election

This was an exciting/anxious year in the Internet security community, with big tech firms like Sony and RSA getting hacked, putting consumer data and corporate networks at risk, and with reports of attacks on utilities.

Scary things that go bump in the night are actually happening to computer systems that matter and it's only going to get worse. Here's what I think will happen in 2012.

Malicious Android apps will increase As a target for malicious software, Android is the Microsoft of the mobile platform. Android has more than 50 percent of the smartphone market, eclipsing all … Read more

A handful of voters in Oregon are using iPads to help them place votes today as part of a plan by the state to determine whether the tablet could eventually be used as a voting system.

According to the Associated Press, which first reported on the effort, Apple donated five iPads to Oregon to help workers in five counties make it easier for voters with disabilities to place their ballots. Election officials are visiting nursing homes, community centers, and other locations to find voters that need some assistance.

The process to place a vote seems quite simple. The election officials … Read more

President Barack Obama's campaign yesterday opened up its first Tumblr account to help get the word out about their candidate.

"We'd like this Tumblr to be a huge collaborative storytelling effort--a place for people across the country to share what's going on in our respective corners of it and how we're getting involved in this campaign to keep making it better," the campaign wrote its first post on the page.

Currently, the Tumblr page has three posts, including an image of the campaign's Ohio offices and an excerpt from the President's address … Read more

Anticipating a nasty fight in 2012, President Obama's reelection campaign on Tuesday launched a site, called AttackWatch.com , which is designed to push back against attacks on the president's record.

"We all remember the birth certificate smear, the GOP's barrage of lies about the Affordable Care Act, and the string of other phony attacks on President Obama that we've seen over the past few years," Jim Messina, Obama for America's campaign manager, wrote in an e-mail to the president's supporters. "There are a lot of folks on the other side who are chomping at the bit to distort the president's record. It's not a question of if the next big lie will come, just when--and what we're prepared to do about it."

Currently, the site prominently features "lies" and "flawed" attacks regarding the president's record on jobs from the two Republicans leading the GOP presidential field--Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. It also counters claims regarding Obama's policies on gun rights, relations with Israel, the bank bailouts, and other flashpoints that are popular talking points among conservatives.… Read more

It's lovely when old laws try to prevent new ways. It's like your grandma trying to take your PlayStation away.

Canada, for example, has section 329 of its Elections Act. It tells anyone who happens to be insensitive or insensate enough to transmit election results that they will be fined 25,000 quite valuable Canadian dollars--and, perhaps, be offered a mere five years in jail.

So along come those bespectacled nerdy types who go and invent things like Twitter--mechanisms that allow you to be a town crier to an especially large and populous town.

Now a Canadian in … Read more

Republican gains in the next Congress will likely curtail spending on green construction projects, but the sector promises to be a source of job growth for an economy that sorely needs it, advocates said on Tuesday.

"America needs 30 million jobs. Our mission ought to be to make those green jobs," David Foster, executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of nine labor unions and four environmental groups, told the Greenbuild Expo in Chicago.

Foster predicted that Republican gains in the November 2 election mean there will be little government investment in green projects next year. But … Read more

I woke up this morning thinking about Meg Whitman. You see, I'm finding hard to come to terms with the fact that my campaign to become customer of the week at my local Starbucks was successful and Whitman's quest to be governor of the week was not.

Should you have been unaccountably unaccounted for during World Series celebrations, you might have missed that the former eBay CEO failed in her grandiloquent bid to become CEO of California, or whatever they call that position in which everyone who tries fails.

Some have put this abject calamity down to a … Read more

Hollywood studios and record labels are ratcheting up the pressure on those suspected of illegally sharing movies and music.

In a move sure to outrage both file traders on BitTorrent networks and legal watchdogs, a well-known pornographer has filed a federal copyright suit against 7,098 individuals. Axel Braun Productions filed the complaint in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia, alleging that the defendants illegally shared the adult film "Batman XXX: A Porn Parody."

In an interview about the suit with Xbiz Newswire, a publication that follows the adult-film industry, Braun made it … Read more

Rep. Tom Price, chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, said yesterday that this week's elections will provide "an opportunity for our Republican principles to shine through our policies."

But what that means for privacy, Net neutrality, and other regulatory areas that affect Internet companies isn't entirely clear.

The Contract from America, a set of grassroots-derived governing principles signed by some incoming Republicans and backed by dozens of Tea Party groups, stresses evaluating the constitutionality of government programs but doesn't specifically address technology. Neither does the Republican Party's 2010 Pledge to America.

This should … Read more