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Security

Submission + - California Tightens Security on Electronic Voting (goldnuggetwebs.com)

Peaceful_Patriot writes: "According to the LA Times nine minutes before the midnight deadline, Secretary of State Debra Bowen decided to require additional security measures on electronic voting systems, including reinstalling the software before the Feb. 5. election to ensure it has not already been tampered with; placing special seals at vulnerable parts of the machines to reveal tampering; securing each machines at the close of each day of early voting; assigning a specific election monitor to safeguard each machine; and conducting a complete manual count of all votes cast. Diebold and Sequoia machines were limited in use to one machine per precinct for disabled voters."
Security

Submission + - California Limits DREs, Adds Security Restrictions (ca.gov)

zestyping writes: "At 11:45 pm last night, Secretary of State Debra Bowen announced her decisions on the use of electronic voting systems in California, following the review that found vulnerabilities in all three systems tested.

For Diebold and Sequoia (but not Hart), only one DRE is allowed per polling place, and there must be a 100% manual count of all votes cast on it. The ES&S InkaVote, which wasn't submitted in time for the review, is decertified.

Several new restrictions apply to both DREs and optical scan systems by Diebold, Sequoia, and Hart. All software and firmware must be reinstalled on all devices prior to the February primary election. Security seals must be serialized. If a machine error requires the machine to be rebooted, it must be removed from service and the vendor must explain the cause of failure. Vote tallies must be posted outside each polling place. There will also be increased post-election manual auditing of the results.

See the official documents for all the details: Diebold, Hart, Sequoia, ES&S."

Security

Submission + - Reports: Voting machines fail review (freedom-to-tinker.com)

l2718 writes: The California Secretary of State has released the reports of the teams studying e-voting machines from Dieblod, Hart InterCivic and Sequoia. These were three source code study teams (one for each manufacturer), a "red team" tasked with developing exploits, and an accessibility review team. The conclusion: in all cases the design and implementation are extremely insecure and vulnerable. See also the reactions by Ed Felten and Avi Rubin.
Security

Submission + - California Voting System Code Reviews Released (ca.gov)

zestyping writes: "Today, the California Secretary of State released the reports from what is probably the most comprehensive analysis of voting system source code to date. The reports cover optical scan and touchscreen voting systems by Diebold, Hart, and Sequoia that are used in many California counties.

Whereas the "red team" reports released last Friday described specific attack scenarios, these reports offer a detailed analysis of the software architecture and source code. All three reports identify significant security weaknesses in the respective systems, including susceptibility to tampering of voting machine firmware, the possibility of viral propagation, and vulnerabilities in the central election management software.

The Secretary of State has until tomorrow, August 3, to decide whether to decertify any voting systems, because she is required to give six months' notice of decertification before the California primary election next February."

Chinese Prof Cracks SHA-1 Data Encryption Scheme 416

Hades1010 writes to mention an article in the Epoch Times (a Chinese newspaper) about a brilliant Chinese professor who has cracked her fifth encryption scheme in ten years. This one's a doozy, too: she and her team have taken out the SHA-1 scheme, which includes the (highly thought of) MD5 algorithm. As a result, the U.S. government and major corporations will cease using the scheme within the next few years. From the article: " These two main algorithms are currently the crucial technology that electronic signatures and many other password securities use throughout the international community. They are widely used in banking, securities, and e-commerce. SHA-1 has been recognized as the cornerstone for modern Internet security. According to the article, in the early stages of Wang's research, there were other data encryption researchers who tried to crack it. However, none of them succeeded. This is why in 15 years Hash research had become the domain of hopeless research in many scientists' minds. "
XBox (Games)

New Version of Xbox 360 Rumoured 102

Carlo Becchi writes "According to Engadget a new version of the Xbox 360 is on the way. The next version of the console is codenamed 'Zephyr', and sports a bigger disk (120 Gb), better manufacturing process (65nm) and HDMI digital out up to 1080p. From the article: 'The 120GB drive may or may not come bundled with the kit, we don't yet know, just as we also don't yet know how much a Zephyr 360 is going to run (we imagine it'll go for the same price as currently so they can keep up a little on their expanding margin).'" It should be pointed out at this point the whole story is a fairly convincing photo and leaks from 'a source'. Take with a grain of salt.

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