Slashback: Diebold, Peroxide, Comdex

Slashback brings you updates tonight on Diebold's attempts to bring undisclosed-source, unauditable black-box voting to a ballot box near you, John Carmack's search for (rocket-fuel, not hair) peroxide, AT&T's (withdrawn) request for its customers' mail server addresses, open source goings on at Comdex, and more -- read on for the details.

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."

Comments

50% peroxide

[homer_ca]

It's good that they have a supplier now, but wouldn't that mean that the other 50% is dead weight in water?

Re:50% peroxide

[gladbach]

so this explains why carmack and most of his team all have platinum colored hair now....

Don't do this...

[setzman]

Perhaps they could even receive a copy or two (or fifty ;-) of the documents listed 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?

Diebold memos mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

The memos are available for download here. French server, decent bandwidth, out of the reach of any DMCA-wielding company.

SCO will learn!

[Valar]

Money can't buy justice!

Err... um, money didn't always buy justice!

Re:SCO will learn!

[YOU LIKEWISE FAIL IT]

Of course "don't get involved in an intellectual property lawsuit with IBM" is right up there with "don't get involved in a land war in Asia" for things not to do.

For those playing along at home, "Remember to close your <i> tag." was number three.

YLFI

Motives for the Royal Bank of Canada?

[pilot1]

Are there any motives that I'm missing, other than the fact that they are trying to capitalize on SCO's FUD?
Maybe they have money invested in Micro$oft?
Or they have something to lose from SCO (or M$ for that matter) going under?
Anyone?

Ease up on Bob Gross

[Jad LaFields]

Just want to note that the write up about Swarthmore Dean Bob Gross above is a bit harsh. As I understand (I was unable to go to the large meeting that where this was discussed), he decided that while what the students were doing was a bold and important step, the college just did not have the financial resources to fight what could be a protracted legal battle with a large company like Diebold, especially when organiziations like the EFF are already involved in the issue. And I can understand this.

But while the college is not formally supporting the students on this cause, they are not cutting off student's access or anything like that. Why-War? is hosted off-campus and is continuing to spread the memos around. Several people are getting in contact with other schools in an effort to spread them in a more underground, but still visible, way.

Check out more on it on Swarthmore's Daily Gazette. The Phoenix should have something up on this soon, too.

Re:Ease up on Bob Gross

[The Importance of]

Unfortunately, Swarthmore is now taking down student websites that link to Why War? http://importance.typepad.com/the_importance_of/20 03/10/swarthmore_crac.html

Lies! All Lies!

[humanerror]

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.

I swear, I was nowhere near that gaffe.

Re:attention canadians.

[realdpk]

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...

Royal Bank of Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

Although the name may lead you to think otherwise, Royal is just another private bank. It's not affiliated with the Canadian gov't or anything. So, no, we haven't flipped completely.

Re:Royal Bank of Canada

[wintermute42]

Royal Bank of Canada is one of the large multinational banks that has an offshore presence. That is, they own a subsidiary bank in the caribbean, where bank secrecy laws apply. For the paranoid minded one could think up a plot by the Evil Empire of Redmond where money would be funneled via the offshore version of the Royal Bank of Canada into an investment fund which would then be used to invest in SCO.

There is a less paranoid explaination. That being that when it comes to investment the Royal Bank of Canada are a bunch of idiots. The RBC invested in one of Enron's deals to the tune of $517 million (US). The RBC layed off some of the risk to another bank, which contested the deal. They recently reaced a settlement. But the RBC is still out a bit over half the money. The original investment by RBC was in Enron Broadband, which was a fraud from the start (the company had revinues of less than a million dollars). The RBC did note seem to do any more "due diligence" in the Enron deal than they have with the SCO investement.

So while it is possible that the RBC is a conduit for money from the Evil Empire it is more likely that they are making another stupid investment.

Re:Royal Bank of Canada

[irix]

Yes, most certainly they are making another stupid investment. However, as this atricle points out, we need to be politely letting them know about it.

Re:attention canadians.

[bstadil]

Is it just me, or are we all so interested to read these documents only because they are "forbidden".

The fact that it cut to the root of democracy, might have somethng to do with it!

