Scientists' Tests Hack Into Electronic Voting Machines in
California and Elsewhere
New York Times (07/28/07) P. A11; Drew, Christopher
A test of electronic voting machines used in California and other states
has shown that the machines are easily hacked and there are several ways to
alter the vote totals. The tests, conducted by computer scientists from
several universities in California, focused on three of the four largest
electronic voting machine vendors: Diebold Election Systems, Hart
InterCivic, and Sequoia Voting Systems. A report issued by the state of
California said that each of the systems had weaknesses that could be
exploited to affect the correct recording and tallying of votes.
University of California, Davis, computer science professor Matthew A.
Bishop, who led one of the testing teams, says his team was surprised how
easy it was to pick the physical lock and to bypass the software defenses.
Bishop says that every machine had problems, particularly because security
features seemed to be added after the basic design of the system was
finished. Bishop says the best way to build a secure system is to build
security into the system at the start of the design process. The drastic
failure of the voting machines' security could cause California's secretary
of state Debra Bowen to ban the use of some machines in the 2008 election
unless extra security precautions are established and election results are
closely monitored. Electronic voting machine industry executives argue
that the tests were not conducted in a realistic environment and that no
machine has ever been known to have been hacked during an election. The
report was released on the same day members of Congress reached an
agreement on measures to add paper records to every voting machine so
voters can verify that their ballots were correctly cast and to be used in
case of a recount. For information about ACM's e-voting activities, visit
http://www.acm.org/usacm
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Q&A: Security Top Concern for New IETF Chair
Network World (07/26/07) Marsan, Carolyn Duffy
Russ Housley, the new head of Internet standards body IETF, says he will
maintain the objective he had when he was director of the IETF security
area--to work for continuous, incremental improvement of the IETF standards
process and the Internet as a whole. Housley, who runs consulting firm
Vigil Security, says he took the volunteer position because he cares about
the community and he believes that it is important to have a security
expert in charge of the IETF because security is the biggest problem for
the Internet right now. Housley says the deployment of IPv6 and DNS
security are high priorities, while he also hopes the Secure Inter-Domain
Routing working group will add new security improvements to Internet
routing. Many of the problems the IETF must eventually fix, such as the
lack of security in HTTP, are made more complex because there is little to
no agreement on what is the most important security feature to add.
Housley says more people think about security, but it is not the primary
reason they look to the IETF. Housley says IPv6 will be deployed sooner
rather than later, and suggests that people start working on IPv6 adoption
now. The biggest challenge for the IETF, according to Housley, is
establishing better working relationships through liaisons to other
standards development organizations, particularly the International
Telecommunication Union Telecommunications Standards Sector and the Third
Generation Partnership Project.
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Lightspeed Animation
Technology Review (07/30/07) Gibson, Michael
A team of computer scientists from MIT, Tippett Studios, and Industrial
Light and Magic (ILM) have created Lightspeed, an animated lighting system
that can drastically reduce the amount of time needed to calculate changes
to the animation. Previously, generating a preview image could take up to
an hour, but Lightspeed can render an image in a few seconds, which will
allow directors to fine-tune the lighting in a shot immediately. ILM
tested Lightspeed during the production of the movie Transformers, and
plans on deploying Lightspeed throughout the whole company over the next
couple of weeks. Lighting effects are adjusted at the end of the
production process when the majority of the information in the image has
been set. Lightspeed reduces rendering time by identifying and compressing
the data that is not being changed to avoid redundantly rendering
unchanging information. Lightspeed also uses high-performance graphic
processors (GPUs) instead of CPUs to process light effects. Traditionally,
light effects are processed entirely on CPU. Lightspeed, however, manages
the redundant data on a CPU while the information being altered is
processed on a GPU, creating a significantly faster rendering time. "The
first big step is eliminating work that doesn't have to be recomputed every
frame," says MIT computer scientist and Lightspeed team member Jonathan
Ragan-Kelley. "The next big acceleration comes from taking that data
lighting designers are editing, and then mapping it onto a processor that
can execute it much more efficiently."
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A Tech Future at Their Fingertips
Detroit Free Press (07/29/07) Scott, Melanie D.
For four years, Lawrence Technological University has hosted Camp
Infinity, a four-day camp geared toward teaching girls about creating Web
sites, programming robots, and general computer technology. Camp Infinity,
sponsored by the Michigan Council of Women In Technology Foundation, is an
all-girls program for fourth through seventh grade girls. Rosemary Bayer,
president of the technology foundation, says the camp has two objectives.
