Things went much better than I had feared. We'll have to wait to see if the close races result in charges of vote tampering (which will not be resolved in cases where recounts aren't possible) I'm aware of one incident locally where the paper record of votes was destroyed when the printer failed to scroll the paper and printed the record of several votes on the same line... But with no need to recount, this will be ignored.
Perhaps the conspiracy theorists will claim this sets a precedent for the Presidential elections that will allow the Republicans to steal another one?
http://techdirt.com/articles/20061107/174628.shtml
Would You Believe It? Widespread Reports Of E-Voting Problems
from the as-if-you-couldn't-see-that-one-coming dept
What a surprise that after plenty of people have pointed out for years why e-voting machines are problematic that there appear to be numerous reports of problems with the machines. There's nothing too surprising: reports of machines not working right, selecting the wrong candidate or poll workers not knowing how the machines worked at all. Everywhere you look there are more and more and more reports of problems. While elections officials everywhere are trying to claim it's no big deal, it should be a huge deal. There's simply no good reason that we entrusted our democracy to a bunch of machines that clearly were not ready to handle the task. And, on top of that, there's still no way to check how things are working on the back end. For all the problems reported at the front end with problematic votes, there's still no way to make sure the counter machines are counting correctly. You can almost bet that the various e-voting machine companies will come out with claims about how successful this election was, with just a few minor glitches here and there. But, the real problem is that there's simply no way to tell whether or not the election was successful since there's no real check on these machines.
Is this so unusual?
http://ca.biz.yahoo.com/law/061107/cd00d070f56a1139231a4f654c33db45.html?.v=1
Law Firm Must Surrender Client E-Mails Shared With 'Lay Adviser,' Judge Says
Tuesday November 7, 2:53 am ET Mary Pat Gallagher, New Jersey Law Journal
A Morristown, N.J., law firm will have to turn over client e-mails in a federal court battle between a former client and his ex-employer, as a judge has rejected the firm's assertions of privilege.
The messages were exchanged among Riker Danzig Scherer Hyland & Perretti, its former client, Warren Tobin of New Zealand, and Matthew Young, a "lay adviser" to Tobin in a related New Zealand proceeding.
Tobin and Young are defendants in Stayinfront Inc. v. Tobin, 05-Civ.-4563, in which U.S. District Judge Stanley Chesler held on Nov. 3 that there was no attorney-client privilege protection for the e-mails because the privilege had been waived by sharing the messages with Young.
Work-product privilege was also unavailable. Chesler found the defendants' "recalcitrance, willful noncompliance and disregard for the rules and authority of this Court" constituted exceptional circumstances that justified piercing the privilege to compel production.
The e-mails, sent between May 12, 2004, and March 9, 2005, concern a Bergen County, N.J., state court action Tobin filed in 2003 to enforce rights under stock purchase and severance agreements with his former employers, Stayinfront Inc. and NAP Associates, both based in Fairfield, N.J.
Riker Danzig represented Tobin in the case, which settled in 2004. Two months later, Tobin filed a wrongful discharge case with New Zealand's Employment Relations Authority. In that case, he was represented by Young, who, though not a barrister or solicitor, is authorized under New Zealand law to represent clients before the authority as a lay adviser.
Then, in August 2005, Stayinfront and NAP sued Tobin, Young and Young's employer, Employment Associates, Ltd. of Auckland, New Zealand. They claim that Tobin, a former director and vice president who was bought out in 2002, breached a covenant not to sue contained in the stock-purchase and severance agreement when he brought the New Zealand case. They also assert a tortious-interference-with-contract claim against Young and his company for allegedly inducing Tobin to bring the New Zealand action. The current suit was filed in state court and removed to federal court on diversity grounds.
The plaintiffs want the e-mails at issue so they can pursue punitive damages against the defendants, and Chesler's ruling grew out of Riker's efforts to fight a subpoena served by the plaintiffs last March, after Tobin and Young had already advised the court they would not participate in the litigation and were dropping Riker as their counsel.
Chesler held that Young's status as a non-attorney defeated any claim of privilege under New Jersey law and that Riker Danzig failed to meet its burden of showing that Young was a necessary intermediary or agent who thus fell within the privilege.
Nor was there a privilege under New Zealand law because the e-mails did not relate to the New Zealand proceedings, Chesler stated.
Riker's Julian Wells says of the ruling, "We took a position that we felt and still feel is correct but the judge differed." There is no plan to appeal the ruling to the 3rd Circuit, he says.
Sean Lipsky, of Cole, Schotz, Meisel, Forman & Leonard in Hackensack, N.J., who represents Stayinfront and NAP, says he is pleased with the decision but otherwise declines comment.
I'm not sure I understand all of this yet... Is Microsoft again trying to dictate which (non-Microsoft) operating systems can interact with theirs?
Novell deal to cost Microsoft hundreds of millions
Microsoft will spend more than $440M in licensing fees, marketing costs to hold up its end of Linux agreement
By Robert McMillan, IDG News Service November 08, 2006
Microsoft will spend more than $440 million in licensing fees and sales and marketing costs over the next five years to keep up its end of the historic Linux agreement it made with Novell, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission documents filed by Novell on Tuesday.
