Archive for October, 2008

Beware the Vote-Flipper

Oct 31

[Note: This item comes from reader Randall. DLH]

From: Randall Webmail <rvh40@insightbb.com>
Date: October 28, 2008 5:34:09 PM PDT
To: dewayne@warpspeed.com, johnmacsgroup@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Beware the Vote-Flipper

Letter to Secretaries of State re: iVotronic “Vote Flipping”
Statements & Testimony

By Lawrence Norden & Pamela Smith
– 10/27/08

Download Letter

This letter was sent to 16 Secretaries of State where iVotronic voting machines are in use. These states are: Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Dear Secretary of State:

You may be aware of recent press reports of problems that voters are having during early voting with the iVotronic voting machine in West Virginia and Tennessee. Specifically, voters have complained of “vote flipping,” where they vote for one candidate or party, but another shows up on the review screen.

There is a good chance that at least part of this problem can be attributed to calibration on the iVotronic machines. West Virginia’s Secretary of State Betty Ireland has directed all counties in West Virginia to re-calibrate their machines each morning during early voting, which runs until November 1st, and on Election Day, November 4th.

As reported by the Associated Press on October 23rd, Secretary Ireland has reminded voters that they should contact a poll worker if they have any problems using an electronic voting machine, and that they should carefully confirm their candidate choices on the accompanying paper receipt attached to each iVotronic machine.

She also reminded voters in that they can ask for help and “keep that poll clerk there until the voter is satisfied they have cast their vote as they intended. This may include moving to another machine, if that is the voter’s wish.”

There is a real chance that voters using iVotronic machines in your state will experience “vote flipping” similar to that experienced by voters in West Virginia. You may already have provided guidance to your state’s iVotronic jurisdictions, but if not, we urge you to take actions similar to those taken by Secretary Ireland, to avoid voter confusion and frustration, and to ensure that every vote is cast as intended. Where a voter-verifiable paper trail is available, voters should also be urged to confirm their candidate choices.

For more information about calibration issues on touchscreen DRE voting machines, we direct you to this article: http://accurate-voting.org/2006/11/01/touchscreen-calibration-issues-with-voting-machines/.

Please feel free to contact us with questions.

Sincerely,

Lawrence Norden
Counsel, Brennan Center for Justice
lawrence.norden@nyu.edu

Pamela Smith
President, Verified Voting
pam@verifiedvoting.org

<http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/letter_to_secretaries_of_state_re_ivotronic_vote_flipping/>

<http://snipurl.com/4smlq>

Martian Clathrates?

Oct 31

Posted by dewayne in List | No Comments

[Note: This item comes from reader Randall. DLH]

From: Randall Webmail <rvh40@insightbb.com>
Date: October 28, 2008 4:04:25 PM PDT
To: dewayne@warpspeed.com
Subject: Martian Clathrates?

The presence of methane in the Martian atmosphere is a puzzle. Methane is broken down rapidly by sunlight and cannot last long in any atmosphere. A few simple calculations show that the lifetime of a CH4 molecule in martian climes is around 500 years. So methane ought not to exist in the Martian atmosphere at all unless it is being replaced on a regular basis.

So where could it have come from? Astrobiologists find this exciting because the methane in Earth’s atmosphere comes largely from cow farts (or more precisely the bacteria that live in their guts). The absence of cowpats on Mars rules out the presence of ruminants on the red planet but leaves open the possibility that another primary source could be responsible, such as bacteria .

But before they can consider the possibility of life on Mars, astrobiologists must rule out every other possibility. One of these is that clathrates near the Martian surface are constantly releasing small amounts of methane as temperatures and pressure near the surface change.

Now Caroline Thomas et amis at the Universite de Franche-Comte in France have worked out how likely that is and say there are two possibilities.

First, they say that clathrates could only exist near the surface of Mars if the atmosphere had once been methane rich (otherwise the clathrates could never have formed). Perhaps the atmosphere was once temporarily enriched by a comet impact.

Second, there has to be some other source of methane, perhaps biological.

So how to distinguish between these scenarios. The discovery of gray crystalline hematite deposits on the surface could be a proof of an early methane-rich martian atmosphere.

