Slashdot Mirror

Although the Baltimore Sun, our local oracle, is strangely silent on the voting-systems aspect of the primary, the Maryland Board of Elections is not. They've developed a special website to inform the citizenry of how "Easy...Accurate...Secure" the new voting system will be.

Peruse the training film (wmd only), download a registration form, see a sample screen. Above all, don't miss the FAQ. My nomination for Best FAQ is:
Q: How do I know the system will work properly on Election Day?
A: Each piece of equipment is prepared for the election by election staff and a public test is held to verify this process. Before this process and after the public test is completed, all equipment is sealed and secured until being opened by a bi-partisan team of election judges in the polling location on Election Day.

In addition to the Website, we've been favored by bus posters, billboards, and even a few commercials on local cable.

I am oh, so pleased to see even more of my tax money being squandered on these systems--this time just to tell me how wonderful they will be. I'm going to vote when the polls open Tuesday (it is a Democratic and Republican primary here), then leave immediately for a trip. I feel sure other Maryland Slashdot readers will have volumes to say about the experience.

Anne

It also seems to suggest that purging of voter registration lists is a corrupt idea, when in fact a quick search of the news reveals that many precincts in the U.S. are struggling with problems of convited felons or dead people voting.

The 2000 elections in Florida deserve a thoughtful, informed examination, while this book seems to provide more of a frenzied, mis-informed opinion.

Take a look at Baltimore, which is attempting to wire up the entire Inner Harbor area into a gigantic, free hotspot.

Baltimore hasn't had the best of luck with their efforts so far, at least according to this article in the baltimore sun which calls it spotty at best. I live in Baltimore, but haven't really had a reason to try it out so far.

Ironically, well before Starbucks started offering paid access, a local coffee shop near my college was offering free wireless access. The place recently changed hands, and I'm not positive that it still does, but it would seem that free access might prove a better business model for small/independent places trying to have something different than the big boys.

Read this, then do a search for OS X here, followed by one for Windows.

That should answer a lot of your questions.

Cover stories like this one, about a 12 year old boy being investigated by the FBI because of his online research for a paper on a bridge.

Telemarketing will become a very lucrative business for companies that can afford to call from Canada, where the DNCR is toothless, or from Mexico, or other "offshore" locations.

Toothless? No, the DNCR still applies to overseas calls.

What I don't get is exactly why you think the DNCR is such a bad idea. You damn "socialists and facists" and paint this as a body shot to personal responsibility.

Personal responsibility? Are you trying to tell me telemarketers have personal responsibility?

Actually, the list gives telemarketers an opportunity to exhibit their responsibility: a good, cheap list of people who have asked not to be called. What could be better! They'll stop bothering us of their own accord!

As far as those who would "prey on old people" by scamming them ... this will do nothing to stop it. Just as gun control does nothing to stop criminals from having guns, or encryption export control stops other countries and criminal organiations from having encryption.

The reason is simple: Law breakers break laws.


Whoah! So we shouldn't have any laws?

If the "old people" sign up for DNC registries, the FTC will have more tools to work with at getting those bad guys preying on old people.

There are now "anti-slamming" laws that protect consumers against that practice, and sure enough it has become less of a problem.

Gun control does make it harder for criminals to obtain guns. Not impossible, no, but 15 year olds can't walk into Target and buy a semi-automatic. That's at least something. (I would ban all handguns, myself.)

Obviously, you and I have very different opinions about the role of government. You think the phone companies should be able to profit from the problem of unwanted telemarketing by selling you blocking services. I think the government should stop the problem at its source.

I'm hoping they'll be able to do the same thing with spam...

- Peter

I went to a fascinating presentation by David Dalrymple, a 10 year old in college, that was discussing a protocol he had developed regarding this very concept.

Not really, I'd say the guy who gets picked on the most is the guy who is easiest to pick on (10 jocks, 1 geek, do the math).

It has been continuously shown that !Windows is inherently more secure, you can read all about this.

And take IIS for example, hacked into way more than Apache, which is the number one webserver.

I think the real reason why people depend on insecure systems so much is because they suck.

here's a little bit of info about the myth of Security through Obscurity
The reason OS X and other *nix OSes do not get attacked more often is not because of its low market share...

