Wired News Second Arabiya Journalist Dies After U.S. Shooting

"A second Iraqi journalist working for Dubai-based satellite television channel Al Arabiya died on Friday from his wounds a day after U.S. troops shot at them in central Baghdad, the channel said."

" Arab journalists walked out of a Baghdad news conference given by Secretary of State Colin Powell in protest at the lack of security and the killing of the two Arabiya journalists."

Guardian Unlimited Spanish journalist killed in Haiti

"Ricardo Ortega, the New York correspondent for Madrid-based broadcast network Antena 3, died when suspected supporters of Mr Aristide opened fire on thousands of demonstrators calling for the deposed leader, who was forced into exile last week, to face trial.

He is the third Spanish journalist to be killed in a conflict in the last year."

redux [02.177.04]
Editor & Publisher Bangladeshi May Be 1st Journo Murdered in '04

"Manik Saha is believed to have been the world's first reporter to be murdered this year. He was just the latest victim of bloodshed that has Bangladeshi journalists on the front lines of violence plaguing their country."

"A dozen journalists have been slain in this South Asian nation over the past decade, and not one case has been solved. Three journalists were murdered in 2002, and more than 120 were attacked, abducted or threatened last year."

redux [01.02.04]
Washington Post Watchdog Group: 36 Journalists Killed in 2003

"Thirteen journalists were killed last year covering the war in Iraq, the highest death toll for the media in a single country since 1995, a watchdog group said Friday.

In all, 36 journalists were killed worldwide last year, up from 19 in 2002, the Committee to Protect Journalists said."

"The death toll in Iraq was the highest for a single country since 24 journalists were killed in Algeria eight years ago."

redux [09.22.03]
Salon U.S.: Troops acted within rules in Reuters camerman case

"Lt. Col. George Krivo, a military spokesman, said an official investigation concluded that "although a regrettable incident," the soldiers "acted within the rules of engagement."

The U.S. Army has never publicly announced those rules, citing security of its soldiers, who face near-daily attack by insurgents opposed to the American military occupation."

redux [08.18.03]
MSNBC U.S.: Troops killed reporter in 'tragic incident'

"Dana's driver, however, thought the cameraman, 43, had been deliberately shot outside the U.S.-run jail. Journalists had gathered there after the U.S. Army announced that a mortar attack on Saturday evening had killed at least six Iraqi prisoners and wounded scores.

"There were many journalists around. They knew we were journalists," said Munzer Abbas. "This was not an accident.""

Committee to Protect Journalists TO: The Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld

"Reuters quoted Dana's soundman Nael Shyioukhi as saying that prior to the incident both he and Dana had asked for and received permission from U.S. troops in the area to film the prison from a nearby bridge."

"While we recognize the dangers faced by U.S. forces in Iraq, the preliminary accounts of yesterday's shooting raise serious questions about the conduct of U.S. troops and their rules of engagement. From the eyewitness accounts, it appears that Dana was fired on without warning. He was filming in an area where no hostilities were taking place, raising questions about whether U.S. troops acted recklessly in targeting him."

SFGate.Com Journalists who died in Iraq since the U.S.-led military campaign began

"News organization employees killed since the war on Iraq began on March 20."

News24.Com Journalist deaths fall

"The number of journalists killed for their work fell to its lowest recorded level in 2002, but the number behind bars rose sharply, with China topping the list of countries imprisoning reporters."

"The majority of those killed in 2002 were not covering conflicts but were murdered in direct reprisal for their reporting on sensitive topics, including official crime and corruption in countries like Colombia, the Philippines, Russia and Pakistan."

redux [02.22.02]
The New York Times: Opinion Daniel Pearl's Essential Work
[requires 'free' registration]

"Danny Pearl was the 10th journalist to die covering Sept. 11 and its aftermath. His death was a pointless, wanton murder that deprived a family, a newspaper and a profession of a beloved son, brother, husband, and colleague. His child will be nurtured with the family's stories about him, not by the presence of his father's love."

