How Much Can State Trust Electronic Voting?
Baltimore Sun (09/10/06) P. 1C; Harris, Melissa
In response to the disastrous presidential election of 2000, an increasing
number of states have been acquiring electronic voting machines, though
their reliability and security have often been questioned by voting-rights
advocates and computer scientists. While the machines have been blamed for
isolated voting irregularities, analysts warn that even greater damage
could be inflicted by a hacker tampering with the machine's code or a
corrupt poll worker inserting a malicious memory card into the machine that
could systematically alter the results. In Maryland, which adopted Diebold
e-voting systems after the 2002 Help America Vote Act, the reliability of
the systems has been hotly debated, with some experts claiming that the
computer scientists' warnings are overblown. "Computer science guys are
able to get away with what I consider to be shameless scare tactics that
don't take into account everything else that goes on in an election," said
Donald Norris, director of the National Center for the Study of Elections
at the University of Maryland, referring to accuracy tests for the
machines, tamper tape, and the poll workers who monitor voters on Election
Day. Aviel Rubin, an author who wrote one of the early texts on the flaws
in Maryland's voting machines and a favorite target of Norris, was able in
testing to find the machine's source code, and two vital passwords to
protect the system. Six months later, a group of computer experts
commissioned by the State of Maryland found that an attack on the state's
machines might be difficult, but not impossible. The group found that
someone looking to manipulate the results of an election would have to
sleuth out the password to a legitimate voter's smart card--an ATM-sized
card with a computer chip in the center that displays a voter's
pre-programmed ballot on the screen. Reproducing the cards from scratch
would cost around $750 each, the group found, noting that the cost could be
well worth the value of fixing an election. In response to these concerns,
many in Maryland have called for the state's voting machines to include a
backup paper auditing mechanism that enables voters to verify their ballots
after they are cast. For information about ACM's e-voting activities,
visit
http://www.acm.org/usacm
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Are Fake Videos Next?
CNet (09/11/06) Kanellos, Michael
After already having developed software that can determine whether a
digital photograph has been doctored, Dartmouth professor Hany Farid is now
looking to create a similar application for video. "I thought, 'This is
going to be so much easier,' but it turns out to be much harder," he said.
"In a minute (of) video, you are talking about thousands of images. Just
the sheer mass of data that you have to contend with is challenging. You
have memory and run-time issues that you don't have with (still) images."
Farid and his colleagues at the Dartmouth Image Science Group are also
releasing a host of new tools that could allow law enforcement officials
and others to detect when a photo has been altered more easily. Fake and
retouched digital images have become a major problem, thanks to faster
processors, improved editing software, and a global audience. While the
audio is relatively easy to tamper with, Farid says, video is considerably
more difficult. Farid and his graduate student, Weihong Want, have only
just published a paper on video forensics, and the software capable of
conducting a forensic analysis on video could still be two years' in the
offing. The software would likely work in a similar fashion as the kind
used to detect photography fraud, scanning for anomalies in the digital
feed. By analyzing the continuity of the horizontal lines that pass
between frames in video, the software promises to determine whether the
video has been doctored. Thus far, however, it has been difficult for the
researchers to quantify what determines a significant enough break in
continuity that the video can be assumed to have been altered. JPEG
quantitization tables enable analysts to determine by brand the rate at
which cameras will drop data while compressing an image. "I can't tell you
the serial number of the camera, but I can tell you this did not come from
a Canon PowerShot. It came from a Nikon," said Farid. "You can also tell
if it came through Photoshop. It won't tell you what happened to the
image, but it tells you it did not directly come out of the camera."
