Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Diebold, Peroxide, Comdex
Diebold Election Systems Round 2 in MD zznate writes "Looks like Diebold is not going to get off the hook so easily in Maryland after all. For anyone local, feel free to contact delegates Hixson or Hollinger to express your support. Perhaps they could even receive a copy or two (or fifty ;-) of the documents listed here."
Diebold is having an easier time at Swarthmore. yoshi_mon writes "Previously reported on /. was the Swarthmore Students Effort to keep the Diebold leaked memo's online. However that effort has been quashed by one Dean Bob Gross. To quote the dean, "We can?t get out in front in this fight against Diebold." BlackBoxVoting.com reports that '[Swarthmore College] is not willing to take a strong stand against Diebold, and is systematically disabling the network access of any student who hosts the files.'"
AT&T says Ha, just kidding! An anonymous reader writes "In an update to an earlier Slashdot article, Telco giant AT&T rushed to withdraw two notices sent to business partners and customers asking for the IP addresses of all outbound SMTP servers because of a 'human error' gaffe."
All this and cheap shrimp cocktail. blackbearnh writes "While the topic has been raised, I thought I'd mention a few other things going on at COMDEX Open-Source wise.
First off, the Open Source and Linux track has been expanded from a half-dozen sessions last year to nearly twenty this year. These will cover everything from the basics of Open Source (taught by folks like Ken Coar of Apache) to an intro to PHP led by Rasmus Lerdorf.
On the show floor, a massive 2500 sq foot Open Source Innovation Center will serve as the site for hourly talks by Open Source evangelists on business-related topics such as case studios proving the benefits of Open Source. There will also be a staffed "clinic" area where attendees can get advice on what Open Source technologies would work well in their business. There will also be install parties held at noon each day, where attendees can bring their laptops to get help installing MySQL or Debian. And lastly, a .ORG village inside the center will host representitives from more than a dozen prominent Open Source organizations, including OpenOffice and Mozilla.
Also, the COMDEX/ApacheCon exchange program continues this year. COMDEX members can get access to the ApacheCon expo floor and BOF sessions, while ApacheCon member can visit the COMDEX show floor and the Open Source keynotes. Shuttle service will link the two conventions.
James Turner
Co-Chair, Open Source, Fall 2003 COMDEX"
It's a crapshoot, eh. Dick Faze writes " Royal Bank of Canada is part of a $50 Million investment in SCO: Has our communist neighbor to the north finally flipped completely?" (We know Mr. Faze is being facetious, here ... don't we?) This is the same $50,000,000 investment deal in which some people suspected Microsoft's involvment.
Patent Office Cancels Swing Patent An anonymous reader writes "Remember the swing patent issued last year covering the method of swinging a swing? Well, the Patent Office must've taken offense at the amount of criticism it received over this patent. It initiated a reexam proceeding and after a year's worth of reexamination, they cancelled the patent on July 1, 2003."
But all the other patents are up to snuff, don't worry.
Carmack's Peroxide Troubles Over? Rob Jellinghaus writes "John Carmack's aerospace company has had problems getting enough concentrated 90% peroxide for their engines. So they have been working on mixed monoprop engines that would need only 50% peroxide, which would pretty much end their fuel troubles for good. They have had many failures, but they may have just succeeded. In his words: 'This is Very Good.'"
Remember, most of the world is still dial-up, at best. Anothermouse Cowered writes "It's a router, it's a firewall, it's a home gateway it's a... In another giant leap for the Open Source community, you can now hack on your own embedded Linux system for under $70. The source code for the ActionTEC Dual modem previously mentioned on Slashdot ('Hacking the Actiontec 56k Modem/Gateway') in September has now been released under the GPL. Downloads available here."
Please do not spam these people with 50 11MB files. If each member of the slashdot crowd even sends one copy, their mail servers will be overwhelmed and our efforts will be ignored. Perhaps someone can print paper copies to send to them?
C:\>
That's a hell of a lot closer to reality than the /. tin foil hat wearing knee-jerkers calling the Bank of Canada "Microsoft."
/.: Wow, that's a shocking accusation without any supporting evidence whatsoever, I think I'll put that on the front page! /. reader: OMG, how could MS do such a horrible, horrible thing!
Peter Galli: Money invested in SCO - why, I have no evidence whatsoever, but it MUST be Microsoft!
SCO: We have no MS money.
Peter Galli: Liars!