The first is to show the girls they are capable of working with technology
and that it can be fun, and the second is to increase the number of women
working in the technology industry. "The Michigan Council of Women in
Technology started because there are very few women in the field," Bayer
says. "I work for Sun Microsystems, and I looked around one day and
realized I was the only woman there. We realized we needed to get more
girls motivated and inspired about math and computer science." Bayer says
Camp Infinity targets fourth through seventh grade girls because once they
get to high school it is too late to convince them that math and science
can be cool. This year, 44 girls participated in the program. The fourth
and fifth grade girls spent their time thinking about fun activities that
use math and computer science and created video games. The older girls
worked on expanding their knowledge of computer science by programming
robots and building Web sites. "The girls tend to watch for a while, and
then they jump right in," Bayer says. "We want them to be free to be
creative and try their own things. We want them to know they can do it."
The girls are also given time to interact with professionals during lunch
each day, giving the girls an opportunity to ask questions and learn about
possible career paths.
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Study Predicts Upswing in Dynamic Language Use
SD Times (07/25/07) Handy, Alex
The use of dynamic programming languages such as Ruby, PHP, and Python
have several similarities to the Visual Basic boom of the 1990s, say
Forrester Research analysts in a new study, but they also have some unique
differences. "These dynamic languages are creating very strange
bedfellows," says Forrester's Jeffrey Hammond. "With these languages, some
are open source, and in some cases you have multiple commercial vendors
pushing on a single language." Forrester's Michael Goulde says that
dynamic language use is not currently widespread in the corporate world, so
he and Hammond decided to investigate why corporations have avoided dynamic
languages despite their Web popularity. The researchers found that dynamic
languages are not being ignored by corporations, but are instead being used
by nonprogrammers and sneaking in the backdoor. For example, Python offers
a number of powerful frameworks and libraries for scientific and
engineering uses while PHP is being used for database applications that
require continual updates and modifications. The analysts say the gradual
adoption of dynamic languages will have a significant impact on development
teams, including more initiative when choosing how to complete a task.
Goulde and Hammond see three dynamic languages as the most important for
enterprises. JavaScript is the most important for Web developers because
it is the only language that does not require extra stack components. Ruby
is showing the fastest growth in overall uptake, and PHP is probably the
most popular dynamic languages amongst current corporate development
environments.
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Technology Adopts a Human Face
Engineering News (South Africa) (07/27/07) Smrcka, Karel
Finland's Tampere University of Technology's Institute of Human Centered
Technology wants to make psychology a greater factor in the design of
technology. Human-centered design has become more of a focus for the
institute, and it will be offering its first course on the subject in the
fall for all technology students. Although the design work of engineers is
supposed to be practical, their training gives them a better understanding
of technology than human beings. Companies realize a focus on
human-centered design can improve safety and user satisfaction, but
engineers still have not embraced the idea of applying it to the practical
product-development stage, according to Sari Kujala, a professor of
psychology at the institute. The United States and the United Kingdom are
leaders in user-centered design, but Finland is making significant
contributions in mobile technology and the use of psychology. "The advent
of computers brought the human-computer interaction [HCI] field, which
attempts to understand the interaction between humans and machinery," says
Kujala. The course will cover human needs, modeling human activity, human
emotion and motivation, group behavior, interaction, consumer psychology,
the psychology of aesthetics and creativity, and multicultural design.
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Hitachi's Visual Search Finds Similar Images From
Millions of Targets in 1 Second
Tech-On! (07/25/07) Matsuda, Chiho; Monozukuri, Nikkei
Technology that will enable users to search for an image out of millions
of images and video data in one second has been developed by Hitachi. The
image characteristics, such as color distribution and shape, that the
visual search technology analyzes is rendered as high-dimensional numeric
information. The visual search technology makes use of clustering
technology that separates images and stores them in groups based on the
similarity of their characteristics. Image characteristics about each
cluster are also written to memory. The visual search technology first
selects several clusters that have images that most closely resemble the
entered image, then searches for a similar image in those clusters.
Hitachi's technology also makes use of optimized data allocation on an HDD
to speed up the visual similarity searching capability. Recording image
characteristics by cluster units enabled Hitachi to place the data in the
same cluster in succession on the storage medium. Image search technology
that allows searches based on color distribution, sense of touch, and
composition has already been commercialized.