"and we know how much americans' love their malls"

I'm afraid you haven't been keeping up... ;-)
The era of malls is over -- what next?

-1 Offtopic...

you can almost be certain that the MPAA/RIAA will try to maintain the status quo at all costs.

According to this article, Stojanovic rigged the rules so that MAYA can't lose. It's assumed that MAY goes first and takes the center square, and the human takes either the upper left or the square beneath it.

Well, my state of Maryland thinks that it is serious enough situation to warrant ordering a review, to decide if it will go ahead with purchasing $55.6 million dollars worth of these machine or cancel the order

Since Bush and his crew both advocated AND stand behind their decisions to do the perfectly legal things they do I see no comparison to what we were talking about.

Again, good luck with your research. I have no desire to join your childish arguement (sic). -Gmontag

Yeah right..."Perfectly legal" like repeatedly ignoring a federal court order to turn over the Energy Task Force documents.

You think a lame ad-hominem attack will substitute for your utter lack of substance or a valid argument. How utterly typical...you can't make a point, so call your opponent's position "childish". So much for dialogue.

I'll bet you consider the State of the Union lie about uranium from Africa"case closed" too, right? Childish argument? Just in case you missed the connection again. Don't bother to reply Guy. Case closed. I have no desire to suffer fools like you.

Hence the author speaks directly to fellow web developers, discussing how best to evangelize for web standards without sounding like a nutcase.

I'll nestle in right here with this thread and be recored in history. Let us bow our heads and give thanks to the Geeks that make all this possible. Interview with Woz 2 -parts Baltimore sun

"Something that can't be proved is taken very blithely as fact," said Marlin Thomas, an expert in learning disabilities at Iona College who published an analysis of the claim about Einstein. Thomas became curious when he saw the diagnosis showcased on T-shirts, Web sites, ads and even brochures from the American Academy of Pediatrics."

Cheat code for an extra 30 TFLOPS: Up,Up,Down,Down,Left,Right,Left,Right,B,A,Start.

Alang is a small stretch of beach along the coast of India where a surprising number of ships are eventually scrapped. Instead of a dry dock, the ships are rammed full speed into the oily beach, then are picked over by workers for scrap. There are 35,000 men ripping apart the things with hammers and sledges. The welders use oxygen and cooking propane, the most skilled of them getting the choice assignment of ventilating fuel tanks to get rid of the fumes (yes, the welders ventilate the explosive fumes). The place is a filthy mess of pollution and there's an estimated fatality a day. By all estimates, it's basically Hell on Earth.

I read about this in an article in the Atlantic Monthly (Aug 2000). The piece detailed the horrible conditions, the economic motivation (wrecking a ship filled with toxic waste is an expensive proposition here in the West), and the efforts of enviromental groups to put a stop to it. But the real eye opener was the reaction of the Indians.

Many were pissed that the industrialized world wanted to stop the wrecking and considered such efforts hypocritical. They are not stupid and they know the risks they're facing. They are more than willing to take those risks for steady, reliable income. Many of them point to the pollution and conditions in Dehli that are worse than at Alang. They laugh at what concerns Greenpeace in their tidy offices in London and Holland.

Do I think it's wrong to ship toxic waste to these countries instead of taking care of it at home? Yes. Should I condemn people who are not really that much different from Americans during the Depression from trying to get by? No. These things are never black and white.

[/rant]

PS: I have heard that some regulation has come to Alang and other wrecking operations of late, so my Atlantic Monthly article is likely out of date. Apologies in advance. Also, I found two stories online about the issue: in Wired and The Baltimore Sun. I have not read them all the way through, though, and highly recommend the dead tree version of the Monthly piece if you can find it.

Not according to this:

http://www.sunspot.net/news/nationworld/bal-lawyer -attacks26.story?coll=bal%2Dhome%2Dheadlines

The US citizen from Louisiana is still locked up in a military prison and is being denied an attorney, much less a trial! (And that news is from today, 6/26/02.

'White box' makers fill niche, fuel optimism
Jay Hancock
Originally published Jun 23, 2002

by Jay Hancock

I BEGAN to worry about the technology industry and the American economy until I talked to Daniel L. Holt, office clerk, chief technician, general manager and owner of Plexus Computers LLC, in Millersville.

Plexus is not listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Plexus could not have swung an initial public stock offering even on the most drunken days of the technology investment binge. On a good day, Plexus has two employees.