Otherwise a biological source is a real option. Let’s get those rovers a-huntin’.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/0810.4359: Variability of the Methane Trapping in Martian Subsurface Clathrate Hydrates

<http://arxivblog.com/?p=688>

<http://snipurl.com/4sj6h>

It would be SO cool if I knew what this means …

Oct 31

Posted by dewayne in List | No Comments

[Note: This item comes from reader Randall. DLH]

From: Randall Webmail <rvh40@insightbb.com>
Date: October 22, 2008 7:08:27 AM PDT
To: dewayne@warpspeed.com, johnmacsgroup@yahoogroups.com
Subject: It would be SO cool if I knew what this means …

<http://www.physorg.com/news143805348.html>

Understanding the nervous system by walking in a neuron’s shoes

By Lisa Zyga, Medicine & Health / Research

A neuron’s perspective: A neuron receives input from an external stimulus via
glutamate, providing current information about the external world (layer
one). The neuron uses prior information (layer two) to predict the
conductance of layer one. The difference between layer two’s expected output
of layer one and the actual output of layer one is the membrane voltage,
which signals prediction error, and helps the neuron learn about the world.
Image credit: Christopher D. Fiorillo.

(PhysOrg.com) — If you want to understand and predict the behavior of your
young daughter, explains neurobiologist Christopher Fiorillo, you might
observe how she reacts to various environmental factors. Then, using a
statistical analysis, you might try to determine a relationship between her
behavior and these external factors. However, an easier and quicker way might
be simply to try to understand what the child herself knows about her world.
Although young children have similar basic goals, they behave differently
from one another because they have different information about the world.
This idea, known to psychologists as the theory of mind, is the basis for a
new theory of brain function proposed by Fiorillo, a professor at Stanford
University. His model attempts to provide an understanding of the nervous
system by looking at the world from a neuron’s perspective. This
“first-person” approach differs from the conventional “third-person” approach
to understanding the nervous system, which is based on observing inputs and
outputs and trying to figure out the relationship between the two.

“The problem [with the conventional approach] is that the relationship
between inputs and outputs is very complicated, even for a single neuron,”
Fiorillo told PhysOrg.com. “By contrast, I have tried to figure out what a
neuron knows about the world. This is possible because we already know a
great deal about the biophysical properties of neurons. I think that if we
can figure out what information a neuron has, then we will be able to make
better sense of its inputs and outputs. I think that this approach to
information will prove to be very useful, regardless of the success of the
rest of the theory.”

Learning neurons

Fiorillo’s theory attempts to explain the computational function of the
nervous system. Although much progress has been made in understanding the
mechanics of the nervous system, there is still no general theory of its
computational function. In other words, scientists don’t understand how a
system made up of simple, tiny neurons can compute information as a complex,
intelligent, and holistic system. In the absence of a computational theory,
scientists and engineers have been limited in their ability to design
artificial systems that mimic the intelligence of biological systems.

[snip]

Time to Hire a National CTO?

Oct 31

Posted by dewayne in List | No Comments

[Note: This item comes from friend Jock Gill. DLH]

Time to Hire a National CTO?

To do what? To help us get where?

A very long time ago, on the internet scale, 1992 to be exact, I serendipitously became the first ever presidential campaign staffer assigned to the internet — which meant, in those days, email. This led to my becoming the first White House staffer to be assigned to New Media. From 1993 – 1994, a small group of us were able to implement 1] public access email for the principals; 2] sophisticated electronic publishing. Killed by Andy Card in February 2001; and 3] the first White House web site in October 1994.

For some perspective, in 1993, White House business cards did not have email addresses on them. It took me three tries, and finally help from Janet Green, to get approval to have an email address on my business card — but only on the back side. So the cards cost me double. And that had to be an X.400 address, as IP addresses were not, at that time, street legal for government use. Remember X.400? I didn’t think so.

All of which is to say that I am not a technologist by any stretch of the imagination. I do, however, work with some very smart technologists who challenge me to think about technology. You might say that I am a consumer and distributor of technology. I have, from this perspective, a few thoughts on the concept of a National Chief Information Officer, a position Mr. Obama is apparently thinking of creating.