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Discovery of 'Hidden' Quantum Order Improves Prospects
for Quantum Super Computers
Johns Hopkins University News Releases (07/26/07)
Johns Hopkins University scientists are among an international team of
researchers that has uncovered a hidden magnetic "quantum order" that spans
over chains of almost 100 atoms in a material that is otherwise in a state
of magnetic disarray, and their discovery could play a significant role in
the design of large-scale quantum computers and similar devices and
materials for quantum information processing. Their findings show that the
magnetic moments of a large atomic volume can cohere into quantum states
that resemble those of a very big molecule. The researchers have also
outlined the factors that affect the radius over which the quantum order
can be sustained, which could be vital in the determination of the
material's practical uses. The team learned that the introduction of
defects into the material through heating or chemical impurities could
result in the limitation or elimination of decoherence. "Apart from the
sheer beauty and mystique of quantum order beyond the atomic scale, there
are very exciting prospects for applications in quantum computing to
dramatically speed a wide range of computing that our society relies upon,"
says Johns Hopkins professor and team member Collin Broholm. The
researchers' findings are published online in the journal Science, and the
research was underwritten by the National Science Foundation, the Basic
Technologies program of the U.K. Research Councils, the Office of Basic
Energy Sciences within the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science,
and England's Wolfson-Royal Society.
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U. of Delaware Researchers Edge Closer to
Spintronics
EE Times (07/26/07) Johnson, Colin
University of Delaware researchers led by professor Ian Appelbaum have
demonstrated the electronic injection and detection of spin-polarized
electrons, the first step toward encoding information on the spin of
electronics, or spintronics. The prototype chip layered aluminum on top of
a spin polarization filter made of a ferromagnetic film of cobalt iron,
through which electrons are injected into a silicon transport layer.
Beneath that is a second ferromagnetic film of nickel iron that performs
the electronic detection of the spin-polarized electrons. "We use hot
electron transport through a ferromagnetic thin film in order to do the
spin filtering," says Appelbaum. "As unpolarized electrons pass through
the thin film of cobalt iron, one orientation of spins is scattered away so
that there are more of the orthogonal polarization that couple with the
conduction states of the silicon transport layer." The second nickel-iron
ferromagnetic layer beneath the silicon uses an external magnetic field to
create a variable spin orientation, which allows for the detection of the
spin-polarized electrons by modulating them with the magnetic field, much
like how two polaroid filters can be rotated to modulate the light passing
through them, Appelbaum says. Appelbaum says that his prototype chip has
demonstrated spin polarization into silicon of nearly 40 percent, and that
his group will now work toward real spintronics circuitry. "Injection,
transport, and detection are the barest essentials for any semiconductor
spintronics device," says Appelbaum. "Now we want to build upon our
demonstration so we can do something useful in a real spintronics
circuit."
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Breakthrough Approach Matches Tumor Profiles to Best
Possible Anticancer Treatments
UVA Today (University of Virginia) (07/24/07) Gore, Mary Jane
University of Virginia researchers Dan Theodorescu, an oncologist and
cancer biologist, and Jae Lee, a computational biologist and bioinformatics
statistician, have developed an algorithm that could help rapidly sort
through molecular information on a patient's tumor to help find the right
drug treatment as quickly as possible. The researchers used a panel of 60
diverse, human cancer cell lines from the National Cancer Institute
(NCI-60) to devise and test an algorithm that finds the best potential
treatment for each patient. Previously, the NCI-60 cell lines were used to
screen more than 100,000 chemical compounds for anticancer activity during
drug testing, but these drug responses did not necessarily result in
clinical effectiveness in patients. Additionally, NCI-60 drug testing did
not include all cancer types. Specifically, certain bladder cancers,
lymphomas, and small cell lung cancers were not among the 60 lines studied.
The researchers explored if the drug sensitivity data on the 60 cancer
cell lines could provide useful information on other tumors or cancer cell
lines. The researchers found that their "coexpression extrapolation
(COXEN) system" could accurately predict drug sensitivity in bladder cancer
cell lines with two common chemotherapies. The researchers say the most
exciting aspect of the research, in addition to being able to predict a
patient's response, is that the algorithm can be used to discover effective
drug compounds for any type of cancer, and can predict if newly discovered
drugs might be effective in patients, greatly lowering the failure rate of
clinical trials testing new compounds and lowering the cost of drugs.