But Plexus is helping to fuel the regeneration of U.S. commerce in an old-fashioned, surefire way, filling crannies in the world's vast menu of products and services, adding value to Maryland's gross state product and keeping Dell Computer and Hewlett Packard a little worried.

Plexus is one of hundreds of American companies that make no-name, "white box" servers and personal computers.

I guess I knew this industry existed. But I had no idea it was so big and important until two weeks ago, when IDC, a technology-research firm, was obliged to sharply increase its estimate for global computer sales last year because of surging white-box volume.

Industry analysts had long noted a discrepancy between reported sales of assembled computers and sales of components such as Intel Pentium microprocessors and Western Digital hard drives. Shipments of the parts often seemed to add up to more than shipments of the wholes.

IDC says it solved the mystery. The extra components were not revenue-inflating fictions or obsolete scrap. Instead, the parts were making their way into millions of machines flying way under the radar of analysts used to thinking that Dell, IBM, Hewlett, Acer, Gateway, Samsung, Toshiba, NEC and Fujitsu owned most of the personal computer business.

IDC had to raise its global shipment estimate for 2001 by a surprising 8 million personal computers, or 6.3 percent, to account for previously uncounted white boxes. And those were just machines the analysts had missed. All told, white boxes account for as much as 45 percent of PC sales, by some estimates.

Last year, the world's homes, businesses and governments bought roughly 60 million personal computers adorned by no recognized brand or no brand at all.

Plexus Computers made 150 of them.

Ex-real estate agent

Plexus, which started a year and a half ago, grew from Holt's experience with a previous white-box maker that he helped run. Once a real estate agent, Holt found himself in the mid-1990s assembling computers and fixing hardware and software for employers and colleagues.

He started assembling, selling and servicing machines for real estate offices, and the business expanded to title companies, small defense contractors and government agencies. Those organizations were often too small to employ computer-tech staffs, and they frequently had needs that weren't met by off-the-rack Dells and Hewletts.

Looking for bargains

Holt operates the way most white-box makers do, sifting the market for bargain motherboards, chips, disks, drivers, software and cases, assembling the parts into custom computers and staying close at hand for trouble and upgrades. In this fashion, he can often beat the Dells and Hewletts on price and says he always beats them on service.

One example: A local defense contractor bought dozens of name-brand computers that turned out not to support an expensive engineering program the company owned. Plexus built 20 machines, each with 2 gigabytes of processing speed and the ability to run the thousand-dollar video card needed for the engineering program.

About half of Holt's customers are government, 40 percent small business and the rest home users. He had about $350,000 in sales last year, and the computers he built ranged from powerful $7,000 servers to sub-$1,000 home units.

Ain't America great?

The Atlanta-based Association of System Builders and Integrators, the trade association for the white-box industry, has more than 8,000 members, says chief executive Douglas Daniel. Another Maryland white-boxer is Arundel Computers in Glen Burnie.

These companies, makers of what we used to call IBM clones, look very much like Dell and Compaq - lately bought by Hewlett - in their early days. Now Dell has a more potent PC brand than IBM itself, but it has matters of overhead and volume to grapple with and is dogged by new generations of nimble cloners.

Learning about the scale of the white-box industry, which is even more vibrant overseas than in the United States, was as surprising to me as finding out that half of the cars on the road are made in, say, Antarctica.

Outdoing brand names

Plexus Computers is probably not the next Dell, but it and other white-box sellers, though they have had their problems, generally did better last year than the name-brand makers, IDC reported. Among other things, they had a field day buying cheap components in the glut that resulted from the economic slowdown. Holt says he saw no sign of recession in his volume.

For all of its strength and success, Dell, whose stock has fallen 60 percent since 2000, holds only 23 percent of the U.S. market and 13 percent of the world market, according to Gartner Dataquest.

The lesson: Publicly traded companies are not the whole computer industry, and the publicly traded stock market is not the whole economy.

OK, let's go through the procedure that protects us from the valid concern in your last paragraph, and then we'll look at sources. Were this simply a case of `anyone declared an enemy of the state can be turned over to the military', you would be quite right to object, but that is not the case.