His child should know this: The profession that Danny Pearl chose, the one he pursued with great energy and curiosity, is neither popular nor safe. Last year, 37 journalists died in the line of duty. Another 118 were imprisoned. All told across the globe, more than 600 journalists or their news organizations came under attack -- by beatings, arrests, censorship or harassment -- most often because someone just didn't like what they wrote."

Reason Sam's Curse

""Ugly." "Devastating." "Race to the bottom." Barbs about the latest Hollywood film or reality TV show? No. Just a few choice words from opponents of Wal-Mart Stores' expansion efforts into Los Angeles' retailing market."

"Nothing stirs the ire of anti-big box activists like the thought of an expansion effort by the world's largest retailer. Wal-Mart has been bashed for a variety of ills, from allegedly ruining the historic character of neighborhoods to driving out small retailers and turning downtowns into "ghost towns." That many of these trends are either a natural evolution or a result of the popularity of cars rarely comes into the reasoning of the opponents."

redux [12.27.03]
NPR: Weekend Edition Wal-Mart Prices Put Onus on Suppliers

"Wal-Mart's unmatched low prices place severe demands on the discount chain's suppliers, according to a magazine report. A demand to cut prices 5 percent every year has forced some suppliers into bankruptcy and prompted others to shut down American factories for cheaper labor abroad. Hear NPR's Scott Simon and Charles Fishman of Fast Company magazine."

redux [11.16.03]
Fast Company The Wal-Mart You Don't Know

"Wal-Mart priced it at $2.97--a year's supply of pickles for less than $3! "They were using it as a 'statement' item," says Pat Hunn, who calls himself the "mad scientist" of Vlasic's gallon jar. "Wal-Mart was putting it before consumers, saying, This represents what Wal-Mart's about. You can buy a stinkin' gallon of pickles for $2.97. And it's the nation's number-one brand.""

"To survive in the face of its pricing demands, makers of everything from bras to bicycles to blue jeans have had to lay off employees and close U.S. plants in favor of outsourcing products from overseas."

The New York Times The Wal-Martization of America
[requires 'free' registration]

"Wal-Mart's prices are about 14 percent lower than other groceries' because the company is aggressive about squeezing costs, including labor costs. Its workers earn a third less than unionized grocery workers, and pay for much of their health insurance. Wal-Mart uses hardball tactics to ward off unions. Since 1995, the government has issued at least 60 complaints alleging illegal anti-union activities."

"Wal-Mart sales clerks make about $14,000 a year, below the $15,060 poverty line for a family of three."

Alternet How Wal-Mart is Remaking our World

"Behind this manufactured cheerfulness, however, is the fact that the average employee makes only $15,000 a year for full-time work. Most are denied even this poverty income, for they're held to part-time work. While the company brags that 70% of its workers are full-time, at Wal-Mart "full time" is 28 hours a week, meaning they gross less than $11,000 a year.

Health-care benefits? Only if you've been there two years; then the plan hits you with such huge premiums that few can afford it--only 38% of Wal-Marters are covered."

North County Times A return to sweatshop days?

"Even more disturbing is Wal-Mart's widespread use of global suppliers to bring down costs and maximize company profits. In one 58-page report titled "Toys of Misery," the National Labor Committee describes sweatshop-like conditions in China's Guangdong Province factory, one of Wal-Mart's toy suppliers.

At this sweatshop, workers are expected to work 13 to 16 hours per day, seven days a week for 13 cents per hour. They are expected to pay for their own medical care and are fired if too sick to report for work. In addition, workers live in 7-foot-by-7-foot squatter shacks or in factory dormitories which they may rent, further depleting their low wages. Finally, there is no health and safety enforcement, thus employees (mostly young women) are exposed to harmful glues, paint thinners, and other solvents used in manufacturing toys."

The Washington Post Retailers forced to follow Wal-Mart

"Some economists argue that the Wal-Martization of the American workforce is simply the free-market system functioning as it should. Gary Stibel, founder and principal of the New England Consulting Group, said Wal-Mart has saved consumers more than $20 billion through its discount pricing. Figuring in Wal-Mart's pressure on other retailers to lower prices, savings top $100 billion, he said.