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Call for Participation: ICDL 2006--International
Conference on Digital Libraries, 5-8 December 2006, New Delhi, India
Beyond the Job (09/07/06) Johnson, Sarah L.; Gordon, Rachel Singer
The development, adoption, deployment, and use of digital libraries,
e-learning, and knowledge society will be the focus of this year's
International Conference on Digital Libraries (ICDL), which TERI is
organizing in association with the Indian government, UNESCO, and ACM's
SIGCHI. The conference will be held in New Delhi, India, from Dec. 5 to
Dec. 8. The ICDL conference previously organized by TERI in 2004 used the
knowledge creation, preservation, access, and management of digital
libraries as its theme. The goal of this year's ICDL will be to bolster
the academic collaboration and strategic alliance in global digital library
development. The sharing and maintenance of knowledge would be facilitated
by the event, which is also expected to serve as a platform for many
experts, academics, researchers, students, and others. Some 50 well-known
and veteran speakers from India and elsewhere have pledged to offer their
wisdom at the conference.
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MIT Project Maps Wireless Usage in Rome
EE Times (09/07/06) Mokhoff, Nicolas
The Venice Biennale will include an exhibit on a new mapmaking technique
that can be used to map a city in real time. The biannual exhibition on
contemporary art and design, scheduled for Sept. 10 through Nov. 20, will
feature the Real Time Rome exhibit, a project by MIT's SENSEable City
Laboratory that displays a map of wireless connectivity in Rome, using data
gathered anonymously from cell phones, GPS devices on buses and taxis, and
other wireless mobile units that pedestrians throughout the city may have
in their possession. Telecom Italia, chief sponsor of the project,
developed the sophisticated algorithms used to pull in the data from the
wireless technologies. The project also makes use of robust interactive
maps and databases that allow for customizable searches and real-time
viewing. "Imagine being able to avoid traffic congestion, or knowing where
people are congregating on a Saturday afternoon," says project director
Carlo Ratti, director of the SENSEable City Lab. "In a worst-case
scenario, such real time systems could also make it easier to evacuate a
city in case of emergency." Meanwhile, SENSEable City Lab is bringing
onboard city and public administrators, network operators, electronic
hardware and software producers, and urban hardware manufacturers to
participate in the SENSEable City Consortium research initiative.
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Multiplication Power: Linked Computers Tapped by
Researchers
Associated Press (09/09/06) Dalesio, Emery P.
Researchers are using the IBM-sponsored World Community Grid network to
tap the unused processing power of idle computers to help develop cures for
diseases such as cancer and AIDS, as well as other computationally
intensive problems that are typically reserved for supercomputers. "I know
when I take a shower or go down the hall, I could be using the time that
it's (the computer) on and devote it to the project," said Whitney Rains, a
sophomore at Meredith College, where IBM is signing up students to
participate in the project. Next week, the leading practitioners of grid
computing will meet to discuss the latest developments and initiatives in
the field. There is substantial interest in the approach, though many find
implementing a grid network complicated and confusing, said William Fellows
of The 451 Group. Grid computing breaks complex problems into smaller
chunks and distributes them out to individual computers, saving months or
even years of research time. Since 1999, almost 5.5 million users have
registered for the SETI@Home project, which scans radio signals in search
of signs of extraterrestrial life. Meanwhile, Grid.org has electronically
tested 3.5 billion molecules in search of the ingredients for potential new
cancer drugs. As practical applications unfold, an increasing number of
companies are looking to harness the power of grid computing for their
research activities. Indeed, global spending on grid computing is expected
to increase from $1.8 billion this year to roughly $24.5 billion in
2011.
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RIT Training Developers of Video Games
Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (NY) (09/11/06) Daneman, Matthew
Four students at Rochester Institute of Technology have signed up to
pursue master's degrees in game design and development, a new program the
New York school is offering this fall for the first time. The new master's
degree program makes RIT one of the few schools to focus on the
technological mechanics of designing an electronic game. RIT launched the
program because the video game industry continues to grow and a number of
its graduates have gone on to work for video game companies; school
officials expect to attract about 30 students for the two-year program each
fall. Gaming students will take courses covering the history of electronic
games, emerging themes in entertainment technology, business and legal
aspects for game developers, and the sociology and psychology of online
social communities, before focusing on a game engine design or artificial
intelligence track and building a game as part of a group project to
complete their studies. RIT has offered a concentration in game design in
recent years, and students pursuing degrees in software engineering,
computer science, or information technology will still be able to explore
this route to gain game development training. The school is also
considering offering a bachelor's degree program in game design and
development. "We've been talking to a lot of companies in the gaming
space, and they're really hot for these graduates," says Andrew Phelps, an
associate professor and director of the game design and development
program.
