Ok, so by your admission, your local board of elections sucks due to an inability to check on the validity and legal status of newly registered voters.
By my admisson, my local board of elections sucks due to an inability to check vital signs of voters.
I do believe in the requirement for a state issued ID to vote. Of course that does not guarantee that there willn't be problems with the elections.
Lets face it, the bigest problem when it comes to elections is people. People can mess up an election, by malice and/or stupidity, even when using the most complex and 'foolproof' machines to safeguard the election.
US-CERT is virtually worthless. Hell, they still consider Mac OSX to be part of Unix. Whats worse is that they list the **same freakin vulnerabilites numerous times**. I'm not going to say much more... anything I would say would be a repeat of the OSVDB blog at http://www.osvdb.org/blog/?p=79 which addresses this issue.
"World War I cost France 1,357,800 dead, 4,266,000 wounded (of whom 1.5 million were permanently maimed) and 537,000 made prisoner or missing -- exactly 73% of the 8,410,000 men mobilized, according to William Shirer in The Collapse of the Third Republic. Some context: France had 40 million citizens at the start of the war; six in ten men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-eight died or were permanently maimed."
And further down on that page...
"But to be fair to the French. I don't believe a national characteristic of "cowardice" exists. Aside from the pathetic surrender and weak resistance during World War II, the French have actually been quite brave in battle. They were brave in Vietnam (French Indochina), brave in World War I, they played a role in the initiation of the Franco-Prussian War, and throughout history they have been willing to fight heroically even when the odds were against them. It is true that they have had little military success in the last 150 years. But this is due to poor military strategy, faulty equipment, and general bungling, it has nothing to do with French cowardice. Of course, I still can't say much for the half hearted defense of France during World War II. But that is more of the exception than the rule."
"In this country, people have the right to anonymously vote for a particular candidate, but not to vote anonymously. It is known when you vote, and for good reason so that dead people don't go around voting over and over again or even live people."
You've never dealt with the Chicago Board of Elections. Chicago is the only city in the US where the dead vote on a regular basis.
"There can be simple large scantron type cards that are immediately sorted into something like X party, Y party and Z party, and maybe "other". These can be quickly gone though and if there was an X in the Y party box, something might be fishy. If the Z party box weighs more than the X party box which has more than Y, then Z won. It could counted if mass is that big of a controversy."
Recently, the City of Chicago used a system where voters used punch-card systems (similar to the butterfly ballot used in Florida, but better laid out). Voters, after they finished punching their votes would feed them into a scanner and the vote would be counted. The only problem was that *some* election judges didn't spend the time going to basic training so they ended up telling the voters to re-feed their ballots into the machine numerous times, causing errors in the tallies.
Although it must be said (and slightly changed from Yoda) that ignorance leads to fear. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.
Its a damn good thing that I view their website only on a text based browser on a machine I accessed though several ssh sessions.
More seriously though...
BFD. If I remember correctly most web servers can (and do) log IP addresses by default. Hell, my Apache and IIS (both web and ftp) logs show logged IP addresses.
Not that it matters much because IP addresses can be forged, or even better, anybody can use an unsecured wireless AP or wired connection to access a site.
Its actually fairly easy to calculate this number.
First, pick a LARGE random number. This number should be roughly equivalent to the biggest number you can think of. Next, multiply this number by 4. Finally, divide by a suitable power of 10 so that the number doesn't seem too impossible.
"One of the largest things media outlets use to back their claims are statistics. It is absolutely incredible how many times a media outlet will quote a statistic and not credit where it came from. Further, they are fond of taking creative liberty with how they quote the article to suit their needs.
These stats cover damage to systems, percentage of intrusions, and everything else. There are simply too many instances of suspect statistics as they relate to the computer security industry to read, match and provide analysis of them all." (from http://attrition.org/errata/stats.html )
Theorhetically, yes. But according to Murphy's law, something else will cause disks to fail at the same rate, either new formats or the companies finding a way to sabotage the disks.
So does this mean that Gumby can become an uberhacker (at least when facing these biometric devices)?
More seriously... This is not new news. Previous schemes to foil the finger print scanners have been around for a good deal of time. One article I found is at http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/tip/1,289483, sid14_gci833464,00.html/.
