Thursday, March 02, 2006

The U.S. Association for Computing Machinery has released its report on state voter databases: Citing the danger of voter fraud and disenfranchisement from poorly implemented databases, a committee of experts commissioned by USACM released a report today making almost 100 recommendations to state and local officials charged with creating and managing statewide voter registration databases (VRDs). The report is a comprehensive “soup-to-nuts” look at challenges elections officials face in making sure databases are accurate, private, usable, secure, and reliable. Complete information, including links to the full report and the ACM press release, is available from http://www.acm.org/usacm/VRD/ The report responds to the mandate passed by Congress in the Help America Vote Act that all states create and manage statewide VRDs. The committee wanted to give objective technical advice to elections officials on the many challenges they will face in meeting this mandate. The report has been about a year in the making, and we’ve covered some of the work of this group on the weblog including comments they filed with the Election Assistance Commission about this issue: http://www.acm.org/usacm/PDF/EAC_database_guidance_comments.pdf 10:10:54 AM    comment []

FedEx Kinko's Payment Card Hacked. This site goes into detail about how the FedEx Kinko's ExpressPay stored value card has been hacked. There's nothing particulary amazing about the hack; the most remarkable thing is how badly the system was designed in the first place. The only security on the cards is a three-byte code that lets you read and write to the card. I'd be amazed if no one has hacked this before. [Schneier on Security] 7:27:15 AM    comment []

What if Microsoft designed the iPod?. created by Microsoft marketing for an internal meeting, as confirmed by Scoble   [Waxy.org Links] 7:27:10 AM    comment []

Russia, Iran End Talks Without Nuclear Deal [Washington Post: Top News] 7:21:07 AM    comment []

Penn Jillette responds to Smoke and Mirrors bootleg. Penn Jillette talked about the game today on his podcast! He talks extensively about, among other things, the background history behind "Desert Bus" and the secrets behind some of the minigames. Tons of great trivia, including the tidbit that they were planning a massive Vegas trip prize to the first person to make the round-trip. The entire episode can be downloaded from the iTunes Music Store, or I've posted the relevant part right here: Penn_Jillette_Podcast_on_Smoke_and_Mirrors.mp3 (2.5 MB). [Waxy.org Links] Download: Penn_and_Teller's_Smoke_and_Mirrors.torrent (810 MB) Instructions: If you have an actual Sega CD, just burn the disc images and you're set. Otherwise, you'll need a copy of the GENS emulator and the Sega CD BIOS to play. After unpacking both archives, start the emulator and go to the "Options: BIOS" menu. Set the "Sega CD BIOS: USA" directory to the folder you saved the BIOS file in. Then use "File: Open ROM" to open "PTSM1.bin." 7:20:45 AM    comment []

Long-lost Penn and Teller videogame for download. Frank Cifaldi has uncovered a long-lost Penn and Teller video game that was never released in stores, and Waxy is hosting a torrent of it. The game involves lots of tricks, shenanigans, and genuinely weird and improbable easter-eggs, and has cameos from Lou Reed and Debbie Harry. Penn mentioned the torrent of the game on his talk-show yesterday and sounded pretty cool with it! You'll need to install a free Sega CD emulator to run it (unless you actually have a working Sega CD). The most infamous part was "Desert Bus," a "VeriSimulator" in which you drive a bus across the straight Nevada desert for eight hours in real-time. Then you drive it home. Also, I'd read the bus veers to the right, so you can't just leave the joypad propped up. The rumor was that if you won the game, you got one point. Link [Boing Boing] 7:20:01 AM    comment []

James Bond Is a Fake. Who comes to mind first when you hear the word "spy"? James Bond, of course, and that's an insult to spies the world over. The tech gadgetry we associate with 007 turns him into a mere cartoon. It's time for George Smiley to come in from the cold. Commentary by Tony Long. This column is available as a . [Wired News: Top Stories] 7:19:56 AM    comment []