Cute flash.

Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer?

] Activists have also questioned the political affiliations
] of the leading voting companies. Late last year, Harris
] found that Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, used
] to run the voting company that provided most of the
] voting machines in his state. And in August, the
] Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that Walden O'Dell, the
] CEO of Diebold, is a major fundraiser for President Bush.
] In a letter to fellow Republicans, O'Dell said that he
] was "COMMITTED TO HELPING OHIO DELIVER ITS ELECTORAL
] VOTES TO THE PRESIDENT NEXT YEAR."
]
] But the problems Harris found in Diebold's system are
] perhaps the best proof yet that electronic voting systems
] aren't ready for prime time. Indeed, the vulnerabilities
] in the software, as well as the internal memos, raise
] questions about the legitimacy of the California recall
] election. In its ruling, the 9th Circuit Court put the
] election on hold until the six counties that currently
] use punch-card systems -- six counties that comprise 44
] percent of the state's voters -- upgrade their systems.
] On Monday, 11 judges on the 9th Circuit reheard the
] recall case; they may very well allow the election to go
] ahead on Oct. 7. If the recall vote is put on hold until
] March, however, many may wonder whether to trust the
] results: Four of the six punch-card counties -- including
] the largest, Los Angeles and San Diego -- have plans to
] upgrade to Diebold machines by March.

Very good article, with links to Diebold's internal memos, on the electronic voting systems.

Salon.com Technology | An open invitation to election fraud

] The At-Large Advisory Committee would like to bring to ICANN's attention concerns about Verisign's surprising roll-out of the "SiteFinder" service for .com and .net.
]
] This practice raises grave technical concerns, as it de facto removes error diagnostics from the DNS protocol, and replaces them by an error handling method that is tailored for HTTP,
] which is just one of the many Internet protocols that make use of the DNS. We will leave it for others to explain the details of these concerns, but note that returning resource records in a
] way which is countrary to the very design of the DNS certainly does not promote the stability of the Internet.
]

ICANN ALAC speaks out about sitefinder

] In 2000, the Business Software Alliance conducted a
] raid and subsequent audit at the San Luis Obispo,
] Calif.-based company that turned up a few dozen
] unlicensed copies of programs. Ball settled for $65,000,
] plus $35,000 in legal fees. But by then, the BSA, a trade
] group that helps enforce copyrights and licensing
] provisions for major business software makers, had put
] the company on the evening news and featured it in
] regional ads warning other businesses to monitor their
] software licenses.
]
] Humiliated by the experience, Ball told his IT
] department he wanted Microsoft products out of his
] business within six months. "I said, 'I don't care if we
] have to buy 10,000 abacuses,'" recalled Ball, who
] recently addressed the LinuxWorld trade show. "We won't
] do business with someone who treats us poorly.

An entertaining interview with a medium sized business owner who runs linux exclusively.

Ernie Ball Rockin' on without Microsoft

]Instead of quibbling over whether nanotech is antihuman, we need to
]be asking how we can use it to benefit the greatest number of
]people.

An analysis of (well, more accurately, a preemptive strike against) the coming wave of anti-nanotech sentiment. Nanotechnologists vs Luddites! Round 1! FIGHT!

[I love Annalee Newitz....her writing is awesome - Nano]

AlterNet: TECHSPLOITATION: Nanophobia

] Artificial three dimensional visualisation is existing for long
] time. It is holography. This invention set the minimum
] requirements for 3D visualisation. Viewers should see a 3D image
] on the screen, as they would see in reality. Systems that cause
] any discomfort or restrain the viewer will not be broadly
] accepted. Several announcements were made about the invention of
] the ultimate 3D display but none of these are "true" 3D display
] solutions, since none of them comply with all the following
] criteria:

not sure how much is BS, but I want one...

Holographic displays, I want one...

The design and strength of all key lengths of the AES algorithm (i.e., 128, 192 and 256) are sufficient to protect classified information up to the SECRET level. TOP SECRET information will require use of either the 192 or 256 key lengths.

This essentially means that AES as at least as good as the algorithms the NSA develops for this purpose. Very impressive.

Policy Says AES OK for National Security Info