Hummm Yesterday this was between 8,000 and 10,000 votes. I wonder if it will continue to grow?
Florida e-voting: 18,000 'missing' votes in close race
Government watchdog group has received many complaints about lost votes and missing candidate names on ballots
By Grant Gross, IDG News Service November 10, 2006
Government watchdog group Common Cause has called for an investigation of electronic voting machines used in Florida's 13th congressional district because of 18,000 missing votes.
About 18,000 people who cast votes in other races in Tuesday's election failed to record a vote for either candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives. At last count, Republican candidate Vern Buchanan led Democratic candidate Christine Jennings by less than 400 votes in the race to succeed Republican Katherine Harris, who ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate.
Nearly 13 percent of voters in Sarasota County picked candidates in other races but did not choose a candidate in the House race. More than 35 callers to Common Cause's voter hotline left messages Tuesday saying the e-voting machines appeared to leave off a vote for Jennings on their summary screens, [and no one said anything? Bob] said Ben Wilcox, executive director of Common Cause Florida. In neighboring Manatee County, just 2 percent of voters did not cast a ballot in the congressional race.
Some voters caught the omission and were able to go back and vote again for Jennings, but others may have missed the problem, Wilcox said.
"Sarasota County election officials must conduct a revote," [a recount being impossible... Bob] Wilcox said. "The machines should be impounded, audited and tested to determine if voters were unable to cast a ballot and why. Sarasota County voters deserve an explanation."
Undervoting for top-of-the-ballot races on e-voting machines is typically under 1 percent, according to a study released this year by the Brennan Center for Justice.
The county did not require the Elections System and Software (ES&S) e-voting machines to include paper printouts to back up the electronic vote.
"This is part of the reason we've been calling for a paper trail," Wilcox said.
Ironically, Sarasota County voters on Tuesday approved a ballot measure requiring paper trail ballots to be used as a backup to the e-voting machines.
Sarasota County voters cast about 16,000 more votes in the Florida governor's race and in the Senate race than were recorded in the House race. About 4,000 more people cast ballots for the county's Southern District Hospital Board than were recorded in the House race.
One of the major advantages of using e-voting machines is they are supposed to make it for difficult for voters to undervote, e-voting advocates have long said.
Sarasota County will begin a recount in the race Monday. County Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent didn't immediately return a phone call seeking comment on the undervote. An ES&S spokesman also didn't not immediately return a phone call.
Noble words, without the evidence...
http://www.securityfocus.com/news/11423?ref=rss
E-voting worries focus on failures, not fraud
Robert Lemos, SecurityFocus 2006-11-10
Major electronic voting machine problems occurred in at least six U.S. states during the country's midterm elections, underscoring that system failure, not fraud, is the biggest issue facing future races, voting-rights activists and technologists said this week.
Machine problems delayed voting in many precincts in Colorado, Florida, Indiana, and Ohio, requiring election officials to keep the polls open late. Problems in Montana delayed the final tally of the results in that state, and in New Jersey, about 5 percent of machines had some sort of problem, though the issues were characterized as minor in news reports.
Okay guys, what's going on here? Is this an indication that a deal has been negotiated?
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7005473208
Ex-HP Ethics Chief Pleads Not Guilty In Boardroom Spying Probe Case
November 10, 2006 11:13 a.m. EST Jacob Cherian - All Headline News Staff Writer
San Francisco, CA (AHN) - Former Hewlett-Packard Co ethics chief, Kevin Hunsaker, has pleaded not guilty to four felony charges in a case accusing him of carrying out a spy investigation into the company's board members and journalists.
Spokesman for California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, Tom Dresslar, said Hunsaker was brought before the court in a hearing that was unannounced in Santa Clara County Superior Court. This comes weeks before his scheduled court date on December 6.
... According to the AP, the defendants are now facing four felony counts including, "use of false or fraudulent pretenses to obtain confidential information from a public utility; unauthorized access to computer data; identity theft; and conspiracy to commit each of those crimes."
A quiet Friday. (Not many computer theft reports...)
Hospital clamp after computer thefts
By Jane Lavender
SECURITY is being reviewed at the Royal Bolton Hospital after thousands of pounds worth of computer equipment was stolen.
