] In addition, our review of the .com and .net registry
] agreements between ICANN and VeriSign leads us to the
] conclusion that VeriSign%u2019s unilateral and
] unannounced changes to the operation of the .com and .net
] Top Level Domains are not consistent with material
] provisions of both agreements. These inconsistencies
] include violation of the Code of Conduct and equal access
] provisions, failure to comply with the obligation to act
] as a neutral registry service provider, failure to comply
] with the Registry Registrar Protocol, failure to comply
] with domain registration provisions, and provision of an
] unauthorized Registry Service. These inconsistencies
] with VeriSign's obligations under the .com and .net
] registry agreements are additional reasons why the
] changes in question must be suspended pending further
] evaluation and discussion between ICANN and VeriSign.

If you look closely, you can actually see ICANN growing a spine.

] Given these conclusions, please consider this a formal
] demand to return the operation of the .com and .net
] domains to their state before the 15 September changes,
] pending further technical, operational and legal
] evaluation. A failure to comply with this demand will
] require ICANN to take the steps necessary under those
] agreements to compel compliance with them.

There is an October 4th deadline. That's tomorrow.

ICANN | Letter from Paul Twomey to Russell Lewis | 3 October 2003 | 'Stop or else...'

This is a very interesting article on using editing techniques to speed up the WPM of audio recordings without loosing tonality. Its like speed reading a lecture. I wish NPR preprocessed all their audio programming this way.

If PVR's like MythTV had this capability, it could make channels like c-span a little less mind-numbing.

Now Hear This, Quickly

] VeriSign, Inc. , the leading provider of critical
] infrastructure services for the Internet and
] telecommunications networks, today announced that it has
] been selected by Accenture to provide hosting, security
] consulting, authentication services and Managed Public
] Key Infrastructure (MPKI) services for the Department of
] Defense's Secure Electronic Registration and Voting
] Experiment (SERVE.) Upon full deployment, SERVE will
] enable absentee uniformed services members and overseas
] United States citizens from eight participating states to
] cast absentee ballots via the Internet for the 2004
] primary and general elections.

Now THAT is a perfect storm...

VeriSign Selected by Accenture to Secure Department of Defense E-Voting System

] EFF last week called on IEEE members and other citizens
] to voice their concerns about the standard. Nearly five
] hundred people wrote to IEEE leadership pointing out
] flaws in the draft standard. On September 22, the first
] working group ballot on the draft failed overwhelmingly,
] causing the simultaneous ballot at the sponsor level to
] fail as well.

EFF: Flawed E-Voting Standard Sent Back to Drawing Board

- Who talks to whom?
- How does information flow?
- How are decisions made?
- Who are the experts?
- Can we predict the ramifications of organizational disruptions?
- How can we change the group’s interactions to promote better functioning?

Reality Mining

ICANN has set up a clearing house for information about the Verisign incident. There are some documents up here that are new.

ICANN | Information Page: Verisign's Wildcard Service Deployment

Decius wrote:
] Original Page:
] ] We call on ICANN to examine the procedures for changes in
] ] service, including provisions to protect users from
] ] abrupt changes in service.
] ]
] ] We call on the IAB, the IETF, and the operational
] ] community to examine the specifications for the domain
] ] name system and consider whether additional
] ] specifications could improve the stability of the overall
] ] system. Most urgently, we ask for definitive
] ] recommendations regarding the use and operation of
] ] wildcard DNS names in TLDs and the root domain, so that
] ] actions and expectations can become universal.
]
] This really didn't get much coverage yesterday given that it
] came out shortly after Verisign's arrogant response. Its
] interesting. If ICANN could do something, this document would
] specifically say "Verisign is in violation of XYZ." It
] doesn't. What it says is that rules need to be reconsidered
] and clarified. IE, what they have done is not against the
] current rules. ICANN has the right under their contracts to
] create new policies, and Verisign must abide by those policies
] once they are approved within a reasonable period of time.
] This document is part of a long documentation trail that will
] ultimately result in Sitefinder getting shutdown. This
] process could take years. There are a number of methods
] that Verisign can use to delay things, including disputing the
] ICANN process, and filing a breach of contract suit along with
] a request for preliminary injunction preventing any new ICANN
] regulation from taking effect, and then delaying and delaying
] and delaying on going to trial, and then appealing and
] appealing... Once the court process is over with Verisign gets
] 4 months to implement any change ICANN requires. Furthermore,
] we're not anywhere near that stage yet. We are miles away.
] There is all kinds of IAB, IETF, and ICANN beaurocratic
] bullshit that has to occur first.
]
] I hope I'm wrong, but I doubt it. They should have had a
] clause in the contract that prevents Verisign from making
] disruptive changes without seeking approval. They don't. This
] is a loophole big enough to drive a truck through, and
] Verisign just did. By the time this actually gets resolved
] will we have been living with it for so long that no one will
] notice.