"In this day and age, the United States needs more companies like Wal-Mart to create jobs, even if not at the highest pay," Stibel said."

The News-Press Wal-Mart World

"Retail Forward forecasts that Wal-Mart's domestic grocery sales could reach $162 billion by 2007. Sales already total $82 billion. That's $30 billion more than the state of Florida's 2003 budget. "In the process, Wal-Mart will consume almost a third of the expected growth in U.S. spending on grocery and drug products during 2003-2007," its report said."

Such growth would give Wal-Mart control of 35 percent of food store industry sales and 25 percent of the drugstore industry -- and put many established retailers in jeopardy, according to Retail Forward."

The Cincinnati Post Science teachers wary: Fear new lessons based on religion

"The new lesson plan will serve to help students analyze the theory of evolution, supporters say. Critics -- including the Ohio Academy of Science, the National Academy of Sciences and the faculty senate of Case Western Reserve University -- said the lesson plan includes elements of intelligent design, a theory that life is so complex that a higher being must have created it. The lesson plan refers students to printed materials and Web sites on the intelligent design concept."

""I've been teaching 32 years, and in all those years we have pretty much taken the stance that the kids have to understand there is more than one theory, but we are qualified, because of our training in the scientific method, to teach scientific theories," said Brandon, a biology teacher and department chairwoman at Norwood High School. "If they want to know about non-scientific theories, I advise them to go to their rabbi, their minister or their priest."

redux [02.03.04]
NPR: All Things Considered Georgia Wrestles Evolution Question

"NPR's Ari Shapiro in Atlanta reports that Georgia is considering whether its public school science instruction would drop any mention of evolution. Instead students would hear the term "biological changes over time." That's brought a torrent of criticism that the plan would offer an inferior education that would cost the state economically."

redux [04.15.03]
Guardian Unlimited The battle for American science

"As prescient observers of the events north of Atlanta last year realised, these aren't the old wars of science versus religion. The new assaults on the conventional wisdom frame themselves, without exception, as scientific theories, no less deserving of a hearing than any other. Proponents of [ Intelligent Design ] - using a strategy previously unheard of among anti-Darwinists - grant almost all the premises of evolution (the idea that species develop; that the world wasn't necessarily created in seven days) in order to better attack it.

"It's not that I don't think Darwinian evolution can't explain anything," says Professor Michael Behe of Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, the movement's foremost academic advocate, when asked how he accounts for the very visible evolution of, say, viruses. "It's just that I don't think it can explain everything. Bacterial resistance to antibiotics, for example, is one of the things it can explain.""

The Daily Times Creationism vs. evolution central debate behind rejection of textbooks

"Treadway said he had reservations about the approach to the theory of evolution in the three texts. He said he does not want people to believe he is against evolution, but wants it to be taught as a theory along with creationism.

"With the overwhelming references to evolution, I don't feel comfortable with (adopting these texts),'' Treadway said."

The Univeristy of Southern Mississippi: The Student Printz - Opinion Evolution: Put up or Shut up!

"Kent Hovind, a creation scientist from Pensacola, Fla. is coming to the Polymer Science building room 101 April 3 from 6 to 9 p.m. to speak about creation, evolution, and dinosaurs. There might be a debate, but probably not. I mean, who would want to defend the idea that we came from a rock? After the presentation, there will be a question and answer session.

This is not religion versus science. They must both be accepted by faith. Although they are both only theories, one is right and the other is wrong. While you must decide for yourself which view is correct, you should first learn what the creationist worldview is, before passing judgment."

redux [06.27.02]
Scientific American 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense

"When Charles Darwin introduced the theory of evolution through natural selection 143 years ago, the scientists of the day argued over it fiercely, but the massing evidence from paleontology, genetics, zoology, molecular biology and other fields gradually established evolution's truth beyond reasonable doubt. Today that battle has been won everywhere--except in the public imagination.

