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Weblog: September 2005

Thursday, September 22 2005

Indecent Matrimony

From (or really via) Sepia Mutiny:

"An Israeli couple being married in India have found that you may not kiss the bride - the pair were fined $22 for indecency for their wedding embrace...
"The couple, who had met in India while travelling separately, paid the 1,000-rupee fine for 'committing an act of indecency' to avoid a 10-day jail sentence."

Hotel TV: Security Vulnerabilities

Some hotel TV systems are vulnerable to an attack requiring just a Linux computer, infrared transmitter, and USB TV tuner.

"Laurie first discovered the vulnerability when he was 'mucking about with hotel TVs to get the porn channel without paying for it.' He was able to bypass TV billing menus by using his laptop to tune in to the premium content being broadcast from backend systems...
"Laurie could view the bills of other guests and see their room numbers simply by going to a menu that displayed the address of the TV in his room and changing a number in the address to make the TV think it was in a different room."

Thursday, September 15 2005

Sweet Fancy Moses! Opera Rocks!

So I was IMing with a colleague, and she told me to go to a particular URL. I opened up the URL, messed around with some of the fancy Javascript/"Ajax" stuff going on (her site was taking advantage of Google's API), and then - my web browser crashed. Sigh. I'd had about 25-30 pages open in various tabs, some that I still wanted to deal with or finish and reading, and it was gone.

This was the first time Opera had crashed on me (on my Mac) since I downloaded and installed it on free serial number day 15 days ago. I'd hoped for a virtually crash-proof browser. Firefox doesn't constantly crash on me, but it crashes enough that I sometimes get scared if I have 20+ pages open and don't want to lose them. And IE and Safari - whatever. But 15 days I figured was alright...

Then I opened Opera again. It remembered all the pages that were open. And opened them again. Including the page that had crashed Opera. Without a problem.

This is my new favorite web browser. If there's a plugin that does the same for Firefox, I'd love to hear about it, but even if there is - Opera does it by default. Given how much time I spend using a web browser, I expect to be paying for the next version of Opera.

(That is, unless I have an amazing conversion experience with something like OmniWeb. Now that was the shit on NeXT machines back in the early 90s...)

(OK - there's a Firefox extension that saves sessions. Haven't used it yet. But this may save Firefox in my eyes...)

Wednesday, September 14 2005

Tech Volunteer Experience in Dallas, re: Katrina

A techie tries to help out with evacuees from Hurricane Katrina:

"I offered my services with computers, laptop in tow, and she immediately asked if I could make a list of Red Cross chapter telephone numbers in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. Stunned by the sheer simplicity of the request, I set to work immediately, stealing an ethernet connection from one of the chapter’s desktops, which wasn’t being used by the volunteer in front of it. All of the desktops were running Windows 2000, and since they weren’t typically used minute-by-minute, they were all protected by screen savers that required passwords that nobody knew."

Verified Voting Foundation seeks new President

I'm still working with the Verified Voting Foundation on their Election Incident Reporting System. We still need volunteer PHP programmers and Unix sysadmins (and maybe CSS experts) who have an interest in strengthening democracy. In addition, Will Doherty, the guy who's been heading up the VVF and VV, is leaving; know anybody who can fill his shoes?

Subject: President needed for Verified Voting Foundation and VerifiedVoting.org
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2005 23:06:17 -0700
From: David L. Dill

The executive director of VerifiedVoting.org and the Verified Voting Foundation, Will Doherty, will be leaving the organizations at the end of September. In his time at VVO and VVF, Will brought the organizations to national prominence while leading them through the difficult and crucial 2004 election cycle. We wish Will the very best of luck in future endeavors.

We are now undergoing a search for new leadership. Here is a description of the position. Please circulate this to anyone you think might be qualified and interested: PRESIDENT AND CEO OF VERIFIED VOTING FOUNDATION AND VERIFIEDVOTING.ORG

The Verified Voting Foundation and VerifiedVoting.org are non-profit, non-governmental organizations with a common mission: to promote transparent, reliable and publicly verifiable elections in the United States.