I don't think you are wrong. It will take years.

] If this issue is not resolved by Phreaknic I will use my
] speaking time there to call for a move to a DNS system that
] exists outside of ICANN's control. Its not really their fault,
] but this situation cannot be allowed to go on for years.

I have a few questions that I have not yet had the time to research.. What is the current size of the z... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

RE: ICANN can't do anything...

] Activists have also questioned the political affiliations
] of the leading voting companies. Late last year, Harris
] found that Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, used
] to run the voting company that provided most of the
] voting machines in his state. And in August, the
] Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that Walden O'Dell, the
] CEO of Diebold, is a major fundraiser for President Bush.
] In a letter to fellow Republicans, O'Dell said that he
] was "COMMITTED TO HELPING OHIO DELIVER ITS ELECTORAL
] VOTES TO THE PRESIDENT NEXT YEAR."
]
] But the problems Harris found in Diebold's system are
] perhaps the best proof yet that electronic voting systems
] aren't ready for prime time. Indeed, the vulnerabilities
] in the software, as well as the internal memos, raise
] questions about the legitimacy of the California recall
] election. In its ruling, the 9th Circuit Court put the
] election on hold until the six counties that currently
] use punch-card systems -- six counties that comprise 44
] percent of the state's voters -- upgrade their systems.
] On Monday, 11 judges on the 9th Circuit reheard the
] recall case; they may very well allow the election to go
] ahead on Oct. 7. If the recall vote is put on hold until
] March, however, many may wonder whether to trust the
] results: Four of the six punch-card counties -- including
] the largest, Los Angeles and San Diego -- have plans to
] upgrade to Diebold machines by March.

(Comments from Decius)

Very good article, with links to Diebold's internal memos, on the electronic voting systems.

I think that Harris is a conspiracy theorist. Certainly if the elections in Georgia were stolen that would be a historic fraud, a great mar on our history. However, it is not appropriate to allege that unless you've got proof. Saying "Oh, oh, oh, this might have occured..." simply serves to rile up people's emotions and it contributes to the ignorance and confusion that surrounds this issue. The quotes in the Diebold memos about "King County" are obviously not in reference to election fraud. Later in the same memo the same person discussess the concerns that Texas has about the use of this capability for such a purpose.

On the other hand, the Diebold memos demonstrate a complete lack of computer security clue on the part of the engineers. The fact that you have a password on your .mdb file isn't going to keep me out of it, in particular when you've handed me software that has access to it. Furthermore, the fact these morons are confident enough of their clue level to be poking fun at the "technical wizards" in the certifying companies is enough to turn the stomach.

All of these people simply seem to be in way the hell over their heads, and none of them seem to realize it.

Salon.com Technology | An open invitation to election fraud

] In response to widespread expressions of concern from the
] Internet community about the effects of the
] introduction of the wildcard, ICANN has requested
] advice from its Security and Stability Advisory
] Committee, and from the Internet Architecture
] Board, on the impact of the changes implemented
] by VeriSign. ICANN's Security and Stability Advisory
] Committee is expected to release an objective
] expert report concerning the wildcard later today.
]
] Recognizing the concerns about the wildcard service,
] ICANN has called upon VeriSign to voluntarily
] suspend the service until the various reviews
] now underway are completed.

ICANN Speaks!

Decius wrote:
] Someone asked me this morning how to parse the MemeStreams RSS
] feed. So I present this. This is a simple Perl script which
] uses XML::RSS to parse the headlines from a number of news
] sites, including MemeStreams, and post them to a Prolite LED
] sign. There is a lot more in that RSS object then a title, but
] hopefully you can use this as a starting point for your
] projects.

Also worth noting.. Onyx RSS is a class for PHP which handles parsing of RSS objects. It also handles local cashing, so it is all you need to code content from RSS feeds into any webpage/application that supports PHP.

Onyx RSS PHP Class (was RE: LedNews -- Example RSS perl script)