Embarrassingly, in the 21st century, in the most scientifically advanced nation the world has ever known, creationists can still persuade politicians, judges and ordinary citizens that evolution is a flawed, poorly supported fantasy."

redux [04.13.02]
The New York Times 'Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics'
[requires 'free' registration]

"Before we get to the scientific arguments of the neo-creos, a word should be said about their motivation. Just what do they have against Darwinism? Unlike the old-fashioned creationists, they are not especially worried about evolution conflicting with a literal reading of Genesis. Then why can't they join with the mainstream religions, which have made their peace with Darwinism? In 1996, for example, Pope John Paul II said that the theory of evolution had been ''proved true'' and asserted its consistency with Roman Catholic doctrine. Stephen Jay Gould, though agnostic himself, salutes the wisdom of this papal pronouncement, arguing that science and religion are ''nonoverlapping magisteria.'' But the neo-creos aren't buying this. They think that belief in Darwinism and belief in God are fundamentally incompatible. Here, ironically, they are in agreement with their more radical Darwinian opponents. Both extremes concur that evolution is, in the words of Phillip Johnson, ''a purposeless and undirected process that produced mankind accidentally'' and, as such, must be at odds with the idea of a purposeful Creator."

redux [09.23.01]
The New York Review of Books Saving Us from Darwin

"Intelligent design awkwardly embraces two clashing deities - one a glutton for praise and a dispenser of wrath, absolution, and grace, the other a curiously inept cobbler of species that need to be periodically revised and that keep getting snuffed out by the very conditions he provided for them. Why, we must wonder, would the shaper of the universe have frittered away thirteen billion years, turning out quadrillions of useless stars, before getting around to the one thing he really cared about, seeing to it that a minuscule minority of earthling vertebrates are washed clean of sin and guaranteed an eternal place in his company? And should the God of love and mercy be given credit for the anopheles mosquito, the schistosomiasis parasite, anthrax, smallpox, bubonic plague...? By purporting to detect the divine signature on every molecule while nevertheless conceding that natural selection does account for variations, the champions of intelligent design have made a conceptual mess that leaves the ancient dilemmas of theodicy harder than ever to resolve."

redux [02.05.00]
Slate Is Natural Selection the Result of Design?

Steven Pinker: "Warm rooms are a goal of thermostats, thermostats a goal of people, people a goal of their genes. Darwin, and then Dawkins, made it scientifically respectable to talk about genes as having goals, because natural selection makes them act as if they do. But natural selection itself, being a product not of a teleological process but of the physics and mathematics of replicating systems, has no right to have a goal in the way that genes or people or thermostats do."

Robert Wright: " A system can be entirely mechanical, complying with the laws of physics and mathematics, yet be teleological, designed to realize a purpose. In fact, that seems to be true of all teleological systems I know of, including genes and people and thermostats."

redux [09.05.01]
The Third Culture Science and the Psychology of Beliefs

"The one thing we've learned from the last three decades of research is that science is socially and culturally embedded and thus biased. Still, it's the best system we have for understanding causality in all realms, in all fields. So despite the fact that it's loaded with biases, there is a real world out there that we can know and the best way to know it is through science. The reason for that is because there's at least a method, an attempt to corroborate one's own subjective perceptions. There's a way to find out if you and I are seeing the same colors when we see red. There's actually a way to test these things, or at least try to get at them. That's what separates science from everything else."

redux [09.13.00]
Scientific American A New Paradigm for Thomas Kuhn

"Kuhn wrote: "The very existence of science depends upon vesting the power to choose between paradigms in the members of a special kind of community." Fuller has confidence in the intelligent good sense of ordinary folks and properly calls for "the right to be wrong." But do statements such as "the universe is light-years wide," "the earth is billions of years old," "all life is related by common descent," "organisms are composed of cells that contain double-helix DNA," and so on really have no greater claim on "reality" than the Genesis stories of creationists or the popular consolations of astrology? If the answer is no, as Fuller comes dangerously close to asserting, then most scientists would throw in the towel and get jobs flipping burgers.

Fuller underestimates the highly evolved "fitness" of the methodologies, sociologies and conceptual paradigms of normal science. The deprofessionalization of science and the establishment of a citizen marketplace of ideas are not likely to happen without the sociopolitical equivalent of an asteroid impact, and no such potential upheaval looms on our intellectual radar screens. Certainly, science studies lacks the weight to do it."

