More on e-Voting

Kudos to K for the tip! Many links from Bruce Schneier's Crypto-Gram:

The software running on touchscreen machines in an individual voting booth at a precinct:

E-Voting Flaws Risk Voting Fraud
Analysis of an Electronic Voting System (PDF)
Bald-Faced Lies About Black Box Voting Machines and The Truth About the Rob-Georgia File

The software on the server used to store and report votes from multiple precincts:

Bigger Than Watergate!
Inside a U.S. Election Vote Counting Program
Voting Machines Blasted by Scientists
How To Rig An Election (mostly material from earlier Scoop reports)

General or related to both applications:

System Integrity Flaw Discovered at Diebold Election Systems (distribution of patches and/or test code for either system)
** (404 - might just be me, Sid)
Proprietary Voting Computers: Threat or Menace?
Could the Next US Election Be Stolen?


I'm going to comment on something that seems small, but isn't:

For a mission-critical system (say, software that's going to run on the space shuttle, or, perhaps, an electronic voting system), the audit and quality control process for developing the software is as mission-critical as the software itself. If you can't prove that you validated X, or that you developed Y under specific controls in order to keep as many feature flaws[*] and outright bugs[**] out of the software as possible, then you cannot release that software for use with any confidence.

People's lives, or the life of a government, perhaps, are depending on this software. The development process must be very well documented and adhered to. If it's not, you can't trust the application.

So, when you read about the Rob-Georgia file over at Scoop, or one of Bev Harris's earlier articles (the System Integrity Flaw article) on the use of an FTP server to distribute software patches at the last minute before an election, you have to understand that if those patches haven't been rigorously tested (and the 'Rob' article indicates otherwise) the entire touchscreen application on the machine a patch has been installed on is suddenly suspect. Because you don't *know* what the software will do, because that version of the application has not been tested, validated, or certified by any kind of oversight group. Because it's a last-minute patch, and that's the definition of 'last minute'. A developer pounded out a fix, performed the barest minimum of testing (because that's all a developer can do), and released a revised .cpp or .h file for use. "Here!" they said, wiping sweat off their brow, "this should fix it!" -- that's how it happens. Honest to god.

Was a standard development methodology followed (requirements-design-develop-test-release)? Were design and code reviews used? Where is the documentation - the audit trail - that proves it?

[*] a mistake in the design itself -- "we thought we wanted it [the code] to send an email, but now we think it should print a report."
[**] a mistake in implementing some aspect of the design -- "the code prints the same report every time regardless of data."

Not Me!

A life form that can take it at 121 Celsius -- so not me. Bear in mind, American readers, 121C is around 250 Fahrenheit. (The National Weather Service out of Buffalo, NY offers an F/C converter, btw, it's kinda cute: http://www.wbuf.noaa.gov/tempfc.htm)

Anyway, step up and learn more about the not-me life form. Neat!

Censorware/Bait And Switch

I love Bennett. I've fallen away from my advocacy regarding censorware -- not so much out of lack of interest as too many other interests. But the idea (of letting software do your parenting for you, yippee) hasn't gone away, and neither has Peacefire.

Read on about the Bait and Switch project. A perfect example of the incompleteness, uselessness, and hypocrisy of not only censorware, but the companies who make such products.

Feast of the Assumption

(I dunno, my mama raised me not to speculate without data. Assumption? Get it? Yeah. Fair and Balanced Humor, baby. Right here.)

Believe It, or Not

Today marks the Roman Catholics' Feast of the Assumption, honoring the moment that they believe God brought the Virgin Mary into Heaven. So here's a fact appropriate for the day: Americans are three times as likely to believe in the Virgin Birth of Jesus (83 percent) as in evolution (28 percent).

...The faith in the Virgin Birth reflects the way American Christianity is becoming less intellectual and more mystical over time.

... I do think that we're in the middle of another religious Great Awakening, and that while this may bring spiritual comfort to many, it will also mean a growing polarization within our society.

But mostly, I'm troubled by the way the great intellectual traditions of Catholic and Protestant churches alike are withering, leaving the scholarly and religious worlds increasingly antagonistic. I worry partly because of the time I've spent with self-satisfied and unquestioning mullahs and imams, for the Islamic world is in crisis today in large part because of a similar drift away from a rich intellectual tradition and toward the mystical. The heart is a wonderful organ, but so is the brain.

I don't know what to say aside from such obvious, unhelpful remarks like:

This does not make me feel 'in touch' as an American.
I do understand better how the Bush Administration both came to power and keeps it, in a high-level strategic way.
American Christians are whacky.

This public service announcement brought to you by Blammo!

Usability

Usability News -- volume 10 is out.

Why is usability so important, kids? Say it with me -- because it's the users that use your product. Build it for their use, and it might be successful. Build it "the way you like it", and you're screwed.

Lindner Says Murder "Is a Bad Thing"

Oh, and I bet it hurt him to admit it.

Anti-gay Lindner slightly moved by Holocaust exhibit

A traveling exhibit from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum came to Minneapolis in part because of comments by state Rep. Arlon Lindner that gay-rights protections need to be struck down before the U.S. faces an AIDS crisis on the scale of the one in Africa. Lindner attended the exhibit and afterward agreed that murdering innocent people is a bad thing, but says he hasn't changed his mind about his support for sodomy laws and his desire to remove sexual orientation from Minnesota protections, even the one about insurance for Holocaust victims. "It's a perverted lifestyle," quoth he. startribune.com

Idiot. Africa's AIDS crisis keeps growing thanks to heterosexual sex, possibly even in the missionary position -- women are catching it from their husbands, infected men are dipping the wick in a virgin in an attempt to cure what ails them, and men are insisting on unprotected sex with the sex workers they hire.