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Visual Learning for the 21st Century
University of Nottingham (07/24/07)
The University of Nottingham's Visual Learning Lab (VLL) has received a
grant of 1.8 million pounds from the Higher Education Funding Council for
England to facilitate learning and teaching through visual imagery via
state-of-the-art technologies that include "virtual" environments, stereo
3D projection equipment, and interactive video links. "Modern technologies
now allow lecturers and students to access fantastic visual images at the
touch of a button," explains VLL co-director and professor Roger Murphy.
"The Visual Learning Lab is working to make the very best of these new
opportunities to transform student learning from something that can seem
dry and unappealing to something that is captivating, highly stimulating,
and enjoyable." University of Nottingham institutions that are employing
visual learning technologies include the School of Veterinary Medicine and
Science, which is installing a "Ceiling Visualizer" in its main dissection
lab to enable the viewing of live surgical demonstrations for large student
groups; the School of Nursing, which has set up interactive video links
into hospitals and other health care facilities so students can be exposed
to daily nursing work and patient care; the School of Biosciences, which
will use an electronic microscope that captures images in real time; and
the School of American and Canadian Studies, which has a virtual filmmaking
lab that lets students meld theoretical and historical research with
practical experimentation through the use of film industry-standard video
and film editing gear. The VLL team collaborates closely with other
University of Nottingham Centers for Excellence in Teaching and Learning,
including the Center for Integrative Learning, Reusable Learning Objects,
and Spatial Literacy in Teaching.
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A New Technique May Speed the Development of Molecular
Electronics
Weizmann Institute of Science (07/26/2007)
Researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science and in the United
States have announced a breakthrough in the development of molecular
electronics. The researchers are the first to use doping in molecular
electronics, which involves electronic components made of single layers of
organic (carbon-based) molecules. With molecular electronics, organic
materials have to reach a certain level of purity before the relatively
delicate systems can be "contaminated" with impurities that will allow
electricity to move through the semiconductor and enable designers to
control the electronic properties of materials. After purifying the
molecular layer, the researchers introduced small amounts of impurities by
irradiating the surface with UV light or weak electron beams, which altered
the chemical bonds between the carbon atoms that influence electronic
transport through the molecules. The new technique could have a
significant impact on the use of organic monolayers in nanoelectronics.
"If I am permitted to dream a little, it could be that this method will
allow us to create types of electronics that are different, and maybe even
more environmentally friendly, than the standard ones that are available
today," says Dr. Oliver Seitz of Weizmann Institute's Material and
Interfaces Department.
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Embedded Computers Research by Sandeep Shukla Attracts
National Attention
Virginia Tech News (07/23/07) Crumbley, Liz
Virginia Tech's Sandeep Shukla, an associate professor in the College of
Engineering's Bradley Department of Electrical ad Computer Engineering, has
receive praise from the National Academies, the National Science
Foundation, and the White House for his work on designing, analyzing, and
predicting the performance of electronic systems, particularly embedded
computers. A specific aspect of Shukla's research focuses on the
development of embedded software code generation for space and aviation
applications. "The makers of the Airbus 380 claim to have all software
automatically generated," Shukla says. "We should develop similar
technology to increase productivity and safety of embedded software-based
space and air-borne systems." Shukla is also interested in nanoscale
computer chips. "Because nanoscale devices are so small and the
manufacturing process is affected by so much variation and inaccuracy, a
significant percentage of computer chip devices manufactured at the
nanoscale are defective," Shukla says. Shukla is attempting to develop
tools and techniques that will help such problems. Additionally, Shukla
and University of Utah researchers received NSF funding to research
globally asynchronous and locally synchronous (GALS) computer chip
design.
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Worried About Getting Old? Get a Robot to Help
Globe and Mail (CAN) (07/20/07) Anderssen, Erin
Roboticists such as Stanford University's Sebastian Thrun believe
rapidly-evolving robots could be the key to preserving the quality of life
for Canada's elderly population, which faces the inevitability of receding
independence as age wears down their faculties. Thrun uses the example of
his father, who underwent a quick decline after he was deemed unfit to
drive, as a case that robotic companions, caregivers, and other mechanical
assistants could help prevent. The Stanford scientist is concentrating on
the development of a self-guiding robot vehicle to be field-tested in
experiments such as DARPA's Grand Challenge competition. Meanwhile, Alex
Mihailidis of the University of Toronto is testing artificially intelligent
caregivers designed to help people with cognitive dysfunction, such as a
computer system linked to a camera-equipped bathroom that reminds
Alzheimer's patients to wash their hands. Major steps have been taken in
robot vision systems; scientists at the University of British Columbia have
devised a machine that can map out the contours of its surroundings instead
of blindly measuring distances from objects via sensors and infrared. An
increase in sensor intelligence and computer speed has helped enable the
relatively inexpensive and fast processing of massive data sets by robots.
