept. of Computer Science researchers demonstrated last month how Diebold AccuVote-TS electronic voting machines -- the very devices recommended to end the 2000 "nightmare of the hanging chads" -- could be easily compromised by injecting malicious software through a memory card at boot time.
With mid-term elections in the U.S. just a few weeks away, and the balance of power in both houses of Congress made more tenuous with the emergence of even more political scandals, the likelihood is growing that the outcome of close elections this November may be challenged if the technology relied upon to secure those elections comes under question.
ICANN Narrows Field Of Possible Internet Domains
The list of possible new Internet domains was pared down
today as the staff of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN) weeded out several proposals that didn't meet ICANN's
rigorous standards.
Next week, members of ICANN's board of directors are expected to
approve the first new generic top-level Internet domains (gTLDs) since the
advent of .com, .org and .net more than a decade ago.
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