Category: Uncategorized
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Report Critical of Internet Voting
Four respected computer scientists, members of a government-commissioned study panel, have published a report critical of SERVE, a proposed system to let overseas military people vote in elections via a website. (Links: the report itself; John Schwartz story at N.Y. Times; Dan Keating story at Washington Post.) The report’s authors are David Jefferson, Avi Rubin,…
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Bio Analogies in Computer Security
Every so often, somebody gets the idea that computers should detect viruses in the same way that the human immune system detects bio-viruses. Faced with the problem of how to defend against unexpected computer viruses, it seems natural to emulate the body’s defenses against unexpected bio-viruses, by creating a “digital immune system.” It’s an enticing…
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Searching for Currency-Detection Software
Richard M. Smith observes that several products known to detect images of currency refer users to http://www.rulesforuse.org, a site that explains various countries’ laws about use of currency images. It seems a good bet that any software containing that URL has some kind of currency detection feature. So you can look for currency-detecting software on…
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Photoshop and Currency
Several things have been missed in the recent flare-up over Adobe Photoshop’s refusal to import images of currency. (For background, see Ted Bridis’s APstory.) There’s a hidden gem in the Slashdot discussion, pointing to a comment by Markus Kuhn of Cambridge University. Markus established that some color copiers look for a special pattern of five…
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Insecurity Features
An “insecurity feature” is a product feature that looks like it provides security, but really doesn’t. Insecurity features can make you less secure, because they trick you into trusting something of value to a product that can’t properly protect it. A classic example is the “Password to Modify” feature of Microsoft Word, as revealed recently…
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Panel on Copyright and Free Speech
Lawrence Solum reports on a panel discussion at the American Association of Law Schools conference. It’s an interesting discussion, and everybody seems to agree that there are significant and increasing conflicts between copyright and free speech. In her presentation, Jessica Litman used my experience as an example of the chilling effect of the DMCA. Somehow…
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Radio Revolution
Smart radios are a sleeper technology. They’re being developed right now; they’ll have a huge impact; but they’re not getting anywhere near the attention they deserve. Smart radios rely on computer processing power, rather than simple analog circuits, to extract information from the electromagnetic spectrum. This simple idea has profound implications for wireless communication, implications…
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Predictions for 2004
Happy New Year! This time of year, journalistic convention requires even micro-pundits like me to make predictions for the upcoming year. This goes for the rest of you bloggers too – let’s see your predictions! Like everybody else’s predictions, some of my predictions are obvious, some will be hilariously wrong, and all of them will…
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Spammers Concerned by CAN-SPAM?
Alan Ralsky, one of the biggest spammers, thinks the new CAN-SPAM act will hinder his spamming business, according to Saul Hansell’s story in today’s New York Times. Naturally, eventhing this guy says should be viewed skeptically, but the article is interesting nonetheless. Mr. Ralsky talks a lot about himself in the article, and a revealing…
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RIAA Subpoena Decision, and Fallout
There’s been lots of talk about the DC Circuit court’s ruling that the RIAA cannot compel ISPs to identify customers who the RIAA suspects of infringing copyrights. The court ruled on narrow grounds, saying that Congress, in the text of the DMCA, did not authorize the type of subpoena that the RIAA wants to use.…