Just a hunch

Sad about the Diebold purge.

[cgranade]

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.

Re:Sad about the Diebold purge.

[Detritus]

Swarthmore may not have one, but many universities have law schools, with the associated faculty that is already on the university payroll. I'd like to see them try that with Harvard.

Re:Sad about the Diebold purge.

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel bad for you. How upsetting it must have been to take down the source code for a game which was blatantly stolen property just because some university bigwig said so. The parallels between preserving incriminating evidence against a company attempting to take and gain the power to arbitrarily decide all elections in the most powerful country in the world and hosting stolen source code for a video game are so strong I can taste them.

Or maybe you're just doing your part to make sure there's no HL3.

Asshole.

Hello? "Chilling effect?"

[Guppy06]

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.

Re:attention canadians.

[rsborg]

Is it just me, or are we all so interested to read these documents only because they are "forbidden"

I think it's only you. I see it more of re-affirming the allegations of corruption and bias that this company has.

In fact, I'd say that I would support downloading and mirroing these files even more strongly than what we did for DeCSS... the truth needs to be told if our democracy is under seige from moneyed interests.

College internet access and politics

[Aram Fingal]

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.

Patents and Open Source

[Agar]

Everyone bemoans bad patents and the effect they can have on Open Source, but is there an effort to actually *do* anything about it?

One of the most obvious issues with software patents is cross-licensing. If IBM infringes on Intel's patents, Intel sues. IBM does a search, and counter-sues because Intel is infringing on umpteen IBM patents. Voila, a cross-licensing agreement is signed, no one gets sued, everyone's happy.

Needless to say, if an open source application unwittingly infringes on a patent (which is more likely over time), there is little recourse.

Shouldn't the EFF or the FSF be encouraging coders (particularly those doing cutting edge work) to submit "patentable" code much like they recommend assigning copyrights to them?

They should offer to do the patent search and submission in return for all licensing rights. This would give a central (hopefully benevolent) organization a "war chest" of patents for future lawsuit avoidance and cross-licensing.

Is this already being done?

With the amount of work going into Open Source, there must be tons of patentable code out there. Even if it's not patentable, it apparently doesn't really matter.

rasmus

[edrugtrader]

i saw rasmus lerdorf's intro to php at the mysql conference... he takes a whole different view to web development that makes java's claims of speed, stability, scalability ect almost moot.

java will say, php is bad because it can't do x as good as we can, and he will summarily explain why you would never want to do x and how php can solve whatever x's method was trying to solve just as fast.

very good speech.

Re:In-flight restarts

[RedWizzard]

First keep in mind that Armadillo had not anticipated being able to restart in flight. This is an extra, not a requirement.

1) (BIG) pressure difference
2) (HUGE) temperature difference
3) possible airflow difference

From what I've read the ignition mechanism is buried in the engine between two catalyst blocks so none of what you the conditions you've mentioned would apply.

I'd say he should do a lot more tests before being certain than inflight restarts is a guaranteed thing.

I imagine his understanding of the engine is several orders of magnitude better than yours or mine. I'd say we can take him at his word until there is evidence to contrary. Also Armadillo's whole program is based on exhaustive testing - they're not going to be lax on this aspect.

democracy

[commodoresloat]

It's much more than the lure of the forbidden. These documents don't only expose insecurity of the system and the potential for massive vote fraud; they expose evidence of illegal tampering in one election, and a callous attitude (to be generous) toward the implications of these security flaws for the public interest. Even worse, Diebold's response to the revealed flaws in their system and procedures was not to respond to the issues raised but rather to issue cease-and-desist orders. This is fundamentally about the democratic process, and there are good reasons to mirror these documents. The ultimate irony - and the thing that really makes me want to vomit - is that Diebold is also the company responsible for protecting the original Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence.