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New Computer Model Concept Could Solve Big, Real-World
Problems on a Small, Porous Scale
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (09/07/06)
The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has received a Scientific
Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) grant to explore a novel
computer model capable of multiscale simulations of biogeochemical
processes. The system promises to enable researchers to make better
predictions of the behavior of contaminants in groundwater. The grant was
one of 30 handed out by the Department of Energy for SciDAC projects. The
processes of subsurface transportation, which include the development of
energy resources and the cleanup of contamination left over from the Cold
War era, are a major global concern. Existing computer systems can only
communicate with each other to a limited extent, so the researchers are
hoping to develop a model that can merge the small-scale simulations to
formulate a broader platform for the analysis of real-world problems, such
as cleaning up contaminated groundwater at former plutonium manufacturing
sites. An advanced computer model could combine various simulations of
local-level processes that can together form a composite to help
researchers understand and predict what is going on underground, for
instance.
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Smart Pages
Technology Review (09/07/06) Mashberg, Tom
Xerox is developing new software that will be able to restrict certain
digital information in a stored document based on the authorization level
of the individual attempting to access the data. For example, the
technology would allow a doctor to view medical data in someone's file, but
prevent an insurance clerk from seeing detailed medical-related information
such as blood results. Researchers at the company's Palo Alto Research
Center in California and at its research laboratory in Webster, N.Y., are
working on software that can determine the context of words, phrases, and
numbers in documents, then automatically reveal select information to the
intended user. The technology does not create multiple versions of the
document, and does not demand as much memory as current encryption
programs. "We've scoured the landscape, and there is no technology out
there that marries content analysis with encryption so that the whole
process becomes automated," says Shriram Revankar, head of the company's
smart-document lab in Webster. Kenneth H. Buetow, director of the National
Cancer Institute's Center for Bioinformatics, who is developing a cancer
research database, says the technology "represents a potential solution to
the sharing of information in compliance with human subjects' privacy
protections."
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A Ruby Amid Computer Programming Diamonds
Wisconsin Technology Network (09/09/06) Fleissner, Chris
Madison, Wis., Area Technical College is offering its first class on Ruby
on Rails, a Web application framework that is beginning to catch on with
Web application developers. Ruby on Rails is the best thing that has
happened to Web application development in 20 years, says Madison computer
information systems instructor Eric Knapp, a veteran of the IT industry for
two decades who has helped develop Web applications for companies such as
Land's End. "It is dramatically and convincingly and compellingly better
than anything else we've tried," says Knapp, whose Ruby on Rails class is
filled to capacity. Danish programmer David Heinemeier Hansson developed
the Web development framework written in the Ruby general-purpose scripting
language, which was released in July 2004 and has only been embraced by a
small number of Web application developers until now. The opportunity to
write a program about 10 times faster than when using Java and .NET, and
enjoy the same functionality of those products, has Web application
developers gravitating toward Ruby on Rails. Well-known Java user James
Duncan Davidson is said to be exclusively using Ruby on Rails, and
Web-based companies such as Blinksale, Odeo, Punchstock, and Jellyfish have
been built with the platform. Apple plans to include Ruby on Rails in its
next version of Mac OS X, which should hit the market in the spring of
2007.
