Daily Archives: September 20, 2003

US GPS v Galileo

This entry was posted in Technology on by

It looks like there may be a new satellite system to provide an alternative to the US military based GPS system. The prospect is apparently not going down well with the US:

The US wants to maintain a superiority in space. It has seen, even in the recent conflicts, how central that is to its ability to conduct campaigns overseas, and therefore anything that either erodes that superiority, or worse still, jeopardises it, will be taken very seriously indeed by the American military, and so it’s entirely understandable that they would much rather Galileo didn’t exist.

But Europe and possibly Russia and China appear to be moving ahead with the system.
Via PRC News.

Soil of the Earth

This entry was posted in Humor Religion on by

While there is a bit of question as to the source of this preacher’s quote The Curmudgeonly Clerk questions his credentials:

“The acceptance of evolution is responsible for the degeneration of morals in society,” said gospel preacher Mac Deaver. “People are shooting at each other on the highway. Kids are being taught that they came from dirt. There is no accountability; they say, ‘I’m just a product of evolutionary theory. Evolution made me what I am, can’t help it.'”

…….
As an earnest Christian, I almost fell out of my chair laughing when I saw Mac Deaver’s statement. Do you suppose Deaver has ever read the Bible that he is thumping?

And the Lord God formed Adam out of the soil of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
Genesis 2:7.

Is Your Vote Being Counted?

This entry was posted in Election 2004 on by

The 9th Circuit Court is concerned about punch card voting machines. Perhaps, though, they should be more concerned about the electonic voting machines which in their current incarnation have an even greater risk of disenfranchising voters.
EFF has a lot to say on this issue and is particularly harsh on the normally staid IEEE which has been charged with developing voting machine standards. However, the work they have done to day appears to be design oriented rather then performance oriented. The EFF reports that:

Members of the security community report that the current standard is flawed. P1583 is largely a design standard, describing how to configure current electronic voting machines, instead of a performance standard setting benchmarks and processes for testing the security, reliability, accessibility, and accuracy of these machines.

Of course, if you don’t vote or don’t care about the results matching what the voters wanted then go back to sleep.
Charles Stross lists three minimal requirements for an electronic voting system:

1) It must print a paper record of the vote cast, which the voter must be able to see, and which must be retained, and which can be reconciled with the electronic record of the vote.
2) The software used must be open to third-party auditors, to the extent that it can be verified and if necessarily formally proven to be above suspicion. (Translation: only open source need apply.)
3) The hardware used must be open to third-party auditors, preferably conform verifiably to off-the-shelf standards, and may be challenged and replaced by the election commission with equivalent off-the-shelf equipment (to ensure that no sneaky hardware back doors are installed).

Number 2 needs a little tuning up to say something like 3rd party auditors must verify that the software accurately tallies the vote as entered by the voter. Make sure your local systems adhere to these.