Long standing precedent, going back to before the war of 1812, and with corresponding cases in the Civil War and the Second World War makes clear that military law is the proper jurisdiction for trying cases of an individual entering the US in the service of a hostile power in order to commit acts of law. As cited above, Ex Parte Quirin upholds the established precedent that such cases are a matter for military justice even if the suspect is a US citizen, but also leaves room for civilian court appeals of the decision that a case falls in this category.

Mr. al-Muhajir, ne Padilla, is filing just such an appeal right now.here in New York. If the court rules that there is not valid evidence to classify him as an enemy combatant, he will be remanded to a civilian court. At that point, the DOJ can either seek to bring other charges, or release him.

So this is not something which can happen lightly. In addition to the direct order from the president which is needed to classify a suspect as an enemy combatant, the whole process is subject to judicial review in the normal federal courts.

Now, on to sources. Here are some more articles on the matter:

• this piece from Newsday
• suggests that Mr. al-Muhajir was held on a material witness warrant before being charged.
• this piece from the Baltimore Sun discusses some of the precedents in the case, and what the government's options are, as does this piece from National Review.
• this piece from USA Today has some more discussion of the case.

• 60 of 98 FBI Terrorism Cases were thrown out because of lack of evidence - The article even has a quote from an FBI spokesman admitting to arresting and trying to prosecute people knowing that it would never go through.
• Village Voice Analysis - It's the Village Voice, take it with a grain of salt. (I'm just adding it to this list because it is quite insightful.
• Business Week Article discussing the various infringement of civil rights
• NYTime Editorial on naming an American citizen as an illegal combatant
• Ohio State graduates threatened with expulsion/arrest if they "demonstrate or heckle" during Bush's speech - "But immediately before class members filed into the giant football stadium, an announcer instructed the crowd that all the university's speakers deserve to be treated with respect and that anyone demonstrating or heckling would be subject to expulsion and arrest. The announcer urged that Bush be greeted with a "thunderous" ovation.
• Federal Courts strike down Bush Administrations attempt to prevent people from challenging censorship laws
• Justice Department raising questions about case on John Lindh
• Another NYTimes article on illegally detaining American Citizens

Some articles with more information:

A piece from NewsDay, which among other details, confirms that Mr. al-Muhajir had legal representation in New York, and adds that a legal hearing is being held today to confirm his status. This article also suggests that Mr. Muhajir was initially detained on a material witness warrant.

A piece from the Baltimore Sun suggests that the government is rethinking use of military law in this case, and discusses some of the precedents in either direction.

A piece from USA Today suggests that al-Muhajir's lawyers are almost certainly proceeding with a habeaa corpus petition, and points out that regardless of venue, no one is suggesting that he does not have a right to do so. It is also pointed out that the primary ramification of a ruling that Mr. Muhajir is an enemy combatant would not be a new venue of trial per se, but permission to hold him until the end of hostilities.

I'm still looking for more definitive word on the legal maneuvers already pursued and still open in the case. None of this is new precedent -- as mentioned earlier in this thread, many of the details were hashed out during the Second World War, when a group of German spies, including a handful of US citizens was infiltrated from submarine into the continental US with plans to wreak havoc by bombing Jewish-owned stores and other civilian targets.

Many leading stem cell researchers in the US have only heard of a dozen or so cell lines. Here's an article. The only person in it who accepted the 60 figure is a "senior Bush administration official" who wasn't willing to give their name.

There was this article in the Baltimore Sun.

It's true.

http://www.sunspot.net/technology/bal-te.bz.psinet 02jun02.story?coll=bal%2Dtechnology%2Dheadlines

Interestingly, this happened last season with the St. Louis Rams & the Miami Dolphins.

http://www.sunspot.net/technology/bal-te.bz.psinet 02jun02.story?coll=bal%2Dtechnology%2Dheadlines

Interestingly, this happened last season with the St. Louis Rams & the Miami Dolphins.

The overly agressive fighter pilot passed below spy craft 3 times prior to crash, according to the detained crew.

US is spying -- everybody does -- from the international space. The Chinese are annoyed -- everybody would -- but there is nothing they can do, except to engage in provocations of this sort.

Well, this time the provocation went a bit too far. Like an annoyed driver trying to force a slow moving car in front of him to speed up, the Chinese fighter got too close and caused a rear-end collision.