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CHI Pioneers
Ottawa Citizen (09/07/06) Hutchinson, Alex
Experiments in computer-human interaction (CHI) supported by Canada's
National Research Council (NRC) have yielded fruit in the form of
revolutionary breakthroughs that serve as the inspiration for many artists
and entrepreneurs. Such breakthroughs trace their roots as far back as the
late 1960s, with the NRC's computer music and animation program, which was
advanced with the help of key contributors such as Peter Tanner, Ken
Pulfer, and Bill Buxton. Among the innovations was an experimental
computer system equipped with a light pen interface and later a very early
form of a mouse. "The spirit of the NRC in the 60s was open to doing
things that did not have immediate, practical, bottom-line results," notes
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute electronic arts professor Michael Century.
"The phrase they used was 'doing research for the broader public good.'"
Pulfer says the real success of the NRC is the dissemination of ideas that
were later put to practical use. "All the time that we were doing this
research, we had a continual stream of visitors coming from universities,
the private sector, everywhere, looking at what was going on, saying,
'Hmmm, fascinating,' and going away," he explains. The NRC is now facing a
turning point as pressure for immediate results threatens to replace the
council's traditional long-term research investment strategy.
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Voice and Signature for the Identification of
Persons
Basque Research (09/07/06)
A number of universities in Spain are collaborating to design a database
that would be linked to biometric systems used to identify individuals.
Starting with voice, signature, and handwriting analysis, the database will
play a key role in the comparison and contrasting of the algorithms of past
and present samples, vital for biometrics to be accurate. The database
will focus not only on spatial data but on dynamic data as well, that is
the movement of a person while performing a certain action, which current
systems often fail to differentiate accurately. Such actions could include
a person's gait, or how they operate a mouse or keyboard. The Department
of Electronics and Telecommunications at the School of Engineering in
Bilbao, Spain, has been working in collaboration with University of the
Basque Country (UPV-EHU) researchers to automatically collect biometric
signatures both offline and online. Online biometric verification is
harder to forge, but has a higher margin of error, which is something the
researchers hope to improve on.
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Out of the Shadows, Onto the Web
Associated Press (09/06/06) Heller, Aron
The Israeli security service Shin Bet says information technology is just
as key to protecting Israel from suicide bombers as undercover agents and
interrogators. In fact, Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin says in August the
agency's tech unit was largely responsible for heading off 25 suicide
attacks and for the arrests of 17 potential bombers. The IT division has
few peers when it comes to using cutting-edge technology to track
terrorists, and has started using the Web to recruit top engineers and
computer programmers who have skills that can help ensure the security of
the country. At Shin Bet, "artificial intelligence" allows the agency to
produce profiles from vast amounts of data in real time. High-tech
entrepreneur Yossi Vardi, founder of Mirabilis, the company that developed
the first major Internet chat service, is leading the recruitment efforts
of Shin Bet. The new hires will be in charge of "building sophisticated
systems that will be ready to catch the terrorist on his way," adds Ester
Levanon, a former top official who made computers integral to Shin Bet
operations. Shin Bet says engineers and computer programmers will have an
opportunity to develop state-of-the-art technology and earn a competitive
salary, while helping to thwart attacks by Palestinian militants.
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Where Are the Women?
Test & Measurement World (09/06) Laskowski, Amy
While the number of women pursuing engineering degrees in college is
rising, participation in the field remains heavily skewed toward male
students. Women received just 15 percent of the 12,500 bachelor's degrees
in electrical engineering that were awarded in the United States in the
2004 academic year. Interest in the sciences among girls often drops off
at around sixth grade, and the fact that engineering continues to be
dominated by men can intimidate some girls. Strong role models and
mentors, particularly family members or friends, can be a powerful lure for
women to engineering. Primary schools with solid science curricula also
promote female participation in technical fields, because they can see the
opportunities that come with the field. Careers that involve a high level
of human interaction are typically the most appealing to women, so teachers
and mentors should continually try to humanize the sciences, emphasizing
the opportunities to help people in those disciplines. "There's a lot of
research that suggests very strongly that women choose career paths that
they can see leading to meaningful careers," said Richard Vaz, a professor
at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. "Women are far more interested than
men in careers where they can make a difference, make the world a better
place, and help people. They are statistically more likely to be searching
for a helping profession. Engineering is a helping profession, but it does
not present itself as such." Workshops and camps led by working industry
professionals could also boost female enrollment in the sciences.
