Diebold voting software includes Steal Election Button v1.18.19

Software included on Premier Election Solutions’ (previously known as Diebold) voting machines has recently been revealed to contain a “Delete Logs” button. This allows a user to delete any of the voting logs in the machine with no backups or way to trace the original logs.

Auditing logs are required under the federal voting-system guidelines, which are used to test and qualify voting systems for use in elections. The logs record changes and other events that occur on voting systems to ensure the integrity of elections and help determine what occurred in a system when something goes wrong.

“Deleting a log is something that you would only do in de-commissioning a system you’re no longer using or perhaps in a testing scenario,” said Princeton University computer scientist Ed Felten, who has studied voting systems extensively. “But in normal operation, the log should always be kept.”

Yet the Diebold system in Humboldt County, which uses version 1.18.19 of Gems, has a button labeled Clear, that “permits deletion of certain audit logs that contain — or should contain — records that would be essential to reconstruct operator actions during the vote-tallying process,” according to the California report. (note: emphasis added)

More information over at The Register. Not that it matters anymore, but did someone say recount? (via Metafilter)

Using Dropbox with Xfce

Started working with my older laptop again, so I decided to install Xubuntu. Xubuntu is the Xfce edition of Ubuntu Linux. A big part of my computing experience is the portibility of applications like Dropbox or Box.net – easily being able to synch files on my various computers is of upmost importance. However, Dropbox is designed to work along with Nautilus which is the default file manager in GNOME…and the default window manager in Ubuntu. But not Xubuntu which uses Thunar as it’s file manager.

But, it’s no problem – by simply following the instructions below you can get Dropbox to work side-by-side with Xfce and Thunar. We will basically just be starting a no-frills instance of Nauilus which causes Dropbox to start. The explanation will mostly be relevant to Ubuntu/Xubuntu users, but can simply be modified to other distros.

Requirements:

• Nautilus file manager
• Dropbox for Linux
• Xfce (4.4+ works best)

1. Install dropbox from source, or using the packages provided on the Dropbox site.
2. Type the following into the terminal:

   nautilus --no-desktop --browser
   

   This will start Dropbox, and the icon should appear in your system tray.

3. Log in, or sign up with a new account.
4. Now, in order to have Dropbox running every time you use Xfce, you need it to autostart. Just go to:
   Menu -> Settings -> Settings Manager -> Autostarted apps -> Add
   and add the following
   

   /home/your_username/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd

And that’s it! Dropbox should work normally now, synching your files perfectly. Now you can more stuff done.

This tutorial is more-or-less a translation and expansion of a tutorial from Polish website blok.kangoor.

Linkdump – Tuesday 02.24.09

Today’s linkdump is an assortment of beats by Clark, ecological housing, and bizarre marine life. The air is filled with smell of bread that we are baking – the last loaf turned out nearly perfect. Added more flour and some honey this time; will hopefully turn out moist and delicious. Gardening will happen soon, as we now have all the ground-working tools we could possibly need.

• ex: Living Hydroponics House – House in Paris, France covered with ferns. The plants, which are hydroponically fed and in hand-blown glass pods, regulate the temperature and create a fantastic living space
• ex: Clark – Frau Wav (Brief Fling)
• ea: Ohio Man Held Woman Captive, Read Bible – A man held some woman hostage in his house, dressed her in adult diapers, read her Bible passages and tried to smother her to death. I wonder where he worked.
• in: Bizarre S&M-themed Hello Kitty commercial – This dreamlike Hllo Kitty advert is rife with trippy sequences, and archetypal and occult symbolism.
• in: Fish wish transparent head – The Macropinna microstoma, or barreleye fish, has a transparent head to help the fish absorb as much light as possible. Crazy pictures.

Beautiful "Hemlock" CGI Animation

Animator Tyson Ibele created this magnificent and haunting CGI animation for a recent CGSociety animation challenge. The animation, titled “Hemlock”, was created for the “Steampunk – Myths and Legends” challenge.

via BoingBoing

The horrific art of Olivier de Sagazan

Was trawling through all the backed-up feeds in Google Reader, when I came across this post over at PDXOcculture. It is a video depicting the bizarre and wondrous performance art of an Olivier de Sagazan. From what I can gather, it is a piece entitled (or part of a piece entitled) “When the face loses its face”.