Wired News Sketchy Grades for Cyber Schools

"Cyber schools -- where students complete all coursework online using home computers -- are a big hit with parents, who are signing up their children as quickly as the virtual doors open. However, test results for 2003 show students at many cyber schools are not measuring up to state standards or to their peers who attend brick-and-mortar schools."

"Enthusiasts tout cyber schools for their innovative teaching methods and computer technology. As charter schools, they can operate outside much of the normal bureaucracy of public education. But critics say this freedom to operate independently in developing instruction and choosing subject matter has led to a lack of oversight and accountability, contributing to the poor performance of students in standardized tests."

redux [05.02.02]
The New York Times Lessons Learned at Dot-Com U.
[requires 'free' registration]

""University presidents got dollars in their eyes and figured the way the university was going to ride the dot-com wave was through distance learning," said Lev S. Gonick, vice president for information services and chief information officer at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. "They got swept up.""

"In the process, the universities have come to understand that there is more to online learning than simply transferring courses to the Web."

redux [03.08.02]
Sp!ked-IT From ABC to ICT

"In contrast to the involved and transformative process of making a child literate, the use of [Information and Communications Technologies] is intuitive. Even my three-year-old nephew Stefan can turn a computer on, move in and out of computer programmes, including his parents' email programme, and send messages. He cannot write a message that makes any sense - but he knows which field the text should go in, how to move the cursor between fields, and that you fill the field with symbols by tapping the keyboard. He has learned this by watching his older brothers, by a lot of trial-and-error, and, no doubt, through intuition.

But Stefan, or any other child his age, could never learn to read, write, divide and multiply through intuitive learning - because the manipulation of abstract symbols, whether the written word or numbers, does not make 'human sense'."

redux [02.13.02]
The Oregonian School in heart of tech country teaches without PCs

"Several of Swallowtail's high-tech parents say they didn't pick the school solely for its no-tech stance but support the philosophy behind it. The parents say they know computer skills are easy to learn because they work with technology all day.

"It's not rocket science to use a computer," says O'Mahony, a former Intel electrical engineer whose husband, Barry, is a senior engineer for the company.

The couple's children learn about computers at home from their parents, but, says O'Mahony, "We certainly can't teach them to paint.""

redux [11.06.01]
First Monday Computer-Mediated School Education and the Web

"The addition of the Web to the range of technologies which humans have used to mediate between themselves and the world has contributed to problems as well as advantages in the area of school education. Historical antecedents in areas such as writing, printing and industrialisation provide a context in which mediated experiences can be examined. In the 21st century, the availability of online education increases the possibility that virtual experience will be substituted for reality. There are also concerns that there will be a blurring of appearance and reality, and that cultural imperialism will continue to spread by use of the Web. Together with the observation that computer-mediation via the Web tends to reframe the central role of the teacher in the educational process, these factors are considered in terms of the need to establish future guidelines to reduce the adverse impact of the Web on school education."

redux [10.02.01]
MIT Technology Review Brave New World for Higher Education

"Sperling is the very model of an entrepreneur who has firsthand experience with the "inefficiencies" in the educational marketplace and knows how to exploit them. Sperling knows that quality education is often a secondary - or even a tertiary - concern of universities. After all, a university is not just a marketplace of ideas; it's a marketplace.

Will that marketplace be driven more by for-profit or not-for-profit sensibilities? (Or as Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman likes to put it, "tax-paying" versus "tax-exempt" sensibilities.) It's one thing for an MIT or a Stanford to benchmark itself against a Chicago or a Berkeley; but what does it mean to benchmark itself against a Phoenix or a DeVry? Or is that too ridiculous to even contemplate? Sperling has no (apparent) illusions about direct competition with the elite schools, because the fundamental missions are so different. But when it comes to opportunities in continuing education, distance learning and the Internet, he has no doubts about which kind of school is in the best position to profitably innovate."

redux [04.04.01]
The New York Times M.I.T. Course Materials Free Over Web
[requires 'free' registration]

"At a time when online knowledge can be a valuable commodity, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology plans to offer nearly all its course materials on the Internet for free."