Re:Open Source will crush Closed Source

[Bendebecker]

It isn't so certain. The open source/closed source philosphy oddly enough often swings with the economy. The classic example of this is the homebrew computer club. When the industry fell into a recession, this club was all about open source - how did you do that? Look waht I did? and so on. Then as the market began to improve and the members started realizing there ideas were profitable they began to move towards the closed source - I can't tell you that. etc. The industry goes down in flames and people sit together and start sharing but when the market turns back (partly cause these open source projects start looking like they can develope into money makers) they go closed source again. As such it is not suprising that the industry has returned to open source in a big way in the last five years. It is out of these projects, alliances, etc that the industry will return to its former glory. Whether open source is here to stay is a question you shouldn't really ask in a recession, its one you should ask in a boom. Personally, I don't think it is ever going to outpace closed source. The simple reason for this is it is money made from open source collaborators and projects that went closed that brought the industry out of the last recession. There is simply more money to be had in closed than open and since we live in a capitalist environment the more money something makes the more sucessful it will always be. Now, the governments patents and overly expensive licenses may prove me wrong but most of boom builders don't come out of big corporations and usually don't come under the stuff of patents. The industry giants miss the new waves and the little fish always get by - not even SCO thinks going after the little guy is worth it. You may be working on some app with a buddy in open source right now but in a few years time when you see the money being put on the table again (as opposed to the ramen noodle soup), chances are your collaboration will go closed. Everyone loves to share when there just toys but when they becoem products and you need the money its a different story. In ten years time, when todays open source calloborators take their ideas to the closed source model while the industry recovers, the open ource people will again be sidelined. But then of course, the market always overcompensates, goes too closed source, the big guys blow it, and the market fall again. Simply put, open source is a nest: the new generation is in the process of hatching but they like there forebears before wil eventaully have to leave that nest.

Re:Hello? "Chilling effect?"

[Jad LaFields]

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.

Re:email addy for Dean Bob Gross..

[number11]

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).

Re:Whatever...

[Frodrick]

"American's like a Republican government because we like the freedom it gives us and as the #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 would tend to think we're doing things pretty well."

Oh, yeah - America's really great, all right. American capitalism and free enterprise always reminds me of the story of two lawyers who are hiking in the woods and see a gigantic grizzley bear across a clearing. The bear sees them as well and begins running toward them hoping for a quick snack.

Rather than run, the first lawyer sits down calmly and starts to put on his running shoes. His friend (if lawyers can be said to have such) says, "Are you crazy? Running shoes won't help you outrun that bear."

The first lawyer replied, "I don't need to outrun the bear; I just need to outrun you."

That's what America is all about!

Re:Canada isn't communist

[spinspin]

The Royal Bank of Canada, is not actually the same thing as the Bank of Canada. The name is somewhat deceptive, but it's just a bank, like Bank of America is just a bank. Non governmental is the key here...

Good Idea...

[qtp]

Perhaps someone can print paper copies to send to them?

DDOS thier mail room!

I can imagine the news coverage:

Postal service slows to a halt in an onslaught of documents critical of Deibold Electronic voting machines. One postal carier was quoted as saying "We haven't had manditory overtime like this since the eighties! But thats O.K. by me. I'll just stop by the Walmart on my way home and buy me a GUN!"

Federal Investigators reportedly do not know who is responsibe for this bizarre attack, but are seeking the identity of an online poster who uses the Alias "setzman" as a possible instigator.

Tune in later for more coverage of...

We can help...

[khenson]

Post the IPAddress, username and password and we /.'ers will come telnet in and help you too!!!

Patently obvious

[imadork]

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!

Re:Hello? "Chilling effect?"

[Joe U]

I'll start using Freenet as soon as all mention of Kibibytes are removed.

Re:Suprnova BitTorrent link to Diebold memos

[Jonah Hex]

works better this way torrent link

Jonah Hex

Swarthmore/Bob Gross/Diebold

[Hrodgare]

I'm a student at Swarthmore, and, in fact, the one who disabled access to the Diebold documents SCDC was hosting at scdc.sccs.swarthmore.edu . It was very unfortunate that we had to; I wish the college hadn't forced us to. That said--

What's not clear from all of the news coverage, is that while the college is indeed having to shut down hosts on campus for the documents, ITS here and the college itself is supportive of the students involved who are talking with EFF. The Deans are being helpful in suggesting legal routes for SCDC, but the College itself does *not* have the resources to get involved in a legal battle. Swarthmore is a very small school(1400) students, and just doesn't have the resources that larger institutions would to put towards legal expenses.