Thieves stole four computers thought to contain information on patients' pacemaker settings from the hospital's cardiology department [“Let's turn them up a bit and see what happens...” Bob] Police are working with the hospital in a bid to improve security following the thefts - which included laptop computers - over the weekend of October 7.
... She added: "A computer was stolen from pathology, one from the orthopaedic department, two from cardiology and two flat display screens from an outpatient waiting area.
"All the information on these computers was backed up elsewhere and therefore no information was lost.
I hope Bronco security is better!
Bulls count cost of computer theft
By Sunita Bhatti
Vital statistics and match performance details about Bradford Bulls' players have been stolen in a raid on the Super League team's offices.
Three computers on which exhaustive information about each of the club's players - from tries scored to conversions made and number-crunching statistics of their match prowess and fitness levels - were swiped by thieves early yesterday.
... Bulls media, PR and football manager Stuart Duffy said CCTV footage which had been passed on to the police showed the teenagers snooping around the club shop roof before breaking into the office. [Note to security guys: “Video recorders do not prevent theft.” Bob]
... "It's quite comprehensive information for us and it's not really of any use to anyone else," [Oh? Bob] said Mr Duffy.
... The laptop is used for administrative purposes and the information is not believed to be backed up so it would need collating again if it was not returned.
Stolen laptop has data on mental health of 1,000 kids
CanWest News Service; Calgary Herald Published: Friday, November 10, 2006
CALGARY - Alberta's privacy commissioner is investigating the theft of a laptop computer containing personal information on 1,000 children all mental health patients in Calgary.
Commissioner Frank Work announced Thursday he would examine security measures after the computer was stolen from a Calgary Health Region therapist's home [Why 1000 kids, is that a typical case load? Why was all that data at home? Bob] during a break and enter last month.
... But a three-step process for password authentication [Interesting. I haven't heard of a “3-step process” before, so I googled it and all I got was this article! Bob] on the laptop should protect the personal information on the laptop, according to CHR.
Can you say “Gullible?”
Bad news for laptop thieves
10 November 2006 WEB EDITORIAL - webdesk@herts24.co.uk
A NEW tracking system which can trace stolen computers was launched this week at Kingsfield School in Chatteris, where 15 laptops were stolen in June.
Six months earlier 16 laptops were stolen in another burglary.
Education ICT Service, a business unit of Cambridgeshire County Council has joined forces with Dell in a bid to reduce laptop thefts from schools.
Computertrace is a theft protection service that tracks, locates and recovers stolen computers.
Councillor John Powley, Cambridgeshire County Council's cabinet member for corporate services, said: "This is an exciting and innovative initiative which will be bad news for computer thieves. The software is embedded, undetectable and non removable. [Who cares? Steal the computer, reformat the hard drive and load Linux... Bob]
How about this: AT LEAST have a policy!
Confidential Information Should Be Encrypted or Not Stored on Laptops
Posted by Randy Gainer
81% of U.S. businesses surveyed this year reported that, in the previous 12 months, at least one of their laptops or other portable electronic devices had been lost or stolen. U.S. Survey: Confidential Data at Risk, 5 Privacy & Security Law Report 1162 (2006). When a laptop is lost or stolen, unencrypted data on the computer can easily be accessed. Even if a user name and password are needed to sign on to the laptop, the hard drive can be removed in a few seconds and all data on the hard drive can be copied to another computer or to a storage device in minutes.
Despite the high risk sensitive data may be obtained from lost or stolen laptops, many businesses continue to allow employees to store such information on laptops and to take the laptops home, on business trips, and on vacations. Business managers should consider whether their current laptop security practices are sufficient. If a business’ trade secrets, attorney-client privileged information, customer lists, or financial information are obtained from a lost or stolen laptop, affected shareholders, employees, or business partners may argue that the business failed to take adequate steps to safeguard the data.
Avivah Litan, vice president and analyst at the Gartner Group, said in a recent interview: "Frankly, there is no excuse anymore not to encrypt data on laptops and mobile devices. . . . The cost for laptop encryption is $40 or less per laptop. . . . [T]here is no excuse today. It is really bordering on negligence." An Interview with Experts on the Cost of Ensuring Data Security, 6 Privacy Advisor 20, 23 (2006). Every company with sensitive data on mobile devices should consider whether the data should be encrypted.