"The plan counters a trend toward the "privatization of knowledge," where ideas are owned by companies or institutions, said professor Steven Lerman, chairman of the MIT faculty.

The school is still considering ways to use the Internet to generate revenue, such as selling research updates to alumni, said MIT President Charles Vest. But this venture is essentially altruistic, he said."

NPR: All Things Considered MIT Classes on the Web

"Linda Wertheimer talks with Charles Vest, president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, about the school's offer to create a Web site for most of its classes and to post materials from each course. (4:30)"

redux [02.16.01]
The Economist Lessons of a virtual timetable

"Belief in e-learning, as it is often called, has so far weathered the downturn in the wider dotcom world. John Chambers, the influential CEO of Cisco, which supplies much of the Internet's hardware, asserts that the scale of network traffic generated by e-learning will make today?s exchange of e-mail messages look like a rounding error. But his firm's business depends on an ever-rising flood of electronic data passing over the connections which it makes for electronic networks. More disinterested voices caution against confusing the obvious need to learn computer-literacy skills with the less obvious need to learn everything else via a computer."

redux [12.04.00]
NPR: Morning Edition Higher Computer Education

"NPR's Ina Jaffe reports that more and more students are turning to computers rather than campuses to earn their college degree. This may make a college education possible for a wider range of students, but some in academia are concerned that internet degree programs only in it for the money will influence course curriculum for everyone. (7:30)"

Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks Higher Education in an Era of Digital Competition: Emerging Organizational Models

"Growing demand among learners for improved accessibility and convenience, lower costs, and direct application of content to work settings is radically changing the environment for higher education in the United States and globally. In this rapidly changing environment, which is increasingly based within the context of a global, knowledge-based economy, traditional universities are attempting to adapt purposes, structures, and programs, and new organizations are emerging in response. Organizational changes and new developments are being fueled by accelerating advances in digital communications and learning technologies that are sweeping the world. Growing demand for learning combined with these technical advances is in fact a critical pressure point for challenging the dominant assumptions and characteristics of existing traditionally organized universities in the 21st century. This combination of demand, costs, application of content and new technologies is opening the door to emerging competitors and new organizations that will compete directly with traditional universities and with each other for students and learners.

redux [05.09.00]
Netfuture Who's Killing Higher Education? (or is it suicide?)

"A growing consensus holds that new information technologies foretell the end of higher education as we have known it. I suspect this is true. Its truth, however, is not that the technologies are positively revolutionizing education. Rather, what we are watching is more like the end -- the final perfection and dead-end extreme -- of the old regime's shortcomings."

"All this worries a growing contingent of educators, who fear the corporation's "crushing solicitude". (The phrase is William F. Buckley's which he applied many years ago to the ministrations of centralized government.) I share this fear, but it seems to me that the more fundamental issue often goes unnoted: our changing notions about what education is make it inevitable that business and industry should step into the picture aggressively. If you want efficient delivery of effective facts and procedures, then business -- already attuned to such computationally rigorous training -- will far outperform the university.

In other words, having increasingly accepted their role as training grounds for business -- which is what the information-transfer model of education implies -- universities are now finding that business is better situated to train its own employees than schools are. At best the universities will simply hire themselves out to corporations.

redux [07.06.00]
First Monday Technology and Education: Between Chaos and Order

"Technology in all forms, young and old or simple and complex, can be potent tools that engage learners in meta-cognitive reflection. These tools engage learners to rethink their old beliefs, knowledge, and understandings. These tools might allow learners to compare new ideas with other individuals to assess whether new concepts and ideas are plausible and fruitful. Technologies can be educators' tools in finding creative ways that encourage students to self-test, self-question, and self-regulate learning in helping them to create solutions to complex problems. Educators need to help students realize that understanding about knowledge and beliefs are essential to human growth and development. Technologies should not estrange us from our humanity or the noble profession of educating competent citizens. We should not become "high-tech, self-driven slaves to technology.