The initial call for mirrors was before Diebold was on to them, if I remember correctly, just in case, and so that the data would exist *somewhere* in the public. The people doing the mirroring are (rightfully, IMO) helping to ensure that the flaws in the system are exposed for all to see.
Regardless of some individuals motivation (maybe some are doing it just to spite Diebold itself), it really is a Good Thing(tm) to do.
Now if only we could figure out why the hell the ACLU has such wood for the electronic voting machines...
The fact that it cut to the root of democracy, might have somethng to do with it!
Just a hunch
Help fight continental drift.
Sad about the Diebold purge. I know how the shit crumbles, tho... after all, my university did the same thing with the Half-Life 2 leak. Not that I blame either college... it costs a lot of money to get a good legal team to defend against lawsuits from corporations. I mean, Diebold's very existance is on the line with this. If the memos go around too much, they might get destroyed Enron-style. So of course they are going to try and supress colleges, since historically they don't have very good legal defense teams.
#define DRM chmod 000
Here we have a university, supposedly one of the best places to be able to exercise your First Amendment rights, not only unwilling to back their students rights to free speech but actively helping to quash it? If this isn't an examble of the DMCA having a "chilling effect" on speech, I don't know what is.
It's too bad that colleges don't believe that they can have "common carrier" status as they provide internet access for students. It means that students actually have fewer rights than people who pay a regular ISP for service.
I work for a major university and I have thought about threatening to bring in an outside ISP for my department for technical reasons. I believe that the university ITS provides poor service and charges too much for it. Yes, they charge us per machine for network access. Now I have another reason to go outside for internet access - a political reason.
First of all, Swarthmore is not a university. It is a small school with not a lot of resources to devote towards legal battles. It is unfortunate that in this case, defending the right to Free Speech (which the school is generally a very strong supporter of) is likely to be highly expensive for the school and not just the students. But I don't blame the school for that, I blame the DMCA. Swarthmore has raised the publicity for this issue, but rest of the fight, I'm sad to say, is going to have to fought elsewhere.
Put your money where your mouth is (and don't rely on the money of the students at Swarthmore some of whom have no opinion on this matter) and donate to the EFF.
And download the memos and host them.
[SIG] It's like putting a moose in the blender -- a recipe for disaster!
Let's let ol' Gross Bob know how we feel about his decision! Maybe submitting swarthmore's mail server to the Slashdot effect will help him get the message!
Calmly please. Presumably the guy sees himself as defending the college against reckless endangerment.
If you're an alum, you might want to mention that, an email from Horatio Schmedly ('85) will probably carry more weight than from Slashmaster (/. lunatic).
I'm not sure what's more embarassing: the fact that the Patent Office approved it in the first place, or the fact that it took them a whole year to re-examine it!
American's know the difference:
Actually, most don't - and you're no exception.
Socialism: Big Brother controls everything
Communism: Big Brother controls everything at gunpoint.
I think if you'll check, Mr. Ashcroft is American, not Canadian - and I don't understand - are you calling him socialist, or communist? (or both?)
Either way it's a crap governmental style that surrenders personal freedoms willingly to governmental oversight and control.
I don't know if you've noticed (perhaps you should travel outside your country to gain a little perspective), but Canadians (and most of the rest of the world) has much more personal freedom. Of course, you wouldn't know that, all you know is the "patriotism" you've been force-fed. (Not that it's totally your fault - you didn't ask to be brainwashed, after all.)
A dictatorship is more "efficient" than all of them but you don't see everyone crowing about how great THAT is.
Nice straw man. Notice that you're the only person who brought up "efficiency."
#1 economic force on the planet, the #1 military force on the planet, the #1 immigration target on the planet and #1 in a whole bunch of other things too numerous to mention
I think if you check, you might be in for a shock. It's not your system of government that brings you those "#1's", but the policies.
And incidentally, you're not #1 in standard of living - that goes to a socialist country, year after year. If your system of government was truly the best, I think that you would be able to make #1 at least once, don't you? (Well, probably not - I'm sure you'll have some excuse as to why you don't have the best standard of living in the world - you haven't exactly shown any amount of intelligence, after all - just bury your head a little deeper, and your beloved Big Brother will take care of you.)
If it wasn't for the fact that the content of the Diebold memo's is something every American should know about, there would be no legal reason for allowing it to stay up.
Hosting the source to HL2 is totally illegal. Any responsible organization would take it down if they were liable.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.