The version after just doesn't let you play it on a PC.
The version after that uses the laser in your CD-ROM drive to destroy the disk, most of your computer hardware, and if you have a nice window in your computer case... it attempts to attack you too.
For the even bigger cheapskates out there, use one of those cuecat readers. I think you can still get a box of 100 readers for free from most RadioShaft stores.
The nice thing is that they put out a rather long password with an "unique" serial number in the front (unless the reader has been modified).
What a lousy password. Impliment better one immediately for security reasons. I recommend you use either "god", "secret", "password", "userid", "username".
Some people like Yahoo for web hosting (I'm referring to their Yahoo! Small Business Solution).
Personally, I host my own stuff... I use godaddy as a registrar (the only service they don't completely and utterly suck at) with my home dsl connection for my one site, and a mutliple t3 internet 2 backbone connection for a few of my other sites and servers.
If I remember my US Government class ( PLSC 101 for you Loyola University Chicago people...) NASA is a US Government Corporation. They are in the same catagory as the USPS.
Of course, I may be wrong... I'm a computer scientist, not a political scientist.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm still waiting for a USB buttplug or suppository. This way I can give it to people after I tell them to shove their stupid .doc files up their ass.
I guess that would put a whole new definition of "pulling a paper out of one's ass"/
I'm not going to discuss politics in this post.
Ok, so by your admission, your local board of elections sucks due to an inability to check on the validity and legal status of newly registered voters.
By my admisson, my local board of elections sucks due to an inability to check vital signs of voters.
I do believe in the requirement for a state issued ID to vote. Of course that does not guarantee that there willn't be problems with the elections.
Lets face it, the bigest problem when it comes to elections is people. People can mess up an election, by malice and/or stupidity, even when using the most complex and 'foolproof' machines to safeguard the election.
US-CERT is virtually worthless. Hell, they still consider Mac OSX to be part of Unix. Whats worse is that they list the **same freakin vulnerabilites numerous times**. I'm not going to say much more... anything I would say would be a repeat of the OSVDB blog at http://www.osvdb.org/blog/?p=79 which addresses this issue.
Concerning all of the French surrender comments, I feel obligated to quote the site http://weblog.blogads.com/comments/514_0_1_0_C/
"World War I cost France 1,357,800 dead, 4,266,000 wounded (of whom 1.5 million were permanently maimed) and 537,000 made prisoner or missing -- exactly 73% of the 8,410,000 men mobilized, according to William Shirer in The Collapse of the Third Republic. Some context: France had 40 million citizens at the start of the war; six in ten men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-eight died or were permanently maimed."
And further down on that page...
"But to be fair to the French. I don't believe a national characteristic of "cowardice" exists. Aside from the pathetic surrender and weak resistance during World War II, the French have actually been quite brave in battle. They were brave in Vietnam (French Indochina), brave in World War I, they played a role in the initiation of the Franco-Prussian War, and throughout history they have been willing to fight heroically even when the odds were against them. It is true that they have had little military success in the last 150 years. But this is due to poor military strategy, faulty equipment, and general bungling, it has nothing to do with French cowardice. Of course, I still can't say much for the half hearted defense of France during World War II. But that is more of the exception than the rule."
"In this country, people have the right to anonymously vote for a particular candidate, but not to vote anonymously. It is known when you vote, and for good reason so that dead people don't go around voting over and over again or even live people."
You've never dealt with the Chicago Board of Elections. Chicago is the only city in the US where the dead vote on a regular basis.
"There can be simple large scantron type cards that are immediately sorted into something like X party, Y party and Z party, and maybe "other". These can be quickly gone though and if there was an X in the Y party box, something might be fishy. If the Z party box weighs more than the X party box which has more than Y, then Z won. It could counted if mass is that big of a controversy."
Recently, the City of Chicago used a system where voters used punch-card systems (similar to the butterfly ballot used in Florida, but better laid out). Voters, after they finished punching their votes would feed them into a scanner and the vote would be counted. The only problem was that *some* election judges didn't spend the time going to basic training so they ended up telling the voters to re-feed their ballots into the machine numerous times, causing errors in the tallies.