The two companies announced the surprise agreement late last week, billing it as an effort to "bridge the divide between open source and proprietary source software," according to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Under the deal, Microsoft has agreed to offer marketing and sales support for Novell's Suse Linux and to co-develop technologies that will help customers integrate the competing operating systems.
Microsoft has also agreed to distribute 70,000 Suse Linux subscription certificates so Microsoft customers can get Suse updates and technical support from Novell.
But the most controversial component of the deal is a patent cooperation agreement under which Microsoft has promised not to launch patent lawsuits against Novell customers.
In a note published Tuesday , Novell said this agreement amounts to a "covenant" between Microsoft and Novell's customers, but Linux advocates maintain that it is effectively a patent cross-licensing agreement between Novell and Microsoft. Such an agreement would be in violation of Linux's software license, the GNU General Public License, (GPL) which does not allow distributors to enter into exclusive agreements with patent holders.
Why this business model works.
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/012952.html
November 07, 2006
Study Reveals One in 10 Respond to Fraudulent 'Phishing' Messages
Will Knight at New Scientist reports the research by Professor Markus Jakobsson and grad student Jacob Ratkiewicz, Indiana University, indicates "...one in 10 internet users may be lured into handing over sensitive personal information such as a credit card number, by fraudulent "phishing" emails..." and "that some survey participants may not have realised that they have been stung by a phishing scam, or may simply be too embarrassed to admit to it."
See also Alex Tsow, Markus Jakobsson, Liu Yang, Susanne Wetzel.
Warkitting: the Drive-by Subversion of Wireless Home Routers. Anti-Phishing and Online Fraud, Part II Journal of Digital Forensic Practice, Volume 1, Special Issue 3, November 2006
This is interesting. How would you ask? Email? Click a button on the home page? Would the government require notification of anyone requesting deletion of their record?
http://techdirt.com/articles/20061107/113442.shtml
German Supreme Court Says ISPs Should Delete Logs When Asked
from the the-struggle-continues dept
As the ongoing battle continues between those fighting for better privacy protection from ISPs against those who want more data retention, it looks like the German Supreme Court has sided with the privacy side. The debate is one that's gone on for a few years (more in Europe than in the US, though we've been trying to catch up lately). Certain government officials want ISPs to store log file data for a very long period of time -- much longer than is needed for any business purpose. The idea is so that the government can request that data for investigations. However, there are tremendous costs involved in keeping and mining all that data [so some ISPs might want to encourage these requests? Bob] -- and, one of the side effects is that it's much easier for what should be private information to get into the hands of others, even without a subpoena. That's exactly what someone in Germany claimed when his IP info was turned over to the police. He noted that there was no business reason the ISP should have kept the info, and for the sake of his privacy it should be deleted. The German Supreme Court has agreed, saying that, if someone asks, ISPs should be obligated to destroy log info. However, as the article notes, with data retention laws getting stronger every day, this privacy exemption will likely be removed soon enough anyway.
“Let a thousand flowers bloom. Let a thousand schools of thought contend.” Mao
http://techdirt.com/articles/20061107/184249.shtml
Google Explains How To Kill The Internet In Australia: Just Make Proposed Changes To Copyright Laws
from the just-what-everyone-didn't-need dept
Down in Australia they've been looking at updating their copyright laws to catch up to the digital age (read: to make the laws more favorable for an entertainment industry that refuses to adjust to the market), but seem to be doing so in a way that pretty much guarantees the opposite would occur. For example, one of the changes would effectively require search engines to ask permission of every web page they indexed. It's one of those "sounds good in theory" ideas that is ridiculous in practice, and would pretty much make it impossible to have a search engine in Australia. Google has submitted their own take on this law, explaining why it would push Australia into "pre-internet" days. This is the type of lawmaking that happens when lawmakers rely too much on a single industry (in this case, the entertainment industry) to detail the "problems" of the internet. It doesn't take into account what's really going on, or the fact that the complaining industry needs to learn how to adjust to the new technology -- not beg for laws that hold back the technology.
Perhaps there is still time to compete?
http://venturebeat.com/2006/11/07/zvents-gets-7m-yikes-for-ajax-events-site/
Zvents gets $7M (yikes) for Ajax events site
By Matt Marshall 11.7.06 9:56 AM Updated
zvents.bmpZvents, which lets people search for events in their neighborhood, has raised $7 million in a first round of funding led by VantagePoint Venture Partners.
That is a very large sum of money, and it raises questions about the company’s business model. Such a large round makes it more difficult for Zvents to return a profit to investors. This suggests Zvents is swinging for the fences — it will have to become all pervasive. VantagePoint was a backer of MySpace, so it has expectations.
The new “Small”
http://blog.scifi.com/tech/archives/2006/11/07/new_samsung_lap.html
POSTED Tuesday, November 07, 2006
New Samsung lappie redefines portable computer
Need a hobby?
http://locksport.com/home/index.php?entry=entry061027-222056
ANNOUNCING THE LSI GUIDE TO LOCKPICKING!
Friday, October 27, 2006, 10:20 PM - News
Greetings everyone!
Locksport International is proud to provide a simple, visual guide to lock picking. It is our hope that beginners will find this useful in learning the basic skills of picking pin tumbler locks.
A PDF version of this document is available for download here:
http://locksport.com/LSIGuide/lsiguide.pdf
A web based version of the document can be viewed here:
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