Olivier is a multimedia artist, and his site features many interesting and splendidly horrific sculptures and paintings. Would love to see one of his performances sometime.

Amazing cybernetic and machine/animal hybrid sculptures

Jeshio shared these amazing sculptures by artist Lisa Black. The New Zealand artist created a series of sculptures called “Fixed” where she mixes taxidermy with clockwork and synthetic parts. There is some brilliant work here, like this ferret and this turtle.

via Street Anatomy

Bush official admits "We tortured…"

A senior Bush official has come forward saying that the US Military has tortured a Saudi man being held at Guantanamo Bay. Since they went ahead and tortured the guy, he apparently cannot be referred for prosecution. Whew…He sure lucked out of that one.

The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a “life-threatening condition.”

“We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani,” said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. “His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that’s why I did not refer the case” for prosecution.

via BoingBoing

Chaos 11 – RAW Chaos Day

According to ddate, today is Sweetmorn, the 11th day of Chaos in the YOLD 3175. That makes it Chaos 11, which is RAW Chaos day, the Discordian celebration of the “sailing on” of author, philosopher and teacher Robert Anton Wilson. He went under many names and in many masks – the Discordians know him as Saint Mordecai the Foul, the Subgenius call him Pope Bob.

This great man meant a lot to me, personally. Having never met him, I only have the experiences of his books, audio recordings, video, blog, and other texts. Out of all the authors over the years that I’ve come in contact with, R.A.W. has had the greatest impact on my mind and spirit. His ideas on the levity we should have in life, mixed with the serious metaphysics and science that he would clamor over with n’er a worry – so refreshing and uplifting.

Here is a collection of most of his books. Also, here is a torrent with tons of audio recordings, video, and more books. His word should be heard by all that can hear – and we must keep the lasagna flying. Remember kids: Only download these if you already own hard copies of the material. Piracy is bad…right?

(photo by Metaphorge (St. Fox) of Discordian.com from flickr)

Steampunk may be hazardous to your health

The steampunk revolution has been a swift and powerful one. Geeks and others of their ilk have embraced this retro-Victorian style for conventions, play, and even household objects. For those not in on the craze, here is a general run-down of steampunk:

Steampunk is a subgenre of fantasy and speculative fiction that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used-usually the 19th century, and often set in Victorian era England-but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or real technological developments like the computer occurring at an earlier date. Other examples of steampunk contain alternate history-style presentations of “the path not taken” of such technology as dirigibles or analog computers; these frequently are presented in an idealized light, or a presumption of functionality.

The steampunk genre has spread voraciously through the crafting world. A simple search for “steampunk” on Etsy come sup with around 11,000 hits. However, the crafty blogger over at JanerBlog has pointed out some of the pitfalls of using old machinery and mechanics to create steampunk art. She had a safety inspector come over to her house with a Geiger counter to check some of the new supplies she had ordered for radiation.

The faces that I thought were hot were really hot. So hot that the Radiation Safety Officer took them away to be disposed of in their own separate landfill. We surveyed my entire batch of watch parts and found a bunch more faces and parts — plain metal parts the casual observer would never suspect — were also radioactive. Old movements that probably had radium faces on them — but without the faces, there was no way to tell. Tiny wristwatch watch hands with a pinhead-sized dab of paint on them turned out to be just as hot as some of the full-sized faces. Faces with so much of the paint flaked off of them that you could barely see the numerals on them showed as being hot. That barrette I was going to send my friend? Hot. The pin that a co-worker was going to get for Christmas? Hot. A pair of earrings a friend of mine made for me years ago? Hot.

So, just remember kids – if you see watch parts for sale on Ebay…make sure and check them for radiation. (via Verwirrung)

Mandelbrot the Fractal Bear

Crafty blogger Captain Mouse created this stunning fractal bear as a gift for her brother. She does not have any for purchase right now, but you might be able to get some in the near future.

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via BoingBoing