"Protecting the embodiment of quality education encompasses learning to think, learning to teach, and learning to lead creatively, not only within the classroom (virtual and traditional) but also throughout all institutions of higher education."

Wired News Lost E-Votes Could Flip Napa Race

"Napa County in Northern California said on Friday that electronic voting machines used in the March presidential primary failed to record votes on some of its paper ballots, which will force the county to re-scan over 11,000 ballots and possibly change the outcome of some close local races.

The glitch is the latest in a string of problems with the new generation of electronic voting machines being rolled out across the United States. Critics of the machines say they are inaccurate or susceptible to tampering, and can't be trusted in this year's presidential elections."

redux [03.02.04]
Wired News E-Vote Glitches Found in Election

"Scattered technical problems were reported in the early hours as voters in 10 states, including California, New York and Ohio, went to the Super Tuesday polls to choose a Democratic presidential nominee and decide primary contests for congressional and state races.

Advocates of electronic voting say paperless ballots save money and eliminate problems common to old systems. But the technology brings a new breed of security concerns, like software errors and hackers that could make the results unreliable."

Guardian Unlimited The hacks in the machine

"More worryingly, with public opinion so evenly divided, a president can be elected on the basis of 537 votes in one state. The new systems appear so easy to crack that a hacker armed with a telephone and the right numbers can dial into numerous access points, change a few votes for each precinct or hundreds of votes in several - leaving no trail.

There is nothing fanciful about the possibility of things going wrong. In one election last year in Indiana, the new electronic equipment recorded more than 100,000 votes in an election with only 19,000 registered voters."

redux [02.13.04]
Mercury News Opponents of change a threat to electronic voting

"Fear of change is a universal human emotion, and it often erupts when new technology comes along to alter an established and comfortable way of doing things.

This fear can sway people away from thoughtful consideration of risks and rewards, pushing them into panic reactions where new ideas are weighed down by unfair expectations.

That's happening right now with electronic voting."

Wired News E-Vote Machines Drop More Ballots

"Six electronic voting machines used in two North Carolina counties lost 436 absentee ballot votes in the 2002 general election because of a software problem, raising increasing doubts about the accuracy and integrity of voting equipment in a presidential election year."

""If this happened with one version of the firmware, how can we be sure that it didn't happen with other versions of the firmware?" asked Dill. "How can we be sure that other counties didn't lose votes that they didn't catch?""

Salon Will the election be hacked?

"While I sat at his computer, March helped me open a file containing actual results from a March 2002 primary election held in San Luis Obispo County, Calif. -- a file that March says would be accessible to anyone who worked in the county elections office on Election Day. Following March's direction, I changed the vote count with a few clicks. Then, he explained how to alter the "audit log," erasing all evidence that we'd tampered with the results. I saved the file. If it had been a real election, I would have been carrying out an electronic coup. It was a chilling realization."

redux [02.12.04]
CNN Pentagon halts Internet voting system

"Wolfowitz said the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment (SERVE) could not guarantee voting records would be kept secure, thereby calling into question the integrity of the process.

The Defense Department will continue to investigate other methods of electronic voting, but at this point it is not clear if any effort will be in place by Election Day."

MSNBC Online voting clicks in Michigan

"Brewer said Michigan is using state-of-the art security, many parts of which he would not discuss. The vote tally includes a check to make sure no one voted more than once.

Brewer compared the risks to those of paper absentee ballots: "People have decided over the course of time that accessibility and convenience of voting is worth taking that risk -- not that you let your guard down.""

redux [02.02.04]
The New York Times: Editorial/Op-Ed How to Hack an Election
[requires 'free' registration]

"Concerned citizens have been warning that new electronic voting technology being rolled out nationwide can be used to steal elections. Now there is proof. When the State of Maryland hired a computer security firm to test its new machines, these paid hackers had little trouble casting multiple votes and taking over the machines' vote-recording mechanisms. The Maryland study shows convincingly that more security is needed for electronic voting, starting with voter-verified paper trails."

"Critics of new voting technology are often accused of being alarmist, but this state-sponsored study contains vulnerabilities that seem almost too bad to be true."

