blueser - Slashdot User

Hackers fail to hack Brazilian Voting Machines 2

Submitted by blueser on Saturday November 14 2009, @12:11PM

blueser writes "From Nov 10th to Nov 13th the Brazilian Government hosted a public hacking contest to test the robustness of its voting machines. 38 participants from private and public IT companies (including the Brazilian Federal Police) were divided into 9 teams which tried several different approaches to try to tamper the software installed on the machines, and even physically interfere on other stages of the process. All attempts (aside from a minor one which would not compromise the overall results) failed, and observations from the participants and neutral observers will be taken into account to improve even further the process. The official announcement for the contest can be read (in Portuguese) here, and a summary of the results (also in Portuguese) can be read on Brazilian newspapers. Brazilian voting machines use Linux"

PCWorld refuse hardware repair due to Linux. 10

Submitted by

Tikka

on Tuesday September 11 2007, @10:43AM

Tikka writes "Today I visit PC World (London, UK) because my 5 months old laptop has developed a manufacturing fault, the hinge to the display has started to crack the plastic casing.
Anyone in the know, will know that this is due to the joint inside and this means that ultimately the screen will separate from the keyboard in time.

Repair was refused, because I have Gentoo Linux on my laptop — Replacing the Windows Vista that was pre-installed.

PC World have said that this has void my warranty and there is nothing they will do for me, I spoke to a manager who said that he has been told to refuse any repairs if the operating system has been changed.

I feel this has really gone against my statutory rights and will do everything I can to fight it, I will review comments for your advice."

Nearly 900K US Troops health care records exposed 0

Submitted by blueser on Saturday July 21 2007, @11:10AM

blueser writes "Military Times reports that "personal health care records of nearly 900,000 troops, family members and other government employees stored on a private defense contractor's nonsecure computer server were exposed to compromise". Exposed information includes social security numbers, names, addresses and coded health data. The contractor has been aware of the data breach since May 29, when USAFE notified them about an insecure data transmission. The Petangon and FBI have already been involved, and the contractor is already notifying those that have been affected."