Another issue must also be resolved by companies whose employees take laptops containing trade secret or privileged information across U.S. borders. Whether such information is encrypted or not, employees who travel across a U.S. border with company laptops should be prepared for U.S. Customs officers to ask to review files on the device. [What, exactly these dim-bulbs are looking for eludes me. Something that could not be emailed? Bob] Customs officers have apparently made several such requests. See Joe Sharkey, At U.S. Borders, Laptops Have No Privacy, N.Y. Times, October 24, 2006, at C 8. Both the Fourth and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeal have held that Customs officers may conduct routine searches of laptops without a warrant, without probable cause, and without a reasonable suspicion of illegal conduct. [...to protect our rights? Bob] See United States v. Romm, 455 F.3d 990, 996-97 (9th Cir. 2006); United States v. Ickes, 393 F.3d 501, 503-07 (4th Cir. 2005). Although a trial court in the Ninth Circuit recently ruled that Customs officers may not search a laptop or other electronic files without at least a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing, United States v. Arnold, 2006 WL 2861592 (C.D. Cal. October 2, 2006), appeal docketed, No. 06-50581 (9th Cir. October 23, 2006), it is unclear whether that decision will survive on appeal.
If Customs officers note that there are encrypted files on a laptop, they may ask travelers to decrypt the data or may retain the laptop to get a warrant to require that the decryption key be turned over to them. See Sharkey, at C 8; and this article from cybercrimelaw.org (via digg.com). To make sure that businesses are not temporarily denied access to important data, "some companies are considering telling travelers coming back into the country with sensitive information to encrypt it and email it to themselves, which at least protects access to the data, if not its privacy." Sharkey, at C 8. If a laptop with trade secrets or privileged information is retained for inspection by Customs, temporary lack of access to the data may not be the most serious problem on company officials’ minds.
A possible solution, both to the risk that data may be obtained by a thief or by someone who finds a lost laptop and to the potential disclosure of highly sensitive data during border searches, is to stop storing sensitive data on laptops. Such data can be stored on company servers and accessed via a VPN. Whether encrypting confidential data on laptops or never storing such data on laptops is chosen as the means to protect the information, company officials should make sure they are doing all they can to protect confidential data.
No subpoena, no foul?
http://techdirt.com/articles/20061109/162935.shtml
Convenient Timing: Politician's Computer 'Crashed' And Deleted Everything Just As Investigators Asked To See It
from the how-convenient dept
Don't you just love convenient timing? The Raw Feed points us to a corruption case involving a commissioner in Hollywood, Florida. He apparently helped a company win an $18 million "sludge-handling" contract. However, just as investigators went to search his computer it was conveniently "wiped clean". He claims it just crashed, even though that crash (conveniently, again) was so thorough that no data was recoverable from the drive even after being sent to various data recovery shops. Not surprisingly, this is raising a few eyebrows, though his lawyer insists that if the guy was really trying to hide info, he would have just "thrown out" the computer. [rather than just replacing the hard drive? Bob]
Fortunately, we in America can read all of these without being considered terrorists – just don't have any Democrat propaganda (until January)
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/10/1650256&from=rss
UK Woman Charged As Terrorist For Computer Files
Posted by Zonk on Friday November 10, @06:31PM from the more-you-know dept. The Internet Privacy
Terror Alert Brown writes "Reuters is reporting that a UK woman has been charged as a terrorist because of computer files on her hard drive. According to the article, these files included 'the Al Qaeda Manual, The Terrorists Handbook, The Mujahideen Poisons Handbook, a manual for a Dragunov sniper rifle, and The Firearms and RPG Handbook.' She was picked up in connection with the plot stopped in August to detonate explosives in airplanes flying out of Heathrow airport. Now might be a good time to delete any copies of the Anarchist's Cookbook you once read for amusement and still have floating around on your hard drive."
Dial S for Skype, P for profits
Sure, Skype can shave a few bucks off your phone bill. But now it's helping savvy entrepreneurs create brand-new business models.
Business 2.0 Magazine By Hillary Woolley, Business 2.0 Magazine November 10 2006: 8:40 AM EST
(Business 2.0 Magazine) -- Free Internet phone service was always likely to change the world - but until recently we had no idea how. A little more than a year after eBay bought Skype for $2.6 billion, the service has become a business tool on a surprising scale.