If the spy plane did not land on the Chinese territory, there'd be no story. At all. Now the Chinese have some leverage and are trying to use it.

If Jon's point was, that US should apologize, just to end this quicker -- I disagree. This is not: "be wise, say you are sorry". There is no guilt to admit...

-mi

All that needs to be done is set up the machines with monitors, printers, and modems, and do fresh OS installations, but there is no money to pay for the work. The mayor is now asking for donations.

Maybe some slashdotters in the Baltimore area could spend a few Sunday afternoons and help?

All that needs to be done is set up the machines with monitors, printers, and modems, and do fresh OS installations, but there is no money to pay for the work. The mayor is now asking for donations.

Maybe some slashdotters in the Baltimore area could spend a few Sunday afternoons and help?

A few years ago, the Baltimore Sun did an interesting profile of Hamilton Smith, Celera's chief scientist who came up with their unique "shotgunning" method of sequencing DNA.

The article described how Smith won the Nobel Prize in 1978. He felt that he didn't deserve the prize because it was an achievement that he had stumbled upon by accident and hadn't worked to earn it. This caused him to lose confidence in himself and he went into a professional and personal decline. His relationship with his family deteriorated very badly. According to the article, his work with Celera has given him a chance at personal redemption. He began to piece together his family relationships, while dreaming of sequencing the human genome. He felt that this would be a groundbreaking achievement that he would truly earn the credit for. Looks like he has succeeded. Congratulations Ham!

The article is no longer available at the Sun web site, but those with Northern Light accounts can find the article here.

Maybe it's being used over at that ex-NSA site mentioned previously. The actual article itself mentioned:

"Paperwork in the guard shack is held in place by a stapler though no one has been inside the small building in years."

Hmmmm - they were right - very X-Files :)

...click here.

MUUSS, Michael J. Tragically on November 20, 2000, MICHAEL J., loving son of Dr. Rolf E.and the late Gertrude L. Muuss; beloved brother of Gretchen E. Frensemeier; dearest nephew of Ernestine Himes. The family will receive friends in the Divinity Lutheran Church, 1220 Providence Rd., Towson, MD 410-823-8293 on Saturday from 6 to 9 P.M. and Sunday from 2 to 4 and 6 to 8 P.M. A Funeral Service will be held in church on Monday, November 27 at 11 A.M. Interment Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens. In lieu of flowers contributions may be directed in Mr. Muuss name to the American Red Cross, 4700 Mt. Hope Dr., Balto. MD 21215 or to Nature Conservancy, 5410 Grosvenor La., Suite 100, Bethesda, MD 20814. Inquiries may be directed to Lemmon Funeral Home, 410-252-6000. Originally published Nov 25 2000 Link

It is in response to something that was, up until yesterday, on his site[...]

This is your local FBM representative speaking :) It's The Baltimore Sun that has an article about this cuecat mess:

When I asked Davis about the letters, he was a bit more specific but not much. "They're developing computer applications in our patent space," he said.

Pressed a bit more, he said the company is relying on a 1991 patent it acquired that covers the use of a standard bar code scanner to "create a network event."

This would be a fairly broad patent, and could keep others from using bar code readers for purposes that have nothing to do with Digital Convergence's core business.

If you can find the patent(s) in question, please email me. Search freshmeat for the software.

___________________________

I long ago gave up on the local daily paper (the Sun ) not just because it's been surplanted by the Web and CNN but because it sucks. The lack of competition among local papers (Baltimore had three dailies when I was a kid) allowed quality to slide. While I'll pick one up if it's lying around, I haven't bought a copy in two or three years - I even forgot to pick one up when they had a big photo of me and an interview in their "Plugged In" section. (This was about the OLGA/Harry Fox Agency copyright battle.)

However, I find the local "alternative" weekly City Paper to be useful; local news, event calendars, etcetera. Unlike the daily, it's not full of sections I have no interest in (sports, travel, "society", and the like). And when I'm done reading, the dogs get to pee on it.

The future? I'd like to see customizable newpapers. Assuming better quality than today's dreck, I might subscribe if I could say "Send me the comics, world news headlines, local news, and don't bother burying me in dead trees for the rest - I don't give a damn who won the football game and I get my tech news from /. so don't bother with you wimpy little PC column. Oh, and something above an eighth grade reading level, please."