So, I started my first lab rotation today at Emory. I must say I love grad school thus far, but this just blows me away. My first rotation, I am working in a synthetic biology lab, and guess what? I get to work on a project involving SARS! I am so excited, I just wanted to share with the memestreams community.:)

Good analysis of Scoop's allegations and Diebold's rebuttal:

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Allegation #53 (p. 16):
"Physical access to the voting results may not even be necessary to acquire the voting records if they are transmitted across the Internet."
Diebold Response:
... Results are not transmitted over the Internet.
My Added Comment:
But we know that result transmission uses telephone, PPP, and a username and password, from Page 14 of the Hopkins report, quoted in Allegation #40. Therefore, it is quite possible that election central will have a LAN connected using Internet protocol, perhaps used to connect a modem bank with a single PC. This LAN may not be as vulnerable as the public Internet, but it is vulnerable to packet snooping and several other attacks, and must therefore be carefully secured. Furthermore, if an adversary can dial into the PPP host and await connections, Trojan horse applications on the voting system could communicate with the adversary using PPP without talking to the GEMS system at all.

Allegation #54 (p. 16):
"The Diebold voting machines cannot work in isolation ..."
Diebold Response:
This is false. ... The primary form of output for the Ballot Station is the result tape ...
My Added Comment:
Diebold is wrong. Just because communication is accomplished using hand carried media such as the PCMCIA cards used to program the machine before the election and the printout used as the official election record does not mean that the machine is isolated. See my response to allegation #16! Hand carried PCMCIA cards need just as much protection as network communications. Furthermore, the printout from the machine is not necessarily the final result unless we make this printout before we make any modem connection that could admit an intruder; here, the Diebold system, because of its weak security, relies unnecessarily on strict adherence to correct polling place procedures. Not only that, but we are under increasing pressure to use the electronic record for canvassing, generally the one in the hand-carried PCMCIA card taken from the voting machine, but in the not-too-distant future, we may be pressured into using the result from the modem! That paper record wasn't even an option with Global's system when it was offered for sale to Iowa in 1997, and today, I gather that many jurisdictions don't look at it unless there's a call for a recount.

The Diebold FTP Story

Please keep in mind that these are static jpgs...
Hold onto your seat...

good god, that sure does mess with my eyes *squint* *squint* :) - Nano

Freak out man!!!

] A newly discovered asteroid has zero chance of colliding
] with Earth in 11 years, although preliminary data had
] suggested such a doomsday scenario was possible,
] astronomers said this week.

This had to be memed....if only so that you could enjoy the title of the article:) - Nano

CNN.com - Asteroid update: End of world on hold - Sep. 5, 2003

] The recording industry is expected to announce as early
] as next week an amnesty program for people who admit they
] illegally share music files across the Internet,
] promising not to sue them in exchange for their admission
] and pledge to delete the songs off their computers.
]
] The offer of amnesty will not apply to the roughly 1,600
] people who already have been targets of copyright
] subpoenas from the Recording Industry Association of
] America, which has promised to file hundreds of
] infringement lawsuits across the country as early as next
] week.

Wired News: Repent, and All Is Forgiven

] The photograph to the right is JESUS, The Hot Air Balloon
] as it appeared at Ridgecrest, California on November 7th,
] 1998.

in the words of Mike Morrison, "He is risen!"

[bahahahahahaha. wow. - Nano]

JESUS, The Hot Air Balloon

] The National Science Foundation (news - web sites) has
] awarded the University of South Carolina a $1.3 million
] grant from to research the ethics of nanoscience, which
] is the study of atoms and molecules.

Yahoo! News - S.C. School Gets Nanoscience Grant

Phreaknic rules....everyone on memestreams should come to PN:)

Phreaknic7 :: Nashville, TN

Hijexx wrote:
] Strange...

yet more evidence of the rampant drug problem that the world is facing:)

RE: Skippy the Goth Kangaroo

] The first game-playing DNA computer has been revealed -
] an enzyme-powered tic-tac-toe machine that cannot be
] beaten.
]
] The human player makes his or her moves by dropping DNA
] into 3 by 3 square of wells that make up the board. The
] device then uses a complex mixture of DNA enzymes to
] determine where it should place its nought or cross, and
] signals its move with a green glow.
]
] The device, dubbed MAYA, was developed by Milan
] Stojanovic, at Columbia University in New York, and Darko
] Stefanovic, at the University of New Mexico in
] Albuquerque. Kobi Benenson, who works on other DNA
] approaches at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, says the
] work demonstrates the most complex use of molecules as
] logic gates to date, and "represents a significant
] advance in DNA computing."

New Scientist - First game-playing DNA computer revealed