A million people worldwide, 300,000 of them in the United States, will rely on Skype as their primary means of business communication in 2007, according to telecom analyst Albert Lin at American Technology Research. And those are just the power users: Skype says nearly a third of its 113 million users now log on to make work-related calls.
Who says people in the porn industry aren't innovative? Smart may be in question, but not innovative.
http://techdirt.com/articles/20061110/123022.shtml
Phone Sex Company Hacks Competitors; Spams Their Customers
from the now-there's-a-business dept
While internet scams have changed and adapted over the years, from the beginning a popular target has always been folks who are viewing porn -- on the assumption that if they get scammed, they're less likely to then report it out of some sort of embarrassment. It appears that applies over in Korea as well, where the operators of a phone sex company hacked into their competitors' computers, accessed the personal information of over 8 million people, and started sending them "lascivious text messages." Specifically, they searched through the computer systems of over 60 different competitors, to figure out which were their "superior clients" (those who spent over an hour on the phone) and targeted those clients with more specific text messages. Even better, they did this by registering phones in the names of homeless people, so that they wouldn't have to pay the bills. Of course, it seems that they were found out and have now been arrested for the scam.
...for those thinking of converting to Linux
http://www.foogazi.com/2006/11/10/alternatives-to-windows-programs/
Alternatives to Windows Programs
Posted by: adam k on 10 November 2006
There are many alternatives to using Microsoft Windows and the applications that are made for it. One of the more popular alternatives is the Linux operating system. Just about everything you can do in Windows, you can do in Linux, sometimes even better and with more control. Linux has been around for quiet a long time, so its no surprise that there are a ton of applications out there that offer the same type of functionality that many of our favorite Windows applications have. This article takes a look at some of the most popular software applications used in Microsoft Windows and compares them with some alternatives that get the same job done.
Don't forget to read today's Dilbert on the reliability of corporate data.
http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/
Attention politicians! When you have nothing to say (i.e. When you are talking) you can at least amuse the crowd...
http://www.psconclave.com/wiki/Main_Page
Welcome to PSConclave - The Pen Spinning Wiki!
Welcome to the Pen Spinning Conclave at psconclave.com, a wiki dedicated to the art of pen spinning! Pen Spinning is a fast growing subdiscipline of contact juggling which uses only a pen or pencil, the fact it can be performed practically anywhere contributes to its rising popularity.
There are many pen spinning tricks and combinations to learn, pen modifications to make, and history to reflect on. Visit the help pages or create an account to get started.
For Beginners, if you do not know which pen tricks to learn first, start with the 4 fundamentals of pen spinning, then continue from there. A guide for a learning order is always under contruction as new tricks are invented and added. However there is no set tricks to learn, if you see one you like, then go for it! Spend some time and read through the guide, then spend some more time perfecting it.
Dennis Dallas mentioned this yesterday and I had to research it to see if the source was Comedy Central.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2055821,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594
'BlackBerry Thumb' Sparks New Form of Hand Massage
November 10, 2006 By Martin Roberts, Reuters
TORONTO (Reuters)—Sore thumbs after spending hours on a hand-held e-mail device? Sounds like a case of "BlackBerry Thumb"—but help is at hand.
The Hyatt hotel chain found so many of their business travelers were complaining of hand and arm discomfort that they have introduced a special "BlackBerry Balm" hand massage at most of their North American spas.
... Hedge recommended preventive measures like holding the device comfortably in the hands and close to the body, and not typing for more than five minutes without a break.
"Don't type "War and Peace" with your thumbs! If you need to type long messages use and external keyboard for the device," Hedge said by e-mail.
Know someone who needs this?
http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/001476.php
Starfall.com
Free reading tutorials
Remember that greeting card company and famous-in-the-late-90s website Blue Mountain Arts? Well the extremely talented and philanthropic founders have started a learning-to-read website, totally free, called Starfall.com. My daughters, ages 6 and 7, have literally gotten more educational value out of this than their schools. And now their schools are using it in their classes once a week! Super site, makes the most out of flash and audio on a broadband connection, and really a treasure for young kids (aimed at first graders and below) who want to get going with reading (at no cost).
-- Jeff Blackburn
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