... In a nation that flaunts its capacities to produce and consume, much of the culture's heat now lies with the ability to cut, paste, clip, sample, quote, recycle, customize and recirculate.

[Sad...whatever happened to coming up with original ideas? - Nano]

Beyond File-Sharing, a Nation of Copiers

] DIEBOLD ALERT
]
] All files yanked by webhost at request of Diebold,
] Inc.
] A copy of the email is below. I received this 28 hours
] after the now-vanished files went live.
] While I am not a legal professional in any way, I firmly
] believe that these files, while copyrighted, carry
] credible evidence of illegal vote-accessing activity
] and thus are not covered under the DCMA due to the "dirty
] hands" defense, which disallows an entity seeking
] damages in cases involving illegal activities
] connected to that which is being protected.

Diebold sueing away the truth...

"Johnny died due to complications from diabetes, which resulted in respiratory failure," Cash's manager, Lou Robin, said in a statement issued by Baptist Hospital in Nashville.

Thursday was a crappy day, as John Ritter also passed away unexpectedly while working on his TV show.

One very interesting tidbit that was on NPR this morning, but I can't find references of on Google yet, is the statement that while in the Air Force, Johnny Cash was a codebreaker. This would make Johnny the Alpha-Geek, and most beloved, as the original codebreaking Man in Black.

Music Legend Johnny Cash Dies at 71

Good analysis of Scoop's allegations and Diebold's rebuttal:

------

Allegation #53 (p. 16):
"Physical access to the voting results may not even be necessary to acquire the voting records if they are transmitted across the Internet."
Diebold Response:
... Results are not transmitted over the Internet.
My Added Comment:
But we know that result transmission uses telephone, PPP, and a username and password, from Page 14 of the Hopkins report, quoted in Allegation #40. Therefore, it is quite possible that election central will have a LAN connected using Internet protocol, perhaps used to connect a modem bank with a single PC. This LAN may not be as vulnerable as the public Internet, but it is vulnerable to packet snooping and several other attacks, and must therefore be carefully secured. Furthermore, if an adversary can dial into the PPP host and await connections, Trojan horse applications on the voting system could communicate with the adversary using PPP without talking to the GEMS system at all.

Allegation #54 (p. 16):
"The Diebold voting machines cannot work in isolation ..."
Diebold Response:
This is false. ... The primary form of output for the Ballot Station is the result tape ...
My Added Comment:
Diebold is wrong. Just because communication is accomplished using hand carried media such as the PCMCIA cards used to program the machine before the election and the printout used as the official election record does not mean that the machine is isolated. See my response to allegation #16! Hand carried PCMCIA cards need just as much protection as network communications. Furthermore, the printout from the machine is not necessarily the final result unless we make this printout before we make any modem connection that could admit an intruder; here, the Diebold system, because of its weak security, relies unnecessarily on strict adherence to correct polling place procedures. Not only that, but we are under increasing pressure to use the electronic record for canvassing, generally the one in the hand-carried PCMCIA card taken from the voting machine, but in the not-too-distant future, we may be pressured into using the result from the modem! That paper record wasn't even an option with Global's system when it was offered for sale to Iowa in 1997, and today, I gather that many jurisdictions don't look at it unless there's a call for a recount.

The Diebold FTP Story

Please keep in mind that these are static jpgs...
Hold onto your seat...

good god, that sure does mess with my eyes *squint* *squint* :) - Nano

Freak out man!!!

] Everyone knows they should have a passing knowledge of
] vi, but most people groan at the thought of using it. In
] today's article, I'd like to demonstrate some of the
] tricks that vi has up its sleeve. It really is a powerful
] little editor and I'm constantly amazed at its number of
] built-in shortcuts.

Reference: Using the vi Editor

] A newly discovered asteroid has zero chance of colliding
] with Earth in 11 years, although preliminary data had
] suggested such a doomsday scenario was possible,
] astronomers said this week.

This had to be memed....if only so that you could enjoy the title of the article:) - Nano

CNN.com - Asteroid update: End of world on hold - Sep. 5, 2003

] The recording industry is expected to announce as early
] as next week an amnesty program for people who admit they
] illegally share music files across the Internet,
] promising not to sue them in exchange for their admission
] and pledge to delete the songs off their computers.
]
] The offer of amnesty will not apply to the roughly 1,600
] people who already have been targets of copyright
] subpoenas from the Recording Industry Association of
] America, which has promised to file hundreds of
] infringement lawsuits across the country as early as next
] week.

Wired News: Repent, and All Is Forgiven

] The SARS-like virus found in a food market in Guangdong,
] China jumped from animals to people - and not the other
] way around - suggests new research.
]
] The study represents an important step in tracing the
] original source of the virus. However, the work still
] leaves many important questions about the route of
] transmission of the SARS virus to people unanswered.

SARS!!!!!!!!! (sorry...I feel the need to yell that every time I hear anything about this virus....strange huh?;) - Nano

New Scientist

] The photograph to the right is JESUS, The Hot Air Balloon
] as it appeared at Ridgecrest, California on November 7th,
] 1998.

in the words of Mike Morrison, "He is risen!"

[bahahahahahaha. wow. - Nano]

JESUS, The Hot Air Balloon