PLEASE go easy on Bob Gross's email; the administration at Swarthmore is very responsive to student needs, but there are limits as to what can be done. They're not bad people; they're doing what's best for the school.

Is Diebold getting off easy from Swarthmore? That has yet to be seen.

We've got a Gaffer Tape that proves otherwise....

[billstewart]

sorry, I'll mod myself down now...

Peroxide rocket propellants

[John Carmack]

High concentration hydrogen peroxide all by itself makes a low performance, but very convenient, rocket propellant. All hydrogen peroxide is in solution with some amount of water, because even if you had 100% peroxide, some of it would start decomposing to water (and oxygen) as you stored it.

Drugstore peroxide is 3% concentration. If you pour it on a catalyst, like silver or platinum, you will see bubbles forming in the solution (released oxygen), and the liquid will get somewhat warmer due to the released energy. Above roughly 70% concentration, the heat released is enough to vaporize all the water content, so if you pass it through a good catalyst, you will get all gas coming out the other side, and gas can be accelerated through a rocket nozzle to produce thrust. At 70%, the gas is only just above the boiling point of water, but as the concentration goes up, the temperature goes up fast. 90% peroxide, the most common grade used for propulsion, produces gas at about 1400 F temperature. Going all the way to 98% peroxide, the highest concentration produced, gives a few hundred degrees more temperature, but at a significant price increase. Higher temperature lets you use less propellant for a given amount of thrust-time, because it maintains a given chamber pressure with a less dense, but hotter, mixture (a simplification).

"Real" rocket propellants have temperature several thousand degrees higher, which does indeed increase performance, but the engines have to be cooled, and you need to manage both a fuel and an oxidizer in some form. One of our fundamental system trades is that it is better for an X-Prize class vehicle to use a propellant that simplifies vehicle engineering, even if you have to use more of it.

We use 90% peroxide from a small specialty supplier for all of our flight vehicles, but they closed shop a while ago, and we haven't been able to come to terms with the only domestic supplier of 90% peroxide, FMC chemical corp. Because of this, we have been working on alternate propellant schemes for a good part of this year, in parallel with building the full size X-Prize vehicle. If we had been able to just buy 90% peroxide like we buy all of our other industrial chemicals, we never would have bothered with the research.

Just about every week, someone asks why we don't concentrate it ourselves. True, dozens of people have made a few gallons of high concentration peroxide at various times, but there have only been two large scale concentrators operated in the US outside of the official manufacturers - Rotary Rocket had a concentrator, but it only went to 85% concentration, and it didn't do purification, and Beal Aerospace had a large scale concentrator operational after the blew up their first one. Sure, we could figure out how to do it, but then we would be in the chemical plant business instead of the rocket business, and that's not what we want to do. I am funding an operator in Houston to produce a few thousand pounds of 90% for us, but he is six months behind schedule on delivery, which proves my point about it not being as simple as people think.

The direction we have been pursuing is using a combination of 50% peroxide, which is readily available through distributors from multiple manufacturers, and a small amount of miscible fuel (methanol in our current work). 50% peroxide by itself doesn't work as a rocket propellant, because you can't boil all the water, which makes even decomposing most of the peroxide difficult. Adding a fuel and (the tricky part!) getting it to burn with the released oxygen gives you the energy necessary to vaporize the water and get everything up to a high temperature. Mixing fuels with high concentration oxidizers usually makes a touchy and deadly explosive (we have intentionally detonated a mix of 90% peroxide and alcohol - Very Scary), but buffered with 50% water, and running off of stoichemetric mixture ratio, the risk is not very high. We have a study report from the Department of Mines in the late 50's investigating th

Re:Peroxide rocket propellants

[Red Rocket]

We use 90% peroxide from a small specialty supplier for all of our flight vehicles, but they closed shop a while ago, and we haven't been able to come to terms with the only domestic supplier of 90% peroxide, FMC chemical corp.

That's kind of messed up because FMC just closed its peroxide plant near me citing a lack of demand for the product.

Huh?

[autopr0n]

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.

Dual PC not sold in the UK

[EnglishTim]

Darn it. Actiontec only sell broadband and adsl modems in the UK.

Curses!