Humanoid machines are thus far restricted by their high cost and limited
practicality. Many researchers say the challenge of releasing such robots
into the world is focused on ethical and legal ramifications, such as who
should be held accountable when a machine makes a mistake.
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Q&A: Jim Zemlin Touts the 'Second Phase' of Linux
Computerworld (07/24/07) Weiss, Todd R.
In an interview with Computerworld during the Ubuntu Live Conference,
Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin said the merger of the Open
Source Development Lab and the Free Standards Group has been a success. He
said the two Linux and open-source advocacy groups decided to join forces
because they have similar goals on issues such as providing development
tools and testing. Zemlin said the introduction of better software and
functions is the focus of the next phase for the community. Organizations
now understand the importance of having an open architecture and the value
of speed to market, he said. The Linux Foundation will continue to work
with other open-source groups such as the Mozilla Foundation, the Apache
Foundation, and the Eclipse Foundation to address the legal issues
involving Linux and open source, to collaborate across projects, to
synchronize release schedules for Linux projects, and improve testing,
according to Zemlin. When talking to the IT community, the head of the San
Francisco-based group stressed that open source offers no more of a risk
than a proprietary license. The free software movement ultimately benefits
from its corporate success, Zemlin added.
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Interview: The Shape of Android Robots to Come
New Scientist (07/25/07)No. 2614, P. 46; Anderson, Alun
Roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro has designed androids--including a robotic
twin of himself--in order to better comprehend the principles of
human-robot interaction, and he hopes this understanding will help
facilitate a deeper integration of robots into human society. The degree
to which robots must physically resemble people in order to interact with
them depends on several factors, including culture, the situation, and the
machine's purpose, according to Ishiguro. The scientist explains that
projects to develop artificially intelligent computer vision systems have a
long way to go before robots can be imbued with human-level perception
capabilities, so he is working on a distributed-cognition project involving
a network of widely distributed sensors to give the robot a picture of its
surroundings. "The role of the robot is representation, to interact
effectively with humans," Ishiguro notes. He says the Japanese government
has become very supportive of this network robot concept, and contends that
the incorporation of sensor networks into public areas should not
constitute a major problem. "Sensor networks will allow robots to move
easily among crowds without running into people, which is a hard problem to
solve with just local sensors on the robot," Ishiguro says.
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Talent Search: The Myths and Facts Driving the H-1B
Debate
InformationWeek (07/23/07)No. 1147, P. 38; LaPlante, Alice; McGee,
Marianne Kolbasuk
Insights into the H-1B debate can be gained by understanding the
underlying facts and falsehoods. The drive to reform the H-1B program
stems from assumptions of rampant abuse, when in actuality the most
probable form of abuse is employers not paying the "prevailing wage" for
skills in a specific geographic region. Another myth is that the defeat of
a comprehensive immigration reform bill has effectively killed the hopes of
amending the H-1B law; in fact, the cap on H-1B visas has repeatedly
fluctuated in the past 10 years in the absence of comprehensive reform.
Employers are required to run ads checking for available domestic employees
before applying for automatic green-card approval, but most employers, with
few exceptions, are not required to prove they were unable to fill a job
with a U.S. worker before applying for H-1Bs. The U.S. tech job market and
wage levels remain healthy, despite warnings that offshoring and foreign
visas such as H-1Bs are having a depressive effect. What is true is that
fewer Americans are enrolling in university-level tech programs, while
increasing numbers of graduates are foreign-born. The myth that just
65,000 H-1Bs are issued annually ignores that fact that 20,000 additional
visas are allocated yearly to foreign holders of advanced degrees educated
at U.S. institutions, but it is true that it has become more difficult to
acquire H-1Bs. U.S.-based companies and universities remain the biggest
users of H-1Bs, but at the same time dependence on H-1Bs has grown
dramatically for major offshore outsourcing companies as well as American
companies that hire Indian-based outsourcers.
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