The problem I see is that we are lacking a clear cut technology vision that is broadly understood. So how can we possibly hirer a CTO to lead us to where we do not yet know we want to go?

On the one hand, we have the nitty gritty basics of information technology to look after — deep down in the weeds. For example, as a friend from MIT describes it, in the context of a cyber security crisis, the Federal CTO’s short to medium term job will be to coordinate best practices to reduce USG cyber vulnerabilities. The Obama policy on technology fails to mention this. It does, however, mention that Obama, if elected, will choose senior personnel with technical expertise, which means they better know something about information assurance and understand new directions in socio-technical systems.

The CTO job should also be, according to my MIT friend, to improve federal organizational process through the enlightened use of information technology. An important role would be to coordinate IT modernization to improve coordination, productivity, information assurance, respect for privacy, and transparency (including public access). The CTO should coordinate with the national cyber advisor and IT research arms of government to develop advanced technologies that enable government to work better and set an example for the private sector by pioneering new technologies, building beyond what was achieved during the Clinton Administration. Anybody here remember Al Gore’s “Re-inventing Government” initiative?

On the other hand, where, exactly, do we want to get to as a nation, and what role does technology have in helping us get there? What do we want it to mean to be a citizen in the 21st century: A simple one dimensional consumer? These are the deeper issue that we have to have a handle on before we hire a CTO. This is the conversation we are not having today.

Where ever we decide we want to go, it will require taking new paths and trying new actions. It will require changes that gore existing oxen. This will excite some but terrify others.

To be more specific, do we want to re-localize the production, distribution and marketing of: [food][1]; [power][2]; [communications][3]? Perhaps organized with a [peer-to-peer paradigm][4]? In general, re-localization will help us move to a post fossil fuel economy, increase our national security, and provide economic drivers at the local level. If we choose a re-localization strategy, which will redefine what it means to be a citizen, it will require very substantial new technology developments. Is this multi-dimensional challenge right for a single individual plucked from the existing corporate world? Or is this stuff of collaborating teams? Until we know at least first order approximations to the answers to these questions, it is premature to consider filling the National CTO job slot.

We clearly need a technology vision that re-establishes a trust in a reality based on science and statements that can be refuted. We need a reality that is for the people, not the power of government, not the profits of corporations, and not any one ideology. We have seen too painfully what an illusion of reality based upon fantastical tautologies, smoke and mirrors results in. It would be nice, for but one small example, for the FCC [Technological Advisory Council][5], canceled by the Bush administration, to be restarted as a top level function within the FCC, not merely a group whose occasional meetings the Chairman rarely, if ever, attends.

In the end, it is not what we think we know. It is what we do not know that prevents us from exploring new paths and taking new actions. Betting on a single explorer to select our paths and guide our actions is not a bet I want to make.

If ever there was a time for new paths and new actions, we are living in it. The question is how best to discover them.

[1]: <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html?scp=1&sq=Farmer+in-chief&st=nyt>
[2]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electranet>
[3]: <http://www.greaterdemocracy.org/framing_openspectrum.html>
[4]: <http://www.greaterdemocracy.org/archives/627>
[5]: <http://www.greaterdemocracy.org/feed/www.fcc.gov/oet/tac>

URL: <http://www.greaterdemocracy.org/archives/723>

The Lobby that Cried Wolf: New America Foundation Releases New Paper on NAB’s Predictable Strategy

Oct 29

Posted by dewayne in List | No Comments

The Lobby that Cried Wolf: New America Foundation Releases New Paper on NAB’s Predictable Strategy

Dear Colleagues:

Over the past week, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has bombarded Congress with a flurry of doomsday pronouncements, claiming broadcast television is under attack by the FCC and advocates seeking to open unused TV channels (TV white spaces) for wireless broadband and mobile Wi-Fi devices.

If all of this sounds a bit familiar, that’s because broadcasters always scream “interference!” when faced with any new competition or use of the empty TV band spectrum they are hoarding. In 1974 broadcaster’s tried to kill off a nascent TV service called cable television, claiming it would destroy “free” TV. And in 1998, when the FCC wanted to open up the FM band to low-power community radio stations, the claim was intolerable “interference” (later proved false). In 2001, when the first DVRs came out — and now again in 2008, with TV white spaces — broadcasters are predicting the imminent destruction of broadcast television.