Additionally, technical fields such as engineering have an image problem to
combat, which compels industry leaders to go out of their way to make the
sciences seem "cool" and "fun," said Shelley Gretlein of National
Instruments. For information about ACM's Committee on Women and Computing,
visit
http://women.acm.org
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The Future of Imaging
Advanced Imaging Pro (08/06) Reid, Keith
The Mathworks' Bruce Tannenbaum, Volpi USA's Dr. Scott Kittelberger,
Eastman Kodak's Dave Nichols, and Edmund Optics' Wallace Latimer composed a
panel that discussed the future of imaging technology at the International
Congress for Imaging Science in May. The panelists noted an increased
focus on object detection, biometric applications, and forensic work as a
result of more funding being committed to defense and homeland security.
Kittelberger stressed solid state illumination as one of the most
significant areas of technological development on the horizon, while
Latimer cited glass manufacture and Nichols mentioned CMOS image sensors.
Tannenbaum said machine vision was an exciting area in terms of market
potential, since algorithms being developed for the machine vision sector
will likely be applicable to other areas, including bioimaging and
automotive safety systems. Kittelberger characterized document scanning
and industrial inspection as hot markets, and Latimer cited fusion imaging.
Potential breakthroughs the panelists discussed included flexible
illumination channeling and integrated technologies that radically change
how people interact with technology. Latimer expects smart cameras to
become truly smart, and capable of learning to make decisions based on user
guidance. Among the developments the researchers foresee within the next
two decades is the generation of light on the cellular level as imaging
systems shrink; self-driving vehicles; and appliances with built-in vision
systems that make chores completely automated.
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Military R&D 101
Electronic Design (09/01/06) Vol. 54, No. 19, P. 36; Edwards, John
Academic laboratories are turning into centers of research and development
for military systems and devices that frequently become commercial business
and consumer products; examples include the Internet, the Hummer, and GPS
navigation, notes Forecast International analyst William Ostrove.
Corporate R&D military labs are growing scarce, which is why academic labs
are becoming the incubators of choice for new military technologies.
Academic labs and researchers are also becoming popular for businesses that
wish to develop technology for government and later consumer customers.
Director of the University of Texas' NanoTech Institute Ray Baughman was
commissioned by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the
Air Force, and other organizations to develop super-strong artificial
muscles for deployment in robots designed to protect people in hazardous
situations, and his research has yielded two distinctive, dual-purpose
muscle/fuel cell systems. Another DARPA funding recipient, University of
California, Davis, professor S.J. Ben Yoo, is working on chip technology
that can boost optical data transmission speeds up to 100 THz, for
potential military applications that include high-resolution surveillance
and reconnaissance. Meanwhile, MIT professor and engineer Yet-Ming Chiang
is designing aircraft and ships that can shape-shift for faster speed and
more efficient performance, based on the ability of batteries to expand and
contract under massive stresses. The military commits a lot of funding to
nanotechnology projects, such as a nanogenerator from Georgia Institute of
Technology professor Zhong Lin Wang that converts mechanical energy
generated by everyday sources--body movement, structural vibrations,
etc.--into electricity. Ostrove thinks other nations' approach to military
R&D, in which government, industry, and academia assess and assign projects
to specific institutions via research planning commissions, cannot compare
to the U.S. strategy of issuing a wish list, receiving proposals, and
awarding grants to the winning bidders.
