This is a very interesting article on using editing techniques to speed up the WPM of audio recordings without loosing tonality. Its like speed reading a lecture. I wish NPR preprocessed all their audio programming this way.

If PVR's like MythTV had this capability, it could make channels like c-span a little less mind-numbing.

Now Hear This, Quickly

] VeriSign, Inc. , the leading provider of critical
] infrastructure services for the Internet and
] telecommunications networks, today announced that it has
] been selected by Accenture to provide hosting, security
] consulting, authentication services and Managed Public
] Key Infrastructure (MPKI) services for the Department of
] Defense's Secure Electronic Registration and Voting
] Experiment (SERVE.) Upon full deployment, SERVE will
] enable absentee uniformed services members and overseas
] United States citizens from eight participating states to
] cast absentee ballots via the Internet for the 2004
] primary and general elections.

Now THAT is a perfect storm...

VeriSign Selected by Accenture to Secure Department of Defense E-Voting System

] Not only was BlackBoxVoting.org pulled down, but ALL of
] the documents, databases and programming for approximately
] 500 pages of material, most of which did not relate to Diebold at
] all, was confiscated. Dozens of web pages were pulled down which
] had nothing whatever to do with the disputed information. AIT Inc.
] has indicated that it believes it has the right to pull down the entire
] web site including unrelated pages. AIT Inc. is now prohibiting Bev
] Harris or Black Box Voting from accessing any of her own files, even
] for the purpose of removing them.

If these allegations are correct, there could be another interesting DMCA court case in here...

[IP] yet another misuse of dmca? Black Box Voting files confiscated

] EFF last week called on IEEE members and other citizens
] to voice their concerns about the standard. Nearly five
] hundred people wrote to IEEE leadership pointing out
] flaws in the draft standard. On September 22, the first
] working group ballot on the draft failed overwhelmingly,
] causing the simultaneous ballot at the sponsor level to
] fail as well.

EFF: Flawed E-Voting Standard Sent Back to Drawing Board

ICANN has set up a clearing house for information about the Verisign incident. There are some documents up here that are new.

ICANN | Information Page: Verisign's Wildcard Service Deployment

] A computer security expert who contributed to a paper
] deeply critical of Microsoft has been dismissed by his employer,
] a consulting company that works closely with the software giant.

[Politech] Dan Geer loses CTO job at AtStake after criticizing Microsoft

Decius wrote:
] Rattle just observed to me that Verisign's actions toward the
] Internet community were sort of like Bush's actions toward the
] UN. There may be more to that then you think. The moral
] standards of acceptable behavior are set by the leadership. If
] the leader says its ok to do a certain thing, then people will
] rationalize away any natural inhibition that they might have
] toward it. "He thinks its ok to do this and he is obviously
] smarter then me, so I'm going to ignore that nagging little
] voice and go ahead..."
]
] The way we've been throwing our weight around and doing things
] that are of dubious responsibility simply because we can and
] the people who ought to check us really aren't in a position
] to do that.... Well that rubs off. A manager thinking of doing
] something this dramatic might have thought twice about it in a
] time when one feared reprisals from millions of angry people.
] That fear is the heart of democracy. You can't screw the
] people because they are collectively more powerful then you.
] You respect them.
]
] I think we are in the process of loosing that fear.

] We just went through the new age of "boom," where everyone
] forgets that booms always bust. Now we begin the new age of
] empire, where everyone forgets that empires are always
] violently overthrown.

Indeed.

] The reason we still have wars is that greed is more powerful
] then reason.

What? Did you say something about SCO?

RE: Verisign and Bush

] 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.

(Comments from Decius)

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

I think that Harris is a conspiracy theorist. Certainly if the elections in Georgia were stolen that would be a historic fraud, a great mar on our history. However, it is not appropriate to allege that unless you've got proof. Saying "Oh, oh, oh, this might have occured..." simply serves to rile up people's emotions and it contributes to the ignorance and confusion that surrounds this issue. The quotes in the Diebold memos about "King County" are obviously not in reference to election fraud. Later in the same memo the same person discussess the concerns that Texas has about the use of this capability for such a purpose.

On the other hand, the Diebold memos demonstrate a complete lack of computer security clue on the part of the engineers. The fact that you have a password on your .mdb file isn't going to keep me out of it, in particular when you've handed me software that has access to it. Furthermore, the fact these morons are confident enough of their clue level to be poking fun at the "technical wizards" in the certifying companies is enough to turn the stomach.

All of these people simply seem to be in way the hell over their heads, and none of them seem to realize it.

Salon.com Technology | An open invitation to election fraud

] In response to widespread expressions of concern from the
] Internet community about the effects of the
] introduction of the wildcard, ICANN has requested
] advice from its Security and Stability Advisory
] Committee, and from the Internet Architecture
] Board, on the impact of the changes implemented
] by VeriSign. ICANN's Security and Stability Advisory
] Committee is expected to release an objective
] expert report concerning the wildcard later today.
]
] Recognizing the concerns about the wildcard service,
] ICANN has called upon VeriSign to voluntarily
] suspend the service until the various reviews
] now underway are completed.

ICANN Speaks!

] JetBlue Airways confirmed on Thursday that in September
] 2002, it provided 5 million passenger itineraries to a
] defense contractor for proof-of-concept testing of a
] Pentagon project unrelated to airline security -- with
] help from the Transportation Security Administration.

1. Jet Blue is so fucked. They violated their privacy policy. There are passenger social security numbers in the pdf file linked from this story. The law suits should start flying any minute now.

2. The PDF is worth checking out. Its a nice example of the things you can learn from trolling a database like this.

3. These consultants seem to recommend that if you don't own your home or you change residency too frequently, you ought to be given additional scrutiny at the airport.

This is the future we are heading towards. We have total access to all your purchasing, credit, and other demographic information, and if we determine that you don't fit into a popular demographic group, or that you fit into a demographic group we often have trouble with, you can look forward to getting hassled endlessly.

Remember that you live in the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we employ omnipotent surveillance to keep us safe from danger.

Wired News: JetBlue Shared Passenger Data