The unfortunate reality is that NAB lobbyists will say just about anything to maintain their exclusive grip on the broadcast spectrum. As former New York Times reporter and author, Joel Brinkley, observed: “Above all else, [broadcasters hold] sacred the eleventh commandment: Thou Shalt Not Give Up Spectrum.”

In “The Lobby that Cried Wolf,” the New America Foundation provides a glimpse of broadcasters’ lobbying path of deception, highlighting the repeated NAB campaigns to keep others out of their spectrum and providing parallels with the current campaign against white space devices.

For the past 50 years, broadcasters and their respective lobbies have relied upon a broken record of scare tactics, gross exaggerations and underhanded attacks to oppose some of the most important communication advances of the 20th and 21st centuries including cable TV, the VCR, the DVR, FM radio, satellite television and radio, and even cellular phones.

In 2000, the FCC approved low-power FM community radio stations to operate on the third-adjacent channel after thoroughly examining interference issues. In response, the NAB told Congress “this is a prescription for chaos on the airwaves” and flooded the Hill with copies of an infamous audio disc that simulated the supposed interference from low-power stations. Three years later, an independent study for the FCC by Mitre Corp., a military contractor, found no significant interference issues with the FCC’s proposed LPFM service.

The NAB predicted similar interference nightmares in regards to low-power television stations and wireless microphones. Yet, today there are more than 836 low-power FM stations, 2,900 low-power TV stations and more than 400,000 wireless microphones operating throughout the TV band on an unlicensed basis. Despite the NAB’s pronouncements, neither chaos nor harmful interference ensued.

You can download a copy of the paper at <http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/lobby_cried_wolf>.

Michael Calabrese
Director, Wireless Future Program
calabrese@newamerica.net
202-986-9453

###

New America’s Wireless Future Program develops and advocates policy proposals aimed at achieving universal and affordable wireless broadband access, expanding public access to the airwaves and updating our nation’s communications infrastructure in the digital era. For more information, visit http://www.newamerica.net/programs/wireless_future.

The New America Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute that invests in new thinkers and new ideas to address the next generation of challenges facing the United States. Headquartered in Washington D.C., New America also has offices in California.

Some Unlimiteds are more limited than others

Oct 28

Posted by dewayne in List | No Comments

[Note: This item comes from friend Steve Goldstein. DLH]

From: Steve Goldstein <steve.goldstein@cox.net>
Date: October 28, 2008 10:33:28 AM PDT
To: dewayne@warpspeed.com (Dewayne Hendricks)
Subject: Some Unlimiteds are more limited than others

<http://www.circleid.com/posts/uk_broadband_user_limit/>

One Million UK Broadband Users Reach Unlimited Limits

* Oct 23, 2008 1:27 PM PDT

By CircleID Reporter
One Million UK Broadband Users Reach Unlimited Limits

New research indicates that one million UK consumers have either exceeded or nearly exceeding their broadband usage limits, according to the consumer group uSwitch. “Eighteen months after the unlimited broadband debacle first hit the headlines and around nine out of ten broadband users (86%) still don’t understand the limit on their service,” says the report.

From the report: “New research from uSwitch.com reveals that 6.2 million broadband customers wrongly believe they have an unlimited broadband service and a further 7.5 million do not know what their limit is-a total of 13.7 million confused customers. This has led to almost 1 million consumers nearly reaching or exceeding their limit in the last year alone, an issue that could be avoided if providers clearly stated their ‘unlimited limits’.”

Tim Wolfenden, Head of Communications at uSwitch.com, says: “The solution is easy, broadband companies should not be allowed to class their packages as unlimited if they are not. Providers are confusing consumers to the extent that broadband users do not even know if they are exceeding a user limit. Broadband usage levels have gone through the roof as more and more consumers are using things such as on-demand TV services. With so much reliance on broadband, having the service disconnected could feel to someone as serious as having their electricity cut off. As providers aren’t choosing to be fully transparent about this issue, people need to be savvy when choosing their broadband packages and pay close attention to the small print.”

Dewayne-Net Technology Weblog

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