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IT Security Lags Five Years After Sept. 11
IDG News Service (09/07/06) Gross, Grant; Ames, Ben; McMillan, Robert
Cybersecurity leadership, airplane scanning, and interoperable
communications networks have been neglected by the U.S. government since
the Sept. 11 attacks, say industry analysts. Progress has been slow in
these particular areas and critics say there is too much emphasis being
placed on the National Security Agency's (NSA) electronic-surveillance
program, rather than on other forms of technology. NSA's program has been
criticized for invading innocent people's privacy, but President Bush
defends the program and insists it "helps protect Americans." "If an al
Qaeda commander is calling the United States, we need to know why they're
calling," Bush says. IT security groups want the U.S. government to focus
more on cybersecurity. Meanwhile, unscanned cargo is coming into the
United States every year on 11.2 million trucks, 2.2 million rail cars, and
51,000 cargo ships, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Beyond cargo, many say the government is not moving fast enough to help
emergency responders get the spectrum they need. Emergency responders
working during the Sept. 11 attacks discovered their communication systems
were not interoperable. Congress has given TV stations a deadline to use
digital broadcasts, and more radio spectrum is expected in February 2009.
The Bush administration is adamant that it has made progress in the last
five years, but others see differently. "There's no national strategy to
coordinate all these efforts," says Steven Jones at the First Response
Coalition. "Nationally speaking, I don't know that we're better off than
we were five years ago."
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Modeling Terrorists
IEEE Spectrum (09/06) Vol. 43, No. 9, P. 26; Goldstein, Harry
The prediction and prevention of terrorist incidents could be aided by new
simulators, such as first-person shooter-type games in which synthetic
human agents improvise because they follow individualized sets of
complicated rules instead of an inflexible script; such simulators model
terrorists and their accomplices through profiling of terrorist
backgrounds, value systems, and other variables. The development of such
simulations is fueled by a belief that terrorists' mindset, motives, and
organizational makeup--and thus their actions and plots--could be
determined by computers equipped with the appropriate software. Outside
observers are betting that software designed to identify key members of a
terrorist organization will be used by intelligence analysts to compile a
list of people to terminate or apprehend so as to cripple the organization
most effectively; this possibility generates concern about the moral
implications of relying on such models to make life-and-death decisions,
and also raises questions as to whether analysts will even avail themselves
of such technology, should it become widely available. Experts such as
Ball State University anthropologist Jim Nyce strongly doubt that these
tools will be employed by the intelligence community, "because the
cognitive, intellectual, and work requirements have not been taken into
account in their design." Among the drawbacks of current intelligence
analysis cited by experts is analysts' dependence on informal analytical
methods, their tendency to make forecasts based on incorrect rules, and
their responsibility after 9/11 to sift through even more data because of
the elusive nature of terrorists and the conviction that the Internet is
their primary means of communication. University of Pennsylvania professor
Barry Silverman thinks analysts' job could be greatly enhanced by having
computers model an individual terrorist's desired vision for the world and
what actions he is willing to take to realize that vision. Silverman's
team has produced simulated terrorists complete with physiological traits,
long-term memories, value systems, and reasoning skills extracted from over
100 models and theories drawn from political science, anthropology, and
psychology, along with empirical data from medical and social science field
research, polls, and experiments.
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ICANN Tackles Domain Name Dilemma at Morocco
Summit
EContent (09/06) Vol. 29, No. 7, P. 16; Nizami, Bela
ICANN's upcoming meeting in Marrakech, Morocco, will involve
representatives from over 50 countries and the most pressing issue of
debate will be the future internationalization of the Internet. ICANN's
Sept. 30 expiration of its Memorandum of Understanding with the United
States and the possible renewal of it remains controversial; some argue
that ICANN and the United States must recognize that the Internet is an
international entity and should be under international auspices, while
others say that to not renew with the United States this year would court
chaos. ICANN likely will tackle the introduction of internationalized
domain names (IDNs), a top concern of China and Middle Eastern countries;
potential new domain names; and the requirements of the contact information
in the WHOIS database. ICANN says WHOIS policy should be set by countries
on a country-to-country basis, while some advocate for a universal WHOIS
policy. The European Union does not want personal information displayed in
the WHOIS because it violates EU's privacy ethos. ICANN is attempting to
expand the diversity of its board of directors and advisory bodies, and has
begun seeking new candidates, a move welcomed by those seeking more global
control of ICANN and the Internet.
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