The Verified Voting Foundation is an 501(c)(3) organization whose activities are primarily research and education. VerifiedVoting.org is a 501(c)(4) organization which advocates legislative reforms to increase election transparency. These organizations are primarily
focused on election integrity and transparency issues and have a history of drawing on special expertise in technology, especially computer science (see http://www.verifiedvoting.org/ and http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/).

We are seeking a President, who is the CEO of the organization. We are seeking a leader and manager with extensive prior management experience, a deep knowledge of election issues, and a passion for our mission.

The organization is currently headquartered in San Francisco, although headquartering in Washington, DC could be considered.

Responsibilities of the President will include:

* Being the public face of both organizations.
* Setting short-term and long-term strategy, including the definition
and planning of major projects that advance our mission.
* Fundraising from foundations and individual contributors.

* Building the organizations, recruiting high-quality staff and
volunteers for important roles within the organization, including
- communications strategy
- policy analysis
- gathering and making available timely and accurate information about election law, voting technology, etc. to the public.
- lobbying activities at the state and Federal level.
* Cultivating and maintaining effective partnerships with a wide variety of other organizations who are working on election issues at the state and federal level.
* Financial administration
* Working with and expanding the board of directors.

Qualifications:

* Previous high-level executive experience.
* Demonstrated success in building a non-profit.
* Exceptional ability to communicate in speech and writing.
* In-depth knowledge of voting and democracy issues, and a passion for our mission.
* A commitment to accuracy, objectivity, and non-partisanship.
* Comfort with technology issues, and the ability to communicate about technology issues with technologists and the general public.

If you are interested, please email a copy of a cover letter and your resume to "davidldill@gmail.com"

David L. Dill
Founder of VerifiedVoting.org and the Verified Voting Foundation

Saturday, September 10 2005

August Charity of the Month: ACORN

ACORN, "the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is the nation's largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families, working together for social justice and stronger communities."
ACORN's national office was in New Orleans; in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, they're one of the locally-based organizations that is helping citizens get their bearings and get back on their feet.
Donate.

Thursday, September 8 2005

Burning Man Pictures

95 pictures. Enjoy.

June and July 2005 Charities of the Month

KALW Information Radio (NPR, PRI, local, and other public programming) and KPFA - Free Speech Radio (good year-round insurgent news and music, and currently, good coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, especially through Democracy Now.)

May 2005 Charity of the Month: EFF

EFF: The Electronic Frontier Foundation
Appeals Court Preserves Email Privacy

"Massachusetts - In a long-awaited decision, the full First Circuit Court of Appeals today overturned a First Circuit panel decision that had allowed an email service provider to secretly monitor the content of users' incoming messages without violating federal wiretap law. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and other privacy organizations submitted briefs in the case..."

"Imagine if Tower Records sold you a CD, but then, a few months later, knocked on your door and replaced the CD with one that you can't play in your car. Would you still feel like you "owned" the CD? Not so much, eh?
"But Apple reserves the right to change at any time what you can do with the music you purchase at the iTunes Music Store. For instance, in April 2004, Apple decided to modify the DRM so people could burn the same playlist only 7 times, down from 10. How much further will the service restrict your ability to make legal personal copies of your own music? Only Apple knows."

Tuesday, September 6 2005

Fingerprint technology

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court will hear arguments about whether it should

"...bar fingerprint analysis from being presented in all criminal trials until it is subjected to rigorous scientific scrutiny and proven reliable.
"Cunha, who has enlisted 15 scientists and scholars to bolster his argument, said fingerprint analysis has never been systematically studied for its reliability. It lacks uniform standards for how many characteristics must be present in a latent print before analysts can declare a match, he said, nor are there statistical models to calculate how often analysts err. Instead, its reputation for infallibility approaches an article of faith."

About this site

This is the personal web site for Edward (Ed) Piou. Consisting mainly of a blog (operational since 1999) and various photos.

Some online projects I'm working on

Politics

Charity, Non-profits...

A while ago, I decided to put my money where my mind is on a (roughly) monthly basis and give to:

Photos

Public events documented through pictures...