Does Lindner think everyone in Africa is gay?

iAy Caramba, Taco Bell!
Being a former OC'er, this made me laugh out loud for various reasons: but mainly, it's funny, and humor has always seemed to me to go against the grain of Orange County (California)'s makeup.

iAy Caramba, Taco Bell! by W. W. Bedsworth . Linked via How Appealling.

West Nile Vaccine Candidate

West Nile Kin a Potential West Nile Vaccine -- A mild relative of the West Nile virus may be a vaccine for its more dangerous cousin.

CDC::West Nile

He's Tapping in Heaven, Now

On the wooden floors of Valhalla, no doubt cracking a joke about Mjollnir in the process. No one should make Odin spew mead, but Greg Hines would do it with a flourish.

Gegory Hines, 57, Dies

More Recall 'Circus'

Prominent Democrat drops out of California recall race just before filing deadline

"I know firsthand that this recall election has become a circus," Garamendi said. "I have concluded I will not engage in this election as a candidate."

And, how much money is my state going to spend on all this? Gobs. Maybe 30 million, maybe 70 million.

In the two-part ballot, voters will first vote on whether Davis should be removed from office, then pick someone to succeed him if he is ousted. The list of potential candidates includes a number of longshots, from Hustler publisher [Larry] Flynt to a Sacramento bail bondsman and the owner of a discount cigarette chain.

Just everybody go home and shut up, all right, already?

Details of Recall Effort

Score One For Common Sense

What do you do when your loved one's flat tire leaves her in a situation where she winds up abducted and murdered?

Try to sue Ford and Firestone.

What the Nebraska Supreme Court said in response:

if Ford and...Firestone had no reason to expect intentional tortious or criminal acts by a third person, they are not liable under Nebraska law for the harm caused thereby, even though their negligence afforded the opportunity for such conduct to occur.

[the negligence in question has to do with a specific type of Firestone tire in use on the Ford Explorer said victim was driving]

We have found no authority recognizing a duty on the part of the manufacturer of a product to protect a consumer from criminal activity at the scene of a product failure where no physical harm is caused by the failure itself...

The [plaintiffs] have not and could not allege any special relationship between Ford and Firestone and the criminal actor or the victim of his crime, which would extend their duty, as manufacturers and sellers of products, to protect a consumer from harm caused by a criminal act perpetrated at the scene of a product failure.

the ruling (PDF, 17 pages)

CA Recall Election

Point the first: The dip who started this all has caved -- Issa dropped out. I think the whole idea should be dropped.

Point the second: After reading an article on Ahnuld the Candidate, I'm somewhat pleased. Anytime the Republican Right bitches someone in their party is a moderate is a good day to me. Related point the second: I doubt Schwarzenegger's candidacy will succeed, but I believe this experience will have his next run for office taken much more seriously. I'm not sure how I feel about this, overall.

Point the third: According to The Eagle, a newsletter for San Diego County poll workers and poll owners (I'm volunteering) the March 2004 elections (and subsequent) may -- MAY -- be using a touch screen voting system (presumably Diebold's system(s)). To say I am not pleased about this is an understatement. I believe that replacing a known process with known weak areas -- and thus practice compensating for them -- with an unknown electronic system with unknown weak areas -- and no practice, or, heaven forfend, training compensating for them -- is incredibly unwise. How many IT people do you think are volunteering to work in precincts? I mean, besides me?

Ashcroft Going After Judges?

Ashcroft Orders Tally of Lighter Sentences.

The directive, contained in a July 28 memo from Ashcroft, is the latest salvo in an escalating battle over how much discretion federal judges should have in handing down sentences in criminal cases. The more extensive reporting will lay the groundwork for the Justice Department to appeal many more of those sentencing decisions than it has.

The Ashcroft memo amended a section of the United States Attorneys' Manual that previously said federal prosecutors had to report to the department only those sentences that prosecutors had objected to and wanted to appeal. In the new directive, U.S. attorneys were told to report all "downward departure" sentencing decisions that meet certain criteria in nine categories.

Ashcroft's critics reacted angrily to the memo, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) accused Ashcroft of engaging in an "ongoing attack on judicial independence" and of requiring federal prosecutors "to participate in the establishment of a blacklist of judges who impose lesser sentences than those recommended by the sentencing guidelines."

According to statistics compiled by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, 35 percent of the sentences handed down in federal court in fiscal 2001 fell below the range set in the sentencing guidelines. Almost half of those involved plea bargain agreements or other cases of "substantial assistance" to prosecutors, but 18 percent of the "downward departures" were for other reasons. Federal judges imposed sentences that exceeded the guidelines in less than 1 percent of the cases; the Justice Department appealed 19 of more than 11,000 "downward departure" sentencing decisions.

I have two points

1. 19 out of 11,000 is 0.172%, kids. Gee, that's not much.
2. Sounds like the US Sentencing Commission already provides the relevant information for determining if federal judges in general are consistently being "too nice" (they're not, as indicated by the pattern of Justice Department appeals, see Point 1), so why the extra harrassment?

Politics and Science in the Bush Administration

Politics and Science

The American people depend upon federal agencies to develop science-based policies that protect the nation’s health and welfare. Recently, however, leading scientific journals have begun to question whether scientific integrity at federal agencies has been sacrificed to further a political and ideological agenda.

At the request of Rep. Henry A. Waxman, the minority staff of the Government Reform Committee assessed the treatment of science and scientists by the Bush Administration.

The report "Politics and Science in the Bush Administration" (PDF) finds numerous instances where the Administration has manipulated the scientific process and distorted or suppressed scientific findings. Beneficiaries include important supporters of the President, including social conservatives and powerful industry groups.

Better bookmark this, kids.

Thanks to K for the link!

Great Post

Everyone should read this: Don't Assume I'm Like You.