Exactly right.
Although it must be said (and slightly changed from Yoda) that ignorance leads to fear. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.
Its a damn good thing that I view their website only on a text based browser on a machine I accessed though several ssh sessions.
More seriously though...
BFD. If I remember correctly most web servers can (and do) log IP addresses by default. Hell, my Apache and IIS (both web and ftp) logs show logged IP addresses.
Not that it matters much because IP addresses can be forged, or even better, anybody can use an unsecured wireless AP or wired connection to access a site.
"How did they manage to calculate such a number"
o n.html )
Its actually fairly easy to calculate this number.
First, pick a LARGE random number. This number should be roughly equivalent to the biggest number you can think of. Next, multiply this number by 4. Finally, divide by a suitable power of 10 so that the number doesn't seem too impossible.
More seriously...
I recommend people to check out attrition.org's Statistics section ( http://attrition.org/errata/statistics/introducti
One section I feel obligated to quote is:
"One of the largest things media outlets use to back their claims are statistics. It is absolutely incredible how many times a media outlet will quote a statistic and not credit where it came from. Further, they are fond of taking creative liberty with how they quote the article to suit their needs.
These stats cover damage to systems, percentage of intrusions, and everything else. There are simply too many instances of suspect statistics as they relate to the computer security industry to read, match and provide analysis of them all." (from http://attrition.org/errata/stats.html )
"Seriously, do we need to be told that loud noise can lead to hearing loss?"
You never know... some people haven't heard about this issue yet.
Here is the transcript of the whole conversation:
... (repeats indefinately)
Orbiter: "Can you hear me now?"
Nasa: "Yes."
Orbiter: "Good!"
(Orbiter Moves a few feet)
Orbiter: "Can you hear me now?"
Visual Studio + intercal OR Visual Studio + fortran.
"I do not smirk. But if I did, this would be a good opportunity."
-Worf
"I don't need to be lectured by you...I was out saving the galaxy when your grandfather was in diapers...besides I think the galaxy owes me one..."
- Kirk to Picard, "Star Trek: Generations"
DOH! I knew I should have proof read my post first...
"I am a graduate of Starfleet Academy; I know many things."
-- Worf (The Darkness and the Light)
Obligatory Trek-like quote
"Dammit Jim... I'm a doctor, not a english professor."
Theorhetically, yes. But according to Murphy's law, something else will cause disks to fail at the same rate, either new formats or the companies finding a way to sabotage the disks.
So does this mean that Gumby can become an uberhacker (at least when facing these biometric devices)?, sid14_gci833464,00.html/.
More seriously... This is not new news. Previous schemes to foil the finger print scanners have been around for a good deal of time. One article I found is at http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/tip/1,289483
The version after that uses the laser in your CD-ROM drive to destroy the disk, most of your computer hardware, and if you have a nice window in your computer case... it attempts to attack you too.
For the even bigger cheapskates out there, use one of those cuecat readers. I think you can still get a box of 100 readers for free from most RadioShaft stores.
The nice thing is that they put out a rather long password with an "unique" serial number in the front (unless the reader has been modified).
What a lousy password. Impliment better one immediately for security reasons. I recommend you use either "god", "secret", "password", "userid", "username".
Of course, I use "fluffybunny" for everything.
Some people like Yahoo for web hosting (I'm referring to their Yahoo! Small Business Solution).
Personally, I host my own stuff... I use godaddy as a registrar (the only service they don't completely and utterly suck at) with my home dsl connection for my one site, and a mutliple t3 internet 2 backbone connection for a few of my other sites and servers.
And Kevin Mitnick supposedly could call NORAD and launch the nukes by the same method... (Yeah, I know that was total crap created by John Markoff)
If I remember my US Government class ( PLSC 101 for you Loyola University Chicago people...) NASA is a US Government Corporation. They are in the same catagory as the USPS.
Of course, I may be wrong... I'm a computer scientist, not a political scientist.
Actually, I pay the kid next door and use the time he flies the kite to post on slashdot or do real work.
Right... that is why I telnet directly into my smtp server for everything.