The Mercury News Electronic Voting's Hidden Perils

"Poll workers in Alameda County noticed something strange on election night in October. As a computer counted absentee ballots in the recall race, workers were stunned to see a big surge in support for a fringe candidate named John Burton.

Concerned that their new $12.7 million Diebold electronic voting system had developed a glitch, election officials turned to a company representative who happened to be on hand.

Lucky he was there. For an unknown reason, the computerized tally program had begun to award votes for Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante to Burton, a socialist from Southern California."

redux [01.26.04]
Wired News Risky E-Vote System to Expand

"Researchers warned last week that an Internet voting system designed for Americans overseas to use in the November presidential election should be scrapped -- because Internet insecurities could compromise the election.

The government dismissed the researchers' findings, saying the report offered false conclusions about the security of the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment, or SERVE, system. The evaluation was written for the Defense Department by four of 10 computer experts assembled by the Federal Voting Assistance Program."

redux [12.18.03]
The Mercury News Voting machine maker dinged

"Secretary of State Kevin Shelley said Tuesday that Diebold Elections Systems could lose the right to sell electronic voting machines in California after state auditors found the company distributed software that had not been approved by election officials.

The auditors reported that voters in 17 California counties cast ballots in recent elections using software that had not been certified by the state. And voters in Los Angeles County and two smaller counties voted on machines installed with software that was not approved by the Federal Election Commission."

Fortune Worst Technology: Paperless Voting

"Remember all the chads and dimples that made voting for President so chaotic in Florida three years ago? In a well-meaning effort to fix the system before the 2004 elections, many communities--in Florida and in other states--have begun to install direct-recording electronic machines (DRE), which instantly record and tabulate votes; some even use fancy touch-screen technology similar to automated-teller machines in banks. Computer scientists are alarmed, however, by the potential to manipulate the new machines."

redux [12.12.03]
MSNBC The Odd Conflict over E-Voting

"The role of technology in U.S. elections has become the center of a curious fight in which the forces aren't lining up at all the way you might think. On one side, state and local elections officials, often thought to be technological troglodytes, are the most enthusiastic fans of the latest in computerized voting systems.

On the other is a group of computer scientists and other academics who are deeply suspicious of the technology and believe the best answer is, of all things, paper ballots."

PBS: I, Cringley Why the Best Voting Technology May Be No Technology at All

"As for voting itself, I think we have made a horrible decision to solve this problem with technology. While the voting technology we have been considering is flawed, the best answer doesn't have to be some other voting technology that is somehow better. We turn to technology because it supposedly eliminates human error. I suggest that we add humans to the process in order to eliminate technological errors. And we'd save a lot of money in the process.

My model for smart voting is Canada. The Canadians are watching our election problems and laughing their butts off. They think we are crazy, and they are right."

Media Monitors Network Electronic-Voting Debate Heats Up

"Electronic-voting machine manufacturers are circling their wagons trying to ease the security concerns raised in the last few months that their machines are susceptible to being hacked and subject to voter fraud.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University analyzed the software that runs on the voting machines of industry leader Diebold. In their report they stated, "We found significant security flaws: voters can trivially cast multiple votes with no built-in traceability, administrative functions can be performed by regular voters, and the threats posed by insiders such as poll workers, software developers, and even janitors, is even greater.""

CNN Electronic voting no magic bullet

"Several well-publicized flaws in "e-voting," or electronic voting, systems have not led to improvements, said Harvard University computer professor Rebecca Mercuri."

""Officials are not removed from their posts, fired or sent to trial; vendors are not banned from participation; equipment is not recalled; standards are not rewritten; and elections are not re-held," she said."

The Gazette E-mail stolen from Diebold is a call to gouge Maryland

"An e-mail found in a collection of files stolen from Diebold Elections Systems' internal database recommends charging Maryland "out the yin-yang" if the state requires Diebold to add paper printouts to the $73 million voting system it purchased."

"Diebold spokesman David Bear would neither dispute nor confirm the accuracy of the "yin-yang" e-mail on Monday, saying it is "at best the internal discussion of one individual and does not reflect the sentiments or the position of the company.""